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- Category: Articles
Bachmann electronic’s M1 Control System
The operation of modern and increasingly high-capacity wind energy installations makes many demands on automation technology. Modern pitch-controlled systems, which satisfy requirements of more precise and controlled power output in practically all wind and plant configurations, need relatively complex active control systems that can no longer be supplied by a simple programmable logic controller (PLC). In addition, increasingly common and urgent demands from network operators to correct frequency or reactive power fluctuations in the whole park call for previously unknown communication abilities. In this article, Bachmann electronic describe the capabilities of their new M1 control system, which was designed to meet these demands.By Gabriel Schwanzer, Director Sales and Automation, Bachmann electronic, Austria
- Category: Articles
A Wind System using the Bernoulli Principle
Green Energy Technologies (GET), a company based in Akron, Ohio, USA, is introducing a unique wind system (with 1MW, 500kW, 100kw and custom rooftop models) called the SmartEnergy Spire, which creates a ‘wind tunnel’ effect forcing the wind around the Spire. Using the Bernoulli principle, the Spire design creates an efficiency of 1.676 two times the throughput over a traditional wind turbine using ambient wind.By Dr Majid Rashidi and Mark Cironi, Green Energy Technologies, USA
- Category: Articles
Atmospheric Stability Significant for Wind Turbine Energy and Sound Production
Atmospheric stability has a significant influence on the wind profile, or the degree of increase of wind velocity with height. For tall wind turbines atmospheric stability is not a ‘small perturbation’ but a major factor determining the energy yield as well as the noise impact in the environment. Noise complaints and recent research show that noise from modern, tall, variable speed wind turbines is not a relatively featureless sound increasing steadily with near-ground wind speed, but – in a stable atmosphere – a thumping sound relatively independent of near-ground wind speed.
By Frits van den Berg, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
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Atmospheric stability has a significant influence on the wind profile, or the degree of increase of wind velocity with height. For tall wind turbines atmospheric stability is not a ‘small perturbation’ but a major factor determining the energy yield as well as the noise impact in the environment. Noise complaints and recent research show that noise from modern, tall, variable speed wind turbines is not a relatively featureless sound increasing steadily with near-ground wind speed, but – in a stable atmosphere – a thumping sound relatively independent of near-ground wind speed. By Frits van den Berg, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
- Category: Articles
Failures Provide Valuable Information to Enhance Turbine Availability
A wind turbine is expected to run day and night for 20 years at an availability of 95–98% and only require maintenance every 6 months. As turbines get bigger they also tend to be more complex as a result of optimisations. The cost of having a turbine that is not producing when it is windy is increasing with turbine size. For that reason there is a strong need to identify and implement solutions that will make the turbines run close to 100% during windy periods.
A wind turbine is expected to run day and night for 20 years at an availability of 95–98% and only require maintenance every 6 months. As turbines get bigger they also tend to be more complex as a result of optimisations. The cost of having a turbine that is not producing when it is windy is increasing with turbine size. For that reason there is a strong need to identify and implement solutions that will make the turbines run close to 100% during windy periods.
By Agner Hansen, Product-Quality, Denmark
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- Category: Articles
Wind Power Large-Scale Interconnection, Avoiding Gearbox Failures, and Cost Reduction
The potential advantages of GyroTorque for wind power generation were acknowledged by Garrad Hassan & Partners Ltd, UK, in their report titled Evaluation of GVT System for Wind Turbines dated 9 June 2004 and presentations at the Global Wind Power conferences held in Chicago (March 2004) and London (November 2004) and recommended further design study. This article briefly looks at how GTCVT works and how these potential benefits can be realised using GTCVT.By Muthuvetpillai Jegatheeson, Director, Gyro Energy Limited, New Zealand
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- Category: Articles
A New Generation of Oils for High Loaded Gears in Wind Power Stations
The performance of today’s wind turbines ranges from a few megawatts up to 10MW for prototypes already under development. With this increase in performance, the lubricant assumes an ever-greater importance, and it is a major element in the tribological system to be taken into account in the design of wind power stations. Only special lubricants are able to cope with the operating conditions of highly loaded components such as gears and enhance their reliability.By Dipl. Ing. Hermann Siebert, Klüber Lubrication München KG, Munich
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- Category: Articles
Issues for Planning of Offshore Wind Farms
Satellites orbiting and observing Earth offer potential for the offshore wind farm industry. Of particular interest are the images from the Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR) on board satellites belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA): the satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2 from 1992 to present and Envisat from 2002 to present. In the April/May 2005 issue of Windtech International we published an article about this topic. The current article describes more specific issues concerning offshore wind farms.By Merete Bruun Christiansen, Charlotte Bay Hasager, Risø National Laboratory, Denmark and Frank Monaldo, Johns Hopkins University, USA
