Page 8 - North American Clean Energy May June 2018 Issue

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Four Reasons Why Wind
Farms Need Professional
Weather Services
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MAY•JUNE2018 /// www.nacleanenergy.com
by Don Leick
Monitoring weather conditions at wind farms requires a unique and precise collection
of meteorological intelligence. Many wind farms operate in the path of volatile and unpredictable weather patterns, which can make operations and maintenance challenging to manage. Wind farm operators have a duty to protect their assets, and employees, from weather related risks. Below are four main reasons why wind farms should prioritize their investment in professional weather insight.
Caution: Lightning is Near
Crews performing maintenance at substantial turbine heights are at an increased danger to lightning strikes, and often
need more lead time to seek shelter when a storm is rapidly approaching. Trying to ensure worker safety by relying on someone to listen for thunder, or watching local radar, doesn’t cut it when compared to the signi cant advances made in weather technology. Free weather apps can pose an even bigger risk for wind farms; their weather alerts often don’t give the complete picture of lightning hazard, which can put workers’ lives in danger.
Wind farm operators need a reliable safety solution that includes real-time, location-speci c lightning information. A professional weather partner can detect and forecast lightning strikes, as well as provide high-quality, timely mobile alerts for on-site maintenance crews. Together, these services have been shown to be highly e ective in keeping workers safe.
Existing commercial solutions can setup alerts based on a xed or GPS location on a smart phone. is is ideal for crew members working on a large wind farm with varied terrain, or those servicing multiple winds farms; these solutions can monitor strikes in real-time, as they approach. When strikes occur within a speci c zone set by the wind farm, audio and visual alerts can be triggered. Each wind farm should develop their own alert thresholds, but we recommend three alerts to optimally ensure crew safety:
1. Caution Alert – When lightning is near crew location, up to 60 miles out
2. Warning Alert – When lightning becomes an imminent threat to crew position 3. All-Clear Alert – When no lightning has been observed in 30 minutes, and work
can be resumed
New technology allows wind farms to include actionable alerts, rather than simply
stating when and where a lightning strike occurred. is reinforces the action that crew members need to take based on the wind farm’s established safety protocol. If an alert is distributed when a lightning strike is 60 miles away, the actionable alert could be, “Get prepared to do an evacuation. If you’re already down tower, do not go uptower.”
ere are inexpensive applications that provide lightning alerts, but these are usually run by backyard hobbyists with unidenti ed sources, rather than professional meteorologists. To protect workers from harm, wind farms need multi-range alerts, as crew members need a warning long before severe weather a ects their location. us, it is increasingly important to invest in reliable weather intelligence.
Proactively Inspect Blades
Commercial solutions also provide blade inspection technology that identi es turbines a ected by lightning. Maintenance crews can use this information to inspect and repair blade damage before it matures, reducing the likelihood of generation
loss due to turbine shutdown. Global lightning detection networks can generate
daily reports, providing operational insight so wind farms strategically inspect only the assets a ected. Pertinent details about each lightning strike include distance, amperage, polarity, time, and location; this helps determine whether a wind farm should restart turbines after a fault, or inspect them rst.