Leading renewable energy consultancy group, Natural Power has been appointed by leading energy provider Bord Gáis Energy to manage the day to day operations of its portfolio of windfarms in Ireland.
The company will deploy WindCentre™ – the industry leading 24/7 wind farm monitoring, management and control service, owned and developed by Natural Power – to achieve effective operations across the portfolio.
Bord Gáis Energy operates 13 wind farms totalling 225MW across Ireland. The Irish energy company has selected Natural Power as its asset management partner to provide round-the-clock control room services with WindCentre being the ideal solution to the company’s requirements.
WindCentre is a 24 hour control room service that is manned by experienced engineers, and is facilitated by a purpose built software solution for health and safety management, work order recording and access control – all in line with industry best practice, such as the Renewable UK Wind Turbine Safety Rules. In addition to operations management, Natural Power’s WindCentre will perform remote operation and reset on some of the turbines within Bord Gáis Energy’s portfolio. The WindCentre operations database can be accessed 24/7 by the utility company’s site engineers via a secure internet connection with availability levels exceeding 99.5%, allowing area managers unprecedented levels of visibility of all work activities on wind farms under their remit.
Speaking about the Bord Gáis Energy contract Scott MacKenzie, Asset Management Director at Natural Power said: “This deal demonstrates the real value that can be provided by a multi-client independent control room such as WindCentre. It complements the existing capabilities of a utility while enhancing the level of supervision, control and monitoring on wind farm assets, at a reduced cost when compared with setting up such a system in house. We are delighted to have broken into the Wind Farm Asset Management market in Ireland with such a prestigious client who clearly recognises the advantages of Natural Power’s WindCentre.”
George Martin, Head of Asset Operations at Bord Gáis Energy welcomed the appointment of Natural Power commenting: “This contract represents an important step for Bord Gais in providing world class asset management for our expanding Renewable Energy Fleet and we are pleased that Natural Power’s WindCentre will play an important role in this strategy.”
For more information www.naturalpower.com
