Discussion on the principles of wind turbine condition monitoring system

There is a constant need for the reduction of operational and maintenance costs of the onshore or offshore wind turbine (WT) as it suffers higher reliability risk being exposed to extreme running environment and subject to constantly variable loadings, an efficient condition monitoring system (CMS) is indispensable. Unfortunately, the majority CMS for WT are borrowed from other industry fields (such as the thermal power industry) where they achieve success, however, to date these CMS have not proved entirely satisfactory in wind industry. This article makes the analysis on the possible reasons on it, and discussion on the principles of CMS which apply to the wind energy industry.