Calum Urquhart, Global Business Manager, Energy at Atlas Copco spoke enthusiastically to PES about smart bolting. For sure everyone has been hit by the pandemic but this innovative company, with a strong emphasis on R&D, supporting the customer and sustainability have found new ways of working, which will carry on after the pandemic. PES: Hi… Read more »
Energy generation and storage is rapidly being moved from the centre to the edges of the network, with far-reaching consequences for grid management and oversight. Across the world, the policy direction is increasingly towards distributed generation with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the EU Framework 2030, European Green Deal, and an EU Directive… Read more »
There is a lot going on in the offshore wind market and not only in specific regions; companies around the world are increasingly moving towards generating and harvesting renewable energy. From 2023 onwards, the majority of new offshore wind turbines will be installed outside of Europe. After Europe, Taiwan has become the new hotspot for… Read more »
As the UK accelerates its journey towards net zero, the offshore wind industry has emerged as a key driver of the green industrial revolution. Associated British Ports (ABP) is investing to meet the industry’s requirements by providing state-of-the-art port infrastructure and creating favourable conditions for energy clusters, which will benefit the wider economy. Why is… Read more »
Climate change and accompanying environmental degradations have had tremendous impact on our natural systems and led to new and fatal diseases, as well as decimating our global economy. But as we begin to overcome one of our generation’s greatest challenges, the coronavirus, Earth Day and this year’s theme of Restore our Earth reminds us of… Read more »
Using drones for solar plant inspections has started to become the norm amongst plant owners and O&M companies because it is quicker, more accurate, more economical and safer. However, plants aren’t being inspected nearly enough to ensure their functionality. PES caught up with Mauro Migliazzi, the CEO of Wesii, to find out how their new… Read more »
Press release: 7 December 2020, London Gallagher has added a further market-leading name to its portfolio, signing a multi-year appointment as broker for the Bioenergy Infrastructure Group (BIG). The firm is one of the UK’s largestowners and operators of biomass and waste to energy solutions with over 100 megawatt of operational and late-stage construction assets…. Read more »
How innovation has driven the next performance/cost breakthrough How can the solar industry continue on its cost-down roadmap of lowering the LCOE of solar energy, without sacrificing quality and performance? It’s a challenge that applies to many aspects of solar technology, not least to backsheets. Over the past few years, DSM has developed a new… Read more »
A wind Lidar is quite simply a remarkable piece of technology recently described by Avangrid as having ‘advanced the wind industry globally’. Generic Lidar benefits are summarised by Renewable Energy Systems (RES) as being ‘safer, cheaper, better, faster’ than traditional meteorological masts. An invisible, eye-safe beam of light interrogates the sky above at user defined… Read more »
With the launch of the SHIFT platform four years ago, ZF Wind Power changed the wind gearbox market in terms of flexibility, product lifetime and competition. Thanks to a design based on standardized building blocks, the platform offers high flexibility in gearbox development for next-generation turbine concepts. Currently, the platform has been extended with two… Read more »
Online trade is the big winner of the Corona crisis. This also applies to the spare parts and repair market for wind turbines. A Hamburg company, a pioneer in this niche in 2013, is now gaining momentum despite, or because of Corona. Stefan Weber, Founder and Managing Director of Windsourcing.com GmbH, shares his thoughts with… Read more »
The anti-icing blade heating technology is the enabler for windfarm power production in extreme icy conditions in Quebec, Canada. The efficient use of heat keeps the turbines operating up in the mountains, in the most demanding, freezing conditions, such as Lac Alfred wind farm. It consists of 150 wind turbines, with total capacity of 300MW… Read more »
PES was delighted to speak with Valentin Hartmann, a partner in Waterworks Offshore CONCEPTS. He was enthusiastic about their new venture, as they branch out into the ship finance market. A bold new chapter is beginning in this young dynamic company, encompassed in a slight change of name. They have already established links with investors,… Read more »
TSR Wind is a lively, go-ahead company in our industry, Juan Rivas, Commercial Director, was excited to share some of their solutions with PES. There’s no doubt that robotics is making a big difference to the cost, efficiency, safety and downtimes of inspections for the asset owners, and to cap it all off the analysis… Read more »
The 2nd offshore wind boom is upon us and this time it is going global. During 2021 project installation will be underway in UK, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Norway, Spain, Portugal along with US, Vietnam, Taiwan and China. By 2025 many more countries will join this rush to install the cheapest form of largescale… Read more »
Following on from our interview with Wim Keen in the last edition, PES had some questions for Maik Rienecker, founder of Steel Inspect and father of the unique Q7 concept for optimal quality management of offshore windfarm EPCI (Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation) projects. He was happy to explain the Q7 concept in more detail and… Read more »
As we move towards net zero carbon emissions targets, significant efforts to connect more clean energy resources to the grid are being made. Globally, the energy industry is welcoming innovations in renewable energy and Distributed Energy Resource (DER) assets. As a result, correctly managing and distributing the energy from these DER assets to enable the… Read more »
Wind industry business models are shifting their focus. They used to be mainly driven by financial aspects of the business plan and the debt used to finance it, while technical operations, often subcontracted, came in second place. The priority of the wind industry was to ensure robust turbines with a high degree of availability, with… Read more »
PES Wind caught up with Ed Hall, President of Oxifree, to discover the latest corrosion solutions. Our readers have always been interested in this sector, as it has a real impact on maintenance and life span of the wind turbines. Research and development are at the forefront. The core product encapsulates the part, rather than… Read more »
Before considering the impact that condition monitoring systems (CMS) have on our industry, it is important to first establish what CMS entails and how it came to be such an established piece of hardware in the renewable energy sector. A condition monitoring system would normally comprise of a series of sensors strategically placed on fundamental… Read more »
Miros is a technology company that specialises in measuring the ocean surface. With over 35 years of experience engineering dry-mounted, radar-based sensors robust enough to weather the harsh and unpredictable conditions of the North Sea, the company develops innovative solutions for real-time, local environmental monitoring for the global offshore and maritime industry. By making essential… Read more »
MHO-Co is on a mission towards a greener and more economically viable service to the offshore industry. And the future is already here. Right now, the Danish shipping company is building the world’s first hybrid CTVs which are to be introduced in 2021. And they hope to take the technology even further with support from… Read more »
Mainprize Offshore has operated in the North Sea for over thirty years, and the family behind the company has a fishing heritage that dates back generations. This team has extensive experience in the offshore oil and gas industries, and has been going from strength to strength since entering the offshore renewables sector in 2012. Mainprize… Read more »
Liftket‘s CEO Jürgen Dlugi, tells PES about the company’s expansion in the wind industry. In 1953 they started off by supplying electric chain hoists and are now able to offer a complete service crane globally, suitable for on and offshore work. Well aware of safety needs, they provide full training and tailor made packages to… Read more »
As market demand for wind turbines has grown, so too have the demands for quality and performance, in order to reduce the levelized cost of energy (LCoE) and demonstrate that the technology is not just a clean solution for electric power generation, it is also a profitable addition to the energy mix. This is especially… Read more »
The electric energy industry has long been a conservative business taking very deliberate and measured steps in adopting new technologies. The renewable energy markets have forced companies to adapt to a fast-paced and rapid technology development cycle. The exponential growth and the demand for more power in a smaller envelope continue to drive rapid development…. Read more »
Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, there has been a global consensus that the transition to a CO2-neutral energy supply needs to be achieved worldwide within the next few decades. At the same time, considerable technological progress has been made with both onshore and offshore wind energy, for example, and, as a result, the energy generated… Read more »
While wind is enjoying significant growth, studies confirm that wind turbines suffer from reliability issues: The EU’s RELIAWIND study found that electrical systems accounted for the highest failure rate, but gearbox failures accounted for the highest amount of downtime (14 days)1. The National Renewable Energy laboratory found that the majority of wind turbine gearbox failures… Read more »
WindEnergy Hamburg, the world’s leading wind energy event, is taking place in 2020 despite the crisis. However, organizer Hamburg Messe und Congress GmbH is not inviting visitors to its local exhibition campus this time but to the World Wide Web. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, WindEnergy Hamburg 2020 will be a fully digital event held… Read more »
The global energy transition is underway. The uptake of renewables is accelerating, as the technology undercuts fossil fuel based energy generation and governments seek to achieve international climate targets. Renewable energy is now also accepted as an opportunity to drive green economic growth and job creation to help support the recovery from the impacts of… Read more »
Blade O&M has become a focus for BladeInsight, formerly Prodrone. André Croft de Moura, CEO and founder, spoke enthusiastically to PES, about his vison for the future of drone inspections, with added value. This blade centric company has already embraced the idea of predictive maintenance and is continuing to provide quality, agility and a focus… Read more »
All over the world, people are asking two questions: How will COVID-19 have a continued effect, and what will the next American President do? The pandemic has caused manufacturing plant closures resulting in predictable havoc, but we have also seen COVID-19 disrupt supply chains that were once rock-solid, in ways nobody could have anticipated. It’s… Read more »
The smart factory is a term we all know well and is used in reference to the implementation of Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing environment. Significant benefits such as improved quality, higher productivity and cost reductions have transformed industries such as automotive and electronics in recent years through implementation of smart connected assembly solutions. Wind… Read more »
At PES we were curious about Aero Enterprise, so we decided to call Robert Hörmann, CEO/CTO and Peter Kurt Fromme-Knoch, CEO/CFO to find out more about this fast developing, innovative company. They are very happy to be part of the BUSS Energy Group, finding much mutual benefit and profiting from the global reach. However, they… Read more »
Can you name any other energy plant that you build, operate and try to understand if it’s performing efficiently, without actually measuring the fuel that you’re supplying? A wind farm is often exactly that. According to a recent ‘A Word About Wind’ study, almost 50% of those surveyed placed the validation of their production plant… Read more »
Online trade is the big winner of the Corona crisis. This also applies to the spare parts and repair market for wind turbines. A Hamburg company, a pioneer in this niche in 2013, is now gaining momentum despite, or because of Corona. Stefan Weber, Founder and Managing Director of Windsourcing.com GmbH, shares his thoughts with… Read more »