Valley Forge & Bolt Mfg. Co. recently announced that James Brooks has joined the company as director of engineering and new business development.
Brooks is an engineering graduate from the University of London (U.K.) and brings significant experience in the field of specialty engineered fastening solutions. This includes direction of a large Swedish/U.S. specialty fastener company. In addition, he has significant experience in the development and execution of global strategies along with a long list of sales growth. Brooks will soon be moving to Phoenix, Arizona, to Valley Forge’s U.S. corporate headquarters.
“I am delighted to be joining the team at VFB,” Brooks said. “The timing is great as Valley Forge has the proven capabilities to innovate and support the next generation of fasteners. Their bolted joint monitoring solutions are being increasingly sought after in many industrial market segments.”
Valley Forge & Bolt Mfg. Co. is an international manufacturer of hot forged industrial fasteners, bolting solutions, and load indicating technology. Its wide range of patented products are trusted for their quality, performance, and reliability. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, Valley Forge & Bolt recently celebrated its 43rd Anniversary.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy intensifies its activities in the preparation for the offshore business in Taiwan. After a first agreement with Taiwan International Ports Corporation (TIPC) in December, the wind-turbine manufacturer has now signed a further Memorandum of Understanding with Yeong Guan Energy Technology Group to collaborate on the development of an offshore wind supply chain in Taiwan.
Under the terms of the non-binding MoU, Yeong Guan Energy Technology Group will be investigating the establishment of a foundry, machining, and painting facilities at the Taichung Harbor in Taiwan.
Siemens Gamesa, drawing on its experience as a leading turbine manufacturer, will provide advice and support with regards to compliance to offshore wind quality and HSE standards, as well as for YGG to become a competitive supplier for offshore wind in Asia Pacific (APAC).
A timeline has not been set for finalization of the cooperation agreement.
“The promising potential of the Taiwanese offshore market combined with our positive experience with the government has encouraged us to intensify our efforts,” said Andreas Nauen, CEO Offshore, Siemens Gamesa. “We are convinced that this emerging market offers interesting business opportunities. As one of the world’s leaders within the offshore wind industry, we look forward to gaining a foothold in this market.”
“The Taichung Harbor is a choice location, close to Changhua County, off of which the majority of the zones defined by the Taiwanese government for offshore wind projects are found,” said Rainer Mueller-Wallenborn, head of Offshore Procurement, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, who signed the MoU. “As we stated in December 2017, there are over 10 GW of projects under planning overall in Taiwan according to official information. We therefore believe the Taichung Harbor has the potential to become a regional hub for the industry, and we are very happy to reinforce our commitment to its development with YGG.”
In 2017, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy signed a MoU with Taiwan International Ports Corporation to investigate possibilities for a potential manufacturing site, office facilities, and staging areas.
Siemens Gamesa also installed Taiwan’s first offshore wind-power plant, the 8 MW Formosa Phase 1 demonstration project, back in 2016.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has been awarded exclusivity by Danish energy group Ørsted for the supply and service of wind turbines for the Hornsea Project Two offshore wind project being developed in British waters, where it will install its SG 8.0-167 DD turbines with total capacity of 1,386 MW.
This offshore wind farm, which will be the world’s biggest offshore wind farm when operational in 2022, is also the largest offshore project in Siemens Gamesa’s history, the biggest to date being Hornsea One (1,218 MW), similarly developed by Ørsted.
Located 89 kilometers off the east coast of England, the wind farm will span 462 square kilometers.
The nacelles will be produced at the new factory in Cuxhaven, Germany, while the majority of blades will be made at the factory in Hull, U.K., where the pre-assembly work will also be carried out. Towers are expected to be partly sourced from U.K. suppliers.
“We are very pleased that Ørsted has placed its trust in Siemens Gamesa once again,” said Andreas Nauen, Offshore CEO at SGRE, who also highlighted the fact that offshore wind power is playing an increasingly important role in Europe’s energy mix. “Hornsea Project Two will be a benchmark in Europe, not only on account of its size but also its technology. Siemens Gamesa will install the newest model from its offshore platform at this facility. The SG 8.0-167 boosts annual output by 20 percent and offers higher returns.”
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A single 8-MW turbine is capable of generating enough electricity for about 8,000 European households, so that the power generated by this complex will cover the annual power consumption needs of about 1.3 million homes.
The new SG 8.0-167 DD is equipped with a rotor 167 meters in diameter.
The blades, 81.5-meters long, deliver an 18 percent wider swept area and 20 percent more annual output than its predecessor, the SWT-7.0-154.
It features the technology proven in the direct drive platform combined with a larger-scale rotor in order to offer customers higher returns while minimizing the associated costs and risks.
Siemens Gamesa and Ørsted already have worked together on several offshore projects, notably: Hornsea One, London Array, Race Bank, West of Duddon Sands, Walney Extension East, and Westermost Rough in the U.K.; Anholt in Denmark; and Borkum Riffgrund 1 and Gode Wind 1 and 2 in German waters.
Having pioneered the sector as far back as 1991 and installed more than 11GW, SGRE boasts the longest track record among offshore turbine OEMs.
The company has cemented itself as the leading player in the offshore segment with a market share of the 70 percent in Europe.
Mersen differentiates itself by not just offering a new product that will work better than the previous one, but by rethinking the application in order to offer serious upgrades that can make a real difference.
The European-based Mersen has been operating almost 80 years in North America, and it has become a leader in the wind industry in the U.S., according to Benoit White, global market manager for wind power and power transfer technologies.
“We want our customers to rely on us as the technical experts in the industry,” he said. “We are really focused on performance and the technical aspect of the product more than anything else.”
Mersen’s most popular wind industry collector ring runs on more than 2,000 turbines in the U.S. (Photos courtesy: Mersen)
For the wind industry, Mersen manufactures electrical sliding contacts for power and signal application.
“That’s the core business for our division,” White said. “We do a lot of other things for wind such as fuses and advanced busbars, but when it comes to our business unit, electrical sliding contacts or current collectors is what we focus on.”
Most of the components that Mersen supplies are in the wind generator. They are called slip-rings, brush-holders, and brushes, which are basically the components that connect the converter of the wind turbine to the generator rotor winding, according to White.
Turbine types
There are two main technologies of turbines in the field. One is a fully converted turbine, in which 100 percent of the power generated needs to be rectified to meet the grid requirements. As the wind speed changes, the rpm of the generator changes, hence the need for full power conversion.
The turbines that Mersen’s technology is being used in are the DFIG or double fed induction generator turbines, according to White.
A newly launched phase brush for turbines equipped with newly designed holders.
“This technology features many benefits,” he said. “It has been for nearly two decades the most widely spread technology, and that’s where we come in. That’s the technology that we support, because with that technology, only about 20 to 30 percent of the power is converted. This type generator coupled to a DFIG converter produces a clean power directly at the frequency of the grid. And in order to achieve that, we need to control what’s going on in the rotor windings of the generator or, to be more specific, the frequency of the excitation, which means having a power component to control the current inside the generator rotor while in rotation.”
The DFIG turbines tend to be more cost-efficient technology in terms of dollars per megawatt, which means the DFIG technology remains less expensive than a fully converted machine, White said.
“We know the pressures the industry is facing now in the U.S. and in many other countries throughout the world,” he said. “Some of the projects are optioned now, and the lowest bidder gets the project. So, we work actively to keep lowering the cost of the DFIG turbine to ensure it remains the preferred technology out there for the next two decades or more.”
Mersen’s mission, according to White, is to support those technologies and make it even more attractive for large power turbines.
“As the turbines get bigger and bigger, these power components on the generator are also going to get larger and larger, and it’s our responsibility to make these components viable for this technology,” he said. “Our role in the industry is to support that effort and convince the rest of the manufacturers that this is the way to go, and that we can handle the technological challenges.”
A phase brush for turbines 1.5 MW up to 1.85 MW
Close to customers
In order to help accomplish that goal, Mersen tries to stay close to its customers in the field, according to White.
“We have an extended sales network of people who are certified to climb turbines to perform inspections and support our products and solutions in operations and suggest upgrades” he said. “Having access to the turbines is very important to us, and it’s more than just replacing product A with product B. It helps us truly understand the performance of our solutions and understand the specific needs from each one of our customers. That’s what we’ve really been focusing on: Always working to improve reliability of the system, and lower the total cost of ownership by creating customized solutions for our customers.”
And a lot of times, those customized solutions actually begin with the customer.
“We have a typical process when we see there is room for improvement or when the customer is concerned about something or when we see that something could be done better or designed better,” White said. “We have the capability of bringing that back to the design office and designing something different as a drop-in replacement to improve the overall performance.”
Mersen calls that a retrofit or redesign. Although Mersen manufactures its solutions in large quantities, it has the flexibility and capability to rapidly manufacture prototypes that can be taken to a customer and tested for a specific application up-tower, according to White. New products often originate from customer-specific needs, feedback, and experimentation.
A 2.4MW turbine phase brush
“Although Mersen is one of the largest suppliers to the generator OEM and turbine OEM, what we have found — at least for us in wind — is that our biggest success stories and the biggest sellers that we have are often products that are born like that — when it’s initiated through a partnership with a customer and re-thinking a product, perfecting it, and validating it,” he said. “Having that connection is very important.”
Re-powering
Mersen is heavily involved in the trend of re-powering older turbines, according to White.
“The game has changed,” he said. “Before, the turbines would come out of the factory, be commissioned, and operate at their original nominal rated power for years and years. But now the turbines are changing. Manufacturers offer their existing customers a boost in power or a power up-rating. But it basically means that out of the same turbine, the same hardware, through a software upgrade, turbines get pushed a little further to optimize the power curve: for example, a 2 MW turbine can now produce 2.2 MW and this can cause additional stress on the turbine components. And what we’ve done successfully is to design ranges of solutions to support that and handle the additional loads.”
As turbines are uprated or re-powered, a lot of the internal components have to be reconsidered, according to White.
A ground brush.
“Sometimes the hardware upgrade is not taken into account, and once the power of the machine has been upgraded, then we could start seeing phenomena that we didn’t see in the past,” he said. “We have designed solutions that support that upgrade that are very easy to implement — minimal changes to the machine with more robust components, advanced materials, more heavy duty, that are able to support that new trend. That’s the focus of our next upcoming ad campaign.”
Leading technology
As Mersen enters its next decade, White said the DFIG technology will continue to lead the industry.
“Our goal is to support that and to make that technology the best technology out there,” he said. “Without a proper reliable slip ring and brush and brush holder system, the DFIG technology doesn’t work.”
White said Mersen will be exhibiting at WINDPOWER 2018 in Chicago in May. Among what attendees should expect are Mersen’s signal and power transfer systems (SPTS). It’s also called a hub slip ring, and it is the compact slip-ring that sits on the low speed end of the gearbox and sends signal and power back-and-forth from the nacelle to the hub in order to communicate with all the electronics and even actuate the pitch the blades.
Another phase brush used across a wide range of turbines.
“We spent a lot of R&D in making this product more reliable,” he said. “And we’re coming out this year with a range of products for many different turbines, and I know we’re going to be exhibiting that. But our big focus remains to support customers through their power up-rate programs and present them with options best suited to their specific requirements.”
Helping customers harkens back to Mersen’s core goal of being more than just a product supplier but a solution provider, according to White.
“We share the experience; we share the success stories, and we show how our solutions can help with that,” he said. “Expertise is our source of energy.”
Cyberhawk, a world leader in inspection, survey, and asset management using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), has been awarded a three-year framework with one of the U.K.’s largest renewable energy operators.
As part of the framework, Cyberhawk will undertake wind-turbine blade inspections across the operator’s network across the U.K. and Ireland.
“We continue to make great inroads in renewable energy as a result of our UAV data collection and asset management software, iHawk,” said Cyberhawk CEO Chris Fleming. “We are experiencing an increase of work in this sector, which is highlighted by this recent framework award, and will continue to work closely with renewable energy suppliers around the globe to develop solutions which meet their needs.”
The award of the framework marks the end of Cyberhawk’s most successful year since its launch in 2008, with revenue increasing by a third, increased profitability and the completion of a series of major projects.
In oil and gas, Cyberhawk took a stronghold in the U.S. market following the launch of its Houston office in 2016, winning new projects in the region and securing accreditation from the American Bureau of Shipping for its internal tank inspection solution. As well as helping to develop Oil & Gas U.K.’s offshore drone guidelines, Cyberhawk has also completed multiple long terms projects in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, where the company achieved a 50 percent cost saving for one of the North Sea’s largest operators. First projects were also completed in the Caribbean and in the Mediterranean.
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Cyberhawk has made significant headway in the renewables sector, both in onshore and offshore wind. As well as the recent framework award, the company also has secured a global framework with wind-turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa. Projects have been completed onshore and offshore throughout Europe including first projects offshore Germany. Multiple successful offshore converter and substation inspections also supplemented the wind-turbine blade inspection.
2017 has also been a busy year in the electricity transmission and distribution sector, with Cyberhawk having now completed work for the majority of U.K. and Ireland transmission network operators (TNO), distribution network operators (DNO), and major tier 1 contractors. Not only did the firm receive a contract with a TNO to inspect 2,000 towers, it also implemented its field tablet solution for a DNO to allow completion of ESQCR inspection and ground patrols on over 4,000 towers.
Software remains a major part of Cyberhawk’s business across all sectors, and ongoing development has taken place over the last 12 months to meet increasing needs from clients. Two new modules were launched on iHawk, Cyberhawk’s cloud-based asset management software, specifically for substation asset management and tower bar-by-bar inspections; iHawk will continue to represent a significant part of Cyberhawk’s growth strategy during 2018 and beyond.
“2017 has been an exciting year for Cyberhawk, and we have been extremely encouraged to see the uptake of UAVs for inspection and survey increase exponentially,” Fleming said. “We believe this is only set to continue, and our team is using the success of the last 12 months as a springboard for 2018. Cyberhawk will continue to innovate, grow our talented team, and develop customer-centric solutions to challenges across a range of industries. We are very excited to see what 2018 will bring.”
The new standard ratcheting combination wrenches from Williams are designed to handle higher torque applications without rounding or deforming hex fasteners points.
The Supertorque® ratcheting box end design means no contact is made at the corners. Rather, wrenching pressure is placed on the flat surfaces behind the points. Additionally, the wrenches’ Supercombo® open end has specially designed grooves that direct wrench force away from fastener corners.
Features and benefits of the new standard ratcheting combination wrenches include:
Ratcheting gear with up to 80 teeth, minimizing swing arc in tight places.
Nickel-chrome plating protects against corrosion and makes cleaning easy.
Sized for optimum comfort and balance.
Handles forged in the U.S.
Built with special alloy steel and heat treated for superior strength and durability.
New rotor locks from Roemheld USA are designed to simplify maintenance for wind-power plants. The double-acting hydraulic cylinder locks the rotor blade up to 6.5 MW, from -30 degrees C to 70 degrees C.
The Roemheld USA rotor lock is available with hydraulic or electromechanical locking mechanisms and withstands side loads up to 5,500 kN. Other designs can be produced for special needs.
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A new, long-lasting coating prevents rust in the locking bolt, and non-contact position monitoring avoids mechanical wear and extends component life. The surface protection of rotor lock components corresponds to DIN ISO 12944, C4, for use in offshore operations.
