Moventas, a leading wind gearbox manufacturer and service provider, recently announced a breakthrough suite of technologies known as XL – Extra Life, which is designed to address the failures of the gearboxes in the GE 1.5 fleet in North America. The XL for GE 1.5 gearbox is the culmination of 35 years of wind gearbox expertise Moventas gained repairing GE 1.5 gearboxes, and it will carry the industry’s most comprehensive five-year warranty that covers both crane costs and turbine downtime.
The XL for GE 1.5 is the most reliable and lowest total cost of ownership replacement gearbox available as all significant failure modes have been tackled. Possibly the most important feature of the XL is the industry’s strongest planet stage. The planet stage for the XL has a special case carburized structure with integrated planetary bearings and improved pitting safety.
In addition to the strongest planetary stage, there are several key technical upgrades. The XL’s upgraded bearings address white etch cracking bearing failures that plague all gearboxes. Additionally, its upgraded raw material specifications for the intermediate and high-speed gearing should eliminate inclusion-based failure modes. Enhanced lubrication filtration pulls out smaller metal particles that could damage internal parts. Lastly, 24/7 vibration and oil particle condition management are included as standard. All these specially designed features developed by Moventas combine to significantly prolong gearbox life, avoiding costly downtime for repairs.
Moventas will begin deliveries of the XL for GE 1.5 in Q1 of 2016 to customers in North America.
“We leveraged our many years of experience in gearbox service and repair to have our engineers develop a worry-free gearbox designed to save our customers money and downtime,” said Mike Grunow, vice president of sales and marketing for Moventas Americas. “Moventas stands behind the product with a comprehensive five-year warranty that covers any crane costs that would arise and any lost energy production.”
For more information, go to www.moventas.com.
— Source: Moventas
