Page 17 - North American Clean Energy January/February 2020 Issue

The benefits of investing in preventive reconditioning include:
• Reducing the number and severity of electrical and mechanical malfunctions
• Improving the safety of your equipment
• Making the maintenance, repair, and overhaul expenses more economical
• Extending the life expectancy of your equipment
• Eliminating premature replacement
• Preventing future business interruption/lost production time
• Investing in the reliability of your equipment
How does preventive reconditioning work?
Preventive reconditioning is more than just cleaning the surface of operating equipment. Before a glitch turns into a major problem, preventive reconditioning enables you to locate it and prevent future operational failure. Infrared scanning, for instance, is a thermal imaging technology used to pinpoint locations with elevated temperatures. Identifying the presence of elevated temperatures could indicate that the equipment is malfunctioning – possibly by a loose electrical connection, which may cause a fire.
Instead of bringing in an equipment restoration company after an incident has occurred, when you are under time constraints to fix a problem, performing preventive reconditioning before a loss occurs allows you the extra time to locate the right partner to work with, and keep your wind turbines operational. Once you find a trusted partner to perform the preventive reconditioning, they can provide an overall assessment and evaluation of the equipment’s current condition. From this initial analysis, they can offer suggestions for improvements to the equipment operations and performance.
It is much less stressful and, ultimately, less costly to work with a maintenance partner
to develop a schedule, which can be based on either calendar dates or usage. Because preventive reconditioning occurs while the equipment is operational, you have the flexibility to head off trouble in a way that will not interrupt production or affect operations.
Preventing vs. Reacting
Preventive reconditioning is an upfront investment that helps avoid repairs and asset failures, increasing the longevity of a turbine. On the other hand, reactive maintenance means that a turbine operates until it breaks. When that happens, repairs are needed immediately to bring the turbine back to operational condition. Generally, no planned maintenance is conducted between operating failures. While this may initially seem like the best option in terms of cost- savings, it can actually be the more expensive route when the equipment does fail.
In addition to the costs of repairing the equipment, other costs associated with reacting to an incident include lost production and business interruption. By not being able to predict a breakdown, you also cannot prepare for the repairs in terms of labor and parts, which ends up incurring even greater costs.
An upfront investment in your equipment is an investment in the improvements in your operational costs and processes, including but not limited to increased productivity, reduced equipment and labor downtime and a
reduction in unexpected replacement costs.
Scott Carroll is the Global Sales Director for AREPA located in the Chicago, Ill. office. Scott has over 20 years’ experience in disaster recovery and specialty cleaning projects. For over 35 years, AREPA
has provided comprehensive recovery solutions following property loss to critical equipment and systems. AREPA provides turnkey rapid response to insurance claims professionals, risk managers, and corporations around the world.
AREPA /// www.arepa.com
Next-generation blade pitch technology
Mita-Teknik launched its blade pitch system for onshore and offshore wind turbines. The new Mita Pitch System has been designed to effectively minimize O&M costs, reduce downtime, and improve productivity. The Mita Pitch System is a flexible pitch solution for turbines up to 12MW, with a design life
of 30 years. It has been designed to maximize the availability and performance of wind turbines, while applying minimum loads to the structure. High availability is ensured by fast commissioning, a Built-In-Self-Test scheme for on-the-fly evaluation, simple maintenance procedures, and digitalization.
The system features a modular pitch design with integrated drives, based on various standardized sizes of Hub Units, Blade Units, brushless PM Servo Motors, Asynchronous Servo Motors as well as energy storage based on either ultracapacitors or long life VRLA batteries. It is designed as an open system allowing OEMs to integrate their own software in the hub controller. This robust system has been designed to sustain the harsh environment of the rotating wind turbine hubs and can deal with operating temperatures ranging from -22°F to 140°F (-30°C to 60°C), as well as continuous vibrations and forces. By removing the traditional “cabinet in cabinet” approach, Mita-Teknik was able to maximize the system reliability, avoiding high ambient temperatures inside the cabinet. The Mita Pitch System offers innovative features such as ruggedized IP65 seawater resistant aluminum housings, smart energy management extending component service life, as well as touchless blade angle monitoring.
Mita-Teknik /// www.mita-teknik.com
Power price forecasting service
Wood has launched a new power price forecasting (PPF) service to help provide customers with greater certainty around the financial return they can expect from investment in renewable energy projects. Wood’s new PPF service will provide customers with clarity on real-time electricity costs, plus an ability
to simulate future costs based on a range of different scenarios. This dynamic solution enables them to see where the investment risks and potential upside opportunities could lie throughout the lifecycle of a renewable project based on forecast electricity prices.
Wood /// www.woodplc.com
If you wait, you may be too late.
WindCom’s skilled technicians are in high demand. If
you are planning to complete work on your fleet in 2020, now is the time to request a proposal for your blade service needs.
Get a quote today. Call 713-806-1683 or visit
WindComServices.com/request-for-proposal
North American Clean Energy
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