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- Category: Articles
A Forestry Focus
As existing wind farms are maturing, owners and operators are beginning to scrutinise operational performance, placing additional focus on performance enhancement. Considerable attention has been paid, in recent years, to reliability and maintenance optimisation, but the focus is now intensifying on making the most of existing assets and, importantly, their return on investment.
By Alan Mortimer, Director of Innovation, SgurrEnergy, UK
- Category: Articles
Lessons Learnt and Future Opportunities
In August 2012 SOWITEC won the tender for Vientos de Pastorale (Pastorale), a Uruguayan wind farm in the southwest of the country (Figure 1) and was granted a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) at a price of US$ 63.5/MWh. On 23 February 2016 financial close was successfully reached on the debt and equity components for Pastorale. The close is the first in the country to be carried out with commercial lenders and on a non-recourse basis. It allows start of construction on time and commissioning before mid-2017. Lessons learnt in the areas of technology, standardisation of tender documentation and lending are presented below. Opportunities for the country’s wind power system are also addressed.
By Rosa Tarragó, Head of Structured Finance, SOWITEC, Germany
- Category: Articles
Detecting Faults Long Before the Damage
A key term of Industry 4.0 is ‘predictive maintenance’ – the forecast of damaging events long before they occur. The software company Indalyz Monitoring & Prognostics (IM&P) GmbH, which is based in the city of Halle (Saale) in the German Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt, has developed an innovative predictive maintenance software solution. This software is based on artificially intelligent algorithms that forecast when an individual component of a machine, complex plant or a machine cluster will reach its critical level or even break down. Future malfunctions are predicted long before the damage event occurs. The operator of a facility such as a wind park can thus organise service, material and personnel efficiently, which in turn reduces the operating costs and downtimes.
By Prof. Dr. Michael Schulz (IM&P) and Tanja Ruedinger (Investment and Marketing Corporation Saxony-Anhalt), Germany
- Category: Articles
An Early Stage Innovation for Floating Offshore Wind Applications
Offshore wind turbines are immense and mechanically complex. Their energy is also relatively expensive. Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) wind energy is a new way to produce power by converting the kinetic energy of offshore winds into electricity with mechanical simplicity. It could dramatically reduce the cost of offshore wind energy generation and increase capacity factors to well over 50%, enabling faster growth of this renewable power capacity worldwide. A recent US$ 4.9 million award from ARPA-E is funding a collaboration between small company innovator Accio Energy Inc. and the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center to design, build and test the first sub-scale prototype off the coast of Maine, as well as to validate a transformative LCOE model of a full-scale design.
By Jennifer Baird, CEO, and Dawn White, President and CTO, Accio Energy, USA
- Category: Articles
Becoming Flight Ready with the Latest UAV Systems
Natural Power is an independent renewable energy consultancy renowned for early adoption of successful technologies. Understanding complex environments and engineering challenges is the focus of a large number of renewable energy experts who make up this organisation. A recent investment has been made into aerial survey technology to enhance renewable project understanding across all phases of development. This article aims to provide a short review of fixed-wing aerial survey technology, details of equipment, key deliverables, primary benefits and safety controls. There are undoubtedly many unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturers and systems available, with technology continually advancing. This review examines Natural Power’s experience in acquiring a Trimble Navigation ‘UX5’ aerial imaging platform.
By Gavin Germaine, Senior Geotechnical Engineer, Natural Power, UK
- Category: Articles
Reducing Wear on Wind Turbines
Deutsche Windtechnik has been measuring wind turbine rotor blades using a laser-based blade angle procedure since 2015. The company has discovered serious shortcomings on some of the 273 Vestas turbines examined to date. Where the relative blade angle deviations were 0.5 of a degree or more, the service technicians corrected the settings. This makes the wind turbines run more quietly, ensures less strain on the material and reduces wear.
By Torsten Wohlert, Deutsche Windtechnik Service, Germany
- Category: Articles
Environmentally Friendly Solutions for Ambitious Technical Tasks
Lubricating oils and greases for offshore wind energy plants have to meet a broad range of special requirements. Among these are not only technical specifications but also rigid environmental standards. This article describes the most severe technical challenges as well as valid environmental requirements, and highlights the very ambitious product development process.
By Martin Wünsch, Head of Research and Development, Lubricant Consult GmbH, Germany
