With the 30% investment tax credit on U.S. wind projects set to expire at the end of 2011, third quarter turbine installations hit the highest level since 2008. The industry installed 3,360 MW so far this year, with 1,200 MW coming on line in just the third quarter alone. Total U.S. capacity under construction is estimated at 8,400 MW. A 2.2 cent/KWh income tax credit continues to boost industry profits and, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), has propelled nearly $1 billion/year in new wind farm investments. Unfortunately, this premium is set to expire at the end of 2012, although the AWEA is lobbying hard for its extension.

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Designed to deliver exceptional protection in some of the most demanding conditions including high heat, low temperatures, and heavy loading,— Mobil SHC synthetic lubricants and greases help keep wind turbines world-wide operating in top form. Visit us here for more...

Search by document number or keyword to find the latest wind turbine and wind energy standards at webstore.ansi.org from IEC, ISO, IEEE, and more. Whether you are designing turbines, gears, testing performance, integrating into smart grid, or ensuring workplace safety — ANSI has the standards you need.

Wind turbine gearboxes are typically the weakest link in the system. Not only do they require ongoing maintenance, but their lifetimes are measured in years rather than the multi-decade service life expected of towers, hubs, and blades. As a result, research dollars continue to pour into direct-drive (DD) turbines and the permanent magnet (PM) generators they require. According to Control Engineering, new PM generator designs for offshore plants will soon reach 6 MW. The European Wind Energy Association 2011 conference saw proposals for 20 MW DDPM turbines with 200 m rotors.

Multi-Contact products suited for wind power plants: Round connectors simplify the connection between wind engine segments on-site. Fork connectors facilitate maintenance processes in the switch gear. Depending on the configuration, the modular connector CombiTac can be used in various parts of the windmill, from the switch case to the nacelle.

The SKF® WindCon 3.0 offers a proactive solution enabling wind farms to extend turbine maintenance intervals, effectively manage maintenance resources, reduce unplanned downtime, predict remaining turbine service life, and decrease operating costs per KWh. This third generation system monitors component conditions in real-time. . .
(read more)

Betatronix supplies potentiometers that monitor the tilt of wind turbine blades, the speed of the governors on the generators, fluid pressure, and temperature in a power plant. The potentiometers are immune to electromagnetic interference and high temperatures.

Although it may seem that wind farms require a negligible amount of land, it's not that simple. In Germany, dense population coupled with high expectations for renewable power is bringing land use issues to the forefront. Faced with acreage constraints, is there a limit to how tightly wind turbines can be packed onto a piece of land? Kinetic energy reduction and wake effects reduce the output of closely-spaced turbines, but turbulence modeling can help determine optimum layout and spacing.

Fraba posital rotary encoders and inclinometers are widely used in both wind turbines and solar energy systems. They are accurate, reliable, and have the mechanical robustness and weather sealing needed to stand up to harsh environmental conditions, including wind, rain, dust, vibration, and repeated lightning strikes.

For harsh environments and years of reliable service, Motion Sensors' hermetically sealed VR Sensors are your best option. They are hermetically sealed for resistance to moisture and other atmospheric contamination.

Key applications for industrial fiber optic components in wind turbine systems include: power electronic gate driver for rectifiers and inverters, control and communication boards, turbine control units, condition monitoring systems, and wind farm networking. Learn more...

Pad-mounted transformers step up wind turbine voltage to feed the grid's collector system. Proper sizing and maintenance is critical, since a transformer failure takes its turbine out of production. Transformer sizing depends on maximum, rather than rated turbine output. Startup currents tax transformer fusing, as does frequent on and off cycling. North American Windpower explains how to size a pad-mounted transformer, the benefits of additional safeguards like harmonic filter banks, and ways to optimize preventative maintenance.

Whenever a new wind farm is announced, there is the inevitable protest about potentially harmful impacts on bird and bat populations. Traditional responses include the attractiveness of renewables and clean energy, avoidance of greenhouse gas production, and the damage that hydroelectric dams do to fish populations. But is there really a problem? Smart operators arm themselves with statistics showing the effects of habitat loss, pesticide poisoning, and other attacks on wildlife that far outweigh those from towers and turbine blades.

In the excitement of designing a new wind farm, transportation planning often slips to the end of the process. This can be unfortunate. Rail tunnels limit load width to 13 ft. through most of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Massive tower sections require specialized trucks and good roads. Developers need to look at ocean transport options too. Many ports are expanding their footprints just to handle turbine parts — is yours? Wind Power Engineering talked to truckers, port operators, and railroad companies to learn about delivery bottlenecks, and how to get around them.

Blade pitch control systems must be ultra-reliable. Not only does pitch optimize output to wind speed, but shutting down the turbine in high winds or emergencies requires on-demand pitch control at all times. Locating pitch motor power supplies in the hub reduces the likelihood of a connection failure, but places limits on size and weight. This white paper proposes the use of ultracapacitors, rather than batteries, as a pitch control energy source. Solid state ultracapacitors reduce weight and frequency of maintenance while improving reliability.

Interested in improving drivetrain reliability? This August the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) held a workshop on condition monitoring techniques. The workshop identified several hotspots, including the gearbox, generator, main bearing, and rotor. Techniques for monitoring each of these varied, from stress wave and vibration analysis to oil sampling and analysis. Other NREL recommendations included using a dynamometer during gearbox run-in to generate abnormal vibrations, and examining the debris in sumps and bearing housings.

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