Glenn Thibeault, Ontario’s Minister of Energy, recently released the updated Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP), Delivering Fairness and Choice. As part of this plan, the LTEP remains committed to achieving Ontario’s climate goals and forecasts heightened need for electricity supply in the coming years to support the transition to a low-carbon economy. Ontario will need renewable energy, like wind energy, and more of it, if it is to meet greenhouse gas emission targets moving forward. New wind energy provides the best value for consumers to meet growing demand for affordable non-emitting electricity.
The LTEP lays out expectations for energy supply and demand and reflects upon changing consumer demands. It notes that investment in the electricity market has improved reliability and reduced emissions. It also comments on how securing wind power has changed over time, noting that “the introduction of the Large Renewable Procurement (LRP) process in 2014 resulted in strong competition between developers of large renewable projects. This significantly reduced the costs of wind and solar energy, saving money for electricity ratepayers.” This improved process resulted in an average 20-year procurement price of 8.45 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), which was less than the average cost of generation, and enabled increased participation and support from host communities and indigenous groups.
Wind energy has become one of the lowest cost sources of new electricity generation in Ontario, and while wind power has helped reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Ontario’s electricity sector from 34.5 metric megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2005 to 7.1 metric megatons CO2e in 2015, more work needs to be done.
Ontario will need more electricity supply before 2024. Over the next decade as much as 20 GW of electricity supply will be removed from the system, representing close to half of all supply in the province. This includes approximately 3 GW of supply coming off-line at Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (NGS), as well as 9 GW of expiring generation contracts. Wind energy will be needed to help fill this supply gap.
“Ontario’s harnessing of wind power can help fight climate change while keeping electricity costs low,” said Robert Hornung, CanWea president. “Without new wind energy, costs to electricity customers and carbon emissions will both continue to rise.”
CanWEA has long supported that new supply needs in Ontario be competitively sought from affordable, non-emitting generation to maintain low greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector in the medium- to long-term while keeping costs in check. Ontarians also realize climate change is real, and that CanWEA and Ontario need to work together to ensure that emissions from the energy sector continue to be reduced, not increased.
CanWEA and the wind energy industry will continue to work with the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) on the implementation of the LTEP. It pledges also to collaborate with the IESO through the Market Renewal Program to enable affordable, non-greenhouse gas emitting generation.
“CanWEA supports competitive, market-based approaches to providing flexible, clean, and low-cost energy supply, to meet Ontarians’ changing needs,” said Brandy Giannetta, Ontario Regional Director of CanWEA.
The Great Dismal Swamp was once a place “where the abundant growth and vegetation of nature, sucking up its forces from the humid soil, seems to rejoice in a savage exuberance, and bid defiance to all human efforts either to penetrate or subdue.” That was according to Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp was published in 1856, four years after her abolitionist classic, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
The original swamp is estimated to have covered more than 1 million acres from Norfolk, Virginia, to Edenton, North Carolina. For a long time, it was a refuge for runaway slaves as well as for panthers, bears, and water moccasins. Later, George Washington created a company that attempted to tame the muck, and Patrick Henry built another to carve canals through the swamp’s miserable morass.
Today, much of the Great Dismal Swamp has been drained and turned to agricultural purposes. Beneath the ground that once was swampland, though, remains soggy, peat-filled soil with high groundwater table levels — making it an especially difficult place to build a 104-turbine wind farm.
Geogrid is a stiff polymer mesh used to stabilize and improve the performance of sub-soils below roads and other types of infrastructure.
Construction Challenges
Wind farms are often built in remote locations where soil conditions are less than ideal for construction. This presents a particular challenge to the engineer or contractor when designing and building access roads with heavy vehicle traffic. An even greater test occurs in areas where the wind turbines are located. Heavy-lifting equipment, required to position the turbines, exerts high pressures on the underlying soft subgrade. Geogrid technology is increasingly used in wind-farm development to tame tough conditions, to keep projects on schedule, and to save materials and money. Geogrid, in fact, helped to subdue the Great Dismal Swamp.
When Avangrid Renewables launched its plans to develop the first utility scale wind farm on 22,000 acres of leased farmland in the former Great Dismal Swamp footprint, Lincoln Phillips, the company’s regional construction manager knew what he was up against.
On wind-farm construction sites, geogrids are most commonly used to reduce the required aggregate thickness for unpaved haul roads constructed to provide access to individual turbine locations.
“The Great Dismal Swamp lived up to its reputation,” Phillips said, referring to the condition of the bog-like subsoil. “We needed to build nearly 60 miles of access roads to support the wind farm, and we needed to be sure those roads would hold up. We needed more than a moisture barrier; we needed something to act as a bridge under the road allowing it to flex and float.”
Using geogrid
The engineering firm working with Avangrid on this project specified geogrid: stiff polymer mesh used to stabilize and improve the performance of sub-soils below roads and other types of infrastructure.
The use of geogrid provided significant cost savings.
“Stone is very expensive in Eastern North Carolina, and we needed a lot of stone for the roads. We had to truck or rail it in and then take truck loads of it to the job site,” Phillips said. “Using geogrid meant we didn’t need as much gravel on the roads to get the ground stability we needed.”
The roads not only had to support tremendous heavy vehicle traffic during construction, they also had to withstand two tropical storms and one hurricane. At one point, the site experienced 28 inches of water in less than a 15-day period.
Wind farms are often built in remote locations where soil conditions are less than ideal for construction.
“Looking at the roads afterward, you would have never known we had a drop of rain,” Phillips said.
More than a year since completion, the entire site continues to hold up well with no more than routine maintenance and no additional stone required.
The power from Avangrid’s North Carolina wind farm already has a buyer, Amazon.com, which has been investing heavily in sustainable energy solutions. The wind farm began delivering power in December 2016. Its 104 wind turbines produce 208 MW of electricity — enough energy to power the equivalent of about 61,000 U.S. homes each year.
Renaico Wind Farm
Travel directly south almost 5,000 miles from Elizabeth City on North America’s Atlantic coast, and you come to the Pacific Coast of Chile. Two hours inland from that shore is the tiny town of Renaico in the Araucania Region of Chile. For most of this farming town’s existence, its predominant geographic feature was the brown Renaico River, which bisects the area from east to west. For the past year, though, the landscape has a new highlight: It is now dotted with 44 100-meter wind turbines spread over 2,965 acres. Enel Green Power, part of the multi-national energy company Enel, completed this 305 GWh wind farm in 2016. It wasn’t easy.
When building began in 2015, it was immediately evident that the region’s silt and soft clay soils would challenge the stability of the wind farm’s access roads, internal roads, working platforms, and turbine foundations. To complete construction in a limited time frame and with ground deformation and shear strength restrictions, the construction and engineering teams chose to stabilize the ground using geogrid.
When Enel Green Power built its wind farm in Renaico, Chile, geogrid was used to stabilize the ground in order to complete construction in a limited time frame.
More than 10.56 miles (17 kilometers) of internal roads were built between the turbines that make up the wind farm. In addition, 44 temporary working platforms were built to support the crane during the installation of the wind turbines. Geogrids reinforced both the roads and crane pads, resulting in significant savings in costly imported granular fill and assuring soil quality uniformity to ensure subgrade performance. The Renaico wind farm is now fully operational and has inspired the creation of other wind-energy developments in the region. Geogrid is now being used to support several of those installations as well.
Reducing Aggregate Thickness
On wind-farm construction sites, geogrids are most commonly used to reduce the required aggregate thickness for unpaved haul roads constructed to provide access to individual turbine locations. When geogrid is placed at the bottom of an aggregate layer, the aggregate particles partially penetrate through the apertures of the geogrid. This causes confinement of the aggregate and stiffening of the road structure. By incorporating geogrids, a mechanically stabilized layer is created for the haul/access roads and unpaved working areas. Construction cost savings of up to 50 percent can be realized in the amount of aggregate required. Lower aggregate requirements result in less excavated material to be taken away from the site, and less aggregate to be imported, placed, and compacted.
In addition to road structures, geogrids also can be used to reduce the required aggregate thickness at crane platform locations. The locations where turbine components are unloaded and lifted into position often present the greatest challenge to avoiding subgrade failure. In these areas, multiple layers of geogrids can be used to strengthen the aggregate section. The stiffened aggregate results in an enhanced load distribution beneath the large static and dynamic loads imposed by the lifting equipment. This increases the factor of safety against a bearing capacity failure in the subgrade.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s website, energy.gov, states that the United State’s total wind capacity is projected to be 113.43 GW across 36 states by 2020. That’s an increase of 52.31 GW since 2013. It is no wonder that major geogrid manufacturers are increasing their production capacity.
With the installation of the first operational wind farm by Deepwater Wind off the coast of Rhode Island and the promise of the U.S. offshore wind market, there is a scramble to provide the assets necessary to transport and install offshore wind turbines.
The available assets in Europe may not be suitable for the 8- and 10-MW turbines being contemplated. Moreover they have to comply with the Jones Act. The Deepwater Wind project was handled by shuttle vessels transporting to the location where the installer vessel was stationed. This is expensive, ungainly, and not suitable for large-scale installations. The obvious solution is to look to the oil and gas sector for answers, which is ready and available, especially given the current state of affairs.
The Liftboat
The Wind Farm Installation Vessel’s (WTIV) mission closely resembles that of a liftboat. Liftboats have been the workhorse of the offshore oil and gas industry from their very inception in south Louisiana. They were literally boats on legs, hence the name. The U.S. Coast Guard still looks at them as boats.
Earlier liftboats were small, with limited ability to withstand offshore environments (70- and 100-knot winds). Over the years, they grew in size to where they are veritable Mobile Offshore Units (MOU’s). Owners have increasingly asked for their large liftboats to be MOU compliant or at the very least “MOU ready.” Some have even put drilling equipment onboard and become Mobile Offshore Drilling Units (MODU’s).
The liftboat Al Ghweifat was built from A.K. Suda’s model SUDA 265-L3T. (Courtesy: A.K. Suda)
Offshore wind farm EPCI (Engineering Procurement Construction and Installation) companies need an agile platform that can carry heavy loads. The liftboat is the easiest fit. However, some significant changes have to be made:
Number of legs. Earlier liftboats were three-legged. They were wider than their four-legged descendants. The beam was close to the length. No serious attempt could be made at having a decent hull form. One of the first attempts made at some sort of a hull form was on the vessel now called the Al Ghweifat, in operation in the UAE. For the most part, liftboats were unwieldy and awkward. That was acceptable. Although they were self-propelled, they moved relatively infrequently. Three-leg vessels use ballast for preload. That makes the process longer.
WTIV’s move, on average, every two days or less. They have to be quick to deploy and quick to move. The four-legged option allows both in a complementary way. Four legs allow for quick preloading using the weight of the vessel, and the four legs allow for an opportunity to build in a hull form.
High Variable Dead Load (VDL). The oil and gas liftboats carried a maximum 2,000 tons of VDL; some a little higher. That VDL would be sufficient for only one of the modern wind turbines. Studies show a minimum four-turbine capacity is possible and ideal for the U.S. market given the port restrictions. For that, VDL has to increase more than three-fold. However, water depths and leg length are generally lower than those needed for oil exploration. That complements the high load. For example, the larger WTIVs would have leg lengths in the 300-foot range, whereas the largest liftboat has a leg length of 450 feet. (See photograph).
Efficient Hull Forms. European liftboats originated from jackups. They had relatively high depth at more than 20 feet and boxy hull forms. For a jackup, that was understandable, since jackups seldom moved (were towed). Over the years, hull form was added to meet the demands of the wind industry in particular. The spud cans were relatively small due to the hard soil, unlike the Gulf of Mexico.
Barge Hulls
Across the pond in the U.S., barge hulls were used by adding propulsion and legs. These were a little better for propulsion and maneuvering but not for carrying capacity. The smaller ones had large footings called pads instead of spud cans. These hung out of the hull like oars, further hurting the propulsion and steering characteristics of the vessel. Overall, these were not suited for efficient hull forms.
In order to get a WTIV hull form, it is necessary to have a high depth hull, which also works well for the higher carrying capacity.
The liftboat Teras Fortress 2 built from model SUDA 450-L3T, is the world’s largest liftboat. (Courtesy: A.K. Suda)
Cranes. The traditional liftboat for the oil and gas industry rarely carried more than a 500T crane capacity. The booms are relatively short, about a 150- to 200-foot range. WTIVs require larger crane capacity in terms of load and reach.
The installation function of the operation requires heavy lifts, where heavy loads are in the 300- to 400-feet height. This makes for a large crane. The maintenance and repair functions do not require such high capacities but require long booms nonetheless.
Crane Capacity
The crane capacity requires multiple considerations. Turbine installation, maintenance, and repair (IMR) require the lowest capacity and longest reach, relatively. All the above activities yield about 50 percent vessel utilization in most cases. Financial considerations might require the design build in another activity for the vessel, which is foundation installation. This activity requires the highest load carrying but a relatively short reach. Crane selection envelope should include all these scenarios.
In the past, three-legged vessels with relatively long legs and short booms have been used with limited success for IMR. One example of such a vessel is the Titan II. It has two leg-encircling cranes, each 200 tons. The booms were 120 feet and 160 feet. The shorter one was used for the heavier items and the other for blades, etc. The high air gaps were the only concern, not to mention the time required to preload.
The next generation of WTIVs promises to be a sea change from the technology being used to date. (Courtesy: A.K. Suda)
The Titan II could only carry one 3.6 MW turbine at a time.
The knowledge gained from the oil and gas industry can easily be employed to develop highly efficient wind-turbine installation vessels. The next generation of WTIVs promises to be a sea change from the technology being used to date.
Combining the mission-requirements experience gained from Europe with the engineering experience of the birthplace of liftboats worldwide is a reliable promise that this aspect of the industry is in good hands.
If you’re involved in wind power or another endeavor with elevated work, you likely already know that a dropped object prevention program is important. Some might say: “The first step is admitting you have an opportunity.” Once acknowledged, the bigger question is: “How do we get there?”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 519 people were killed in work-related incidents due to contact with objects or equipment in 2015, and of that figure, 247 were killed when workers were struck by falling objects. Additionally, OSHA reports that, on average, more than 50,000 people a year are “struck by falling objects,” and that’s just the number of reported incidents.
Just how dangerous can a dropped tool be? According to Dropped Object Prevention Scheme (DROPS), an object that weighs less than three pounds dropped from a height of 30 feet can be fatal.
Beyond personal injury and death, there are many other reasons to secure tools.
A dropped tool can damage equipment, as well as nearby vehicles. And a dropped object can affect productivity. Anyone who has had to do a bonus climb can testify to that. Significant costs — both obvious and hidden — can add up in the absence of an effective drop-prevention program.
As the Labor statistics show, tools and equipment are still being dropped despite the availability of tethering devices. Why is that?
The fact that there are no specific regulations causes confusion, and the result is wide variation across drop prevention programs.
So what’s a reasonable guideline? A simple “Golden Rule” to follow is: When performing elevated work requiring fall protection, tools and other objects should also be secured.
If a worker loses his grip on a hammer while 30 feet in the air, the greatest concern is for personnel and equipment below. Fall protection is about me. Drop prevention is about everyone else.
A poignant example of this happened in 2014 when a one-pound tape measure fell from a worker on a high-rise construction project in New Jersey. As it fell, the object ricocheted off the steel and struck and killed a wallboard delivery person exiting a vehicle. Since the tape did not fall straight to the ground, there’s a question as to whether a hard hat would have provided any protection.
The Iron Worker’s Spud Module is a next-level solution. Engineered tools, including fixed and adjustable spud wrenches along with a sleever bar, are matched with appropriate lanyards to facilitate the work, and mounted in a holder, called a scabbard, that mounts on a climbing harness or work belt. This module is a single SKU and is delivered fully assembled and ready for work. (Courtesy: Snap-on)
Once this Golden Rule has been embraced, things should be pretty simple, right? Not necessarily. The concept is simple, but getting there isn’t easy. Numerous hurdles often remain.
Shifting culture is always challenging. Asking technicians or craft persons to change the way they work is often the greatest obstacle. This resistance typically comes from the fact that tethering systems tend to inhibit tool use and can significantly reduce productivity. Tools come in many shapes and sizes, so the process of determining how to secure each one is critical.
Purchasing tools and then adding attachment points involves complexity and cost including: procurement logistics, inventory of multiple components, lag time from delivery to deployment, assembly time and associated training, regular inspection of attachment points for degradation, and rework. After all these steps, the final product is frequently rejected by the end-user, and everything described above is before you choose which lanyard is most appropriate for the type of work being done.
The tool on the left is called a bull pin. Bull pins are often employed during construction to align through holes in steel. Non-engineered solutions are typically damaged significantly with every use as the pin is pounded into the steel, while the improved, stainless steel shackle system is extremely durable and uses friction to allow positioning of the shackle away from the striking head. The wedge on the right uses a similar shackle solution that replaces the questionable practice of welding a nut or washer to the side for attachment of a lanyard. Both of these systems were developed through significant field trial and are thoroughly tested and certified. (Courtesy: Snap-on)
The good news is there are best practices for maintaining safety and productivity while working at height. Some of those include:
Engineered attachment points: These help maintain tool functionality and productivity of the tradespeople who use them. They are also drop tested to ensure safety and reliability.
Independent tethering: Most drops happen during the process of transferring tools between hands or onto a lanyard. Minimizing these actions reduces the chance of a drop. This practice also facilitates single hand-tool retrieval, allowing one hand to remain free and maintain “three points of contact” — two feet and one hand always free to secure the worker.
Modularity: Using modules — in which the tool, lanyard, and holster are predetermined, optimized for use together, and preassembled — gives the user flexibility to personalize where the modules are worn while maintaining the integrity of the safety system. Modules are preassembled and eliminate trial and error in the field.
Turnkey systems: Designing and assembling complete drop-prevention systems for specific types of work provides a turnkey, single line item that comes out of the box ready for work.
Standardization: Predetermined modules and turnkey kits help standardize work. Think of the productivity gain if technicians or craft workers could move from one site to the next and have the same tooling in place.
Proper training: Training may be the most important component of a sustainable program. At minimum, a thorough orientation should be considered for all employees and subcontractors. Higher-level train-the-trainer certification curriculum is also available.
An example that brings all facets of this topic together is craftwork during construction. With high-cost and schedule-driven environments, construction projects can’t afford inefficiencies. The fast pace and type of work also lend themselves to dangerous situations. In many cases, drop-prevention programs involve significant resources; however, they ultimately reduce productivity with only incremental safety enhancement. Safety and simplicity are critical. Turnkey solutions, as shown, reduce investment of resources, provide robust safety systems, and deliver out-of-the-box, ready-for-work solutions.
What are your duties with Harvest Energy Services?
As a construction project manager, I’m responsible for managing the construction group of Harvest Energy Services and overseeing the construction projects we are supporting. That includes supporting clients with their projects, from providing preconstruction and contracting advice, coordinating preconstruction site walks, and conducting competitive procurements all the way to managing site-based teams of specialists and Harvest Energy site managers on a wind-construction project.
We’ll be on a project site and work with the BOP (Balance of Plant) contractor, the turbine supplier, and any other owner-contractors, coordinating between them and making sure that any issues are quickly resolved. We represent the owner on the construction site. In addition to that, we’ll provide oversight on the construction budget. We’ll make sure things are staying within budget and will keep an eye on the schedule and track it against the baseline schedule. That way we can alert the owner quickly to any potential delays and be able to get ahead of it before it becomes an issue. We also strive to identify any quality issues that might come up and work with the contractors on site to get those resolved — again, before they become a big issue. We also provide BOP management services for operational wind plants and perform maintenance services.
How did you get involved in the wind industry?
Initially, after I graduated college I went to work in the petrochemical industry outside Houston. I was working in a plastics plant there, and I started to hear about the renewable energy industry around that time, and I was pretty interested in it, in the fact that it was a clean-energy industry, and I was interested in being able to make a positive impact on the environment. Also, I had grown up in Houston and wanted to branch out a bit and go somewhere different. So, I started looking around and discovered that Colorado had quite a few renewable energy jobs. I came across one at a small company, a small wind-energy company — small both in terms of the number of people and also it was a manufacturer/installer of 50-kW turbines. I ended up taking a job there and just absolutely loved it. Ultimately, the company didn’t make it through the recession, but I met a lot of really great people there and discovered that I really liked the wind-energy industry. I also really liked the entrepreneurial spirit of a small company and the impact I was able to make there. I’ve been very lucky that I have been able to stick in the wind-energy industry ever since. I’ve made a lot of great contacts, and the people I work with here are really great.
What steps are involved in getting a project started?
Generally, we’ll start working with a client in the preconstruction phase. A wind-energy project can have a preconstruction/development phase of upwards of five years or more. While the developer is working on getting land leases and collecting wind data, they’ll bring the construction folks in to look at where to site turbines and infrastructure and start talking about construction costs. We’ll do initial cost estimates. We’ll work with BOP contractors to obtain bids, run competitive procurement processes, and evaluate different turbine technologies to put on the projects to get the best cost of energy.
Once it looks like a project is going to move forward and go into construction, we’re heavily involved in the contracting stage. We’ll help with getting the BOP contract squared away as well as selection and contracting for any other contractors. Sometimes we will work out transportation or procurement of transformers. And when the project is ready to move into construction, we’ll assemble a team to put on project site. That can vary depending on the project and the owner’s desires, but typically we’ll have a site manager out there, a civil specialist, an electrical specialist, and some folks to do mechanical completion walkdowns.
Throughout that construction phase of the project is where I’m most heavily involved, overseeing the contracts, making sure any issues get resolved, keeping a close eye on the schedule, identifying any opportunities for cost savings, making sure the project schedule doesn’t slip and critical milestones are met and that we stay within budget as well.
At the end of the project, we’ll be involved with handing the project over to the operational folks by involving them in the final commissioning and testing phases.
What wind projects is Harvest Energy working on now?
We currently are providing owner representation for construction management on two projects right now. One of them is outside Kimball, Nebraska; it’s a 30-MW project. The other one is in western Oklahoma, and it’s a 200-MW project. In addition to that, we are providing preconstruction consulting services on a number of projects across the central and western United States.
Harvest Energy stresses health, safety, and the environment. How does that play into wind projects?
Safety is always No. 1. And that’s important in construction, operation, maintenance — anything you’re doing out there. That’s one of our core values. That’s really something that is stressed on any construction site. We try to emphasize we want to stay on schedule; we want to stay on budget, but none of that is worth sacrificing safety. Having that message always coming from the management on the site is really important.
We want to encourage — no matter what their job title might be or what contractor they may be working for — if they see something unsafe we want them to feel comfortable to speak up about it. The environmental side is also something important to us and important to a lot of folks in the industry — we like to be associated with making a positive impact on the environment. On a construction site, that goes from simple stuff like making sure we pick up trash and keeping the disturbance areas to a minimum to adhering to environmental regulations. For instance, every construction site has a spill prevention, control, and counter-measures plan or SPCC. It’s really important that any spills are reported and cleaned up quickly. Construction sites also have a storm water pollution prevention plan to prevent sediment from being deposited into any waterways. Every construction project has studies done on it prior to construction for identifying any wetlands, areas of cultural importance, and identifying any endangered species or animals or plants out there. Making sure we pay attention to that, and keeping out of any sensitive areas and designing around those areas is important to protecting the environment.
What’s one of your proudest moments since you’ve been with Harvest Energy?
There are a lot of good things. We think one of the more unique things we’ve done here is at the end of last year, 2016, there were a lot of projects being qualified for the tax credit. We were involved in that. We qualified 13 projects in nine states. We did everything from procuring the storm water plans and filing the notices intent, to going out and finding a contractor who could do the work. We had nine different contractors, and had folks on each of the sites to oversee the work. All that was done in roughly two months.
By the time we were done and ready with the permitting and the contracting, construction started right after Thanksgiving, so it was very tight timing. It was during the winter, so there were some tough weather conditions. We successfully and safely qualified all of them. There was a good feeling as a team, definitely, that we were able to pull that off and deliver. For those projects, we have now excavated some foundations and installed sections of road. Qualifying these projects gives them the chance to be financially competitive and, ideally, reach operations.
Where do you see wind in 5 to 10 years?
In general, I think everything has a big question about what’s going to happen after 2020 when the tax credits expire, and there is quite a bit of uncertainty regarding the current tax reform plan. Personally, I think the expiration of the tax credit in 2020 may slow the installation of projects initially, but I think ultimately wind is competitive, and it’s a clean form of energy, and I don’t think that’s going to stop it. I think there’s a good likelihood that some of the states are going to step in and offer some incentives, and I think that may shape where most of the new project development will be. Then, I also see an increased focus on improving operational efficiencies of the existing projects. We’re already seeing some of that with the repowering of projects; I see that focus continuing, which would involve improving the technology and getting more out of what we have.
The proposed Senate tax reform bill honors the 2015 bipartisan phase-out terms for the wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC). The PTC has been used to enable billions in capital investment in rural America and to support thousands of manufacturing and construction jobs spanning 50 states. In 2015, the American wind industry tax reformed itself, supporting the bipartisan PATH Act to phase out the PTC through 2020, providing businesses with the certainty needed to continue to grow wind farms and jobs.
“The Senate tax reform bill keeps a promise to America’s more than 100,000 wind-energy workers and restores the confidence of businesses pouring billions of dollars into rural America,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association. “For a rapidly growing number of Americans, including our nation’s veterans, wind power means well-paying, stable jobs. Fortunately for Americans, the Senate language honors Congress’s commitment to these workers and Senators Grassley, Thune, Heller, and others are speaking out against retroactive tax hikes proposed in House tax legislation.”
The Senate’s tax reform bill rejects the House bill’s drastic changes to the PTC phase down, including retroactive rule changes that put at risk thousands of jobs and at least $50 billion of investment tied to projects already under construction and nearly complete. The House tax bill is already sending shock waves through the market. Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Goldman Sachs project new wind projects could be cut by more than half if the House language becomes law, also costing the jobs needed to build them and manufacture the 8,000 parts in a wind turbine.
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The impact of the House’s retroactive tax hike on the wind industry creates uncertainty for all industries. If Congress can arbitrarily retroactively change the rules, any business is forced to think twice before inking a deal to invest billions in U.S. infrastructure. Undermining infrastructure investment, including wind farms, hurts rural communities seeking to harness their resources as a source of jobs and drought-resistant income.
“The Senate has shown leadership in putting together a tax plan that works for U.S. wind workers, rural communities, and consumers who want affordable, reliable wind energy — but the fight to preserve America’s wind jobs isn’t over,” Kiernan said.
Navigant Consulting projects that maintaining stable investment policy through the five-year PTC phase out will create $85 billion in economic activity and help grow another 50,000 American jobs, including 8,000 jobs at U.S. factories, through the end of President Donald Trump’s first term.
Boosting production of U.S. wind energy helps increase American energy independence and security. The majority of the value of an American wind farm is made-in-the-USA by 102,500 workers and 500 factories across all 50 states.
Verano Capital, an American project developer headquartered in Santiago, recently announced the 47 MW solar project it initially developed was selected in Chile’s latest energy tender with a winning bid at $25.38/MWh, the lowest 24/7 block price combining solar and wind ever recorded in the history of energy tenders.
The winning bid was offered by a solar project that will be coupled with wind projects to offer a 24/7 supply over a 20-year period.
Dylan Rudney, CEO of Verano Capital, who originally designed and developed the solar project before partnering with the fund who eventually took the project to bid, expressed his satisfaction with the results of the tender.
“It was an extremely competitive tender,” he said. “Contracts were awarded at an average price of $32.50/MWh, which represents a 75 percent drop from the peak of $130/MWh reached in the 2013 tenders. These are the lowest renewable energy prices we have ever seen on a 24/7 energy auction anywhere in the world. This will be most directly beneficial to Chilean energy consumers, but it also underpins the changing trend in the energy industry, where conventional energy sources are no longer able to compete with increasingly low renewable energy costs.”
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Verano Capital, whose core business is to offer turnkey development, EPC, O&M, and asset management services to investment funds, has ambitious growth plans going forward. Verano is the leader in the PMGD* development market in Chile, with five operating utility-scale projects and five more to be commissioned in 2017. In addition, the company has more than 20 projects seeking equity under development, representing a 150 MW pipeline to be commissioned over the next 18 months.
Verano, which has offices in Chile, Argentina, and the U.S., is set to expand to Colombia this year. It also submitted a project totaling 100 MW in Argentina’s upcoming renewable energy tender.
“Our plan is to continue to strengthen our position in the booming Latin American renewable energy sector,” Rudney said. “Our broad range of in-house capabilities enables us to deliver complete projects, from early stage development all the way through to operation and maintenance.”
*PMGD projects (from the Spanish acronym, Pequeños Medios de Generación Distribuida) refers to projects with an installed capacity up to 9 MW and a connection to the distribution grid. Under the PMGD regime, projects get automatic grid access with a no curtailment guarantee, transmission toll reductions, as well as access to the stabilized pricing scheme.
The Cleantech Group (CTG) recently announced that ROMO Wind AG was named in the 2017 Global Cleantech 100 Ones to Watch list.
The GCT100 Ones to Watch list seeks to highlight a group of up-and-coming companies that are catching the eye of leading investors and corporations in the market. The companies made the top 250 in this year’s Global Cleantech 100 program and carry pockets of strong support among the GCT100’s Expert Panel, albeit they did not have quite enough market support to make the ninth edition of the Global Cleantech 100 list itself (which will be published January 22, 2018). As such, these companies represent this year’s Ones to Watch.
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“The Global Cleantech 100 program is our annual in-depth research exercise to identify the innovation companies leading players in the market are most excited by right now,” said CTG’s CEO Richard Youngman. “By the nature of the list, the Ones to Watch truly represent the next cadre of exciting disruptive companies.”
“We are honored to be named as one of the Global Cleantech 100 Ones to Watch companies, and it accentuates us in being on the right path,” said ROMO Wind CEO Jan Nikolaisen.
This year, a record number of nominations for the annual Global Cleantech 100 list were received: 12,300 distinct companies from 61 countries. These companies were weighted and scored to create a short list of 312 companies, with these nominees reviewed by the 86 members of Cleantech Group’s Expert Panel. The Ones to Watch list, a sister list to the annual Global Cleantech 100 list, is created from the top 250 of the shortlist. To qualify for either list, companies must be independent, for-profit cleantech companies that are not listed on any major stock exchange.
As technology and economics contribute to wind turbines getting bigger and more powerful with each passing year, the Department of Energy is hard at work making strides in the opposite direction.
By awarding contracts through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory under the DOE-funded Distributed Wind Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP), the goal is to make wind energy from small- and medium-sized turbines cost competitive with other distributed generation technologies and increase the number of wind-turbine designs certified to national safety and performance standards.
“There are a couple of reasons why we’ve invested in distributed wind,” said Patrick Gillman, a program manager with DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office. “We published this study with NREL in fall of 2016. It was the first quantitative assessment of the technical and resource potential for distributed wind deployment. And what we found was there are millions of sites around the country where distributed wind could potentially be viable. And those are small businesses, farms, homes — primarily in rural America — where distributed wind offers an opportunity for those consumers to take control of their own energy choices.”
Bergey Windpower of Norman, Oklahoma, recently redesigned the rotor on its flagship turbine. (Courtesy: DOE)
Global Leader
With the fact that the U.S. is a global leader in small wind-turbine manufacturing, it’s easy to see how that aspect of the wind industry becomes an important area to sustain, according to Gillman.
“A substantial portion of sales from U.S. small wind-turbine manufacturers goes to markets abroad,” he said. “And they play very competitively over there. So this is a sector where we think investment to reduce the cost, so that technology can become more competitive with both local retail rates of electricity and other distributed energy resources, is warranted to have a major impact on the electricity sector in the U.S.”
But Gillman said analysis has shown there also is a big potential market in rural and far suburban communities.
“I don’t think we’re claiming that you’re going to throw up a turbine on every roof in an urban area,” he said. “That’s not likely to be viable. But there are lots and lots of sites in rural and far suburban areas where small turbines or even medium-sized or larger turbines at commercial or industrial sites would make economic sense to meet electricity demands.”
Distributed Wind Goals
By supplying funding to research and development through the Competitiveness Improvement Project, the DOE hopes to lower costs on the overall picture of distributed wind.
“The goals of that are really twofold: One is to do cost shared R&D to reduce the levelized cost of energy from distributed wind systems to the point where it competes with retail rates and other distributed energy resources,” Gillman said. “The second goal of the program is to increase the number of systems that are certified to national standards, so that whomever it is who is buying a small wind turbine can be assured that it will perform as advertised. Both of those things help reduce the cost.”
That means giving small turbine manufacturers access to the same levels of innovation available to the larger wind industry, according to Gillman.
“These are typically small businesses; they’re not backed by billions of dollars in venture capital,” he said. “They’re not publicly traded companies. These are entrepreneurs, and so federal investment in research and development really helps them drive costs out of their machines. A little bit here goes a long way.”
Big Wins
With the fifth round of CIP funding, Gillman said the results already are producing some big wins.
“In a previous round, we had an award to Bergey Windpower of Norman, Oklahoma, to do a redesign of the rotor on their flagship turbine, which they had been selling more or less unchanged for a long time,” Gillman said. “Working with NREL and working through the R&D process with our funds, they were able to redesign that machine so that, for approximately the same installed cost, they’re going to get double the amount of energy out of it, which means your levelized cost as a consumer is cut in half.”
And what that translates into is wind is now able to compete against other renewables such as solar in areas that it couldn’t before, he said.
That Bergey turbine is currently undergoing certification and is expected to be on the market early in 2018.
New work from the CIP funds is being implemented by Northern Power Systems in Barre, Vermont. The company is redesigning its 100 kW NPS 100 turbine from the ground up, looking to significantly increase its rotor size, according to Gillman.
“The goal there, similarly, is to significantly lower the cost of energy that comes from that machine,” he said.
Innovation is Key
The R&D and innovation that is going into these small to medium turbines has brought about some outside-the-box ingenuity, according to Gillman.
“From the perspective of what the turbine looks like, we are agnostic to that,” he said. “What we basically say is: If you come to us with a machine and you make a credible case — this is competitively awarded funding — so if you can make a credible case to the experts at the lab who are soliciting these proposals that your technology, based on the physics, is viable, you can hit a relevant cost number, and based on your engineering, that cost number is believable, then you stand a good chance of receiving funding under this program, regardless of what your machine looks like. And on the certification side, regardless of what your machine looks like, if you can show us that you have a credible case that you will be able to meet the standards set out for certifying your machine for performance and safety, you stand a good chance of your funding getting certified.”
The CIP funding typically focuses on turbines around the 100 kW range.
Complementary, Not Competitive
Gillman said it is important to note the distinction between utility-scale wind and distributed wind.
“Our goal is not to make small wind turbines competitive with utility-scale wind or with utility-scale solar and natural gas,” he said. “There are inherent economies of scale that result in a lower LCOE from a multi-megawatt turbine than you’re likely to get to realistically in the foreseeable future with a much smaller machine. That said, that’s not what they need to do in order to get deployed and to make a contribution to the market. What these machines are designed to do is to help you as a consumer offset your electricity load at your site or in the context of small microgrid situation or off-grid situation.”
Distributed energy should be seen as complementary technologies.
“They have a lower hurdle to cross in the sense that you are looking at a small wind turbine,” Gillman said. “What you really want to know is: Is it cheaper than the cost of electricity I’m paying as a consumer now? Is it cheaper than the retail rates I’m paying? And is it cheaper than the alternative distributed energy resources that I could otherwise be using to meet my load? Is it cheaper than a solar voltaic system for my site?”
Another of the program’s goals is not to make distributed wind cheaper than, for example, distributed solar at every conceivable location, but to make it as competitive as it can be in enough locations in order for people to take advantage of the opportunity and build these machines, he said.
100 kW Range
The turbine sizes the CIP funding targets are machines from 1 kW up to 1 MW, according to Gillman. Even though 1 MW machines are eligible, he said the program typically focuses on machines around the 100 kW range.
A wide range of technologies at a wide range of sites will help reduce the overall costs of these machines, he said.
“If we can reduce the cost enough over the next five or 10 years, we think we can get distributed wind technology, small wind turbines, to the point where, in an unsubsidized market, they’re viable across a significant portion of sites across the country,” Gillman said.
LogiLube, LLC, a Laramie, Wyoming-based technology company, has entered into an agreement with electric utility Rocky Mountain Power for a field pilot of LogiLube’s SmartGear™ Gearbox Condition Monitoring technology.
The technology will be applied to three wind-turbine drivetrains at Rocky Mountain Power’s 99-MW High Plains Wind Project located on both sides of the Albany and Carbon county border near McFadden, Wyoming. The project, which contains 66 1.5-MW turbines, began operations in September 2009.
LogiLube’s SmartGear™ technology provides real-time lube oil condition monitoring (OCM), predictive analytics of lubricant remaining-useful-life (RUL), automated collection of in-service lube oil, and lubricant filter status. Real-time condition-based monitoring, combined with fleet-wide data analytics and real-time reporting, helps wind park operators avoid costly downtime and unnecessary maintenance. Maintenance plans previously based on a calendar schedule can now be tailored on an “as-needed” basis.
“The resulting innovative solutions could greatly enhance the reliability of wind-energy equipment, further reducing the levelized cost of electricity (LCoE),” said LogiLube CEO Bill Gillette.
LogiLube began operations in 2013 at the University of Wyoming’s (UW) Wyoming Technology Business Center (WTBC) entrepreneur incubator. LogiLube is sponsoring several UW senior design projects directly related to advancing the state of wind energy equipment reliability. LogiLube will assist students with their senior design projects by providing them access to challenging real-world engineering and business applications such as applying “smart solutions” to the High Plains Wind Project.
“Not only are we providing students with an opportunity to work on real-world problems, we are trying them out for size to see if they are a good fit for our company as potential employees,” Gillette said. “We will continue to work with universities, both locally and around the world, to develop the skills needed to compete in an ever-changing landscape of Big Data predictive analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI), the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) based sensors and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business models.”
In April 2017, Rocky Mountain Power unveiled Energy Vision 2020, a $3.5 billion project that will add new wind generation, upgrade existing wind farms, and construct new transmission. This plan will help diversify Wyoming’s economy, create jobs, and add to the tax base. These investments mark a major expansion of the amount of clean, renewable energy serving Rocky Mountain Power customers and will meet customer needs and improve customer value.
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead has said that Rocky Mountain Power’s Energy Vision 2020 is an ambitious plan that will diversify Wyoming’s economy, expand markets, present workforce training opportunities, add jobs, and will strengthen the tax base in local communities.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy recently inaugurated its new rotor blade factory in Tangier (Morocco), an event chaired by Morocco’s Minister of Industry, Investment, Trade and Digital Economy, Moulay Hafid El Alamy, and Markus Tacke, CEO of Siemens Gamesa.
The first blade plant of a wind-turbine manufacturer in Africa and the Middle East is ready to offer wind turbine blades “100-percent made in Morocco.” To equip the SWT-DD-130 platform turbines (up to 4.2MW power rating), B63-10 blades with a length of 63 meters are produced for export to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as for local projects.
The plant is ready to produce other blade models in the future, which could reach up to 75 meters. These integral blades are based on licensed technologies and made of composite materials.
The plant of 37,500 square meters, which started production in April 2017, is in the industrial zone of Tanger Automotive City, about 35 kilometers from Tanger-Med port and ideally positioned between Europe and Africa.
Markus Tacke, CEO of Siemens Gamesa, explained the solid business rationale for this project.
“This factory is good for our company and a solid business decision,” he said. “We invest where we see strong business opportunities, and the opportunities here in Morocco are stronger than ever before. This location in Tangier provides us with direct access to some of the most important markets of tomorrow — here in Morocco, throughout the Middle East, in Europe, and in the Mediterranean region.”
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In the context of the Accelerated Industrialization Plan launched in April 2014 by the Ministry of Industry, Investment, Trade, and Digital Economy, the blade plant will create 600 jobs, as well as an estimated number of 500 auxiliary jobs. The Minister of Industry, Investment, Trade and Digital Economy, El Alamy, underlined the importance of this project.
“The first wind-turbine blades in Africa and the Middle East will be produced in Tangier, and it represents a pride for the Kingdom,” he said. “This pioneer project allows localizing value and announces the development of an ecosystem ‘renewable energy industry,’ which reinforces the strategic choices of Morocco, under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, aimed at the development of a green economy.”
A training center of 3,500 square meters was created to facilitate the knowledge transfer from Denmark to Tangier. The learning process ensures the complete transfer of the technical and process skill sets necessary to optimize the manufacturing process.
TMSA (Tanger Med Special Agency), responsible for the planning, development, and management of the Tanger Med Port complex and industrial platform, has shown great support and insight in the achievement of this project.
“The Siemens Gamesa project confirms the compelling offer of Tanger Med for multinationals,” said Fouad Brini, president of TMSA. “We are delighted about the uniqueness of Tanger Med’s value proposition, combining quality of the infrastructure and the perfect alignment between port and industrial zone that met Siemens Gamesa’s expectations.”
“In Morocco, the demand for electricity increased at an average annual rate of 6.7 percent from 2003 to 2013,” said Ricardo Chocarro, Onshore Business CEO of Siemens Gamesa. “Thus, renewable energy is particularly attractive, offering a secure supply of domestically produced power and contributing to energy independence. Our commitment to the government and people of Morocco is clear: We will work together with you in meeting your energy challenges, today and in the future.”
The new blade factory plays an important role in contributing to Morocco’s national program to achieve production of electricity from clean energy to up to 52 percent by 2030, of which 20 percent is generated by wind. The 850-MW project that will be built by the consortium Siemens Gamesa, Nareva, and ENEL represents a major milestone in this goal.
With 72 percent market share in Morocco, Siemens Gamesa delivered key wind-energy projects including Tarfaya (300 MW), Tangiers (140 MW), Essaouira (60 MW), and Haouma (50MW).
Siemens Gamesa is a market leader in Africa with more than 15 years of existence and 2.1 GW installed capacity, in countries such as Morocco, as well as in Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia, Mauritania, Kenya, and Mauritius Islands.
Altitec, the turbine blade access and repair specialist, recently opened the doors on Altitec South Africa, following last year’s signing of a joint venture with Obelisk, a provider of infrastructure services to the global renewable energy, telecommunications, and power markets. Based in Cape Town, the new company will deliver turbine rotor-blade inspection and repair services across Sub-Saharan Africa, and offer certified training courses to help new technicians enter the industry.
The South African wind-energy market has continued to grow rapidly in recent years and now comprises 19 operational wind farms with a total nameplate capacity of 1.5 GW.
“Wind power has great potential to become a significant part of South Africa’s energy mix,” said Tom Dyffort, managing director of Altitec. “Despite recent delays in signing the Window 4 PPAs, the market is expected to see significant medium- to long-term growth in its installed capacity, and we are therefore investing now in the technical skills and job development needed to match future demand. Equally, and as markets across Sub-Saharan Africa expand, and the number of wind turbines and rotor blades increase, high-quality blade repair and maintenance programs will be key to ensuring this energy source delivers reliably.”
Jobs and Skills
Over the past four years, more than 100,000 jobs have been created by the industry in South Africa alone. Continuing in this vein, Altitec South Africa, under the guidance of Altitec’s London team, will open a second Altitec Academy, offering its certified training courses and looking to attract new turbine blade technicians from across the continent.
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“Leading up to the launch of Altitec South Africa, we have developed a strong relationship with Obelisk, benefiting from their experience and understanding of the local market to support our Europe-based turbine blade technicians as they serviced wind-energy contracts for our clients in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Dyffort said. “As the wind industry grows and matures across the region, this work will need to be delivered by local teams. Altitec South Africa will ensure our clients can benefit from local expertise and experience.”
The local entity will take advantage of Obelisk’s experience in the wind-turbine service industry to support three Altitec-trained rotor-blade technician teams, as they start to deliver services directly from their new South African base. The joint venture will allow Altitec to deliver services to clients in the region more efficiently, particularly during the high season for repairs between January and April.
“Since we first started working with Altitec, we have continually been impressed by their knowledge and expertise and their ability to continuously raise the bar for rotor-blade inspection and repair,” said Riccardo Buehler, managing director of Obelisk Energy. “We are excited to further strengthen our relationship with them and together start Altitec South Africa. Altitec’s vast technical expertise on rotor-blade services, combined with the experience of Obelisk in the Sub-Saharan Market, will allow us to provide high quality services to our clients.”
Since 2010, Altitec technicians have provided regular inspections on more than 5,000 blades and 1,500 turbines throughout the U.K., Europe, and key emerging wind markets around the world. The Altitec Academy, first established at Altitec’s headquarters in London, U.K., is an industry-certified program to teach inspection and repair skills to more than 180 new rope-access blade-repair and inspection technicians every year.
Juvent SA, the biggest Swiss wind farm, is to rely on condition monitoring systems from the Bachmann Monitoring GmbH for intelligent turbine automation.
Bachmann, experts for condition monitoring systems (CMS), was awarded the contract in November following a call for tenders by Juvent SA and its main shareholder, the BKW Group. The internationally active energy and infrastructure enterprise has chosen Bachmann to equip the biggest Swiss wind farm Juvent with the Omega Guard CMS. The wind farm is situated on the heights of Mont Crosin and Mont Soleil in the Bernese Jura, and is comprised of 16 Vestas V90 and V112 wind turbines.
Everything under control from afar
“We will already begin to deliver and install our CMS in the 1,200-meter altitude wind farm this year,” said Holger Fritsch, managing director of Bachmann Monitoring GmbH.
Considering the approaching winter, this is a challenge in terms of logistics and time, but one that Fritsch and his team are more than willing to take on. The data from all the rotating power transmission components — main bearing, generator, and gears — will be constantly diagnosed by means of the web-based system. This means that it will be possible to plan repairs for each and every one of the 16 turbines that were put into operation between 2010 and 2016 in good time. This not only saves money for service team logistics but also prevents long downtimes and the possibility that minor defects can turn into expensive consequential damages.
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“We particularly like the collaborative partnership because it means that in the future we can also manage all the data ourselves,” said Johannes Vogel, managing director of Juvent SA.
Tested and found to be good
A strategic partnership also has been reached in Germany between Berlin-based BKW Wind Service GmbH and Bachmann Monitoring. After an extensive test of the CMS, BKW Deutschland decided to embark on a path to establishing health monitoring for its wind turbines together with Bachmann Monitoring. BKW’s German operation currently operates 10 wind farms. The test phase saw its wind farm in Bockelwitz, Saxony, equipped with the Bachmann CMS. Other wind farms will follow.
Used in hundreds of wind-turbine installations, the Titan Enterprises OG2-700 flowmeter is a well-established monitoring device that provides valuable data helping to ensure safe and reliable operation.
Although China leads the world in the amount of power generated from wind, Denmark has the highest generation rate per capita by a long way. In 2015, this small country was generating more than 2 MW/h per person, well ahead of China’s 0.26. This relatively high generation rate has resulted in a local industry that produces large numbers of wind turbines for the rest of the world. One of the fundamental requirements of ensuring reliable and efficient wind-turbine operation is to keep the heavily loaded main bearings fully lubricated in all operating conditions.
Titan Enterprises was approached to supply a small flowmeter to monitor the grease being supplied into a wind turbine main bearing mechanism. For simplicity, the grease mechanism is mechanically driven from the blade rotation, and therefore the flow rate is potentially low if the blades are barely rotating. This grease flow is crucial, and an alarm must be tripped and the rotation stopped should the grease flow be insufficient. In addition, if the lubricant supply line became blocked, the flowmeter should be able to withstand pressure that could potentially rise to several hundred Bar. An extra requirement for the required flow measurement device was for a low-power system, as the backup system was battery powered.
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Drawing upon its proven OG2 flowmeter that fulfilled the low-flow measurement specifications on lubricating viscous fluids, Titan Enterprises redesigned this meter to operate at 700 Bar in a small body and fitted a miniature reed switch detector to keep the power requirements to a minimum.
Fully IP67/NEMA 4 compliant, the OG2-700 flowmeter is optimized for measuring the flow of viscous fluids and liquids at pressures of up to 700 Bar and temperatures up to 150 degrees C. With a standard flow range from 0.03 to 4.0 liters/minute on 30Cstk oil, the OG2-700 can routinely achieve outstanding accuracy (0.5 percent) and repeatability (0.1 percent). Combining robust 316 stainless steel construction and proven technology ensures the OG2-700 flowmeter provides reliable, accurate operation over an extended product lifetime. At the heart of the OG2-700 flowmeter are a pair of toothed oval gears — one of which contains chemically resistant magnets — that rotate freely on robust bearings. Rotation is detected through the chamber wall by a Hall effect detector or a reed switch giving approximately 1,100 pulses per liter passed. The output is an NPN pulse or a voltage-free contact closure, either of which is readily interfaced with most electronic displays or recording devices. This combination of materials and technology ensures a long-life product with reliable, accurate operation throughout.
A partnership between renewable energy industry leaders has announced the final details of a project that will help accelerate the transition to an energy mix led by renewable energy and aim to provide even more reliable and consistent renewable energy production adapted to energy demand and grid requirements.
Developed by Australia’s international renewable energy company, Windlab, with support from Vestas, the global leader in sustainable energy solutions, the innovative 60.2 MW Kennedy Energy Park phase I is the world’s first utility-scale, on-grid wind, solar, and battery energy storage project. Designed to supply consistent and reliable renewable electricity that can help meet power demand in Australia, Kennedy Phase I can also shape a path forward for how Australia and other countries can integrate more renewable energy into their energy mix and address grid stability challenges that have been a traditional restraint to greater uptake of renewable energy.
The project is in Flinders Shire in central north Queensland, Australia, which has world-class wind and solar resources. Kennedy Phase I will feature 43.2 MW of Vestas’ V136-3.6 MW wind turbines, 15 MW of solar, and 2 MW/4 MWh Li Ion battery storage, all managed by a Vestas customized control system that will operate the hybrid power plant.
In order to support further hybrid projects in Australia, Windlab, with Vestas, will share the knowledge and experience from building and operating Kennedy Phase I through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
“Kennedy Phase I is a first-of-its-kind project in Australia, and it will lead the nation in the deployment of innovative, high reliability renewable energy capable of closely matching network power demand,” said Windlab CEO Roger Price. “We have a great working relationship with Vestas, whose products and service capabilities were instrumental in managing challenging grid connections and compliance, and develop a competitive cost of energy.”
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Through the complementary combination of wind and solar energy, Kennedy Phase I can deliver a more constant and demand-driven energy production and increased capacity factor. The Vestas control system will provide the capability for wind and solar to work together as an integrated power plant and comply with grid requirements.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to join Windlab on this project, which places Vestas at the forefront of sustainable energy solutions and is a testament to how we are providing solutions that make renewable energy more cost-competitive and grid compliant,” said Johnny Thomsen, senior vice president of product management for Vestas. “With 35 years of experience in meeting complex grid requirements and developing advanced power plant controllers, Vestas has the foundation to also lead the way in hybrid solutions.”
“Hybrid solutions combining wind, solar, and storage hold a huge potential for Australia,” said Clive Turton, president of Vestas Asia Pacific. “Kennedy Phase I has the potential to leverage Australia’s abundant renewable energy resources and be a giant leap forward for the country in reaping those resources, while ensuring a consistent and reliable electricity supply. Kennedy shows that Vestas, together with visionary partners like Windlab, can provide the solutions.”
Vestas also will provide a 15-year Active Output Management 4000 (AOM 4000) service agreement, which includes a full-scope service package for the wind turbines as well as scheduled maintenance for the solar panels, battery storage, and electrical systems.
A consortium between Vestas and Quanta Services will deliver the engineering, procurement, and construction of the project, which is expected to be in operation by the end of 2018.
This project is planned to be the first phase of Windlab’s larger 1,200 MW Kennedy Energy Park, which seeks to deliver significant benefits to north Queensland and Australia in reduced emissions and sustainable energy generation.
Global OEM HTL Group has launched its new in-house service innovation: i-calibrate.
Offering complete certification traceability, i-calibrate ensures that the user has complete control of calibration and test services via a simple-to-use portal.
Using QR codes on each tool, i-calibrate offers users instant, paperless, real-time access to calibration and test certification for their entire inventory.
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Complementing HTL’s existing calibration and testing service, the new software presents a paperless, digital calibration and test process as well as an automated reminder feature; i-calibrate offers users 24-hour access to the most important calibration and test information including certificates and automated reminders, from any smart device.
“Being part of an industry where new developments are constant and fundamental to improving customer experience means that our No. 1 priority is to develop new product and service solutions to make our customer’s lives easier,” said Stephen Jones, CEO, HTL Group. “With the launch of i-calibrate, we aim to bring a complete calibration and test service to market which ensures that there is nothing we can’t take care of for our customers. Instant access to important calibration and test information including automated reminders allows the customer to control and manage their own calibration and test maintenance at ease.”
I-calibrate works by printing QR codes on each calibration label that records all current certification, providing a unique way for the user to access certificates from any smart device for their complete controlled bolting fleet, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, from any location.
Moog, a designer and manufacturer of high-performance motion control products and solutions, has earned a safety certification from TÜV Rheinland for the new Moog Pitch Servo Drive 3.
TÜV Rheinland is a global testing service provider and specialist for functional safety. Moog’s new Pitch System 3 is responsible for guaranteeing the safe operation of wind turbines. The feathering safety function supplied by the Moog Pitch System 3 Servo Drive alters a wind turbine’s blade pitch at the rotor hub to minimize the torque applied by the wind, avoiding excessive speed of the turbine. As a result, the pitch servo drive is classified as a safety component.
“The safety built into Moog Pitch System 3 helps wind-farm operators in three important ways,” said Dr. Tobias Theopold, technology development manager business unit wind for Moog. “The technology avoids hazards from the wind turbine and therefore lowers the insurance fees for wind-farm operators. As the safety-related development of Moog Pitch System 3 required an IEC 61508 and 13849 compliant V-model process including intensive failure insertion testing, this also boosts reliability of the overall product, which of course lowers downtime and reduces the levelized cost of energy.”
Moog established the benchmark for safety with its previous versions of the Moog Pitch Servo Drive when they were certified by TÜV Rheinland in 2012. With the Moog Pitch Servo Drive 3, Moog has received independent validation that this product also will perform outside the specification at extreme environmental conditions and in cases of unexpected failure.
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Along with certifying the safety of its new servo drive, Moog improved the architecture of Pitch System 3 to meet IEC 61508 and ISO 13849, standards governing wind-turbine safety. First, Moog’s engineers provide a safety function referred to as Safe Feathering Run (SFR), which automatically moves and stops a turbine’s blades in the feathering position. Second, Moog included a Safe Stop function called STOP1 to arrest the motion of an individual blade during manual movement of the blades. The Safe Stop function meets the ISO 13849 standard that addresses the requirements that blades must not perform an unintended move when people are working inside the wind turbine’s hub.
“To protect a wind turbine against overvoltage from the grid and lightning strikes, we included a new component called the Moog Pitch Interface Module,” Theopold said. “Our new interface module is a firewall to protect the blades against extreme environmental conditions and so-called common cause failures (CCFs). These failures are most critical because they can affect each of the pitch axes and therefore can put turbine safety at risk.”
Moog also asked lightning protection specialist DEHN to test Pitch System 3 (including its servo drive and interface module) inside a high voltage lab, subjecting the system to multiple lightning strikes reaching more than 260,000 amps. Afterward, the system was still fully operational and performed a Safe Feathering Run.
Canadian renewable energy developer Sequoia Energy Inc. has successfully used Vaisala’s Triton Wind Profiler remote sensing unit to secure financing and cut wind measurement costs in central Canada, where sub-zero temperatures, snow, and ice regularly disrupt measurement campaigns. The device, deployed in tandem with a shorter, 60-meter meteorological (met) tower, has enabled Sequoia to identify sites for further project development and reduce vertical wind-shear extrapolation uncertainty without installing costly hub-height met towers.
As the North American wind market continues to mature, project developers are increasingly looking to access more complex and remote locations to take advantage of untapped wind resources. However, these regions’ climates — as well as the increasing height of wind turbines — often raise a number of challenges for wind measurement requiring innovative and efficient means of resource assessment.
“You can only put met towers in certain places determined by consultants, landowners, and, of course, the project terrain,” said Dan Cox, manager of business development at Sequoia. “Using the Triton in combination with a shorter met tower gives us better representation of hub-height wind speeds, while avoiding the cost of putting up a hub-height met mast at 100 or 120 meters. The cost of such a tower is significantly higher than the cost of a Triton and can be difficult to maintain even in the best conditions, let alone the challenging environments of a cold climate measurement campaign. Using the Triton in this way allows us to quickly gather hub-height measurements and lower the uncertainty of our long-term energy predictions, which improves our chances of securing financing and at favorable terms.”
Overcoming Obstacles
Cold climates such as those in central Canada have the potential to wreak havoc on measurement campaigns. Tall met towers can collapse from ice buildup, mechanical sensors can freeze, and many remote sensing systems that are not engineered with power consumption in mind require constant maintenance and refueling.
While installing smaller met towers can reduce costs, it is then often necessary to extrapolate wind-flow conditions at taller wind-turbine hub heights, introducing uncertainty into the data. However, by pairing a Triton with a 60 meter met tower, Sequoia has been able to lower the uncertainty of this vertical shear extrapolation, with positive results at the project financing stage.
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In addition, the Triton’s easy mobility allows Sequoia to deploy and redeploy its fleet of Triton units at a number of locations. Along with the system’s low power consumption and proven robustness in cold conditions, Vaisala’s SkyServe package, which provides secure online access to data and technical support in the field, helps the company further control its measurement campaign budgets.
Growing Adoption
Vaisala is an expert in wind measurement, project assessment, and energy forecasting. Its extensive Remote Sensing Revolution report outlines how the use of remote sensing technology by developers, investors, operators, and consultants has evolved within the wind industry. The report also illustrates further examples of how remote sensing is being used in cold climates worldwide. For example, supporting developers in the northern reaches of Finland.
“In particularly challenging conditions, such as the arctic winters of central Canada and Scandinavia, the Triton offers an efficient and cost-effective means of collecting hub-height wind measurements,” said Pascal Storck, director of Renewable Energy at Vaisala. “Robust enough to withstand the ice and snow and continue collecting accurate wind data, the device itself can easily be moved from site to site reducing the need to install expensive hub-height met masts. Its robustness also means it is increasingly being used in cold climates worldwide, and our Remote Sensing Revolution report will highlight this growing trend.”
Senvion, a leading global manufacturer of wind turbines, has been issued notice to proceed under a contract to install the first 35 turbines of the 59-turbine Lincoln Gap wind farm in South Australia.
The Lincoln Gap wind farm will feature the Senvion 3.6M140 EBC turbine, which will be the first from Senvion’s 3-MW range to be installed in Australia. Senvion first announced it had a conditional contract in place to deliver more than 300 MW of wind energy for Nexif Energy for the Lincoln Gap wind farm in South Australia and the Glen Innes wind farm in New South Wales in February 2017.
“This effective contract for the installation of the first 35 turbines at the Lincoln Gap wind farm is a significant milestone for Senvion,” said Raymond Gilfedder, CEO and managing director of Senvion Australia. “It also marks the introduction of the Senvion 3.6M140 turbine to Australia. This technology is very well suited to the Australian market and will ensure that the wind farm will continue to be a high performing asset for the coming decades.”
The Senvion 3.6M140 EBC turbine is one of Senvion’s biggest onshore turbines designed for moderate and strong wind speeds. The new turbine is equipped with the innovative load-reducing pitch control system Eco Blade Control (EBC) technology enabling optimized load management even in challenging wind conditions. The 3.6M140 EBC also features a newly designed steel tower and a larger rotor diameter of 140 meters, which generates high yields even at lower wind speeds. The rotor blades feature the new Rodpack technology, ensuring a lighter blade design. The first prototype installation of the 3.6M140 EBC was completed in Husum, Germany, in September.
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The Lincoln Gap wind farm is near Port Augusta, South Australia. The first 35 turbines installed will deliver 126 MW of clean, renewable energy to Australian consumers. This stage of the project will be operational by the third quarter of 2018. Work is already well advanced on the early works for the remaining 24 turbines comprising the second phase of the Lincoln Gap development. When complete, the Lincoln Gap wind farm will produce enough energy to power 155,000 households in South Australia. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is the financier for the project, and Nexif Energy is providing the equity. Senvion worked closely with Nexif Energy to support achievement of financial close.
“We are pleased to be working with Senvion on our first wind project in Australia, and we appreciate the support of Senvion in the development of local industry and community engagement strategies,” said Srinivas Rao, Executive Vice President Projects and Operations of Nexif Energy.
“Senvion has been a valuable partner in the progression of the Lincoln Gap wind farm through development, and has provided valuable support as we worked to optimize the contracting program,” said Zeki Akbas, CEO of Nexif Energy’s Australian business.
Siemens Gamesa has secured an order from the Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute for the supply of 34 MW in China.
Specifically, the company will supply 13 of its G114-2.625 MW turbines at the Hubei Energy Lichuan Zhonghao wind farm in Lichuan Qiyueshan, in the province of Hubei. Delivery of the turbines has already started with commissioning of the facility slated for December. Siemens Gamesa will also operate and maintain the turbines for the next five years.
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The development is owned by the Hubei Energy Group, which has awarded Siemens Gamesa two other orders in the past (contracting 50 MW and 14 MW on those occasions).
Siemens Gamesa’s Chinese presence dates back 30 years, during which time it has established itself as one of the leading players in the wind-power industry. To date, the company has installed more than 4,600 MW in the Asian giant.
A dropped tool can damage equipment, as well as nearby vehicles. And a dropped object can affect productivity. Anyone who has had to do a bonus climb can testify to that. Significant costs — both obvious and hidden — can add up in the absence of an effective drop-prevention program.
