Wind Turbine Reliability: Leveraging apqp4wind to Improve Project's Performance and Operations

Wind turbine reliability has been a main concern across the industry in recent years. Turbines are bigger, designs are optimized further, and manufacturing has had a hard time coping with the ever more stringent tolerances and manufacturing requirements.
APQP4Wind, a non-profit initiative founded in 2017 and created by and for the wind industry, is committed to enhancing design robustness and supply chain reliability by promoting a unified quality assurance language across the value chain. Embraced by OEMs, suppliers and utilities alike, it has demonstrated its value since its inception 8 years ago, but still lacks universal deployment and implementation throughout the entire wind industry.
Orsted, BP, Hydro-Québec and many more utilities have become members of APQP4Wind since 2022, and are developing APQP4Wind requirements towards OEMs to improve the quality of wind turbines delivered to their projects. As a project developer or owner in North America, understanding and leveraging APQP4Wind is key to obtaining well-designed, well-manufactured and well-built wind turbines that operate reliably, from day 1, and long term.
This session will present the value proposition offered by APQP4Wind, including industry-wide quality assurance practices that are highly needed to ensure the success of the industry in tackling the energy transition in decades to come. While reliability concerns are currently strong, the tools to improve reliability already exist, but simply require further adoption and improved collaboration. The APQP4Wind framework defines roles and responsibilities so that OEMs, suppliers and project developers/utilities collaborate to achieve a common goal: safe and reliable projects that operate well for decades.
APQP4Wind has garnered significant momentum with the recent launch of its Manual version 1.3. The Manual has sold over 8600 copies globally, and there are more than 1,400 companies with APQP4Wind-certified employees in over 50 countries including all major Wind Turbine OEMs.
APQP4Wind provides a framework and tools, but first and foremost, it bolsters collaboration throughout the supply chain and end users. And while its use is becoming more common, it would benefit from further implementation throughout the wind value chain: a portion of the industry lacks a good understanding of APQP4Wind, preventing from maximizing APQP4Wind’s benefits. The session will include concrete examples and solutions to improve reliability, allowing to advance the knowledge and benefits of APQP4Wind to a larger audience.