November 2011

It’s a typically American story. During the late forties the son of immigrants bought a dump truck to haul coal and gravel in and around Clinton, Indiana. He worked hard, saved his money, and eventually bought two dilapidated bulldozers with the idea of combining the parts to make a single working machine. Like many an entrepreneur before him he operated out of his house, using the back yard as the maintenance shop. His name was Herman White, and from such humble beginnings emerged a company that today is involved in heavy highway and demolition work, asphalt and concrete paving, bridge and site development, underground utility operations, industrial maintenance, hazardous response and remediation, and power plant and refinery construction. In addition, White Construction is one of the premier wind farm specialists in the United States.

Just as its founder built the company incrementally, White Construction has grown from providing piecemeal wind farm services—designing and installing service roads, for instance—to offering turnkey construction packages to owner/developers. “Today we are a self-performing balance of plant EPC contractor,” according to Jamison M. Krynski, senior business development manager. “We’ll pave your roads, pour foundations, erect your towers and turbines, install generators, mount your blades, and wire the whole thing together. And then we’ll handle your mechanical maintenance from that point forward, because we’ve already got the equipment that put it all up there.”

Since 2004, when the company worked on one of its first wind farm projects at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, White Construction has completed several projects totaling more than 4,000MW of operating electrical assets at sites located around the United States and Canada. Along the way White has learned many lessons, “paying our tuition” as Krynski says, describing the years of hard work gaining experience that puts a company at the top of its class. As an example, late or uncoordinated deliveries to the job site create project delays, increasing the “burn rate”—or the project’s daily operational costs—dramatically. One solution would be for the contractor to handle logistics in order to make sure towers were delivered on the right date, but also ahead of the rotor blades. But it’s not as simple as naming the day on which shipments should arrive.

“Every state has a completely different set of rules to follow, so there’s a great deal of permitting involved,” he explains. “And some have a limit on how many highway patrol escorts are allowed during a given day or week, and you need that kind of help when you’re moving these immense tower sections, which are getting larger every year. That’s something you’ve got to learn how to deal with effectively. So logistics is something we’re prepared to handle, even though that’s usually covered by the OEM.”

The biggest challenge facing contractors in the coming years, and one confronting the entire North American wind industry, involves the supply chain. With turbines and related hardware constantly growing larger in order to reap greater returns, transportation modes must respond accordingly. And while Schnabel trailers—huge, self-loading and unloading tractor beds—with expanded capacity have recently been introduced, there are too few available to have an immediate impact. That’s just one reason why it’s critical for wind farm construction companies to have experience not only in basics such as earthmoving and pouring foundations, but in peripheral operations such as transportation and maintenance. “The more versatile and creative you can be on the jobsite, the better you’ll be able to deal with the inevitable delays you’ll run across,” Krynski says. “Understanding how these projects unfold when you’re facing large, spread-out jobsites that can be as large as 30 square miles of open fields requires a unique tactical approach, and the only way you can build that kind of confidence is by spending years gaining experience in every conceivable situation.”

White has clearly gained the confidence of its customers, with many long-term relationships stretching back over the years, and with many completed wind farm projects as a result. “Our goal from the day we entered the wind energy market was to eventually be able to offer a cradle to grave approach, from preconstruction to all the engineering, procurement, and construction services required, and then lifetime support of the project,” Krynski says. “Today, that’s exactly what White Construction can provide.”

To learn more:
Call (800) 355-9401 or (765) 832-8526. E-mail information@whiteconstruction.com or go to www.whiteconstruction.com.  

To understand someone’s situation, as the old saying goes, you’ve got to walk a mile in their shoes. That is certainly the case with Merritt Brown, vice president of Rev1 Renewables, who brought 25 years of experience working at power plants around the world when he joined the company in 2009. “I managed nine wind energy projects in California, as well,” he says, “so I have a deep understanding of third-party services both as a provider and on the receiving end as a customer.”

That understanding includes taking knowledge gained in related energy markets and “systemizing” it to address the highly specific needs of the wind industry. A division of Rev1 Power Services, which was co-founded by longtime power generation professionals Rick Ehrgott and Dick Emery in 2001, Rev1 Renewables provides a host of services to the wind industry. They include construction management and support, technical consulting and training, wind project staffing, gearbox inspections and oil replacement, BOP infrared testing, and blade and pole line inspections. In particular, end of warranty (EOW) turbine inspections have taken on added importance throughout North America in recent years.

“Wind farms typically feature turbines manufactured by the same OEM, so we employ wind technicians who have in-depth training on a particular make,” Brown explains. “We ascertain what type of turbine a customer is using in advance, and then send the corresponding specialist to service their needs.”

In addition, inspection records are documented via the company’s proprietary Rev1 Tracker maintenance management system and posted online so that customers can log in and access information from any location, at any time. So a scenario beginning with a quality assurance (QA) review during construction, followed by periodic turbine checkups, and then an EOW inspection would provide a detailed record for ongoing O&M programs. “I think the industry is at a real tipping point right now in terms of beginning to understand the value of ongoing maintenance to minimize downtime and extend a turbine’s service life,” he says. “Smart owners and operators are seeing the value of strategic planning that begins from construction of the project.”

Rev1 Renewables is thinking strategically as well, planting seeds today for expected growth in the coming years. One example is its relationship with Mokpo National University in South Korea, which has been mandated by the country’s government to provide education services for its nascent offshore wind industry. Known as the Rev1 Academy, the program involves training second and third-year engineering students to become offshore wind technicians, bolstering renewable energy in a country that currently imports approximately 75 percent of its energy needs. “Hyundai, Samsung, and Doosan are all building MW-class turbines, and we are beginning to see them here in the United States, so we know that they are very serious players in this industry,” Brown says. “And creating this curriculum will also lay the groundwork for our future support activities once offshore development gains traction throughout North America.”

The company is involved in a number of collaborations, in fact. One involves the Schaeffler Group, which produces bearings for the wind industry and also gives Rev1 access to a full range of condition monitoring and maintenance products. Its partnership with Tech Safety Lines (TSL) provides fall protection, competent climber, and self-rescue training to all Rev1 technicians, and its relationship with Natural Power allows it to offer its customers remote monitoring services through its international wind project control room. Rev1’s newest partner is Gearbox Express, which remanufactures gearboxes using OEM parts and specifications. These types of relationships are seen as a way to leverage partner expertise and add value to Rev1 Renewables’ service portfolio.

With the ultimate goal of providing the full scope of O&M services, Rev1 Renewables is taking a stepwise approach to its growth, tailoring years of experience in all sectors of power generation to fit the specific needs of the wind industry. It is also expanding its physical footprint, adding staff in Southern California and Illinois to its existing locations in Arizona, Florida, Vermont, and Texas. “We think that wind farm owners and operators are growing more aware of the benefits of developing a long-term relationship with their O&M service providers,” Brown says, “because the earlier in the process we get involved, the more data we will be able to gather along the way to keep turbines spinning long after their OEM warranty has expired.”

To learn more:
Call (866) 738-1669 or go online to www.rev1renewables.com.

When Romax Technology was considering the best location for its new office supporting the North American wind industry, a number of factors played into its decision to choose Boulder, Colorado. One was its existing relationship with the nearby National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), since the company was already a leading member of its Gearbox Reliability Collaborative. Another was its ideal location for better supporting U.S.-based customers, which include wind turbine OEMs and component manufacturers.

“Many overseas manufacturers wanting to introduce their turbines into this market will first have them tested at NREL’s National Wind Test Center,” according to Chris Halse, engineering manager at Romax’s U.S. Wind Technology Center, adding that the company conducted due diligence in the development of the center’s 5MW test stand. “In some cases we’ve already worked with them on their drivetrain simulations, so there would be a certain degree of continuity in being involved in their American launch. And it would be a great introduction to manufacturers that we haven’t had the opportunity to work with yet. Plus, who wouldn’t want to live in a beautiful place like Boulder?

”It’s also a place that’s centrally located to some of the most productive wind sites in the country, a fact that was not lost on the many wind component manufacturers that have built facilities in Colorado in recent years. “It’s an ideal environment for us to exercise our three core strengths,” says Andy Poon, the UK-based director of renewable energy and son of the company’s founder and CEO, S.Y. Poon, Ph.D. “The first is the simulation software we’ve developed, and the second is our work in helping create new drivetrain designs for wind. But it’s really the third area, troubleshooting, that harkens back to our earliest days. When my father started bringing his first Romax paychecks home, they were for engineering consulting services for failure analysis.”That’s a potent mix, especially when considering the critical role that technology will play in bringing wind energy into the mainstream, making the equipment more productive, with longer service life and fewer maintenance requirements, and less expensive to produce. “Whether it’s designing, testing, operating, or improving upon existing designs, we have extensive experience in the complete loop of a turbine’s service life,” Poon says. “We want to be involved in the whole lifecycle of the drivetrain.” At the core of Romax’s simulation and design activities is its proprietary RomaxWIND software. Described as “a virtual product development and simulation environment for the design and analysis of wind turbine gearboxes, bearings, and drivetrains,” the software package provides a unique understanding of how components interact within drivetrain systems, helping designers avoid problems caused by system deflections such as spline, bearing, and gear mesh misalignment. RomaxWIND is an offshoot of the company’s successful RomaxDesigner software used primarily in the automotive, power generation, aerospace, off-highway, and construction industries for the past two decades.

As for its broad range of consulting services, they include strategic consulting, design services, review and optimization, analysis and modeling, certification and testing, and training, among others. “Just as we use our simulation software to leverage better gearbox, drivetrain, and component designs, we possess years of experience in a wide variety of markets to the benefit of the wind power industry,” Halse says. “We’re also in a position to help our clients understand the condition monitoring data they’re gathering. It’s one thing to record that information, but quite another to harness it in keeping your most important assets operational and generating revenue.”

Poon agrees, saying that “more and more we’re finding ourselves working with operators to help them interpret condition monitoring information, because you want to be able to read the signals your equipment is sending in order to avoid failure in the first place. We’ve found that owner/operators in Europe tend to focus on preventive maintenance, and the U.S. market has now matured to the point that it’s becoming the primary concern there as well. And that’s much more productive than waiting for a breakdown before addressing the root problem.”

Established more than a year ago—and overseen by vice president of engineering Ashley Crowther, Ph.D.—the Romax U.S. Wind Technology Center has already made a name for itself as an invaluable resource to the North American wind industry, helping pave the path toward a brighter and greener future. “We’re looking to position ourselves as drivetrain thought leaders for manufacturers, designers, and owner/operators,” says Poon. “We want to play a central role in helping shape the future of the wind industry.” 

To learn more:
Call (303) 351-5418, e-mail sales_us@romaxtech.com, or go online to www.romaxtech.com/wind.