US Firm WindESCo Partners with Phoenix Contact for Swarm Tech

WindESCo, a firm focused on accelerating annual energy production (AEP) for wind turbine stakeholders, has brought renewable components company Phoenix Contact onboard as a strategic technology partner.

Phoenix Contact is delivering the ‘Swarm Edge’ component of the swarming solution. Swarm Edge is installed on each turbine to provide data collection and centralized control, enabling WindESCo’s Swarm TM technology to “unlock millions in revenue for wind asset owners.”

Faced with squeezed profit margins in an increasingly competitive market, wind farm owners and operators are turning to innovative technologies to improve the profitability of their existing fleets. Significant capital outlays into existing asset management strategies often fail to provide amplified returns due to a narrow focus on individual turbine performance – driving the development of new approaches to asset optimization.

The company claims that the recently launched WindESCo Swarm TM technology is the world’s first commercially available, patented solution for autonomous, cooperative control of wind assets. The system, licensable by OEMs and partners, enables turbines to cooperatively adjust positioning to mitigate wake effects and boost production for the entire farm – not just single machines – by 3-5% annually.

“To optimize wind energy generation across an entire site, Swarm TM brings together the latest advances in Industrial Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence, enabled by on-site hardware such as edge processing units within individual turbines and a central server on site, which in turn communicates with cloud servers to coordinate turbine movements optimally across the plant,” says WindESCo.

Swarm Edge, a key component of WindESCo Swarm TM that resides within each turbine, has been created for WindESCo by Phoenix Contact, a company with “an extensive history and expertise in the wind industry, with parts installed in leading wind turbine designs globally.”

Ed Wagner, CRO, WindESCo, said: “Phoenix Contact is a trusted brand in the wind energy industry, for good reason. Our customers have come to equate Phoenix Contact with long-term systems and infrastructure reliability due to their consistent high standards, domain expertise and innovative outlook. Collaborating with Phoenix Contact to deploy our latest technology ensures that our solution is reliable, scalable and ready to revolutionize AEP optimization for wind farms globally.”

Patrick McCurdy, Vice President of Industry Management and Automation, Phoenix Contact USA, said: “WindESCo has demonstrated its leadership on AEP improvement for wind assets for years. Phoenix Contact is delighted to deepen its relationship with WindESCo following the Swarm TM launch, and is proud to play a part in bringing the technology to the market for the first time, heralding a new autonomous, cooperative approach to boosting wind asset energy generation.”