Following the announcement in October 2017 of the selection of MHI Vestas as preferred turbine supplier for the Moray East offshore wind project, Moray East has recently signed a conditional agreement with MHI Vestas Offshore Wind for the supply and installation of 100 MHI Vestas V164-9.5 MW offshore wind turbine generators.
Moray Offshore Windfarm (East) Limited, known as Moray East, is a 950 MW offshore wind project 22 kilometers from the coast of Scotland, which in 2017 won a Contract for Difference (CfD) from the U.K. Government to supply electricity at 57.50 pounds/MWhr, representing a significant cost reduction compared with similar projects under construction today (typically 140 pounds/MWhr).
Moray Offshore Windfarm (East) Limited, known as Moray East, is a 950 MW offshore wind project 22 kilometers from the coast of Scotland. (Courtesy: MHI Vestas)
In May, Moray East announced Fraserburgh as the preferred operations and maintenance port for the project.
Moray East project director Oscar Diaz said, “This agreement comes after the selection of MHI Vestas as preferred turbine supplier, and Fraserburgh as preferred port from which operation and maintenance of the turbines will be undertaken. I am grateful for the cooperation with our partners in industry and beyond, which will enable the project to reach another important milestone.”
MHI Vestas CEO Philippe Kavafyan said, “With this conditional agreement, we are exceptionally pleased to see Moray East move one step closer to Final Investment Decision. The supply of 100 units of our V164-9.5 MW turbines, the most powerful commercially available turbine in the world, is confirming MHI Vestas Offshore Wind’s strong U.K. pipeline. This translates into clean energy jobs locally and across the U.K. through our production of blades on the Isle of Wight and the local offshore wind supply chain. We look forward to working together with the Moray East project to maximize its potential for the local area.”
Repowering an existing wind site can be a daunting task. Typically, you will face one of two scenarios: In one scenario you will “repower” your aging wind turbines with newer, larger rotors and upgraded drive train components, generator, and converter systems using existing tower structure. For the other “typical” scenario, however, you are tasked with replacing legacy systems with new towers, nacelles, and components. Either way, you have a monumental undertaking ahead of you.
No worries! You contact the turbine manufacturer to see what options they provide for the upgrade to your turbine. Next, you check your schedule for the actual execution of the project — and you get bids from a couple of reputable construction providers. You create a project timeline and begin to set out a “critical path” for the execution of the project. You are almost ready to begin. What are you leaving out?
First of all, this may be an oversimplification of the repowering process facing owners today. To thoroughly evaluate the upgrades and investment required to repower wind-energy conversion systems (what turbines were called in the early days) — we must always go back to the questions and answers provided by accurate data of available wind resources.
A remote sensing device can easily be deployed in the field with two people and a vehicle. (Courtesy: Cody Telford, Campbell Scientific)
So, how are you going to get the information on the available wind resources at the site for your project? Will you rely on existing met towers and extrapolate the data associated over a long-term sample, or will you need to develop a method of acquiring the much-needed data at the higher hub level? The importance of gathering and validating the variations in wind speed, shear, and turbulence intensity for a utility scale project are critical points of information that cannot be overemphasized.
There are a number of considerations that are factored into the evaluation of the wind resource at a prospective repower site. The following indicators are key for your WRA and will be important to the feasibility and success of the repowering project:
• Historical wind resource data: This collection may be gathered at a lower tower height (at 60 meters, for example) then extrapolated to consider the potential increases with larger rotor diameter and tower height.
• Flow modeling: Gain using mathematical and meteorological modeling to understand variations in wind resource due to complex terrain, changes in elevation, and wake interference for the prescribed larger rotors.
• Consideration of losses, including wake, system losses and availability, and turbine performance: There has been much discussion regarding wind shear and wind instability within the rotor sweep as opposed to a specific point as captured by a cup anemometer.
Three Distinct Possibilities
When it comes to an accurate WRA for your project, you will want to reduce as much risk as possible. Decreased power prices mandate that every resource is fully utilized. As the margins get tighter in power generation, the risks in your data points and WRA projection also need to be reduced.
It is possible to extrapolate the historical data for an existing site to provide projections at a higher hub level and with a larger rotor sweep. The correlated data from existing towers can provide a good basis for actual data at hub height but can provide only a projected forecast of WRA at the increased altitude and sweep.
A robust remote sensing service can deliver valuable data without the worry — increasing the quality of your data, while reducing the cost and risk. (Courtesy: Cody Telford, Campbell Scientific)
It is also possible to get reliable data at the new tower hub level by installing taller meteorological towers at specified locations on the site. This is a common practice for initial siting and is also a popular option for tower repowering of sites. The current demand to complete assessment for Production Tax Credit (PTC) consideration may be creating significant lead times for permitting, construction, and execution in the installation of 100-meter (and higher) towers. In addition, there are increasing regulatory demands in certain locations that add to the overall scope and timelines for the installation of taller towers.
And finally, it is possible to get accurate WRA data through direct assessment that provides clear and traceable wind resource and performance data through remote sensing devices. These remote sensing devices (RSD) are portable, do not require permitting, and have a very small footprint. Many of the options for RSD also come with impressive performance credentials and are proving to be a reputable option for rapid deployment and reliable data. Evidence of the improved reputation of RSD was demonstrated in June 2018. An important recognition for vertical profiling lidar was provided where vertical profiling lidars achieved levels of IEC 61400-12-1: 2017 Ed. 2 classification. This recognition provides wind-industry professionals greater confidence and reduces the risk of data uncertainties in WRA, turbine power performance, and other operational needs.
Why Should You Consider Remote Sensing?
There are many reasons to consider remote sensing for a repower project, including portability, the risk avoidance of working at heights, the ease of installation (permitting and conditional use permits are not required), and the robust performance of a RSD. One of the most important aspects is the ability to take and record accurate data at different locations without scheduling a mobilization/decommissioning team, completing a lengthy permitting process, and dealing with the risk of working at height or exposure to extreme weather conditions. Remote sensing allows you the flexibility that may be demanded of you.
Turn Key Remote Sensing Services
The flexibility of a RSD is one of the keynotes for a worry-free, turn key solution. A remote sensing device can easily be deployed in the field with two people and a vehicle. Considerations for power may involve a secondary power supply, but if you have power to the tower (met or wind turbine) you may be set. Remote sensing solutions and services from companies such as Campbell Scientific, enable wind-energy stakeholders to obtain key wind resource data from a wide variety of locations without the worry of permitting, equipment ownership, maintenance, commissioning, or decommissioning. Units can be set up and deployed in a matter of hours, and – if extreme weather is on the horizon, the units can be retrieved and stored until the “all clear” is sounded.
Remote sensing has been used and tested in a wide variety of applications internationally and domestically. Vetted recommendations of key wind-energy leaders and consultants provide a proven track record for this method of WRA for numerous projects.
A robust remote sensing service can deliver valuable data without the worry — increasing the quality of your data, while reducing the cost and risk. A stable and reputable company will be able to customize the service level that best meets your requirements.
Reliable data at a variety of heights
Remote sensing devices allow you the ability to program and select specific heights for your wind-data collection. The ZephIR Lidar provides the ability to select and program up to 10 different heights (10 to 300 meters) to capture wind speed, direction, and shear. Using a continuous beam at 50 sweeps per second, it provides a reference across the entire rotor with this key data available through a dashboard application without a post processing compiler.
In addition, with a robust remote sensing device, you can have finance-grade data in non-complex and complex terrain, proven performance verification at (IEC compliant) at your site.
Advanced flow models provide significantly improved horizontal and vertical extrapolation of measured wind resources, especially in complex and forested terrain. Flow-model accuracy is improved through the use of multiple spatially separated measurement points on the site for model verification and tuning.
Remote sensing devices (RSD) can provide the ability to define and track measurements at multiple points even for complex terrain. Remote sensors are re-useable, portable, and do not require lengthy planning before installation.
Data can be collected easily at multiple points on a site to provide representative measured data for all turbine locations and tuning verification points for flow models.
Recognized Reliability and Technical Advances
Remote sensing devices have improved greatly. Key partnerships have developed that add value to the experience of the end user. The combined experience of manufacturers and key companies have allowed even greater opportunity for the customer.
Remote sensing devices (RSD) can provide you with the ability to define and track measurements at multiple points, even for complex terrain. (Courtesy: Cody Telford, Campbell Scientific)
ZephIR and Campbell Scientific provide an example of strategic partnerships that benefit the customer and add value to remote sensing needs. The robust platform and excellent service create a number of possible applications for remote sensing services. From tower repowering to turbine power performance testing; meteorological mast validation to real time monitoring during crane operations, remote sensing services can give you the confidence in your data that will maximize your potential.
Key Considerations for Remote Sensing Services Options
Rental: Renting lidar/sodar units provides a flexible solution for gathering measurement data without a large up-front capital investment, the scheduling headache, and possible permitting nightmare. Long-term and short-term rentals are available (three to 12 months or beyond).
Deployment and Commissioning: Proper deployment is key to the overall data quality of your measurement campaign. Make sure your installers pay attention to detail — small details make the difference. Power, communications, and operational integrity are considerations that you would want to get right the first time. A full commissioning report should be provided. Remember the phrase — “test it before you trust it.”
• Full-Service & Data Delivery: Having the ability to respond to a customer’s technical needs is something that you will want to factor as you consider remote sensing. Can service be provided through a certified repair shop? Having the ability to respond to the field within a few days can be vitally important in your campaign. If service is required, a centralized base for operation and service is equally critical to your project.
• Your data is relevant, and should be available to your team: The ability to view the status of your unit, current wind speed readings, and download your data sets freely can make the decision basis more effective. The flexibility of real time data allows you full access to your data at the click of a button, there is no need for post processing of your key data points.
• Relocation: Again, one of the keys of remote sensing is the ability to relocate your station on short notice and with relative ease. The ability to move your remote sensing device to a string of towers that are being repowered can give you a unique ability to verify tower details (power performance, yaw alignment, met mast data) before the commissioning team leaves that string. Again, a single remote sensing unit, with an adequate cone angle, should be able to provide the resolution required for a specific number of towers in a string.
• Decommissioning: Once your campaign is complete, you will be sure that all equipment is decommissioned and removed safely and efficiently. You will have returned the site to its natural state, free to move to the next location.
The key advances in remote sensing devices such as lidar and sodar have created many new possibilities in siting, design, validation, and operation of onshore wind farms. Project owners and developers would be wise to employ careful consideration when determining which vendor, technology, and platforms for repowering or operational needs. The task may be monumental, but it is absolutely achievable during the changing seasons in our industry.
Wind energy is enjoying a tremendous lift because of stable U.S. policy as well as the global markets where targets reducing greenhouse gas emissions range from 20 percent to 30 percent over the next five years. However, the common driver that has served the industry best is the dramatic rise in turbine capacity factors that continue to move the needle in the reduction of the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for wind-generated power. It is well known that in just the past seven years, a 66 percent reduction in LCOE has been realized. While technology improvements in control systems, plant level system optimization, and reduced O&M costs have all contributed to lower LCOE, the single most relevant factor in this decline is a result of ever larger wind turbine blades optimized for low-wind class siting driving up turbine Capacity Factor (Cp).
The trend in blade design is higher aspect ratio and low total disc solidity. (Courtesy: Shutterstock)
The growth in swept area of turbine rotors is not a new phenomenon. We have seen this trend for more than 20 years as the technology grew from modest sub-megawatt machines to equipment at utility scale that often exceeds 3.5 MW. However, what is new is the extraordinary extension of blade lengths that swing on comparatively small assets. Who would have imagined the growth of a rotor 70-meter diameter on a modest 1.5 MW machine to 125 meters on fundamentally the same fixed asset?
Growing opportunities
There is no practical end in sight, and combined with increasing hub-height, the opportunities to continue to grow blade length and rotor diameter remain on the rise as well. What does this all mean for the design and manufacturing engineering necessary to support this trend? Well, if one considers that blade root diameter remains largely fixed to maintain commonality of platform on these baseline hubs, drive trains, gear boxes, and generators, then a longer blade implies higher root (bending) moments and higher tip deflections. Transportation logistics limit maximum chord width in blade design, which in turn constrains the section properties. The trend in blade design is higher aspect ratio and low total disc solidity. Section properties are constrained with respect to geometry. This only further challenges tip deflection because there is simply no means of reducing tip deflection without increasing the mass of the spar cap or significantly increasing specific stiffness of the spar cap materials themselves.
Blade design and manufacturing processes have responded quickly to meet this challenge. The use of higher specific stiffness materials has been applied to create higher stiffness without significant increase in mass. We see a growing trend in the use of both “high modulus” glass (H-glass) and carbon fibers for blades spars. Just as importantly, it is the manner in which these advanced fibers are used that merits attention. Where traditional approaches have favored the lamination of spars using vacuum resin infusion methods, a new trend of laminating precured elements in the form of pultruded flat plate profiles has taken hold. The pultrusion of spar cap elements that are stacked and laminated to produce a tapered beam not only improves overall laminate quality (with elimination of porosity) but also creates the highest possible fiber volume fraction while ensuring the highest possible collimation (alignment) of fibers. This means more total contribution to axial stiffness and lowest cost for the direct application of reinforcements.
Pultrusion in the form of spooled strips and laminated as flat-plate creates a low-cost, high performance tapered spar. (Courtesy: TPI Composites)
Laminated pultruded plates use the fiber in a format that includes no additional secondary conversion to a textile format while using very low labor content. This closes the gap between the cost of H-glass and carbon fiber reinforcements compared to the economical E-Glass fibers knitted or stitched into non-crimp fabrics (NCFs) traditionally used with infusion processing of wind-blade spars. It is likely that this move to pultruded profiles for wind-blade spars will continue as OEMs more broadly adopt this technology in the next generation of extended length blades.
Also, likely to drive this trend to high specific stiffness materials is the progress made in the processing of “low-cost” carbon fiber using industrial grade polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers from spun melt processes (as opposed to solution melt). Work from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Knoxville, Tennessee, projects carbon fiber cost with intermediate modulus performance at costs projected well below $5 per pound in U.S. currency. Commercialization of this technology is underway by at least three different publicly announced licensees. Coupled with pultrusion processing, the combination of economics may very well result in parity with spars made from low-cost glass infused subcomponents. We all will welcome success on this front.
Higher root bending moments resulting from blade growth affects another significant blade design technology. The interface between the composite blade root and the hub is most often bridged by discrete mechanical fasteners in the form of metallic bolts. Traditional root design often employed a configuration of radially drilled holes to receive a root “nut” and an axially drilled hole to receive the root bolt. This combination known as a “tee-bolt (a.k.a, “IKEA joint”) has provided a low-cost satisfactory method to mate and secure wind blades to their hub. The reality of extended blade length and resulting blade moment has significantly increased bolt loads requiring more bolts to be installed around the fixed bolt circle diameter.
Traditional root with axial and radial drilled holes for tee-bolt installation. (Courtesy: TPI Composites) Bonded inserts resulting in higher total number of root bolts for blade to hub connection (Courtesy: SSP Technology A/S)
Many innovative solutions
The higher total bolt count all but obsoletes the traditional tee-bolt design and necessitates the use of bonded female threads in the form of root inserts. As with all technologies, there are many innovative solutions, and the result has been a run on the patent office as unique concepts are developed and deployed. An example of the value of this patented root technology is seen in the art of SSP, which only recently was acquired by Nordex, a significant turbine OEM.
Additionally, many other OEMs have shown through published IP their interest in adopting and protecting their root insert designs and methods with the expressed aim of increasing the number of bolts installed on a fixed bolt circle diameter.
The drive to higher Cp will not end with spars and roots. We know that greater hub heights will further increase Cp along with larger rotor diameters, and this, too, will further drive blade length. Transportation considerations will drive modular designs and field assembly along with novel trailers for trucking and rail cars for train transport. Indeed, the challenge for all those who manufacture turbine blades will be to increase agility and manage product change so OEMs can provide a family of blades to accommodate a variety of wind sites, hub heights, and maximize capacity factor. We look forward to this challenge because with it, comes great opportunity.
Vaisala, a global leader in environmental and industrial measurement, has expanded its field support team and opened a new operations center in Birmingham, U.K., to better support service needs and requests for its Triton Wind Profiler. The expansion comes as remote sensing technology continues to be more widely adopted across a broad range of international wind energy markets. Vaisala recently shipped its 1,000th Triton to Minneapolis-based wind developer PRC Wind.
The new operations center will enable Vaisala to provide better technical support coverage around the world, particularly as Triton continues to be deployed in a number of new markets. In the past few months, units have been deployed across increasingly geographically diverse markets, including Indonesia, Iceland, Panama, China, and Japan. Each of these presents unique operational challenges and the new operations center will conduct daily monitoring of Triton fleets in these locations.
“With remote sensing units increasingly replacing met masts as developers’ preferred method of wind measurement, there’s a need to provide additional support and build out global supply chains,” said Tero Muttilainen, offering manager at Vaisala.
Measurement expert Vaisala opens a new operations center and ships the 1000th Triton Wind Profiler unit to PRC Wind. (Courtesy: Vaisala)
“Typically, a wind measurement campaign will gather 18 months’ worth of data prior to a wind farm becoming operational. Triton’s latest milestone in having collected 25 million hours of data is a testament to its increasing role in these campaigns worldwide. Building on this, our new operations center will allow us to respond quickly and efficiently to challenges in the field as they arise, with real-time support for operators deploying our units across a growing range of international markets.
“This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the Triton’s commercialization, and developing its supporting infrastructure will help further global adoption of remote sensing and enhance the growth of the wind industry worldwide,” Muttilainen said.
Triton possesses a number of practical advantages over met masts and other remote sensing systems that makes them well-suited to emerging wind markets. Many prospective sites, for instance, are located far from the power grid, in challenging terrain or in heavily forested areas. Here, Triton’s low power consumption and ability to be deployed quickly and operate effectively in restricted space makes it ideally suited for use in many areas where met towers or other remote sensors would be impractical.
However, moving into areas of complex terrain poses an additional challenge to maintaining the accuracy of the wind measurement data recorded. The effects of complex terrain on wind measurement using remote sensing devices were previously highlighted in a study produced by Vaisala and WindSim, a pioneer in computation fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. This collaboration involved the most extensive validation of remote sensing data recorded in complex terrain to date, and explored how its effects on data accuracy can be mitigated.
Building on this collaboration, Vaisala now offers a Wind Flow Curvature Study to the degree of uncertainty in remote sensing data. The service can easily be run to order by Vaisala’s production team and can be used at any point during a wind measurement campaign to increase the accuracy of collected data.
Commenting on the receipt of the 1,000th Triton to be shipped, Jay Regnier, vice president, projects at PRC Wind said, “Triton is extremely useful to us because of its ruggedness and flexibility. We can use it to provide bankable hub-height data for use in our packages, to verify our prospecting efforts, and to cost-effectively reduce spatial and rotor height wind resource modeling errors.”
Mortenson announced the start of construction at the Rio Bravo Wind Project located in Starr County, Texas. Rio Bravo is Mortenson’s 34th wind project in the Lone Star State. Longroad Energy selected Mortenson based on its portfolio of wind projects in Texas, exceptional performance on past projects, and the integration with Mortenson’s Engineering Services for much of the project’s design engineering.
“The addition of in-house design engineering on the project enables us to unlock the best value for the customer by further ensuring system performance and optimized costs throughout the design phase. This is an important and strategic component that we can offer to improve our customers’ business results on energy projects,” said James Phaneuf, director of engineering services for Mortenson’s High Voltage Transmission Group.
The Rio Bravo Wind Project, located in Starr County, Texas, is Mortenson’s 34th wind project in the Lone Star State. (Courtesy: Mortenson)
As the Engineer of Record, Mortenson’s Engineering Services team designed Rio Bravo’s 345kV Cabezon substation, which is the primary energy transmission “hub” for the project. The integration of engineering and construction services by Mortenson provides for significant design optimization and enhances construction coordination, which ensures a higher quality asset installation for the customer — saving the project time and money.
Mortenson has completed 33 projects in Texas totaling 4,658 MW. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Texas leads the nation in wind-powered generation capacity, and, since 2014, Texas wind turbines have produced more electricity than the state’s two nuclear power plants.
“As a proud partner of Longroad Energy, we are excited to add 237 MW of wind energy to Texas’ clean energy portfolio and engage Mortenson’s design resources in the process,” said Tim Maag, vice president and general manager for Mortenson’s Wind Energy Group.
Rio Bravo includes (66) V136 Vestas turbines with tower hub heights of 105 meters, totaling 237.6 MW of output. The scope of work includes access roads, foundations, collection system installation, MET towers, O&M building, substation, transmission line and erection of the turbines. Mortenson will self-perform all civil, erection and high voltage work.
Cramlington-headquartered OEM HTL Group continues to expand its portfolio of customer-focused solutions with the addition of Climax and H&S Tooling’s portable machining range.
The addition will see both ID and OD Mount Flange facing machines, line boring machines, and pipe cutting and beveling machines added to its complete package of solutions, making them instantly available for hire or sale.
Developing portable machining technology since 1966, Climax has designed its portable machine equipment with operator safety at the forefront, allowing operators to tackle any on-site machining project or application.
Delivering the highest levels of efficiency, the portable machining equipment available from HTL is ideally suited to technicians with the most project critical, tightest tolerance machining tasks.
Paul Storey, group managing director, HTL Group, said, “HTL is wholly focused on bringing the most efficient, high quality, safe solutions to market to support our client’s requirements to deal with the challenges they encounter in industry. The addition of the Climax and H&S tooling’s portable machining range allows us to grow our portfolio even further to support our clients.
“As an OEM, we pride ourselves on delivering products and services which lead in technological capabilities whilst also remaining cost effective,” he said. “The HTL OEM range of controlled bolting equipment is engineered for safety; similarly, the Climax and H&S tooling range sets the standard for keeping operators both safe and productive making this partnership a perfect fit for HTL and our client base.”
Paul Burden, director of sales and marketing, H&S Tool Holdings, said, “We greatly appreciate our partnership with the HTL Team. HTL is a world-class organization focused on putting customers at the forefront of everything they do. Customers choose HTL because they have the most extensive range of products and services for operators in the controlled bolting and flange working industries, and they back it up with unrivalled service.
“The Climax team is proud to partner with HTL, ensuring HTL and Climax customers have access to the world’s best portable machining, welding, and valve testing products.”
With the recent signing of Senate Bill 100, Gov. Jerry Brown and the State of California have taken a historic leap forward for clean energy.
Recent commercial advancements in floating technology mean California’s offshore wind resource is an awakening goliath. By including offshore wind as a key resource to meet its new goal, California will grow local businesses, create thousands of good jobs, attract billions of dollars in private investment, and deliver not only clean but affordable electricity to California’s grid.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates the state’s net offshore wind capacity at 112 GW with a net annual energy potential of 392 TWh, even after excluding areas for military, environmental, and other uses. To put this in context, California’s entire 2017 electricity generation from both in-state and imported power sources was 292 TWh — 100 TW/h less than the state’s offshore wind energy potential.
California Gov. Jerry Brown
Although the Pacific Ocean drops off more steeply than the Atlantic — making fixed foundation turbines impractical — floating turbine technology is advancing rapidly. Already, the world’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm is delivering electricity off the coast of Scotland, at an unprecedented capacity factor of 65 percent.
The September bill signing is especially exciting because of its scale. Experience has shown that bold state policy goals are key to establishing an offshore wind development pipeline over time. This unlocks even greater private sector investment in regional port infrastructure, manufacturing and other supply chain jobs, all of which drive costs down further.
So far, offshore wind activity in the United States has focused mainly on the East Coast. States from Massachusetts to South Carolina have set offshore wind targets totaling almost 9 GW by the 2030s, and prices have been falling dramatically: two years ago, Rhode Island’s Block Island Wind Farm came online at a price of 22 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). Last year, Maryland’s two offshore wind farm contracts came in at 13.4 cents per kWh, a drop of almost 40 percent in one year. And just last month, Massachusetts announced a levelized electricity price of 6.5 cents per kWh, less than 50 percent of the Maryland price announced just a year before.
Now, SB 100 positions the Golden State to reap the benefits of this growing industry. California’s offshore wind resource is the perfect balance to the state’s massive solar program, because it provides peak power in the winter and in the late afternoon/early evening, when electricity demand is high and solar production is less strong.
The Business Network for Offshore Wind is the only national 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to growing the offshore wind industry and its supply chain.
The U.S. distributed wind market surpassed the 1 GW milestone with 81,000 turbines generating power across 50 states, according to the 2017 Distributed Wind Market Report released recently by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
In 2017, 21 states added 83.7 MW of new distributed wind capacity. Iowa leads all states with 63.5 MW installed distributed capacity.
“Despite minimal policy support, the market is poised for further growth in response to the recent ITC extension,” said Jennifer Jenkins, AWEA’s Distributed Wind Program Director. “We are working with industry to leverage the ITC, its proven success in reaching this important milestone, and drive new markets like C&I and microgrids.”
In contrast with utility-scale wind farms, which are larger with an average capacity of roughly 200 MW, distributed wind systems are generally connected behind the meter or to a local distribution grid. Distributed wind can range in size from a 1 kW or smaller off-grid wind turbine, to a 10-kW turbine at a home or farm, to several multi-megawatt wind turbines at a university campus, manufacturing facility, or small community.
Wind power is advancing rapidly. From the ongoing proliferation of onshore turbines to an increasingly attractive offshore market — where technological advancements have made it more feasible than ever before to bring highly powerful farms online — there is opportunity to be seized.
Getting the most of that opportunity requires reliable operation and dependability in every critical component of a wind turbine. A turbine’s main shaft, for instance, represents one of wind power’s most important components, and one where high reliability is a necessity. Premature damage and failure are extremely costly, with disassembly and replacement of the main shaft bearing requiring the removal of the turbine’s blades, the rental of expensive and specialized equipment, and other operational headaches. One must also consider the lost power generation that comes with extensive downtime.
Grease in the main shaft bearing plays an important role in wind-turbine reliability. (Courtesy: Timken)
Grease in the main shaft bearing plays an important role in wind-turbine reliability, allowing for optimized bearing performance and longevity in a variety of challenging conditions. A critical contribution can be made by selecting the most appropriate lubricating grease for the right application. Temperature, humidity, and salt and water contamination in offshore applications all affect how greases will perform in a main shaft bearing application.
While not always in the forefront of one’s mind, the right grease can help prevent premature bearing damage and help optimize total uptime for turbines across a fleet. The ideal grease helps seal out environmental contaminants; prevents wear and micropitting from occurring; reduces friction during operation; provides rust and corrosion protection; and contributes to overall extended bearing life.
But not all greases are created equal. The Timken Company recently conducted a battery of tests on commercial wind greases to identify critical areas of performance. As a leading bearing supplier in the wind-power industry, Timken is frequently asked for recommendations for main bearing grease. This article lays out the company’s findings and critical attributes in an optimized lubricating grease for enhanced wind-turbine performance.
Inherent Challenges
Today’s powerful wind turbines operate at slow input speeds and at high, variable loads. Taken together, those operating conditions pose major challenges for the main shaft bearing and the lubricating grease that must protect it.
First, let’s break down some major contributors to bearing wear, the primary contributor to premature bearing failure:
• Slow operating speeds: One of the most important jobs of the lubricating grease is to provide sufficient separation between the bearing rollers and raceways, and for that to occur, the grease must form a desirable level of film thickness throughout operation. Film thickness formation, however, is challenged by slow speed operation. A lack of film thickness significantly compromises the grease’s ability to protect against wear and may lead to premature micropitting on the bearing surface.
• Vibration: High rates of vibration in wind turbines are another challenging condition; even if the blades on a turbine are visibly still or rotating very little, the application tends to still experience “micromovements” or fretting that affect the bearing raceway. This fretting is an additional contributor to wear and corrosion, but an optimized lubricating grease can help protect against these consequences.
• Variable and shock loads: Wind speed, direction, and turbulence are continuously changing, and wind turbines must contend with these irregularities during every moment of operation. The continual speeding up and slowing down of wind speeds and variability in wind loads can lead to quick increases in rotation. Conversely, turbine operators must sometimes stop operation and apply the brakes, leading to a sudden stoppage. All put stress on the bearing and the grease that lubricates it.
Today’s powerful wind turbines operate at slow input speeds and at high, variable loads. Taken together, those operating conditions pose major challenges for the main shaft bearing and the lubricating grease that must protect it. (Courtesy: Timken)
Add to these regular operating challenges the fact that wind turbines can be found in different climates around the world. Cold climates pose a specific challenge, as lower temperatures will lead to lubricant thickening. In Canada, for instance, a lubricant that pours like water from a faucet in regular temperatures can become as thick as molasses when the temperature goes below freezing. Greases must also account for other environmental factors that can interfere with the grease itself, particularly water ingress from humidity and precipitation. In offshore applications, salty air and water can lead to an inability to generate proper film thickness, and therefore to higher rates of wear and corrosion.
Finally, an optimized grease may be able to offer extended re-greasing intervals to help wind-farm operators minimize maintenance requirements. Currently, most turbines are manually re-greased every six months. In the future, longer periods between re-greasing might be possible with the appropriate grease. Even in applications where the turbines are using automatic lubricating systems — where a small amount of grease is automatically introduced at regular intervals to the bearing from a larger reservoir — extended performance is desirable and can help maximize the turbine’s uptime.
Testing for optimized performance
The individual properties of available lubricating greases vary significantly, and through technical engineering evaluation and testing, Timken set out to understand the impact of those properties on optimized main shaft bearing performance. The team tested 14 individual greases overall. The following key performance characteristics were identified and evaluated:
Timken deployed a variety of industry-standard testing methods, such as ASTM and DIN, to identify and evaluate these performance characteristics. These tests provide more information than what is provided on product data sheets.
To better compare and evaluate the greases, Timken performed the same standardized tests on each grease. Timken also went beyond industry standard tests and selected seven greases for additional tests on critical performance attributes.
• Film thickness testing: A PCS-EHD2 testing rig was used to further investigate the influence of thickener and additives used by lubricating grease suppliers on the film thickness formation. Typically, the base-oil viscosity of the grease is used to calculate the film thickness. Film thickness is one key parameter affecting the formation of micropitting, one of the most common damage modes observed in wind-turbine main bearings. The additives, like viscosity index improvers, may help increase film thickness formation at various speeds and temperatures during operation to help prolong bearing life. Other researchers reported that the thickener does provide boost to the film thickness. However, the boost is diminished under prolonged testing. Understanding the individual influence of base-oil viscosity, thickener, and additives on the overall operation of the main bearing grease helps to develop high-performance wind-turbine main bearing greases.
The right grease can help prevent premature bearing damage and help optimize total uptime for turbines across a fleet. (Courtesy: Timken)
In this test, Timken demonstrated that operating speed and temperature play a significant role in film thickness and formation under constant loading conditions. Testing showed film thickness was reduced at heightened temperatures but increased at higher operating speeds. Throughout the various temperature and speed conditions, it held true that higher base-oil viscosity resulted in higher film thickness during operation.
The PCS-EHD2 testing rig also helped Timken compare changes in film thickness for new and used (worked) greases. Standard testing evaluates brand-new grease performance, and Timken sought to better understand the change in performance for grease that has been in use for a longer period of time. To simulate the shearing that occurs over time in a used grease, the grease was worked per ASTM D1831 for 500,000 revolutions. The testing revealed that the grease film thickness was similar for the fresh and worked greases.
• Traction testing: To further understand the performance of these greases, testing generated Stribeck curves to evaluate the friction/traction coefficients. Using the WAM6 test rig, the greases were evaluated for friction/traction coefficients at various slide-to-roll ratios, speeds, and temperatures.
It is important to evaluate the grease performance regardless of the bearing type (tapered, spherical, or cylindrical bearing). Because micropitting is also influenced by sliding, it is important to evaluate the greases under a wide range of dynamic conditions. Sliding has a significant impact on the friction characteristics that will exist during operation, and the bearing design itself plays a significant role here. Traditionally, wind turbines have used spherical bearings for the main shaft. By design, spherical roller bearings inherently have sliding, referred to as Heathcote slip, on the roller-race contact. Whereas tapered roller bearing are designed with true-rolling motion and the sliding by design will be zero. Where sliding increases, so too does friction, necessitating a grease choice that can effectively mitigate the performance-compromising effects of increased friction.
When it came to speed and temperature testing, results generally followed expectation: Higher temperatures reduced friction/traction coefficients for the greases tested. This was generally dependent on the base-oil type (i.e. mineral, synthetic) used in the grease formulation; greases with synthetic base-oils had lower traction coefficients than greases with mineral or semi-synthetic base-oils.
• Bearing temperature, torque and grease migration testing: Using a rig known as a Lubricant Evaluation Machine (LEM), Timken investigated the effect of grease selection on bearing operating temperature, bearing torque, and grease migration and distribution throughout the bearing.
In terms of performance, it is desirable for grease to remain on the bearing surfaces to ensure adequate film formation and surface separation throughout operation. Proper grease distribution permits longer re-greasing intervals and helps reduce wear through effective film formation and part separation. The greases put through the LEM test demonstrated different characteristics.
Figure 1: Greases put through the LEM test demonstrated different characteristics.
As seen in Figure 1, Greases A, B, and D (all higher viscosity greases) showed higher grease loss after testing, and a residual oil film remained on the rollers and raceway. Comparatively, Greases C and E (lower-viscosity greases) demonstrated more preferential performance, with minimal grease loss observed and plenty of grease and oil remaining on the rollers. It was also shown that worked (used) grease represented no significant change in grease migration behavior.
Finally, the LEM rig tested for torque and temperature. Greases A, C, and E demonstrated lower bearing temperature, while high bearing torques were observed for Greases B and D. Grease C demonstrated the most desirable overall performance here, with low grease loss and low temperature and torque.
Overall results and conclusions
Timken based its final conclusions and results on five key performance attributes: Film thickness, grease traction, bearing torque, operating temperature, and grease migration. The grease demonstrating the most balanced range of desirable performance across these areas was Grease A, formulated high-viscosity grease with a synthetic base-oil.
It is important to realize that certain grease characteristics could be more desirable in particular applications than others. For example, high-viscosity greases tend to become too thick in colder climates, leading to higher torque, higher temperature, lower migration, and may be difficult to pump from an automatic lubrication system. In this case, lower-viscosity grease with better migration may be more suited.
Therefore, the bottom line is this: Wind-turbine manufacturers and wind-farm operators need to be diligent in the selection of wind-turbine main bearing grease and should seek suppliers with knowledge and expertise in all areas of grease performance in a variety of applications. While some greases may demonstrate a broad range of desirable performance characteristics, optimized performance in the field varies depending on the application and the contending environmental factors.
Lubrication technology, however, is improving all the time, and a grease that provides ideal performance across all critical areas — in all climates — is possible. And as wind power ramps up across the globe, optimized performance and reliability depend on it.
With reference to the initial stock announcement on July 19, 2018 by Subsea 7 S.A. Seaway Heavy Lifting, part of Subsea 7 Renewables & Heavy Lifting Business Unit, recently confirmed the award of the Triton Knoll contract.
The sizeable contract scope includes the transport and installation of 90 WTG foundations and two offshore substations and was awarded by Triton Knoll Offshore Windfarm Limited.
Triton Knoll is a consented offshore wind farm being developed by Innogy Renewables UK Ltd. The project is owned by Innogy SE (59 percent) and partners J-Power (25 percent) and Kansai Electric Power (16 percent). The Triton Knoll wind farm is in the Greater Wash area, approximately 33 kilometers off the coast of Lincolnshire and 46 kilometers from the North Norfolk coastline. Once fully operational, Triton Knoll Offshore Wind Farm will be capable of supplying the equivalent of 800,000 U.K. households with renewable electricity.
Offshore installation activities will be executed in 2020 using Seaway Heavy Lifting’s crane vessel Stanislav Yudin. This vessel provides significant lift and installation capabilities ideally suited for the challenges of installing wind farm foundations.
Steph McNeill, SVP Subsea 7 Renewables & Heavy Lifting, said, “Seaway Heavy Lifting has a long track record of successful and safe balance of plant installation for renewable energy projects in the North Sea. We look forward to supporting Innogy in completing the development of the Triton Knoll Windfarm offshore.”
The new SG 8.0-167 DD offshore wind turbine variant for Asia-Pacific markets addresses local conditions across the region. Based on the proven Siemens Gamesa Offshore Direct Drive wind turbine platform, the variant is strongly suited for the growing Taiwanese offshore wind market. It ensures that the SG 8.0-167 DD is tailored to meet local codes and standards regarding typhoons, seismic activities, 60 Hertz operation, as well as operation in high and low ambient temperatures. The design will be ready in 2019, with installation possible by 2020 for Taiwan. The flexible solution can also be adapted to individual market needs.
“Serving the growing Taiwanese offshore wind power market with our new product allows us to provide our customers with a cost-efficient, reliable, and powerful wind turbine which can withstand the challenging local conditions. The market-specific variant of the SG 8.0-167 DD demonstrates our commitment to moving the market forward on a technological front already from 2019,” said Andreas Nauen, CEO of the Offshore Business Unit of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy.
The SG 8.0-167 DD wind turbine has a rated capacity of 8 MW, and a rotor with a 167-meter diameter. It has a swept area of 21,900 square meters, and uses the SGRE B81 blades, each measuring 81.4 meters. By the time of its introduction, more than 1,000 SGRE Direct Drive offshore wind turbines will be installed globally.
The variant ensures a design that accommodates local codes and standards in Taiwan and other Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets such as Japan. These include IEC Typhoon Class (T-Class) type certification by 2020, where the product will be certified as able to handle elevated extreme wind speeds in typhoon conditions. Siemens Gamesa is working closely with local authorities and certifying body to ensure that all applicable standards are considered.
Electrical systems and components will be adapted to 60Hz operation; grid models will be updated to reflect this 60Hz operation and local grid codes. Furthermore, the ability to operate in both high and low ambient temperatures reduces thermal limitation, thus increasing annual energy production while preserving turbine lifetime.
“We see promising developments ahead for the offshore wind industry in APAC as a whole. With Taiwan as an important regional base and the introduction of the market-specific variant of the SG 8.0- 167 DD, we’re able to meet customer needs in markets as they develop,” said Niels Steenberg, Executive General Manager of Siemens Gamesa Offshore for Asia-Pacific.
What’s the difference between U.S. and European offshore wind energy financing?
One key difference between the European and U.S. financing of offshore wind is European lenders are now comfortable with offshore wind technology — even new technology and debt financing can amount up to 80-plus percent of total project costs. U.S. lenders are still learning about this new technology.
Generally, the cost of capital is expected to be slightly higher for the first U.S. offshore wind projects until there is the same familiarity within the U.S. financing arena as there is in Europe. Europe offshore wind financing is comfortable with multiple contracts, e.g., approximately a dozen or so supplier/EPC contractors and subcontractors. In contrast, the U.S. financial institutions would prefer the securest of a “wrap” contract, but it will be interesting to witness if the market will be willing to pay for the risk allocation under a single wrap.
Also, bonds are beginning to be introduced into some European offshore wind projects, and European lenders are less familiar with U.S. tax equity. On the other hand, the long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) used in the U.S. are going to provide investors with some additional security and predictability.
What can the U.S. learn from how Europe has approached offshore wind financing?
Financial confidence in European offshore wind has displaced much of the early perceived “risk” of offshore wind projects. There is a general widespread acceptance of the offshore wind technology within Europe, even the new technology and increased size components. The U.S. needs to go through most likely one iteration of having large scale deployment in federal water to capture the same level of technology confidence that is reflected in the financial investments. The U.S. offshore wind stakeholders need to work together to transfer this confidence to U.S. capital markets to bring in new instruments like bonds in order to lower the cost of capital.
Do you foresee a formal coordination between U.S. federal and state levels of government?
No, it is highly unlikely that there will be a tight, formal coordination between the federal and state governments that provide a clockwork, highly synchronized rollout plan for offshore wind. Unlike Europe, the U.S. doesn’t have national policy with a government sponsorship, protecting the developer, supply chain, and financiers from risk. That said, the U.S. Department of Energy has $4.5 billion appropriated in its loan guarantee program to support growth of renewable energy sources with a specific initiative to help finance gaps in the accelerating U.S. offshore wind sector. Support comes in other forms, for example, BOEM is working to issue new lease areas to avoid potential future slowdowns in the industry and to accelerate its processes for the benefit of the developers owning existing lease areas.
Already developed technology and exceptional wind sources are just a few of the things that U.S. market benefits from. (Courtesy: Deepwater Wind)
U.S. states set the offshore wind energy RPS goals and are responsible for the off-take agreements, but they are working closely with the federal agencies to coordinate offshore wind farm development across state lines. Funding mechanisms are also established by individual states, and there is an opportunity to involve the finance community early in better defining the PPA mechanisms.
How does the U.S. market benefit?
The U.S. market benefits from already developed technology, exceptional wind resources, large scale, retiring traditional generation plants, a drive for increased renewable portfolio standards, high equity availability and low interest rates for debt financing, the tax credit subsidy monetized through tax equity investments providing a 6 percent to 9 percent, post-tax cost of capital.
However, the subsidy in the form of tax equity presents challenges given the longer lead times associated with construction of offshore wind projects (18 to 24 months) when compared with competing renewables such as solar (often less than 12 months). Tax equity typically commits no more than 12 months from their funding (which occurs around the project’s “placed-in-service date”) as their commitments are contingent on their visibility into tax liabilities, which are more transparent for their current fiscal year. However, tax equity may be able to get comfortable coming in 15 months forward.
What will help offshore wind penetrate the U.S. energy mix?
The U.S. offshore wind industry has many advantages: The technology is proven and already exists; the market size is inherent to produce economies of scale, and offshore wind policies are emerging, both federal and some state. The building blocks are in place, but sound policies are needed, and finance is the important “mortar” needed to build this industry. Two other significant factors are the states vying for scale and to capture the workforce associated with eagerness of the businesses in the growing supply chain.
What is needed for U.S. offshore wind energy to accelerate?
U.S. offshore wind projects must find ways to bridge the gap between longer construction periods and tax equity’s reluctance to provide long-dated commitments. Sound, creative financing mechanisms that provide incentives for developers and investors while protecting ratepayers will be vital to long-term, sustainable growth. In addition, the efficiencies that will be gained from ongoing deployment around U.S. waters, combined with the scale associated with the growing off-take agreements, are all going to lower the cost for the project, which will compensate for the diminishing investment tax credit. This will encourage other coastal/great lake states to embrace offshore-wind-generated electricity, which will bring a second leverage and thereby accelerate the adoption of offshore wind.
Vestas is providing a customized solution for the 159 MW Parc Eolien Taiba N’Diaye, Senegal’s first large utility-scale wind energy project and the largest wind project in West Africa. The wind farm will expand the country’s generation capacity by 15 percent, support the development of affordable renewable energy, and diversify Senegal’s energy mix as well as provide positive social and economic impact for the nearby communities.
The engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract was signed with Parc Eolien Taiba N’Diaye, a company majority-owned by Lekela, an experienced renewable energy company that has developed 1.3 GW of wind and solar projects across Africa, and partly-owned by French developer Sarreole, which has been part of the project from its beginning.
The order includes the supply, transport, installation, and commissioning of 46 V126-3.45 MW turbines, as well as an Active Output Management 5000 (AOM 5000) service agreement for the operation and maintenance of the wind park over the next 20 years.
Today, Senegal’s energy matrix mainly depends on costly imported fossil fuels. By banking on renewables, Senegal will be able to generate clean, reliable, and competitively-priced energy to fulfill the rapidly expanding local grid.
“This is a very special order for us, since together with Lekela we are delivering a project that will represent 20 percent of the country’s energy mix and have a positive impact on Senegalese communities, providing opportunities for local employment while responding to the country’s energy challenges. Working in close collaboration with all the partners has been a success factor for this great achievement. Vestas has installed wind turbines in around 80 markets, including more than 1 GW in Africa, providing clean energy and fostering local jobs and training. With this project, we will contribute to Senegal in the same way through sharing our extensive knowledge and deep experience of supporting wind energy projects in emerging markets”, said Nicolas Wolff, Vestas’ VP Sales Region Western Mediterranean.
“This is a major milestone for Senegal, and for Lekela. As the first utility-scale wind power project in the country, Taiba N’Diaye forms a critical component of Senegal’s clean energy strategy. The project will create an impact that lasts for generations. We have many people to thank in reaching this point, not least the communities, stakeholders, and partners like Vestas who we’ve worked closely with in recent months,” said Chris Ford, chief operating officer at Lekela.
Vestas has a proven track record on working with customers and other stakeholders to improve project bankability to meet international standards, and ensuring the projects’ technical, commercial, and social aspects are addressed. Vestas and Lekela have partnered to build and maintain positive relationships with the communities impacted by the project through ongoing engagement, creating local job opportunities, and supporting the customer’s community investment initiatives during construction.
Vestas’ financing partner EKF Denmark’s Export Credit has backed the project with a 140-million-euro export loan, securing the project’s financial stability and maximizing the customer’s return on investment.
The project is in an advanced stage of development, ready for construction. Turbine delivery, as well as commissioning, are planned to be accomplished in three phases: deliveries between the second and the third quarters of 2019, and commissioning between the third quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.
Last month, Mammoet revealed new crane technology and 3D engineering experiences at the world’s leading expo for the wind industry: WindEnergy Hamburg. Exhibiting at the event, which ran from September 25-28, Mammoet focused on immersive technologies to demonstrate new techniques and cranes designed specifically for the wind industry.
Mammoet helps clients improve construction efficiency and optimize uptime. (Courtesy: Mammoet)
Leading the exhibit were two new concept cranes that are set to eliminate the physical limitations of wind energy construction and maintenance. Using the wind turbine tower as the point of support, the Wind Turbine Assembly (WTA) crane and the Wind Turbine Maintenance (WTM) crane climb the tower to lift and lower loads. These cranes will set new benchmarks for safe, quick and efficient construction and maintenance.
Mammoet 3D Engineering also took a central place on the stand. Visitors stepped into the world of virtual reality to experience these new cranes and view engineering and lifting plans in action.
Sebastian Pohl, director of sales at Mammoet Germany, said, “Innovations such as climbing cranes and the ability to fully immerse stakeholders in the virtual engineering and construction of turbines gives more control over each stage of the project. Manufacturers can build bigger and more powerful turbines and owner/operators can realize the efficiencies that can be made in each stage of construction.”
In the past two years, the U.S. has seen impressive growth in the wind-energy market. Wind Systems magazine made the right predictions at the start of 2017 when it said that the wind-energy market boom will continue growing off the total 8.2 GW generated by new plants in 2016.
The following year did indeed see an uptick, as 7 GW of new wind power was installed across the country, representing $11 billion in new private investment. As of December 2017, the U.S. ranks among the world’s top countries with the highest wind-power generation. This places America second only to China, which boasts 19.7 GW of wind-energy capacity.
Wind turbines of the Walney Offshore Windfarm in the Irish Sea (Courtesy: David Dixon/Walney Offshore Windfarm)Even more capacity is expected to be available by the end of 2018, since the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) is being phased out. Over the years, the PTC has helped grow the U.S. economy, provide new jobs, and improve energy security. To take advantage of its remaining time, developers have begun construction of more than 21 GW of wind-power capacity.
This year, facilities are allowed to claim 60 percent of the PTC’s value, followed by 40 percent in 2019, and then that’s it. Experts predict that after this year’s boom, wind installation volumes will decline after the phaseout.
Top states benefiting from wind A report from Clean Technica states that wind energy is now responsible for more than 30 percent of the electricity generated in four states: Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, which are all Republican.
There is irony in this, considering that Republican leaders are usually indifferent, sometimes hostile, on climate-change issues. Meanwhile, 14 other states are generating 10 percent of their electricity from wind energy. Despite only producing about 14 percent of its electricity from wind power, Texas remains the state with the highest installed wind capacity at 22.6 GW.
An animated map depicting the growth of wind power installations by state. (Courtesy: NREL)
On the other hand, there are a few states left that have yet to house their own wind-power systems. There are 11 states that have no wind turbines whatsoever. Included here are many Southeastern states such as Louisiana and Florida. Just last July, a Louisiana project that would have built the largest wind farm in the United States was scrapped after Texas regulators rejected the $4.5 billion investment. Meanwhile, Florida is set to begin research and construction of taller wind turbines that can help the state catch up in terms of wind-energy production.
The impact on U.S. economy
In general, renewable energy offers a cheaper energy alternative and has less effect on the environment. Traditionally, countries rely on non-renewable sources of energy, namely oil, coal, and natural gas.
Since supplies become limited the more they are consumed, their costs tend to increase. FXCM details how the price of oil alone can control the flow of the U.S. economy, affecting a majority of sectors such as agriculture and transportation. While an increase in its price usually spells bad news, the use of the resource can also contribute to the economy by way of gross domestic product.
However, with the arrival of renewable energy sources, the U.S. has the potential to no longer depend entirely on oil reserves and other non-renewable options. Incidentally, renewable energy also produces more jobs.
Because of the wind-energy boom, 2016 saw the wind-turbine technician as the fastest growing job in the country. With further exploration of and investment in green energy, more jobs like this will be a boon for the nation’s skilled workers.
Opportunities for further growth
In addition to onshore wind, there is also great potential in offshore wind power, which saw widespread adoption in Europe. In 2016, the U.S. established its first offshore wind plant off Rhode Island. However, it had not made much impact as the farm generated only 30 MW.
As of December 2017, the U.S. ranks among the world’s top countries with the highest wind-power generation. (Courtesy: pixabay)
Despite this, recent developments on offshore wind power seem promising. Vox’s report on offshore wind in the U.S. mentioned that several projects in Massachusetts and Rhode Island are set to contribute more wind power once completed. For instance, the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of southern Massachusetts will begin construction in 2019. It will generate 0.8 GW. Meanwhile, Rhode Island aims to increase its wind-power production to 1 GW by 2020 with the Revolution Wind project.
New Jersey is also jumping on the bandwagon. Newly elected Gov. Phil Murphy, along with state senate President Steve Sweeney, announced New Jersey’s commitment of 3.5 GW of offshore wind power by 2030. Two areas totaling 537 square miles off the shores of New Jersey were proposed for lease. Danish wind energy company Orsted plans to use 250 square miles of said areas to launch the Ocean Wind project, which is set to yield at least 1 GW, enough to power half a million structures in New Jersey.
NRG Systems recently announced that it has acquired a portfolio of advanced technology developed by Pentalum, an Israeli company that specialized in remote sensing solutions for wind measurement. Founded in 2009, Pentalum pioneered low-cost Lidar solutions that have been deployed by customers in the wind resource assessment, wind farm operations, forecasting, and research markets globally.
Pentalum’s principal innovation was their patented Direct Detect Lidar technology that is able to deliver the high precision and reliability of lidar at a significantly lower cost compared to conventional Doppler Lidar technologies. Pentalum deployed this technology in its SpiDAR® Vertical Wind Profiler beginning in 2012, and it is now in use on five continents. NRG Systems’ president, Justin Wheating, said, “NRG has played an active role in the global wind energy market for over three decades, and we recognize the growing importance of lidar in resource measurement and wind farm operations. Pentalum’s technology, when paired with NRG’s global sales and service capabilities, is a significant advantage for our customers, and a great new opportunity for customers who could not previously justify the high cost of Doppler Lidar solutions.”
SpiDAR is a rugged, market-proven product that measures wind with high reliability and accuracy at the range of heights required by wind farms all over the world. (Courtesy: NRG Systems)
In addition to its favorable pricepoint, SpiDAR is a rugged, market-proven product that measures wind with high reliability and accuracy at the range of heights required by wind farms all over the world. When coupled with NRG-equipped met towers, SpiDAR delivers excellent flexibility, performance, and cost efficiency.
NRG Systems will work with its global partner network to offer sales, technical support and integrated services, such as remote power supply, making this product a truly complete solution for customers around the world. Wheating said, “Our customers have been asking us for a full service, integrated wind measurement solution that includes the latest tower based and remote sensing capabilities and we now have that for them.”
The company plans to begin shipping new SpiDAR units in early 2019 and will start offering complete service to existing SpiDAR customers in the coming weeks. NRG Systems will continue to work in close partnership with Leosphere to sell and support Leosphere’s Windcube Lidar in North America.
Thousands of sensors embedded in wind turbines send out terabytes of data. Making sense of that data and transforming it into useful information to drive energy production is a task that more and more wind-farm managers are looking to take advantage of.
Insights are the useful information created from that data, and that is the backbone of what the experts at Uptake have been doing for more than four years.
The data explosion is called many things, whether that be the Internet of Things or Grid 4.0. But whatever it’s called, the conclusion is clear: The transition to providing insights is a foregone conclusion.
An Uptake employee climbing a wind turbine. (Photos courtesy: Uptake)
“The argument became when and how and not if,” said Sonny Garg, Uptake’s managing director for Global Energy Solutions. “We had made a social compact with people to say we’re going to provide safer, reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean energy to everybody.”
Working for wind
In the wind industry, the bottom line is increasing energy production, decreasing costs, and improving safety, according to Garg.
“Digital strategy and the adoption of industrial AI have to be grounded in specific metrics that drive the business,” he said. “Because we are delivering insights, that is going to move that metric favorably for you.”
Because Uptake is a young business, it’s been able to come at its customers with fresh approaches to creating the insights necessary. And with that, it became a great fit for wind, according to Garg.
“We have purpose-built from the very beginning a machine-learning AI platform,” he said. “And what’s important about that is that we were fortunate with regard to timing. We didn’t have any technical debt. So we weren’t GE, who had built a lot of separate software and tried to use that to build something new. Or even C3 [IoT] that started out trying to be a carbon trader and ended up trying to do grid analytics and then tried to be a platform company.”
The core idea behind Uptake was to do data science and machine learning, and everything else would be built around it, according to Garg.
“There was nobody else who had done that,” he said.
In order to help customers maximize the potential of what Uptake can do, a clear plan of what the data represents must first come into play, according to Garg.
Sonny Garg, managing director for Global Energy Solutions, in Uptake’s Chicago headquarters.
Assembly line of data
“You start first with what are you trying to achieve with the data,” he said. “Think of it like Uptake has built a manufacturing plant. You need to start out with, ‘what are we manufacturing?’ Well, we’re manufacturing insights that are going to improve your business. So, what I want to do is manufacture insights that are going to improve annual energy production for a wind company. Some of those could be around predictive failures of major components, your gearbox, other elements of your drivetrain, your generator, or it could be around power performance. Am I actually producing as much as I could? Those are the kinds of insights that are tied to an outcome. Then you go back and look at the data needed to provide that insight. That’s how we think about it.”
Everything in between that data and the massively different insights is the manufacturing assembly line that has been built, according to Garg.
“The difference is other people may have started by saying, ‘I’m going to build a plant that just takes your data and be a data warehouse, or I’m going to be a data lake,’” he said. “We started from the idea that we wanted to have the best machine learning insights.”
“You’ve got be able to connect to a lot of different types of data,” Garg added. “There’s streaming data; there’s enterprise data; there’s contextual data like weather. You’ve got to be able to bring that in and process that and clean it and normalize it in relation to each other. You’ve got to be able to store that data. You’ve got to be able to access that data in real time or at the time that you need to deliver an insight. And unless you start with the idea that what you’re trying to deliver is the insight, you’ll struggle to build the right assembly line.”
Garg pointed out that is the reason Uptake started the way it did.
“It is so complicated, that if you don’t start with the end in mind, you’ll end up building a lot of technical debt,” he said.
Customer collaboration
And by collaborating with its customers, Uptake expects to only get better at what it’s already good at, according to Garg.
“Our overall philosophy is that we are obsessed with outcomes for our customers,” he said. “It’s really through collaborative relationships with customers that we’re all going to get better.”
Uptake’s Untapped Energy report shows the total untapped energy due to downtime in the U.S. wind fleet.
And through its machine-learning insights, Uptake is seeing a combination of all that, according to Garg.
“We’re seeing that in energy,” he said. “Energy is growing. We are currently doing a deal with one of the largest generators in the world. We just signed a deal with the Department of Defense. So, it’s moving beyond energy, too. We’re in the defense space — a very competitive space. They’re reluctant, often times, to not go with incumbents. So, the fact that they went with us for their Bradley tank is a great affirmation and confirmation of why we’re different.”
Incumbents in energy are also important, and Garg said that Uptake is not trying to make those go away.
“This wasn’t about disrupting; this was about enabling,” he said. “How do we enable these industries to be better at what they do? We’re not out there saying, ‘I can’t wait to destroy Blockbuster or taxi companies or hotels.’ We say incumbents play an important role in the societies and the industries they’re in.”
Successful outcomes
Uptake has made a lot of strides in wind energy and other industries as it provides its insights.
“Our proudest moments are when a customer sees an outcome,” Garg said. “For instance, when we identify an insight that shows a turbine was underperforming by 12 percent, which was going to cost you at least $30,000 on an annual basis. Or we discovered a gearbox failure that, had it gone catastrophic, would have shut down your production for two weeks. Those are the things we celebrate and consider our proudest moments. The process is interesting; the outcome is what we celebrate.”
Uptake is involved in many different industries other than wind, but, by using data and insights discovered elsewhere, Uptake can often get a head start on developing insights for wind energy, according to Garg.
“Say I’m trying to predict the failure on a piece of rotating equipment. It could be a gearbox; it could be a generator. That is a general category,” he said “There’s a lot that I can learn from another industry about how a bearing has performed on an airplane that would be helpful for me to understand as I get into the wind world. Even though it may be a specific type of bearing, I still have a faster starting point based upon what I’ve learned from other industries.”
Another thing that’s really important in the world of insights and predictive machine learning is looking for patterns in historic data, according to Garg.
“It opens up the aperture a little bit in terms of the type of data you can look at in developing your model,” he said. “A great example of that was we were trying to figure out tire failures in airplanes. The fact is: There isn’t a lot of data about tire failures in airplanes. But because we created our predictive insight models based on tire failures in construction and mining equipment, it gave us a running start and got us 70 percent of the way there. And then we can tune the models based on what data is available.”
Where the major benefit comes in for Uptake is, for each of its machine learning engines, those get tuned and more refined through data from all the industries and not just that one specific industry, according to Garg.
“We are able to bring in data from other customers in terms of the insight models and other wind customers,” he said. “And then we’re able to bring other people who have similar equipment in other industries. Data is such an essential piece to refining the precision and accuracy of your model.”
Visionary customers
In some cases, Garg said Uptake is still in the beginning stages of convincing potential customers about the importance of industrial AI.
“I’d say we’re in the first, maybe second inning — if we’re lucky — of this game,” he said. “Everyone agrees that this is transformational technology that is inevitably going to change the very business models that companies have. No one’s quite figured out the perfect business model to do that with. So there’s still a healthy amount of skepticism.”
Uptake is in search of customers who can understand the long-term vision and benefits of digital transformation.
Uptake has made a lot of strides in wind energy and other industries as it provides its insights.
“We’re looking for people who are visionaries, for people who understand that this is going to be an evolutionary process,” Garg said. “That this is a process, not an event. It’s still a sea-sweep sell, because it’s so different from the way people have operated, and the implications are so great on processes, that, if you don’t have the CEO or somebody who owns the profit and loss, who has the vision of how this can drive the business, even if somebody else were to buy it, it’s not a good thing for Uptake.”
Uptake wants people who are open to its message, and Garg said that’s still not the majority.
“Because we base things on outcomes, we’re more than willing to share risk with regard to delivering insights and tying those to outcomes,” he said. “We know we’re early. We know we’re not going to be able to say 100 percent, ‘yes, definitively, there’s a direct line between this insight and this outcome.’”
Part of what Uptake wants its customers to understand is the company is willing to share the risks and the rewards along the journey, according to Garg.
“People don’t doubt our ability,” he said. “One thing that’s changed in three years versus when I first started was people were asking: Can you do what you say you can do? We don’t have that conversation anymore. Now it’s about: How is it going to fit into my business; what are the outcomes, and, if I spend the money, what happens if we do better or do worse, and how do we share in that? It’s become more of a commercial than technical conversation.”
As wind energy grows in the next 10 to 20 years, Garg said he expects the emphasis on construction to decline as O&M increases.
“Where the focus is going to be I think, starting now, but definitely in the next 10 to 20 years is output and the production around that specific turbine and that fleet and those farms,” he said. “That’s where Uptake becomes important, because, wind-farm owners are saying, ‘I’ve already spent this money; I’m expecting to make this money, if I don’t produce my megawatts at the right time and get paid the right amount, then I’m not going to make that money.’ We’re all about how a customer is producing megawatt hours when they need to be so they can make money.”
Garg said an example he cites as inspiration in the energy field happened with nuclear power in the 1990s. Half the fleet was operating at 48 percent capacity, and now it’s about 94 percent.
“And that was all based on better insights to drive the output of a fixed asset, and they got more megawatt hours,” he said. “The same thing is going to happen with wind and is happening with wind. That’s why it’s a sweet spot with us.”
Leveraging Vestas’ performance-improving PowerPlus® products, Vestas will upgrade long-time customer IKEA Group’s global portfolio of Vestas turbines, equaling 316 MW, to maximize the value of their wind energy assets. The upgrades span across six different Vestas turbine types and are expected to generate on average 1.5 percent in additional energy production, estimated at a total of 13.5 GWh a year.
With the PowerPlus® program, Vestas can increase a wind-power plant’s energy production and efficiency through site-specific optimization of operational parameters, implementation of intelligent software algorithms, or enhanced aerodynamic performance.
IKEA Group has ambitious sustainability targets in place, including an ambition to produce as much renewable energy as they consume by 2020.
“It is great that we can extend the cooperation with Vestas and optimize the performance of the wind farms. We value long-term relationships with our partners as we want to work together to improve and develop quality of operation and maintenance services,” said Krister Mattsson, responsible for financial asset management, IKEA Group.
“We are thrilled to upgrade IKEA Group’s existing energy assets and support them in reaching their target of powering their production and consumption with renewable energy. We continue to innovate and develop solutions that can increase energy production, which also means that already operating turbines can be upgraded to yield even more energy. In this case, we have improved the existing business case through a global deal, where we upgrade six different turbine types, once again emphasizing the flexibility of our offerings,” said Mariel Alexandra Garrido Urena, head of fleet optimization IKEA Group’s global portfolio of Vestas turbines in the U.S., Sweden, France, and Poland will be upgraded, and this includes V80-2.0 MW, V90-2.0 MW, V90-3.0 MW, V100-2.0 MW, V112-3.0 MW and V112-3.3 MW turbines.
