Ravichandran, Arvind (2016) Vendor Management with respect to Clean Energy (Wind). Research Masters thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Coal and other fossil fuels based energy generation have been a major contributor to the release of CO2 creating the greenhouse effect depleting the Ozone layers and creating devastating climatic changes around the world. Countries have started to address this through actively encouraging the generation and use of renewable energy that is clean and environmental friendly.
Solar, hydro, nuclear and wind are some of the renewable energy sources that have grown in the last couple of decades. However, solar and wind energy generation are relatively inefficient compared to conventional energy in terms of cost competitiveness. While there are many ongoing researches on increasing the efficiencies of renewable energy generation in general, this study will specifically focus on power generation through wind energy.
Specifically, with respect to wind energy and efficiency related to that, there have been researches conducted on the various aspects contributing to the inefficiencies including the mechanical failures in Wind Turbines (WTs) and the impact of these failures on the downtime of WTs. However, there has not been any study on the impact of mechanical failures causing downtime of WTs and how a comprehensive vendor management practice can help to reduce the downtime and increase the availability.
The research adopted both qualitative and quantitative methods – for example, data was collected through structured questionnaires as well as from readings from maintenance logs and such. From data collection point, it was based both on primary and secondary data – for example, data from earlier researches on the components that fail frequently in WTs was analyzed but the same was also validated through data collected in two selected wind farms.
As part of the study, an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) was selected and a comprehensive vendor management practice outlined and agreed with them and adopted in the selected wind farms that have the same number of WTs with similar capacity and have just come out of warranty period. Data collected from maintenance logs before and after the adoption of a comprehensive vendor management practice was analyzed.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Research Masters) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Current - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - No Department (1 Jul 2013 -) |
| Supervisors: | Das, Narottam |
| Qualification: | Master of Engineering Science (Power Engineering) |
| Date Deposited: | 19 Mar 2026 02:05 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Mar 2026 02:05 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | clean energy; wind energy |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/53181 |
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