GE Renewable Energy recently announced it has more than 60,000 MW of onshore wind turbines installed across the globe. This significant milestone was passed thanks to large projects commissioned in North America as well as in Europe (Turkey, Spain, and Romania). The company has now installed more than 35,000 turbines in 36 countries.
“This milestone is a testimony to our commitment to the wind industry, which is continuing to grow globally,” said Pete McCabe, president and CEO of GE’s Onshore Wind Business. “Wind power represents 34 percent of forecasted renewable energy installs up until 2022. We’re looking forward to working closely with our partners and customers to keep increasing the wind-energy share in the overall energy systems globally.”
In Europe, GE Renewable Energy has also passed a key milestone, having now installed more than 10GW of wind capacity in the region.
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In recent months, the company has celebrated key wins that are expected to bring its installed base in Europe to more than 13 GW by the end of 2019:
Several wind farms will be developed with Forestalia in Spain, for a total of 1.5 GW, which would more than double GE’s wind installed capacity in the country.
GE Renewable Energy and GE Energy Financial Services announced the 650-MW Markbygden ETT wind farm in Sweden late last year, where the company’s installed base will jump from 243 MW to 893 MW, the equivalent of tripling the capacity installed with just one wind farm.
In Serbia, a booming market for wind power in Eastern and Central Europe, the company has recently announced it will provide 153 MW for the Cibuk 1 wind farm.
Europe is also a region where strategic partnerships have recently been announced for GE Renewable Energy. The company is providing 37 MW of wind power for the Tullahennel wind farm in County Kerry, from which Microsoft will purchase 100 percent of the energy produced for a duration of 15 years. The Corporate Power Purchase Agreement is Microsoft’s first agreement of the kind outside of the United States and will help fulfill the company’s growing energy demands from its Cloud Services bases in Ireland.
“We are particularly excited about our growth across Europe, a region with excellent wind resources, a compelling vision of the importance of renewable energy, and an appreciation of the need for stable policy to bring the economic and environment benefits wind power can deliver,” McCabe said.
Avangrid Renewables recently announced that it has signed its first major wind contracts with Google for 196 MW of new South Dakota wind power.
The power purchase agreements will cover the full output of Avangrid Renewables’ Coyote Ridge and Tatanka Ridge wind farms in Brookings and Deuel counties, each 98 MW, just northeast of Brookings, east of Interstate 29. The two wind farms would produce enough energy each year to power the equivalent of more than 50,000 average households with clean, homegrown energy. Once the wind farms come online, the additional capacity will help Google reach its goal of purchasing enough renewable energy to match its energy consumption for global operations.
“Renewables from projects like Coyote Ridge and Tatanka Ridge bring value to our business as we scale and accelerate investment in the communities where we operate,” said Gary Demasi, Google’s director of global infrastructure. “With solar and wind declining dramatically in cost and propelling significant employment growth, the transition to clean energy is driving unprecedented economic opportunity and doing so faster than we ever anticipated.”
Avangrid Renewables anticipates that the two wind farms would contribute more than $40 million over their lifetimes in combined land lease and tax payments.
“Working with partners like Google who have made a commitment to 100 percent renewable energy for their global operations is exciting and inspiring,” said Avangrid Renewables President and CEO Laura Beane. “This partnership creates a positive impact in these local communities, delivering jobs, new investment, and economic development for rural America while advancing our country’s energy independence.”
In addition to these new projects, Avangrid Renewables already owns and operates the 210 MW Buffalo Ridge II project in Brookings and Deuel counties, the 50.4 MW Buffalo Ridge I project southeast of the proposed Coyote Ridge project, and 50 MW from the 150 MW MinnDakota Wind Farm in Brookings County. Upon commercial operation for Coyote Ridge and Tatanka Ridge, the company will own and operate more than 500 MW of wind power in South Dakota. Avangrid Renewables is finalizing its development work at the Coyote Ridge and Tatanka Ridge projects and expects to be in full construction by 2019.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has announced the consolidation of its North America and Latin America regions. This move allows the company to obtain greater efficiencies and operational excellence.
For the newly formed Americas region, the company has named José Antonio Miranda and Darnell Walker as CEOs of its Onshore and Service businesses, respectively.
Miranda builds on his previous role as CEO of Latin America and succeeds Jacob Andersen, CEO of Siemens Gamesa’s North America Onshore business. Walker expands his previous role as CEO for the Service North America region for Siemens Gamesa and succeeds Leandro Nuñez, head of the Service Latin America region, who left December 31.
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Miranda has extensive experience within the wind power industry. He joined Gamesa in 2007 as division manager for the electrical components, manufacturing division. From 2011 to 2015, he was chairman and chief executive officer for the Asian Pacific region of Gamesa. Beginning in 2015, he led the onshore activities for Gamesa’s Latin America region as CEO and beginning in April 2017 for Siemens Gamesa after the completion of the merger. Prior to his start with Gamesa, Miranda worked for multinational ABB in numerous roles, including business unit director of medium voltage in Spain.
Walker brings more than 30 years of experience across multiple industries including wind power, aerospace, and manufacturing. He joined Siemens in 2015 as head of the Wind Service Americas business. Prior to Siemens, he worked for Logistic Manufacturing Solutions, B/E Aerospace, and General Electric Aircraft Engines, holding various management positions of increased responsibilities. His major achievements include expansion of
business volume and long-term service agreements to improve the company’s margins, while expanding market share through product diversification.
Siemens Gamesa has a strong presence in the Americas with a total installed base of more than 26 GW, capable of powering nearly 8 million average households. Of the 26 GW installed, 17.5 GW are under service.
U.S.-based NRG Systems recently announced Lasser Eólica has joined its global network of service partners and dealers. Based in Spain, Lasser Eólica engineers, installs, and maintains met tower systems across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
NRG Systems, which has been a major force in the wind-resource assessment industry for more than 35 years, is best known for its turnkey tubular tilt-up towers. However, as wind turbines continue to grow in scale, so does the demand for lattice tower systems that excel at capturing hub height measurements greater than 80 meters, when tubular towers are not an option.
Thanks to NRG’s partnership with Lasser Eólica, the company is now able to offer complete lattice tower solutions to customers in regions where this method of wind-resource assessment is preferred. These systems include a Lasser Eólica-manufactured lattice tower as well as NRG sensors and data logger. Lasser will provide project support from development through operation for lattice tower systems, as well as installation support for NRG tubular tower systems in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
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“This partnership brings together two of the most successful and experienced teams in the industry,” said Gregory Erdmann, NRG System’s vice president of global sales. “Partnering with Lasser Eólica is a very important step for NRG Systems, as it allows us to extend our complete system offerings. We are thrilled to be able to provide customers with entirely turnkey solutions for resource assessment campaigns, no matter where they are.”
“We are excited to be teaming up with a company like NRG Systems that continues to be on the leading edge of the global wind-resource assessment industry,” said Francisco Torres, Lasser Eólica’s CEO. “It is an honor to work together to satisfy the evolving needs of this growing and profoundly important sector.”
The advanced wind-measurement capabilities of Lidar have unleashed tremendous opportunities for the offshore wind industry. After years of successful validation campaigns, offshore professionals are now favoring Lidar over met masts for wind-resource assessment, power-performance verification and wind-farm optimization.
Gathered at a Lidar User Seminar hosted by Leosphere at the Offshore Wind Conference 2017, leading wind-measurement experts from Deutsche WindGuard, ECN, EDF EN, MHI Vestas Offshore Wind, RES, Siemens, SSE, and UL DEWI shared their experiences of using Lidar technology for a broad range of offshore applications. In this paper, we draw on the industry’s practical experience to offer a unique Lidar user perspective on the role of this technology in the rapidly evolving offshore market.
From R&D to Commercialization
The wind industry has resolutely stepped forward into a new era of adopting Lidar technologies in commercial projects. Multiple deployments in significant offshore wind farms have effectively set the stage for their widespread use and expected primacy over traditional measurement technologies.
After more than a decade of successful validation campaigns performed throughout the world, Lidar technology has secured a high level of confidence among wind-power experts who recognize its technological maturity and reliability for effective commercialization in offshore as well as onshore projects in simple or moderately complex terrain conditions. Lidar is now accepted as a proven technology by the wind industry from a practical, contractual and, increasingly, from an industry standards’ perspective.
Lidars are set to replace met masts for offshore applications and to be systematically used in wind farms at one or multiple stages of their life cycle. (Courtesy: Leosphere)
Offshore, Lidar is completely replacing met masts, enabling significant project development and operational cost reductions. It has been instrumental in addressing the critical installation, cost reduction, and safety challenges associated with offshore mast installations. Thanks to those advantages, Lidar is emerging as the main wind-measurement technology used by industry professionals for offshore wind resource assessment as well as plant optimization purposes. Lidars offer a broad range of benefits that add considerable value to projects. They are a cost-effective solution to deliver accurate and reliable measurements quickly, enabling users to save precious time on their campaign, and providing them with the bankable data they need. They are easy to install, require little maintenance and are extremely competitive on cost.
Over the last decade, the practices of major turbine suppliers such as Siemens Gamesa have evolved to include the use of Lidar for an increasingly broad range of applications. The ground-based Windcube has been deployed for wind resource assessment, prototype power curve validation, or site calibration, whereas the nacelle-mounted Wind Iris has been used for wind-turbine performance monitoring or prototype and warranty power curve assessments. But these are just the most commonly used applications. As these practices are becoming mainstream, other high-potential Lidar applications such as site calibration after turbine erection or turbine control also are being actively developed and implemented.
Securing bankable data
Precise and reliable wind resource measurements are critical for developers to increase project value. These measurements provide the essential data used to calculate the potential energy yield from a project, which in turns dictates the terms of the project financing.
Just a few years ago, met masts were still the only bankable wind-measurement tool available to the industry at the project-development stage. This is no longer the case. In the challenging offshore environment, standalone Lidars are extensively used to provide trusted data for a broad range of development requirements. These include better estimation and comprehension of the meteorological conditions across the offshore area, preliminary estimations of the AEP, and preliminary site condition assessments.
As always in the offshore industry, cost plays a critical role. Lidars can be deployed at a fraction of the price of a met mast, whose installation can cost more than 10 million euros, an investment that largely exceeds today’s average development budget. Several offshore projects have secured financial closing using Lidar-based energy yield assessments alone.
Over the last decade, the practices of major turbine suppliers such as Siemens Gamesa have evolved to include the use of Lidar for an increasingly broad range of applications. (Courtesy: Leosphere)
Recent examples include the Beatrice offshore wind farm, a £2.6 billion, 588-MW project developed by Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd in Scotland, or the 500 MW St-Brieuc Offshore Wind Project in France developed by RES and Iberdrola. For St-Brieuc or Beatrice, the use of stand-alone Lidars has led to multi-million euro savings compared to the cost of installing a met mast, while delivering the essential bankable data needed for these multi-billion offshore projects.
In the Netherlands, ECN has deployed the standalone Windcube in its measurement network to provide bankable data to support the Dutch government’s ambitious offshore wind installation targets. Depending on the specific project conditions and location, different types of Lidar technologies and setups are available to deliver accurate meteorological condition measurements for robust project development. Scanning Lidars such as the Windcube 100S/200S/400S are used for mapping the wind from the shore at up to 10 kilometers. They can perform a full 3D mapping of the atmosphere to provide enhanced measurements of wind speed and direction.
In January 2016, The Offshore Wind Accelerator program (OWA) launched the world’s largest offshore trial of scanning Lidar systems. The four-month trial showed phenomenal accuracy at long ranges, as well as uncertainty reductions of the P90/P50 ratio by between 1 percent to 2 percent, therefore proving the technology’s ability to significantly lower the LCOE offshore.
The appropriate deployment and siting of Lidars will vary depending on the distance of the site from the shore, and its specific configuration. For wind farms located far offshore, the Windcube enables the accurate measurement of wind on stable offshore platforms, as demonstrated at the St-Brieuc and Beatrice projects. When platforms are not available or cannot be built, floating Lidars installed on a buoy are the most effective wind resource assessment tools.
Scanning Lidars such as the Windcube 100S/200S/400S are used for mapping the wind from the shore at up to 10 kilometers. (Courtesy: Leosphere)
In 2013, floating Lidars were tested and validated as part of the U.K.’s Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Accelerator program. Because of the current absence of normative standards defining how a floating Lidar should be deployed, the OWA has published a set of recommendations to give the industry the formal framework it needs to accelerate the commercial deployment of the technology while standards are being developed.
In 2015, EDF EN performed a four-month validation campaign of the floating Lidar in compliance with the Carbon Trust recommendations at the Fécamp platform, where a met mast and a Windcube were installed. Following this test campaign, they found an uncertainty coefficient of less than 4 percent, lower than the Carbon Trust’s uncertainty recommendations (4 percent to 7 percent). EDF EN also pointed out that an important part of the floating Lidar uncertainties were actually due to the reference uncertainties. There is a strong consensus in the industry that floating Lidar is an effective and reliable technology, and developers such as EDF EN are hard at work to swiftly bring floating Lidar to a commercial deployment stage.
Improving asset performance
For operational wind farms, Lidars are used to monitor turbine performance and optimize the project. Thanks to their ability to measure, log, and characterize the approaching wind across the entire rotor span, in addition to measuring at hub height, they are key to improving energy production as well as the operator’s understanding of its asset performance. They are used for several applications including power-curve measurements, yaw error correction, and wind sector management.
Nacelle-Lidars such as the Wind Iris are firmly established as a powerful tool for contractual power curve testing. They provide a precise evaluation of the correlation between the measured wind speed and the turbine output, which is essential to verify the turbine’s performance against the warranted contractual power curve. Although nacelle-Lidar measurements are not yet covered by IEC standards, developers are requesting that nacelle-mounted LIDARs be selected as a cost-effective alternative to met masts as part of the Turbine Supply Agreement.
The wind industry has stepped forward into a new era of adopting Lidar technologies in commercial projects. (Courtesy: Leosphere)
According to Deutsche WindGuard, demands for the inclusion of nacelle-mounted Lidar for power curve test in turbine agreements occur in about half of the projects. Since 2013, the German independent consulting firm highlighted that power curve warranties based on two- and four-beam nacelle Lidar power curve verification already have been successfully created by three of the leading turbine suppliers.
For offshore wind farms, delivering contractual power curve verification tests according to IEC 61400-1-12 standards remains highly impractical. Indeed, the standards implicitly require the installation of a met mast, a costly option that, in addition, allows for the testing of only one turbine. On the other hand, nacelle-Lidar can deliver accurate measurements for multiple turbines with high availability and low uncertainties.
Nacelle-Lidar measurements are now a method accepted by all established turbine manufacturers for verifying warranted power curves offshore. In addition, scanning Lidars also generate strong confidence among users. Both technologies have been proven to deliver accurate power curve measurements, as demonstrated at the Greater Gabbard 504 MW offshore wind farm developed by SSE and RWE Innogy. For this project built 23 kilometers off the coast of Suffolk in England, a Wind Iris was installed on a nacelle. The setup was completed with a scanning Lidar, which was installed on a transition piece of a turbine. This power curve verification campaign demonstrated that Lidar-based power curve testing was as accurate as mast-based campaigns. Similar conclusions were reached in a campaign developed by
Deutsche WindGuard, which showed excellent agreement between the power curve measurements performed with the nacelle-Lidar and scanning Lidar for the same turbine and measurement period. The high correlation of the results, obtained with two entirely different and independent Lidar systems, are confirming the strong capabilities of each technology.
Deutsche WindGuard’s validation campaigns showed the Lidar-based power curve test’s total uncertainty is similar to best practice cup anemometry. This is true both offshore and onshore in simple terrain, two contexts in which Lidar technology is anticipated to be included in projects as a matter of course.
What is more, nacelle-Lidars become increasingly relevant as the power ratings and rotor diameters of offshore wind turbines keep growing. This is because they can measure horizontal wind speed at a significant distance from the rotor plane. It is, for example, the MHI Vestas Offshore Wind ESTAS V-164 8.0MW, which sports a 164-meter rotor diameter, requires the use of a system that can measure out at a distance of minimum 410 meters. Although the Wind Iris is specified up to 450 meters, such distances are beyond the scope of most other devices on the market.
In 2015, MHI Vestas Offshore Wind ran a power-curve verification test campaign at the Østerild site to collect the data and experience needed for the preparation of their commercial offering. The campaign concluded that the Wind Iris nacelle-Lidar was able to measure wind speed out to 454 meters, with a precision similar to that of a met mast. In response to customer request, the Danish manufacturer went on to develop a nacelle-based power curve verification method based on the Wind Iris 2-beam for large rotors, which was independently reviewed by DTU Wind Energy. The procedure is easily applicable for the Wind Iris 4-beam as well.
Eventually, nacelle-Lidar power curve verifications are expected to be generalized on all operating wind farms to improve the understanding of potential turbine underperformances globally. Siemens is at the forefront of that trend. This leading offshore player is already including the bracket design for nacelle-Lidar on the turbines design specifications, which enables the company to offer the Wind Iris as an option in its standard turbine contracts as well as optimize Lidar siting. At the same time, they are developing a nacelle-Lidar power curve verification method based on the Wind Iris 4-beam device. From a developer’s perspective, the result of these power-curve measurements can be used to negotiate the contractual warranty level and to adapt losses applied on annual energy assessments.
Future challenges
Today, Lidars have moved from the margin to the mainstream. They are set to replace met masts entirely for offshore applications and to be systematically used in wind farms at one or multiple stages of their life cycle. They already are recognized by the wind-measurement community as truly operational, maintainable, and reliable tools to deliver bankable results for offshore and onshore wind-feasibility studies and warranted power-curve verification tests. For these applications, they will most likely be deployed universally in the short term. At the same time, the industry is working hard to adapt IEC Standards and speed up the deployment of Lidars for commercial projects. However, the industry is far from done exploiting the full range of capabilities offered by Lidar. This versatile technology also continues to be developed and validated for a broad range of other critical applications. Indeed, Lidars already have displayed great potential to help improve turbine control and load management, wake-effect measurements, wind-sector management, site calibration, and power forecasting.
As vertical wind profiler and nacelle-Lidars already have achieved widespread industry acceptance and effective commercial deployment, scanning and floating Lidars have rapidly been building their own track record in offshore wind. Industry specialists expect them to quickly become a prominent technology with the required maturity for large-scale commercialization.
Editor’s note: This article on torque loading is presented in two parts. Part 2 will discuss the specific industry standards for wind-turbine drivetrains and will appear in the February issue.
As wind energy has moved from a niche market to mainstream, the industry has focused more on the lowest cost of energy or LCOE. Technological improvements and larger rotor sizes have moved the industry forward, frequently positioning wind as the lowest cost energy source.
Recently more attention has been focused on controlling the cost of turbine damage, downtime, and component failures to improve the LCOE. To gain control, a more thorough understanding of why major components, such as gearboxes, are failing prematurely is needed.
For bearing and gear designs, manufacturers require high fidelity load cases from the OEMs to optimize their designs for performance, costs, and life. Load cases are coming under renewed scrutiny, as components reach the end of service life prior to the predicted life calculations. New detailed design standards have improved turbine reliability, but more may be needed to achieve the component design life targets.
Understanding Loads
Loads are a significant consideration when analyzing drivetrain component performance. Knowing what loads were present, and if the bearing or gear is overloaded, help identify the root cause of reduced component life.
Rolling Contact Fatigue analyzes when normal loading will lead to a “wear-out” condition. It is an estimation of when average useful life is reached. This analysis is straightforward, as long as you have an accurate load estimate and the time at load conditions. In bearings, loads are important; just a 23 percent increase in loads will reduce the predicted bearing life by a factor of two.
Transient loads are more difficult to model or to build into wind-turbine design standards and other equipment with variable conditions. (Courtesy: AeroTorque)
Transient loads are more difficult to model or to build into wind-turbine design standards and other equipment with variable conditions. Transients are extreme peak loads or rapidly shifting loads that occur in the drivetrain, which may be two-to-three times higher than the nominal loads. However, these loads may only make up 0.05 percent of the total lifetime in the load spectrum. Because component durability is so dependent on the loading, extreme transient loads may result in the difference between 20 years or 20 months of component life. It is essentially guaranteed that turbines will experience some level of transient loads because they see highly variable locations, frequency of wind gusts, grid fault frequency, turbulence, control systems, frequency of sensor failures, and other variables.
With so many variables and differences in loading between turbines in the same site and from site-to-site around the world, it is challenging to fully understand the loading conditions to use in the calculation models.
Operating Loads Defined
The large number of premature failures in gearboxes in the late 1980s prompted an investigation into high-torque transients that occur during stopping events. In 1990, Brian McNiff, Walt Musial, and Robert Errichello published a report sponsored by SERI (Solar Energy Research Institute) that stated:
“As mentioned, the undampened mechanical brakes stop a wind turbine abruptly. In such severe stops, and even in the damped version, some of the kinetic energy is stored momentarily as elastic strain energy in the gears, shafts, and couplings. After the rotor has stopped, the strain energy is released when these drive train elements torsionally unwind. During this period, the gear teeth unload, travel through the backlash, and impact on their backsides. They then rebound, travel through the backlash, and impact on their front sides. These rapid torque reversals may be repeated several times while the transient vibration decays. Impact may cause very high stresses on the gear teeth. Again, gear life is probably overestimated for both mechanical brakes by the model due to the inability of the present analysis to include these torque reversals. The impact stresses could be determined in a future study with a nonlinear, dynamic analysis and/or actual measurement.”
As wind energy has moved from a niche market to mainstream, the industry has focused more on the lowest cost of energy or LCOE. (Courtesy: AeroTorque)
This work led to the first AGMA/AWEA meeting in 1993. In 1996, the first U.S. wind-specific design information sheet, AGMA/AWEA 921-A97 was published. This guideline defined operating loads for the first time.
Operating Loads
As defined by this standard, operating loads are as follows:
Long periods of small oscillations while the unit is stopped by the parking brake and the rotor is buffeted by wind.
Long periods of low-speed, low loads during light winds.
Long periods of high-speed, low loads when winds are below the cut-in speed (minimum speed at which a turbine can connect to the utility’s power grid and start generating power).
High transient loads when the generator connects to the power grid.
Rapid load fluctuations during normal operation.
High transient loads during braking. Such loads, although infrequent, can be damaging.
Defining the load spectrum for each condition is a difficult task due to the uncertainty of predicting loads. However, it was thought at the time that experience made these predictions more reliable. AGMA/AWEA 921 tells how to assemble load spectra that include both wind loads and transient loads that occur during start-up (connection to the power grid), rapid blade pitch change, and braking.
Transient loads in a modern wind turbine. The red line is a standard drivetrain with a standard torque limiter. The blue line shows the reduction in loads from a torque control devise. (Courtesy: AeroTorque)
The standard provided guidelines for material properties and metallurgies and specified that wind gear sets meet the AGMA 901-A92 standards. It further defined recommended practices on bearing fitting and preferred bearing types. Lubrication, quality assurance, and maintenance practices were also defined, creating a standard with a better understanding of how to design better turbines. The standard mentions severe transient loads, but did not directly address them.
Design Standards Approved
Fast forward to early 2000s, and even with standards, gearboxes were not meeting design lifetime requirements. A true design standard was needed.
In 2003, ANSI/AGMA/AWEA 6006-A03 was approved, and became an official American National Standard in 2004. The standard requires all transient loads be included in a load description document as annotated time series. It states:
“The torque spectrum shall include all fatigue loads, including all external transient loads such as brake loads, if applicable.” It provides several examples of transient load cases, including: transient starting loads due to generator control actions; loads due to motoring; transient stopping loads from aerodynamic and mechanical brakes; rotor mass imbalance or aerodynamic imbalance due to blade pitch differences; and fault induced control actions.
Standard 6006-A03 specifically makes an important distinction between extreme torque/extreme loads, and extreme events. It states in part:
“Extreme torque shall be specified by the wind-turbine manufacturer: torque level; number of occurrences; source, such as rotor, generator or brake. Extreme loads shall not be included in the load spectrum … The extreme load is that load from any source, either operating or non-operating, that is the largest single load that the gearbox will see during its design life beyond which the gearbox no longer satisfies the design requirements … The maximum one-time load event for a gearbox is likely to be a consequence of other events such as an emergency brake stop, generator short circuit fault or utility grid event. The wind-turbine designer should determine the likely magnitude and probability of this maximum load and specify it separately to the gearbox designer.”
A typical record of rotor shaft torque during a HSS brake stop. (Courtesy: AGMA/AWEA 921-A97)
This requires the designers to consider extreme transient loads in the load spectrum, but to evaluate extreme events separately. This may be the best approach available, but it does magnify the importance of correctly and conservatively estimating the number of such extreme events. In 2009, Francisco Oyague published an NREL Technical Report titled Gearbox Modeling and Load Simulation of a Baseline 750-kW Wind Turbine Using State-of-the-Art Simulation Codes. The report offered a few hypotheses to explain gearbox failure, including:
Absence of a number of load cases, relevant to the design process.
Transfer of non-torsional loads between drivetrain components.
The lack of standardized bearing-life calculations.
Poor communication between non-integrated engineering teams for various key components.
The report discussed revealing missing load conditions by development of a number of analytical models that sequentially increase in complexity, which are capable of reproducing the dynamic behavior of the internal components of the drivetrain. The models developed were offered freely to improve information sharing and ultimately increasing the transparency of the design process.
Sources
AGMA/AWEA. (1996). Recommended Practices for Design and Specification of Gearboxes for Wind Turbine Generator Systems. AGMA/AWEA 921-A97
ANSI/AGMA/AWEA. (2003). Standard for Design and Specification of Gearboxes for Wind Turbines. ANSI/AGMA/AWEA 6006-A03
IEC. (2012). Wind turbines – Part 4: Design requirements for wind turbine gearboxes. IEC standard 61400-4:2012
McNiff, B., Musial, W., Errichello, R., (1990) Variations in Fatigue Life for Different Wind Turbine Braking Strategies SERI/TP-257-3984. Available at: www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/old/3984.pdf [Accessed 8 Dec. 2017].
Oyague, F. (2009). Gearbox Modeling and Load Simulation of a Baseline 750-kW Wind Turbine Using State-of-the-Art Simulation Codes. [online] Nrel.gov. Available at: www.nrel.gov/docs/fy09osti/41160.pdf [Accessed 8 Dec. 2017].
There are thousands of bolted connections in each wind turbine. Whether it’s the largest tower bolts or the smallest electrical box connections, every bolt and application has a torque specification. Choosing which tool to use to calibrate those bolts may seem to be the most important decision, but it’s not. For both safety reasons and the long term cost of maintenance of wind turbines, the really critical, but often overlooked, consideration is the quality of the calibration of the torque tool being used. It’s time for the wind industry to standardize the requirement that all torque equipment be calibrated by an ISO 17025 accredited calibration lab.
ISO 17025 already is required by the defense and pharmaceutical industries, and other ones such as the pipeline and transmission industries are considering requiring that standard as well. Due to the fact that wind turbines have large rotating blades hundreds of feet in the air, there is tremendous stress on all bolted connections. When failures have occurred in the past, investigators of the bolts often cite improperly applied torques as the reason for their problems. However, while the investigators may check that the tool used had been calibrated, they have not necessarily looked more deeply to determine how or by whom it was calibrated. Unfortunately, there are many companies/individuals using substandard calibration methods and apply calibration stickers on torque tools and equipment with little or no accreditation behind them. When conducting root cause analysis of a failure, more attention needs to be heeded to the firm that calibrated the torque equipment used on the job during the failure.
A battery torque wrench being calibrated at Maxpro. (Courtesy: Maxpro)
The variety of torque tools and equipment used on wind-turbine sites can be large and include hydraulic torque wrenches, ERAD electric torque tools, manual click and dial torque wrenches, and torque measurement equipment such as torque transducers and testers. All of this equipment is subject to measurement, which makes it vulnerable to changes in accuracy. Thus, it should be put into the proper calibration cycle by a properly accredited vendor.
ISO 17025 accredited calibration labs are independently audited by firms such as A2LA or NVLAP that hold them to the strictest quality standards to ensure proper calibration protocols are in place.
Using an ISO 17025 accredited calibration lab ensures the following points:
All technicians who perform the work pass tests of technical competence to show they are fully qualified.
All standards used are traceable back to a known calibrated standard.
The lab has a defined management system in place.
It has a documented continuous improvement policy.
There is a proscribed recordkeeping and software management policy.
They use a corrective action plan when potential non-conformance issues arise.
They perform ongoing internal audits and maintain a written quality manual.
One of the most common torque tools used in the wind industry is the ERAD-3000 being calibrated at Maxpro. (Courtesy: Maxpro)
In addition, it is important that when wind-turbine management sends out its out torque equipment to be calibrated, that it select a high-quality lab to do the work. Here are 10 points to consider when making that selection:
Is your calibration lab ISO 17025 accredited by a reputable firm such as A2LA or NVLAP?
Have you checked to ensure that the equipment is on the calibration lab’s Scope of Accreditation? Ask to have the vendor email you its “Scope of Accreditation” for review.
Have you identified and informed your calibration lab of the interval for calibration?
Does the tool/equipment that you are using for your torque applications have the range/tolerances to meet your application specifications?
What are the calibration lab’s measurement uncertainties calculations?
Are you receiving recall notices for your equipment that you are sending out?
Are your calibration certs available immediately and on demand via a QR sticker code that the vendor adheres to your equipment?
Are you receiving the calibration certs in detail to ensure compliance with your set objective (see additional calibration cert information below)?
Can the lab meet your delivery/timeframe requirement?
Does the lab have the ability to repair, overhaul, and replace the equipment being serviced?
If your torque calibration vendor cannot produce the above information upon request, you should seriously consider another vendor. The final calibration certification that is returned with the piece of equipment should contain the following information:
As found/as returned calibration data.
Pass/fail data of the manufacturer’s or owner’s required tolerances.
Uncertainty budget of the calibration lab performing the test.
Environmental factors, such as temperature and humidity, during the testing.
Standards used, along with the calibration due date of those standards.
Method used for the calibration per a written standard operating procedure (SOP).
Calibration certificate document number.
From OEMs to tower installers to service contractors, any group that uses torque equipment should be using ISO 17025 calibrated equipment. This will ensure unwavering traceability all the way back to the source and will result in fewer failures and a safer, less costly environment for the units. That is why it is time to standardize ISO 17025 for the wind-turbine industry.
Seacat Services, the offshore energy support vessel (OESV) operator, has been recognized as a “safety champion” by offshore wind project developer Ørsted. The company has received an award in reflection of the high safety standards set by its crews at the 573-MW Race Bank Offshore Wind Farm.
Incentivizing and maintaining offshore wind safety performance remains a core focus for the industry as projects increase in scale. Establishing robust lines of communication between all parties working on site — from the project developer, to contractors and vessel operators — plays a vital role in minimizing the risks inherent in marine construction.
Seacat Services has been working to support construction and commissioning at Ørsted’s Race Bank project for 18 months under the terms of a two-year, four-vessel charter signed in April 2016. During this time, catamarans Seacat Courageous, Seacat Magic, Seacat Mischief, and Seacat Volunteer have safely completed more than 27,000 crew and equipment transfers, covering a total distance exceeding two trips around the globe.
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Underpinning this period of successful operations has been the diligent approach of Seacat Services’ crews and operations personnel, not only in following the firm’s own ISM-approved safety management protocols but also in engaging directly with the project management team on a regular basis to promptly address on-site safety concerns.
Both of these factors were recognized at Ørsted’s “Safety Through to Completion” Forum, at which Seacat Services was presented with the Safety Champion award.
“At Ørsted, we never compromise on safety standards, and Seacat Services has followed this example, handling all safety-related matters in an exemplary way,” said Jason Ledden, construction project manager for Race Bank at Ørsted U.K. “We have developed a strong, collaborative relationship with the team, working together to ensure safety on the Race Bank project. This means Seacat Services is a worthy ‘Safety Champion.’”
“It’s extremely satisfying to see our crews at Race Bank rewarded for their efforts,” said Ian Baylis, managing director of Seacat Services. “Safety is very much part of the ‘day job’ for us as we manage complex logistical charters, and keeping technicians safe and in good condition to work is always the top priority. “It’s also great to see further proof that this is a priority shared by the team at Ørsted, who have certainly played their part in helping us maintain high standards of operation.”
Over a period of three years, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has been doing R&D activities on converting energy to heat in rock fill at a testing unit in Hamburg. Now the company will convert its findings into a real scale project.
Siemens Gamesa is installing the first full scale “Future Energy System – FES” on the Trimet SE aluminum smelter site in Hamburg-Altenwerder. It will feature about 1,000 tons of rock fill, which will be able to provide 30 MWh of electric energy at temperatures of 600 degrees C. Via a steam turbine, the heat can be re-converted into electricity. A generator rated at 1.5 MW will produce energy for up to 24 hours. Within this period, the system can supply energy equivalent to the consumption of 1,500 average German households, or it could charge the batteries of approximately 50 electric cars. The local utility Hamburg Energie GmbH is a partner. The company will test the commercial opportunities of the storage technology in the energy markets. With the start of construction, Siemens Gamesa reaches a milestone in the development of a key technology in the context of the energy transition.
In times of sunny weather and high wind conditions, renewable energies are available in large amounts — often the feed-in exceeds the grid capacities. Storage systems can act as a buffer between times of overload and weak production periods, which happen at slack periods and darkness. But most storage technology offers limited capacities or are not cost-competitive. The Siemens Gamesa solution under development offers a highly economic approach in storing energy.
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After having been converted to heat in rock fill, excess wind energy is stored and protected with an insulated cover. When there is a need for additional electricity, a steam turbine converts the heat energy back to electricity. The simple principle of this storage combines proven components to an innovative setup: For the conversion process of electricity into a hot air stream, it uses fans and heating elements out of mass production. The same applies to the re-conversion: Via a highly dynamic Siemens steam boiler, a standard steam turbine generates electricity at the end of the process chain.
The focus of Siemens Gamesa’s R&D activities was on the insulated container to house the rock fill, which is the virtual battery and the core innovation. In the research project, the team has explored the thermodynamic principles to receive a high efficiency in all processes related to the transmission to heat. A scientist of Technical University Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH) supports the project by modeling the processes inside the storage unit, which results in principles for thermodynamic calculations of the processes. All learnings will now be incorporated in the real scale FES. One of the key findings was an optimized shape of the container with the rock fill. The design of the storage container of the new project reflects this: Its round-bodied shape will have a decreasing diameter at both ends where the inflow and the outflow openings are positioned. The ferroconcrete giant will have a content of 800 cubic meters of rock fill with a mass of 1,000 tons and will be covered with a meter-thick layer of thermal insulation.
Siemens Gamesa is expecting a construction time of approximately one year for the new FES system. The work in Hamburg-Altenwerder started in December with commissioning planned for spring 2019. After comprehensive testing, the new storage system will operate in collaboration with Hamburg Energie GmbH.
On December 12, New Energy Update presented a webinar on gearbox upkeep, focusing on how a gearbox’s maintenance requirements should be approached in order to keep them operating at peak performance. Carsten Andersen, founder and CEO of Danish Wind Power Academy, presented a video and answered questions presented by Wind Systems magazine as well as questions posed by the webinar attendees.
More than 750 people signed up for the webinar, which was full of interesting insights from Andersen on how best to keep gearboxes working smoothly.
Here are some highlights from the webinar:
Overall, normal asset management isn’t efficient enough to help with the lifetime of a gearbox.
It is necessary to know the load of individual turbines if you want to be able to evaluate your gearbox lifetime. From an inspection perspective, how can you determine lifetime if you don’t know how loaded your machine is?
There’s no way we can evaluate remaining time in a gearbox if we don’t know the operation conditions.
Nominal oil temperature would be somewhere between 63 and 65 degrees. But if you get above 10 degrees of nominal operation, then you will cut the lifetime of your gearbox oil in half.
It’s important that we keep the gear oil temperature down, which means we need to focus on the coolant system around it. And it’s also about cleanliness of the oil.
Oil sampling is one of the most important and cheapest indicators that can be done to keep a check on oil condition in the gearbox.
On onshore, at least two oil samples should be taken a year to help focus on maintenance.
Less than 10 percent of the oil samples sent to laboratories are representative. They’re either too old; they’re taken under the wrong conditions; they’re taken in dirty bottles; they’re taken with dirty hoses.
Oil samples are very straight up and down if it’s taken the right way and analyzed the right way.
A refined method to take oil samples under the same conditions is needed. Samples have to be taken when they’re warm and representative of the operating conditions.
You need to have a reference inspection of the oil when the gearbox is new, a few weeks after it’s put into operation.
An inspection should be done at year one and then another at year 2. If you find things haven’t changed then maybe inspections can be extended to once every two years.
Document good things. Many people are only documenting bad things. If you don’t document how things look when they’re perfect, then you don’t have a benchmark to refer back to.
You need to take the sample in a clean bottle, and even if you think it is clean, you should flush it. The hoses should also be cleaned and flushed.
High load is actually nice if it’s clean and the roughness of the terrain doesn’t give you too much turbulence, but that’s rarely the case.
Predictive maintenance is a valuable tool, but it’s not black or white — that and nothing else.
Predictive maintenance technology must be supported with human brains and ownership in operations.
Gearboxes are getting bigger, but the tolerances are getting smaller. They are much narrower and more precise than they used to be.
We cannot afford to buy the gearbox that lasts 20 years, but of the ones available, we can maintain them nicely and operate them nicely in order to get the necessary life out of them.
The gearbox is reliable, but the way we are treating it is not.
About 60 to 80 percent of downtime is related to people not doing things they should do when they do maintenance.
UAV inspection of valuable assets can yield significant cost savings, improve worker safety and extend the life of the asset. Whether it is inspection of solar panels, communication towers, antennas, wind turbines, or other valuable infrastructure, the H520 can provide the capabilities and flexibility to get the job done.
The H520 sUAS offers multiple payload options such as the CGOET dual thermal/RGB camera, which is ideal for solar inspections, or the E50, medium focal length camera, which is optimized for vertical tower inspections. Obtain clean and accurate images more frequently than from manned inspections. At the same time, periodic comparable data may be generated, allowing for aging analysis, maintenance projections, and overall knowledge of the object being inspected.
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Highlights of the Yuneec H520 include:
Hot-swap payload options: Significantly saves time and provides consistence of data-storage.
Memory cards can be swapped from device to device.
E90 camera:
Wide–angle, high-res, gimbal stabilized.
20 MP 2-inch sensor, H2 high speed image processing chip.
Scenarios: law enforcement, search and rescue, 3D mapping/modeling, broadcast, and professional production.
Adaptor ring allows mounting of standard, high performance third-party filters.
E50 camera:
Medium focal length, high-res, gimbal stabilized.
High aperture 1/2.3 inch CMOS imager capable of 12 MP stills.
Inspection (cell towers, wind turbines, oil & gas, platforms, and other vertical assets), broadcast and cinema.
Adaptor ring allows mounting of standard, high performance third-party filters.
CGOET camera:
Thermal imaging with dual-imaging solution.
Simultaneously records two separate video files for each lens.
Low-light scenarios with ability to see 20x better than human eye.
Data pilot:
Efficiently and consistently create orthomaps, 3D scans, drop data imagery, in the field or on the desktop for repeatable, callable, aerial flight paths, without requiring expensive third party software.
Software developer kit:
Enables developers to tap into Yuneec hardware and software tools and create applications for H520.
YES! commercial extended service program:
Four repair service package options ranging from $399 to $2,499.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has combined the experience of two strong players, building on the merger that took place in early 2017. Thanks to this process, the company is now launching the new geared turbine SG 4.2-145, as part of the new geared turbine platform Siemens Gamesa 4.X. The model SG 4.2-145 offers best-in-class LCOE at medium wind sites in the 4-MW segment and marks the start of a next-generation product platform for high performance geared onshore wind turbines. This new turbine for onshore will increase the annual energy production by 21 percent.
Additionally, SGRE launches the new direct drive offshore wind turbine SG 8.0-167 DD, with a rotor diameter of 167 meters. Its B82 blades will allow for an 18 percent greater swept area and up to 20 percent higher annual energy production than its predecessor, the SWT-7.0-154. As part of the proven offshore direct drive platform, the SG 8.0-167 DD uses known technology, combined with its rotor upgrade, to offer customers reliable revenue streams with reduced cost of energy and mitigated risk.
Both product launches are part of SGRE`s new “One Segment/One Technology” philosophy announced in early November. By 2020, the company will have one technology per business segment. In onshore, SGRE will streamline its technology approach and focus on geared solutions. In offshore, SGRE opts for the direct-drive platform only.
“The single platform strategy helps the company to transition to a more focused offer in the medium-term by utilizing economies of scale throughout the supply chain. This is how we will deliver lasting value to our customers,” said CEO Markus Tacke.
Recently launched models based on the proven product platforms of Siemens Gamesa will help to bridge into the coming years when the new geared platform goes into serial production.
Geared SG 4.2-145 turbine
The onshore model SG 4.2-145 is rated at 4.2 MW and features a 145-meter rotor. Its medium wind design will cover a broad range of sites. The technology is based on proven concepts such as a three-stage gearbox and a double fed induction generator (DFIG). The new turbine incorporates the experience and expertise of both companies, who together have an installed global onshore wind fleet of nearly 72 GW. Based on the Siemens Gamesa 4.X platform, further models for high- and low-wind sites with rotor diameters from 132 meters to above 150 meters are under development.
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The new turbine offers maximum flexibility regarding a power range that can be adjusted between 4 and 4.4 MW and to different tower configurations that allow for hub heights of 107.5 meters, 127.5 meters, and 157.5 meters. Two converter options help to comply even with enhanced demands in grid performance. The new 71-meter blades offer a risk-reduced design in terms of airfoil polar curves through wind tunnel test validation. Due to a high absolute thickness at its root sections, the new 71-meter blade achieves reduced mass at minimized cost. Chord alleviations in the mid-sections reduce maximum loads while optimized tips mitigate noise: At full load, the turbine’s noise level is 106.9 dB. Compared to the model G132-3.465 MW, the new SG 4.2-145 offers an increased swept area of 21 percent, resulting in an enhanced AEP by more than 21 percent. The prototype installation is planned for autumn 2018, while certification is expected for 2019. Start of production will be in early 2019.
“With our new geared onshore Siemens Gamesa 4.X platform, we offer even more technology options to our customers, helping to make their projects a profitable and sustainable asset,” said Ricardo Chocarro, CEO Onshore at SGRE. “With the combined expertise in our merged company, we offer a best-in-class solution in the market for turbines over 4 MW for a wide range of medium wind sites. For low wind sites, we will soon launch a rotor option with a diameter above 150 meters. For high wind sites, the turbine will be available with the proven 132 meter rotor.”
8-megawatt direct-drive offshore turbine
The latest turbine on the Offshore DD platform, the SG 8.0-167 DD, offers a rotor diameter of 167 meters. It will use proven technology and allow a short time to market by re-using all other components from its predecessor, the SWT-7.0-154. In January 2017, the first prototype in the 8MW class was installed and commissioned according to plan in Østerild, Denmark. While a testing program with focus on the electrical system is performed on this prototype, an additional SG 8.0-167 DD prototype will be installed in Østerild in 2018. With a larger rotor, it will be used mainly for blade tests. The SG 8.0-167 DD is expected to be market-ready in 2020. To accelerate time-to-market, Siemens Gamesa is collaborating with Fraunhofer IWES in Bremerhaven, Germany. In addition to in-house testing and prototype operation, the nacelle of the 8 MW turbine will perform laboratory tests in the institute’s cutting edge Dynamic Nacelle Testing Laboratory (DyNaLab). The comprehensive program, including load simulations and grid compliance tests, will start in spring and will be completed by the end of 2018.
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“The introduction of the SG 8.0-167 DD shows our continued dedication to industrializing the offshore market,” said Andreas Nauen, CEO Offshore at SGRE. “With the rotor upgrade, we offer our customers even higher energy yields at lower wind speeds. The flexibility of the offshore direct drive platform helps to reduce the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and at the same time mitigate risks.”
Similar to the upgrade from 7 to 8 MW, the technology on the offshore direct drive platform allows for re-using most components. Only the rotor will be upgraded. Through technology improvements in the blades’ structural components, SGRE engineers have managed to design the 81.5-meter long B82 blade with less than a 20 percent increase in mass compared to the B75. Both blade types are manufactured as fiberglass components, cast in one piece using SGRE’s patented integral blade process.
VertAx Wind Ltd and the University of Edinburgh have signed the first commercial licensing agreement for the C-Gen Permanent Magnet Generator developed at the university.
The worldwide agreement enables VertAx to build the technology into its multi-megawatt vertical axis wind turbine under development.
“This allows us to take the next step as we develop our turbine to compete in the expanding offshore market,” said VertAx Chairman Peter Hunter. “The C-Gen concept is the right generator design for our large-scale vertical-axis turbine, and we look forward to successful collaboration and further development of this advanced permanent magnet generator.”
“I’m very pleased VertAx has chosen the C-Gen technology,” said Markus Mueller, professor of Electrical Generation Systems at the University of Edinburgh. “The partnership with VertAx will enable further advancement of the technology leading to full commercialisation.”
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C-Gen is an air-cored, lightweight, “no cogging” design. Its development started in 2005 under the Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept Programme, and it has since been demonstrated at various scales up to 1 MW. The design has proven highly scalable and is suitable for tidal- and wave-energy applications as well as wind.
“This technology has great potential, and it’s always wonderful to see the university’s expertise and innovation meeting industrial and societal needs,” said Dr. John Jeffrey, business development manager at Edinburgh Innovations, the innovations management service of the University of Edinburgh.
Edinburgh Innovations has supported C-Gen’s development at every stage, from early progression of the technology and identification of funding opportunities through to commercialization, which includes managing the intellectual property and licensing.
VertAx, based in Guildford, Surrey, was established in 2007. Its vertical axis wind-turbine design contrasts with the horizontal axis turbines that currently dominate wind power globally.
The company’s aim is to further reduce the cost of offshore wind energy while re-establishing wind-turbine manufacturing in the U.K.
The world’s first commercial deployment of Siemens Gamesa’s 8MW offshore wind turbine featuring the giant 167-meter rotor will happen at Borssele 1&2. Ørsted won the right to build the 752-MW Dutch offshore wind project in 2016, and it’s expected to be fully operational by the end of 2020.
In June 2017, Ørsted announced that the company had signed a contract with Siemens Gamesa to supply 94 units of its 8-MW platform wind turbines for the wind farm, which will supply about 1 million Dutch households with clean electricity.
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As the world leader in offshore wind, Ørsted has a track record of introducing new wind technology at sea, including the latest generations of wind turbines deployed on commercial scale projects:
2007: Siemens 3.6-MW turbines installed at Burbo Bank.
2015: Siemens 6-MW turbines installed at Westermost Rough.
2016: MHI Vestas 8-MW turbines installed at Burbo Bank Extension.
2020: Siemens Gamesa 8-MW turbines to be installed at Borssele 1&2.
The capacity of the latest wind turbines is about 18 times bigger than the 0.45-MW turbines, which were installed at the world’s first offshore wind farm at Vindeby, Denmark, in 1991.
“Bigger rotors mean more energy output per wind turbine, which in turn lowers the cost of clean energy,” said Jasper Vis, Ørsted’s country manager in the Netherlands. “Therefore, we have, through many years, worked closely with the suppliers to introduce still bigger and more efficient turbines, and we look forward to taking the next step at our Borssele offshore wind farm.”
In 2016, Ørsted was the world’s first developer to have installed more than 1,000 wind turbines off shore.
Senvion, a leading global manufacturer of wind turbines recently installed its 7,777th wind turbine.
The Senvion 3.2M122 turbine is part of the 38.4 MW project Kerkow-Mürow-Landin, developed by Teut Windprojekte GmbH. The company’s wind turbines ranging from 1.5 to 6.2 MW are operating in 28 countries on four continents. Senvion has a total installed capacity of almost 17,000 MW worldwide, supplying about 11 million households with clean, renewable electricity.
The windfarm with the 7,777th turbine is near Angermünde in Brandenburg, Germany, 90 kilometers northeast of Berlin. It has been installed on a hybrid tower with a hub height of 139 meters and a rotor diameter of 122 meters.
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“Senvion has expanded significantly over the past several years growing into new markets globally while extending and innovating technologically,” said Jürgen Geißinger, CEO of Senvion. “With rotor diameters of up to 144 meters onshore and 152 meters offshore, we are well positioned to meet current market requirements. We are excited about the future and are working to address our customer’s needs and exceed their expectations by developing the wind turbines of tomorrow.”
Gearbox Express, the only independent company in North America solely focused on providing down-tower, wind gearbox remanufacturing solutions, has named John McKay as vice president of operations.
McKay started his career in the United States Marines, reaching the level of Sergeant. After his military service, he worked for BP Wind Energy as lead operator of its wind-energy operations followed by a several-year stint at AES Corporation in a variety of roles, the final one as manager, NERC compliance and operations. He has nearly 10 years of wind-energy industry experience, and his background includes performance and quality management, organizational design and development, and productivity and efficiency improvement. As vice president of operations for GBX, he is responsible for managing operations and talent, establishing operating and capital budgets, overseeing the company’s engineering activities and quality, and championing GBX’s continued commitment to the environment, safety, and lean processes.
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“Gearbox Express has seen phenomenal growth since we started in 2012,” said Bruce Neumiller, founding partner and CEO. “And in order to ensure we continue on our upward trajectory with the same commitment to quality, service, and speed, we need the right person serving as our VP of Operations — and that’s John.”
McKay received his Bachelor of Science degree in IT Management and his MBA in Global Business Management from the American Military University, Charles Town, West Virginia, and is a Six-Sigma Green Belt. He is a member of several organizations including serving as chairman of the Texas Reliability Entity-Reliability Standards Committee, Generation Sector, and serving as co-chairman of the American Wind Energy Association’s Workforce Development subcommittee.
Two-bladed offshore wind pioneer Seawind has signed an agreement with windfarm and solar park operator WRE Hellas to develop small scale offshore wind farms in the Greek Aegean Sea to provide the Greek islands with clean and economic energy. Seawind and WRE Hellas will develop a series of mini offshore wind farms in the deep Aegean Sea under the Clean Energy for EU Islands program, a long-term framework to help the 2,000-plus inhabited EU islands generate their own sustainable, low-cost energy. The program was formally launched in September 2017 in Crete by European Commissioner for Climate Action & Energy Miguel Arias Cañete.
Seawind is able to deliver one or two of its two-bladed turbines on floating foundations due to its ground-breaking concept of delivering completely assembled offshore wind-energy units that are launched at site by a semi-submersible vessel. No lifting operation is necessary during the installation phase or for operations and maintenance. The complete units — the wind turbine and support structure — are designed to be installed by sinking, and all O&M operations are carried out onboard with access via air or via sea. Uncoupling the rotor from the shaft by a teetering hinge means there is no requirement for the blade-pitch mechanism with the added benefit of significantly reduced fatigue and ultimate loads. This means a much lighter turbine head and tower, which is beneficial for floating wind turbines.
“The development of economic, clean energy sources is of vital importance for many small Greek islands that rely heavily on tourism,” said Victoria Alexandratou, managing director of WRE Hellas. “Seawind’s technology will enable us to meet this objective at a cost comparable to the wholesale price on the mainland and independent from government subsidies. With this solution, we are getting closer to realizing Martin’s vision of 100 percent clean and economic energy for everybody, which we shared in the ’90s in his German company and out of which came so many important path-breaking companies such as WRE Hellas and Good Energy in the U.K.”
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It is critical to preserve the environment and landscape of the Greek islands while developing independence from fossil fuels and decreasing energy costs. Together with Seawind, WRE Hellas will also evaluate various types of energy storage systems to guarantee energy supply 24/7. An important role in this system will be carrying the clean energy via hydrogen for transport use.
Long-term president of the European Wind Energy Association Arthouros Zervos from the National Technical University of Athens said it is a great pleasure to see the tremendous work from the development of the Gamma 60 technology in the ’90s finally coming to such a significant outcome. He said he believes Seawind can give new impetus to investments in Greece.
“Seawind’s approach to assemble the entire system onshore and launch at sea by semi-submersible vessels is the key to bringing down the cost of offshore wind and being able to install one or 100 turbines in a very economical way,” said Martin Jakubowski, CEO of Seawind Technology. “We are delighted to partner with WRE Hellas and together look forward to showcasing how 100 percnet green energy systems will work on Greek islands and other smaller economies.”
Seawind’s complete offshore units have concrete support structures — bottom fixed or floating — and have been developed with Olav Olsen in Norway. Seawind recently assisted the basin testing of Olav Olsen’s floating foundation, which confirmed the high degree of stability of this concrete semi-floater design even under significant waves. The Mediterranean Sea does not have the winds of the North Sea, but the Seawind 10.4 will produce almost 45 million kWh at about 8.5 m/s of wind speed, and the low cost of the installed units opens up many sites around the world in deep waters and with medium wind speeds as in the Mediterranean Sea.
Seawind is completing the construction of its 6.2 MW demonstrator in Norway, and in 2018, it will be implementing the design of its 10.4 MW unit with a 210-meter rotor diameter.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE), the leading renewable energy player in India, has bolstered its position in this market having received a new order from Orange Renewable for the EPC construction of a 200-MW wind farm in Poovani in the state of Tamil Nadu. This project is being promoted by Singapore’s AT Holdings.
This is a major order for Siemens Gamesa as it comes on the heels of the temporary slowdown of the Indian market. The agreement encompasses the entire infrastructure needed to operate the project, together with the supply of 100 of its G114-2.0 wind turbines with a hub height of 106 meters, specifically designed for the low-wind sites typical of India. The project is expected to be commissioned by February 2019.
The clean and affordable energy generated by this project will offset approximately 651,000 tCO2e and power about 155,000 households annually. The project will be connected to India’s interstate transmission grid, which will enable the flow of energy from a renewable-resource-rich state to other states, helping them to comply with their renewable energy purchase obligations and secure a long-term power supply at a fixed price.
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“We are happy to announce this new deal with Orange Renewable, one of the fastest growing renewable IPPs in India,” said Ramesh Kymal, CEO of Siemens Gamesa’s onshore business in India. “This order certainly boosts our confidence significantly as we gear up for the next phase of growth at Siemens Gamesa in India. With the G114-2.0 MW T-106 model, a turbine made for India, we expect to deliver better value for our client base through innovative tailor-made solutions.”
“We are delighted to partner with Siemens Gamesa for our latest wind project, which takes our Siemens Gamesa fleet close to 500 MW and our overall renewable portfolio close to 1 GW,” said Sudhir Nunes, chief executive officer for Wind at Orange Renewable. “We are proud to have achieved this growth in a very short span while maintaining a high standard of commitment to advanced technology, environment, health, and sustainability. Our decision was driven by our confidence in Siemens Gamesa as a global technology leader. We are committed to delivering optimal energy solutions to the country.”
Present in the market since 2009, Siemens Gamesa has installed more than 5 GW in India.
BARR Fabrication, founded in 2000 in central Texas, was manufacturing large quantities of wind internals for the industry. Companies started coming to BARR with questions about how to service and repair wind towers. That began BARR’s work on wind towers. It was a natural progression to create a service company to continue to meet this customer need full time.
In 2006, BARR Fabrication Field Services began.
“The field service company was born from the fabrication company,” said Rebecca Wiles, operations manager of BARR Field Services. “The fabrication company was manufacturing internals at the time. And the service company was created to meet those customer needs for repairs. Our crews are uniquely qualified from the manufacturing side to conduct repairs.”
Since its inception 12 years ago, BARR Field Services has offered a variety of services to the industry, as well as experience and innovation that keeps the company at the head of its game.
“Outside the box”
According to Jimmie Simmons, field service manager, the services offered go beyond the norm.
“We offer a wide variety of different services,” he said. “We perform a lot of services that are outside the box. Most people do not realize some of the repairs we do are possible.”
Those services include dent removal, bolt extractions, flange pushes, up-tower and down-tower weld repairs, paint repairs, tower remediation, oil changes, and flange flatness. The fabrication company supports their efforts, supplying standard or specialty parts and tooling.
A dent crew sets up tooling in a section that was damaged. (Photos courtesy: BARR Fabrication Field Services)
“We are often called to perform paint repairs and tower remediation jobs,” Simmons said. “A remediation is when a tower has been burned up, burned out, or caught on fire and we completely redo all the metal work, refinish them, and reinstall the parts.”
A popular request from customers is using BARR’s innovative and patented Dent Push System and Method to remove dents on a variety of different towers, according to Simmons.
“It’s a system that the company has developed to push a dent out of the side of a tower,” he said. “The tower can get a dent during transportation, mishaps in the yard, or general mishandling by a crane. We come on site and push the dent to get the tower back to OEM specs.”
Bolt repair is also a large part of BARR’s services, according to Simmons.
“Part of the bolting repairs that we perform include drilling and extracting bolts that have been broken off during construction, a repair, or a repower,” he said.
The bolting service includes a wide range of bolt sizes from as small as 10 millimeters up to 64 millimeters and larger, Simmons said.
“Every bolt is different,” said Senior Tech Dallas Walters. “For example, some are outside the tower on the blade. That requires unique tooling as compared to a bolt at the base. We have to make sure we put the right equipment in the right spot. It’s a very interesting, ever-changing job.”
Oftentimes, after a bolt has been installed, Walters said torqueing is also involved.
“Sometimes the customer wants us to torque the bolt, just to torque it down, so it holds their equipment in place,” he said. “And we have a specific procedure for doing that as well.”
A weld team installs cooling system 100+ WTG.
Perfect safety rating
Job sites have a lot of moving parts, which exposes crews to the potential for accidents. Therefore, it is no small feat that BARR Field Services can document a perfect safety rating, according to Wiles.
“Our perfect safety rating gives the customer that confidence that when we come out to do something that’s never been done, we’re going to do it in the safest manner possible,” she said.
That safety-first mentality dovetails into how BARR approaches and interacts with its customers.
How a job starts
“We consider our clients part of our team. They’ll come to us when they are not quite sure how to solve the problem, and together we create the best solution possible for their specific concern,” Wiles said. “Each problem is unique, and we need to understand exactly what they are looking to accomplish. For example, specialty tooling and parts may need to be fabricated or machined to aid the crew’s mechanical expertise in making the onsite repair. We often work through multiple solutions with a client until we find what fits their exact needs.”
Simmons agreed.
“Working with customers and their engineer group is one of our biggest strengths, because we can speak the same language,” he said. “We’ve been very blessed to have the confidence of our customers to call and say, ‘hey, we broke this, how can you fix it?’”
BARR then sits down with the customer, its engineering staff, and sometimes the customer’s customer is involved to identify and solve the problem.
“Once we identify what the problem is, we pull on our history of experience and knowledge of our staff to troubleshoot the best possible solutions for the clients,” Wiles said. “Throughout the years, we have documented the procedures, and standardized them for our crews.”
BARR’s crews are qualified to its own and customer’s procedures and specifications to complete the work. When it is time to talk job execution, Simmons said he and the project manager begin discussing the schedule and the equipment needed.
“The biggest part on my side is getting the crews all the job details and ready to go,” he said. “I make sure they have everything they need, including safety equipment and tooling. This ensures that once they arrive, we get everything done in a safe and timely manner.”
Responding quickly
“The biggest thing that sets us apart is our ability to respond quickly,” Simmons said. “We understand how the metal is going to react and what it’s going to do when we drill, cut, or weld in a certain spot because of our fabrication background.”
“Most of customer’s needs are immediate, we are working to strategically place our crews throughout the U.S. right now, so we can respond faster to the needs of our customers in order to continue to have a 100 percent satisfaction rating,” Wiles said.
The company’s expansion is a testament to its quality of work and customer service.
Senior Tech Dallas Walters performs a dent inspection.
Service: Job 1
As the wind industry continues to grow, Wiles said she expects BARR will continue to remain focused on being a service company, an area she said she expects to keep BARR busy.
“We recognize that service and project management are things that we do well,” she said. “We’ve got a uniquely qualified work force from working on the manufacturing side; they understand all the customer’s expectations. It’s not just going out and taking a bolt out. Meeting the customer’s needs includes documentation requirements. We recognize that we’ve got to provide documentation to the customer and to the engineering group so that they can sign off on the tower. As towers age, our business will grow as part of the support needed to continue the effective operation of the industry, the efforts required to keep the towers running.”
Simmons said wind farms repowering older towers also would continue to allow BARR to do what it does best.
“That helps a lot on our side of the business, just because some of the things that they’re running into trying to retrofit things and making things work,” he said. “That ensures our services are needed.”
Jobs of all sizes
Another part of BARR’s strengths lies in its ability to work on jobs of all sizes, according to Wiles.
“Sometimes, a job might have just one or two bolts, sometimes they have several,” she said. “Same with weld repairs. We’ve worked on weld repairs that are 50-plus wind towers, welding gen frames and the bedplates, to installing cooling systems for a site with over a hundred towers.”
A recent remediation job involved more than 100 towers and every section needed some degree of repair. BARR’s goal was to get the towers back to OEM specs before the construction cranes on site reached them to put them up, according to Wiles.
“At BARR we’ve worked on all kinds of projects — large and small, projects that last just a few days to projects that last six months or more,” she said.
What is your title, and what do you do with Williams Form?
My title is West Coast wind sales manager. I’ve been here 11 years, and I quote and sell the bolts. I quote the big projects. And we just supply the tower foundation bolts and caps, but we don’t do any of the rebar or concrete when it comes to wind. Our company does many other things, but just when it comes to the wind towers, we just supply the long tower foundation bolts.
How do you approach a client?
I typically don’t go to the farm until we start supplying it. I’m not hands-on or anything. We’re just the supplier. But we have a lot of knowledge, and if they’re struggling in the field with something, we can typically help them out because of the other civil engineering stuff we do that may or may not apply to what they’re doing in the field. But they come to me. It’s a huge bidding process. Some of these farms I quoted three years ago, and then they’re put on a shelf, and now they’re coming back around. And there are so many players — there are owners, developers, and the money behind it, and the power purchase agreements, and the land leases. So all of that has to come together before the farm can finally go.
What products do you offer the wind industry?
We offer tower foundation bolts and the caps that go on the top for corrosion protection.
How did Williams Form get into the wind industry?
We’ve been supplying these tower bolts consistently for 15 years, maybe 18, but the first three years was in its infancy. We are a bolt supplier. And when I say bolt, I don’t mean a little fast nail bolt. I mean post tension for bridges; we do strand anchors, and so we had a customer way, way back when turbines were lattice towers and they were just dowels. They weren’t a bolt. That’s how we got into it, because these are really a PT application. These bolts are post tension. So, you pull on them, and PT bolts are what we do. So the industry changed from a dowel, which is just like a threaded rod that is concreted into the foundation and then the tower is set on top of it and then they torque the nut down. Now it’s a PT element where its post tensioned, so they set the top down on the bolt, and then they use a hydraulic ram or tensioner and pull on the bolt to a specific load and then lock the nut off. And that’s basically how we got into it once it transferred. We did supply some of the dowels early on, but then the foundation design changed, and we supply that large tension bolt.
What caused that change over?
The machines getting larger and taller. It went from a latticed tower to the tube tower now that you see. So as the machines themselves got larger and larger, and the hub heights got higher and higher, the foundation design changed from a little block with dowels in it to a big spread footing with these PT bolts in it.
What sets Williams Form’s turbine parts above the rest?
We have a lot of industry knowledge. We’ve been doing it for many years. We do have an in-house engineering department. And we have multiple facilities to supply multiple projects. A lot of these contractors do between 10 and 15 foundations a week, which is about two to three full flatbed truckloads. So with our multiple facilities, we can pull that off where a lot of the smaller guys can’t. We have a very good QAQC department, which is part of our in-house engineering department. It’s basically all about supply and quality and being able to meet the contractor’s demands and providing a good product, so these guys don’t have to worry about it in the field.
What challenges have you faced while working with the wind industry?
We haven’t really had any challenges. It’s pretty cookie cutter. Although the farms have been coming quicker and quicker, usually we’d like a two-month lead-time to procure materials and manufacture it and then send it. But a lot of these farms trigger within four weeks that they want material. And that’s a short window.
How do you adjust to that?
We have in-house stock that we can cut from. Wind is probably only 20 percent of what we do — it’s a large 20 percent. But we supply bridges and roadways, so we always have material in-house.
So you create the bolts in-house?
Yes. We create the bolts. The raw material comes from the mill as a smooth bar, and then we cold roll it with a course knuckle thread or a rope thread, which the industry really likes because it’s less susceptible to dinging in the field. Where if it were a fine thread, then you’d have to chase those threads. So basically our thread form, you can scratch it up, ding it up, and it still goes on.
Are all bolts the same?
The lengths change depending on the design from the design engineers. So the bolt diameter can change. Common bolt sizes are an inch and a quarter, an inch and three-eighths, and an inch and three-quarters. And they come in grades of 75, 90, and 150. Depending on the geotech at the site and the height and weight of the machine, the bolt diameter, grade, and length will change. And those three grades and those three dimensions are common, not only in the wind industry, but in foundation work, bridge work, and other areas.
Where do you see wind in 10 years and Williams Form Engineering’s place in it?
If the wind industry is still going strong like it is now, we’ll still be supplying bolts to these farms, certainly. The temperature out there now is that 2018 will be a very busy year.
