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IMPROVING TURBINE PERFORMANCE IN WINTER CONDITIONS: THE DATA BEHIND NEINICE

Data is key to determining the efficacy of any solution, and Phazebreak is dedicated to gathering and sharing as much as we can with our customers. In Section 1 of the image above, is a graph from an in-field study that was shared by a customer in Minnesota. The data set they collected was a comparison between the performance of coated vs uncoated wind turbines during a six-day icing event from December 27 to January 1.

During that event, the coated turbines were able to keep spinning (with only brief shutdowns) and producing energy throughout the ice event, while the uncoated turbines were at near-zero output levels for the first four days. By December 31, when the event was coming to a close, the coated turbines were the first to return to optimal performance levels, compared to the uncoated which took until Jan 3 to recover from the icing event.

A gallon kit of NEINICE costs $835 USD, with the cost of application depending on the application method. In another case study, we tracked the increase in revenue generated by NEINICE-coated turbines during a separate six-day ice event. What we found was that the revenue gained by the coated turbines in this short time period had fully covered the cost of the coating (Section 2). If a wind farm is subject to multiple severe ice events a year, it is reasonable to believe that it could recoup the investment within a single calendar year. With a four-year recommended recoating cycle this means you are not so much spending money, but investing it for a return.

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