At the end of 2024, after two years of construction, the VIIATTI wind farm, supported by the VALOREM Group, will be completed. The project comprises two wind farms in Finland, Kalistanneva and Matkussaari, operated by VALEMO. With a total capacity of 313.5 MW and an estimated annual production of 1 TWh, the challenges involved in operating these wind farms are numerous, not least the management of environmental phenomena such as frost formation on wind turbine blades.
In these regions, favorable conditions for this phenomenon extend from September to April, far beyond what we experience in mainland France. This situation can lead to significant production losses.
Managing this risk is essential for VALEMO, which has invested in the development of innovative tools to simulate the accretion and melting of frost on wind turbine blades (work carried out in partnership with Météo France) in order to guarantee safety around wind farms and optimize production.
Frost forecasting is based on the coupling of two models. The first, a meteorological model, provides information on the presence of conditions favorable to frost formation (negative temperature, presence of liquid water in the atmosphere, etc.). This data serves as input for a physical model, which calculates the accretion and melting rates of frost at each time step of our model. The output is a precise forecast of the expected thickness at each grid point in our model. This information is essential to better anticipate icing periods and optimize wind farm operations.
The results obtained have highlighted the relevance of this approach to better anticipate icing periods on our wind farms in mainland France, and thus optimize our operating strategy with better management of turbine shutdowns and restarts. We are currently deploying this new tool in Finland, and analyzing the forecasts obtained with our observation data from icing detection sensors installed on the two wind farms. This phase will enable us to obtain a reliable and robust model.
Better control and anticipation of this meteorological hazard will pave the way for new R&D projects in 2025 for VALEMO, such as the optimization of electricity commitment production by our aggregator, or the analysis of turbine performance in cold climates. These initiatives will reinforce our mission to add value to our customers’ assets.