Asset management is a widely used term in the wind industry. At heart it is the acknowledgment that wind sites are not just equipment to be monitored and maintained, but complex financial assets that need managing well. But how does software fit in and how can it assist with the every day tasks of an asset management team?
Effective asset management involves routine administrative procedures, analysis of data and any number of technical and commercial decisions to be made throughout the life of the project. There will be trade-offs such as maximising output vs maximising component lifetime. There are people to manage, contracts to renew and regulations to meet.
Each of these areas of asset management can benefit from the use of software.
One asset management challenge that is common to all portfolios is the need to pay landowners a rent payment on a regular basis. Large portfolios may require hundreds of payments to be calculated and paid every quarter. Software can help by saving the payment dates of each land agreement and reminding asset managers when payments are due. But software can also help in calculating the amounts due. There is significant variation between rent agreements but many require some kind of royalty from the revenue generated by the site. Calculating the amount due is complex and may require combining invoiced revenue and accrued revenue. Software can handle this by storing information about the rent agreement, as well as capturing site meter data, PPA pricing information and PPA invoices.
Another example of how software can help is revenue validation. When PPA invoices are paid, the amount due is calculated according to the PPA contract and the data from the export meter. However, export meters can fail and cause gaps in data which can go unnoticed. It is also not uncommon for human error to lead to miscalculations in the payment amount. Software can help by calculating the expected energy and flagging any variation between expected and invoiced payments.
For FIT scale projects, site owners have to submit quarterly meter readings. This can be a particular challenge because the actual value on the face of the meter on the last day of the quarter is required. Software can help by incorporating cumulative meter readings from different types of meter and highlighting any issues with the meter data.
If you are interested to talk more about wind asset management software, do get in touch with us.
There are several wind asset management software products on the market, each with a slightly different focus. At Visualwind, our Renios solution brings together SCADA data, meter data and contract data to help portfolio owners and asset managers get the best from their assets.
