- Category: Articles

When discussing with potential partners about the visual inspection of wind turbines with drones, the first question that arises is which drone do you recommend? Inspecting wind turbines is not just about flying around the rotor blades and gathering high resolution pictures of everything. It is about image quality and supplementary metadata that improve the overall value of, and information about, an inspection flight, and processing and presenting the results in a manner that allows rotor blade experts to make precise decisions.
By Christian Raml, Head of Research and Development, Aero Enterprise, Austria
- Category: Articles

As the Biden administration prepares for unprecedented development in renewable generation, Asia-Pacific wind generation is hitting record level spend, and South Korea unveils seismic plans to build the world’s largest offshore wind farm, wind farm operators are positioning themselves to capitalise on this all-time high, gigawatt power generation fever.
By Gregory R. Wolfe, CEO / Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder, Fischer Block, Inc., USA
- Category: Articles

Offshore wind farms are getting more attention as a source of renewable energy due to high and consistent offshore winds. These reliable offshore winds favour the construction of large offshore wind farms despite their high installation and operational costs. However, the deployment of such large offshore wind farms in proximity to each other, as planned in the North Sea, can significantly affect power generation and increase economic losses of the downstream wind farms.
By Naveed Akhtar, Scientist, Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, Germany
- Category: Articles
A Brief Review of Methods and Requirements

By Joseph Youssif Saab Jr and Alexandre Martuscelli Faria, Brazil
- Category: Articles

As wind turbines installed in the late 1990s and early 2000s begin to be decommissioned, it is important to consider sustainable options for handling their end-of-life materials. Recycling and other circular economy methods can reduce the material intensity of wind energy production, but composite blades are more difficult to recycle than many other major wind turbine components. Several circular economy strategies have been developed for processing composite materials, thereby enhancing the sustainability of electricity production from wind energy.
By Aubryn Cooperman, engineering analyst, National Wind Technology Center, NREL, USA
- Category: Articles

In recent years, wind farm repowering has contributed an important fraction of overall US wind farm installations, as developers seek to capitalise on existing infrastructure, proven revenue streams, and tax credit eligibility. Partial repowering, as opposed to full repowering, remains the dominant form in the US market and typically involves reusing the existing foundation and towers, while replacing uptower components with new parts to attain higher performance and financial benefits from the asset. According to the ‘American Clean Power Market Report Fourth Quarter 2020’, partial repowering increased sharply from 2018 to 2019 and remained at roughly 3GW in 2020 (for reference, new US wind installations in 2020 accounted for roughly 17GW).
By Ali Ghorashi, Head of Section, Wind Independent Engineering, DNV, USA
- Category: Articles

Achieving and maintaining the right tension in bolted joints in wind turbines can help prevent system failures and associated repair costs. One loose bolt in a cluster of several hundred holding a structure together, often interdependently, can cause a domino effect that could, at worst, result in failure of the entire unit. As wind turbines continue to increase in size, the structures need to withstand ever higher centrifugal and bending forces, as well as vibrations – all factors that can affect the integrity of bolted joints. Correct bolt tensioning is, therefore, critical. But, accurate bolt tension is not only difficult to achieve, it can also be difficult to monitor. Danish engineering company R&D has developed an accurate system that uses both mechanical and ultrasonic measurements to determine the desired bolt tension in a way that also saves time. The solution can also digitally track individual bolts throughout their lifetime, ensuring the condition of the bolts is documented.
By Flemming Selmer Nielsen, Senior Specialist Engineer, R&D, Denmark
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