David Brown’s participation in the 4th Annual Wind Energy Operations and Maintenance Summit April 25-27, 2012, will address the global wind turbine gear industry and examine key themes such as how main transmission failure in wind turbines compares with similar planetary drives in non-wind applications. Also on the agenda is the current state of the wind energy supply chain, the use of slewing, worm and parallel shaft arrangements versus yaw and pitch drives as well as increasing visibility of gearbox performance data for wind turbine operators.
The David Brown team will address specifically how leveraging global experience, such as that from mission critical industries, to go beyond current equipment specifications is driving the wind turbine gear industry. The discussion will focus on David Brown’s operations model as a case study.
Tom Marek, David Brown’s North American Business Unit Leader Wind Energy explains: “Our goal in participating in Wind Energy Update’s 4th Annual Wind Energy Operations & Maintenance Summit is simple, we want talk frankly about gearing issues in the wind industry and specifically about how our global engineering, service and production network is designed to address the needs of wind turbine owners the same way we support our defence, conventional power, hydro, oil and gas, rail and mining customers. It is important that we address the industry’s key gearing issues in order to move forward to lower through life costs, and ultimately the cost of energy for the industry’s operators.”
This news follows the recent announcement of David Brown’s acquisition of leading Canadian industrial gear manufacturer Unigear Industries Inc, as part of its North American growth strategy, as well as its recent signing of a multi-million pound contract with Samsung Heavy Industries to design, develop and manufacture an innovative 7MW offshore wind gearbox.
David Brown, along with eight of North America’s leading Operators will be in Dallas to discuss how best to utilize the latest industry experience, proven technology and O&M strategies to maximize generation and reduce costs in wind farms. Further topics include:
• O&M markets and trends for 2012 and beyond
• End of warranty options (EOW)
• Retrofit technology & Repowering
• Advanced Monitoring Technologies
• Life extension of critical components
• Major Part Failure, Upgrading & Repair
• Grid Integration & Curtailment
Companies confirmed include E.ON Climate & Renewables, AES Wind Generation, Iberdrola Renewables, Duke Energy, EDP Renewables, Infigen Energy, Edison Mission, TransAlta, Wind Capital Group, enXco, GE, Acciona, NERC, Praxis, Hytorc, Foundation Engineering, Complete Wind and many more. For more information visit www.windenergyupdate.com/operations-maintenance-usa.
