Moventas North America has introduced an innovative financial solution with their Condition Monitoring Lease Program that converts the upfront installation costs for condition monitoring into an affordable monthly payment for wind farm owners. Additionally, this financial innovation translates condition monitoring from a hardware-only business to a complete life-cycle service.
Developed by Moventas, CMaS condition monitoring service maximizes gearbox life with early detection of mechanical problems through remote, real-time monitoring of gearbox vibration, oil condition, and temperature. A strong majority of all new wind turbines are sold with advance condition monitoring on the drivetrain. Unfortunately, a large majority of the existing fleet of 40,000 wind turbines were built without this valuable technology, and owners find it difficult to afford and deploy.
“The lease payment removes barriers to the deployment of condition monitoring hardware, 24/7 analysis by expert technicians, nationwide 
multi-brand boroscoping and a complete suite of lower cost multi-brand up-tower repairs for the North American fleet,” said Mike Grunow, vice president of Sales and Marketing, Americas at Moventas.
Currently, wind farm revenues are down due to lower electricity prices, and these farms typically cannot afford the upfront costs to retrofit the existing fleets with condition monitoring capability. However, today’s low interest rates enable low cost operational leases of this kind of equipment. Leveraging the innovative leasing structures that are prevalent in other industries spreads the cost out over multiple years for the wind farm owner.
“Outside of Moventas’ comprehensive offering, a wind farm owner would have to contract with at least four separate entities for condition monitoring, the lease, follow on boroscope inspections, parts and repairs. Having all of these under one roof enables access to lower cost repair savings and less downtime for wind farm owners,” said Grunow.
Moventas currently monitors over 2 GW of wind turbines globally and has repaired over 1500 multi-brand wind turbine gearboxes in North America alone.
— Source: Moventas
