Supports Trojan Strategic Worldwide Expansion into New Market Segments SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif., March 28, 2017 – As part of its global innovation strategy, Trojan Battery Co., LLC, the world’s leading manufacturer of deep-cycle batteries, has named Ivan Menjak as director of global product solutions. In this role, Menjak will be responsible for managing Trojan’s… Read more »
PES talks with Billy Stevenson, Managing Director, Deutsche Windtechnik Ltd, to find out about the growth in wind power in the UK and the prospects for the future. PES: Welcome to PES Wind magazine. Thanks for talking with us. Would you like to begin by explaining a little about the background of your organisation and… Read more »
What’s the key to profitable high volume manufacturing? In almost any industry, two of the vital ingredients are reproducibility and controllability. Michael van der Gugten, Sales and Marketing Executive, Smit Thermal Solutions, explains to PES why it’s no different for thin film solar Reproducibility, controllability and a high-volume mind-set Smit Thermal Solutions provides thermal equipment… Read more »
The latest UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology allows swift, thorough inspections to assess turbines. Drones can be used either as part of routine reporting or for detailed inspections in preparations for rope access teams. This has many significant health and safety benefits for the technical teams in terms of assuring all anchor points are secure and preparing in… Read more »
Words: Thomas Arnold and Thomas Zirngibl, TÜV SÜD Industrie Service GmbH The recently revised TR6 Technical Guideline of the German Public Association of the Renewable Energy Sector (Fördergesellschaft Windenergie (FGW)) is designed to ensure the provision of reliable yield forecasts. Wind reports based on the Guideline play a critical role for producing reliable estimates of… Read more »
PES talks to Rick Huntley, Director of Safety and Compliance, at Sentinel Aviation and discovers exactly how important safety is in this company. Two of the directors are ex-military and bring this added experience. He also explains that this relatively new industry is already entering a cut throat price war due to the number of… Read more »
Words: Lindsay Roberts, Senior Policy Manager, Scottish Renewables Renewable energy is now our largest source of power and with over 5.5GW installed onshore, wind provides the lion’s share of that capacity. Can the Scottish and UK Governments work with industry and regulators to remove a series of barriers as suggested in a report by Everoze… Read more »
The Dutch Government’s offshore wind energy programme is making significant waves in the energy sector, after Dong Energy bid a record-low price for the contract to build and operate the first two projects offered in the country’s five-year tender programme. That could only happen because of the steps taken by the State in designing an… Read more »
The Race Bank Wind farm is being constructed by DONG Energy approximately 27 kilometres off Blakeney Point on the North Norfolk coast and 28 kilometres off the Lincolnshire Coast and Chapel St Leonards. It covers an area of 7511ha. Export cables bring the power from the wind farm to the substation onshore. These export cables… Read more »
Words: Steve Sawyer, secretary general at GWEC The dramatic drop in price of solar and wind generated electricity, for solar in particular, has grabbed a lot of attention lately. Prices in the range of $US 0.03-0.04/kWh have come through in tenders from Peru to Mexico and Morocco to South Africa. It is almost to the… Read more »
Steve Sawyer, Secretary General, GWEC, gives a global overview of wind power during 2015, a very positive year culminating in the Paris agreement in December. He predicts a steady growth in the industry over the next five years. Wind Power Leads All New Power Generation More than 150 nations gathered in New York, on Earth… Read more »
Words: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jan Wenske, Deputy Director IWES Northwest Dr.-Ing. Maik Wefer, Division Director Structural Components IWES Jan Wenske and Maik Wefer of Fraunhofer IWES, show PES how testing should be regarded as a method to accelerate time to market of new designs and stand out by offering approved overall system reliability – instead of… Read more »
We look at the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA)’s view of the future energy landscape beyond 2020. Current targets set out for 2030 in Europe will see the wind energy sector and other renewable technologies transform the power sector and bring positive impacts to the European power system and the economy as we pivot towards… Read more »
Words: Paul Goodwin, Global Maritime, Pablo Ruiz-Minguela, TECNALIA, José Luis Aguiriano, OCEANTEC For all the growth in solar and wind energy over the past few years, one often over-looked and untested renewable source is that of wave energy. Yet, wave energy is generally considered to be one of the most concentrated renewable energy sources today… Read more »
Thijs Haselhoff, New Business Development Manager at Altheris Sensors & Controls and Eric Préfontaine, Business Development Manager at OpSens Solutions, responsable for the Energy market, together tell PES about this new state-of-the-art technology and explain why fibre optic sensors are perfectly suited to the Renewable Energy market. PES: Welcome to PES magazine. Thanks for talking… Read more »
To realise the climate targets set out in the Paris Agreement, over the next few years, we will be seeing a strong increase in the number of offshore wind farms in the North Sea. This will create all sorts of new opportunities for the offshore wind industry. PES spoke to Joost Eenhuizen, Business Manager Maritime… Read more »
PES investigates how the Altura Zenith unmanned aerial system performs at sea in high winds, as Aerialtronics announces separate radical technical developments with NVIDIA and the IBM Watson Internet of Things Platform on the cloud. Overcoming gales to inspect wind turbines in the Baltic Sea is one reason why Euro Drone Inspections use the Altura… Read more »
PES hears from the Belgian company, ADEDE, about the challenges they face during the search for unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the sea and on land. This work is often hazardous and sometimes uncovers some significant archaeological finds. Offshore UXO survey The offshore environment provides huge technical challenges, one of which is UXO. And more importantly,… Read more »
Following hot on the heels of Hamburg we turn our attention to the eagerly anticipated Offshore Energy Amsterdam. Here is our preview, just for you. The international oil, gas and renewable trade event is just around the corner and before it kicks off, the Offshore WIND Conference (OWC) will take center stage. OWC will again… Read more »
Getting almost every spare part and accessory for wind turbines from a single source to the customer – this is the business model WINDSOURCING.COM launched in 2013. Within three years the Hamburg-based company has developed to become the largest online distribution platform for the wind sector. PES Wind Magazine reports how the company was created… Read more »
Mariecke Siezen, Director at Technoship bv, met up with PES to tell us about the importance of safety on and offshore. We learn about the latest advances in protection systems, the customisation of certain products and the training factor. PES: Welcome to PES magazine. Thanks for talking with us. Would you like to begin by… Read more »
Words: Christos Kolliatsas, hydro and renewables director, Mott MacDonald With the potential exception of being a referee or a traffic warden, for the most part, a lender’s engineer or lender’s technical advisor (LTA) may be one of the most polarising professions available. And yet, a professional and competent LTA can bring significant value to a… Read more »
The latest developments in blade pitch technology have opened new opportunities for wind turbine manufacturers. In this white paper, Mita-Teknik, one of the world’s leading designer and manufacturer of pitch systems, shares its view of the five key trends of this rapidly evolving technology. It also offers three important insights to keep in mind to… Read more »
Words: Philip Rood The marine renewables market is ever growing and SEA, a part of Cohort plc, has expanded its engineering capability to provide a variety of support services to the wave and tidal energy sectors. Cohort plc, business SEA, has showcased its credentials, in the growing wave and tidal energy support sector, by installing… Read more »
Words: Stephen Holden, Maintenance Account Director, Global Marine Systems Limited Although there have been power cables in the marine environment for many decades, there have been relatively few in number until fairly recently. Those that exist are predominately national or short haul international cables and in terms of total kilometres are rather limited. Certainly this… Read more »
Up until recently in the wind industry, the aim of many players when affecting the choice of technology seemed to be based on making the wind turbine as cheaply as possible. PES gets a different perspective from Jukka-Pekka Mäkinen, President and CEO of The Switch. “We believe looking only at upfront costs is extremely short-sighted,”… Read more »
What’s in a name? Thorsten Jalk, CEO at Ziton, dropped in to tell us about the name change from DBB Jack-up. It’s an exciting time for the company; they offer more than a jack-up service, in fact they provide the whole operations and maintenance package. Owning the vessels contributes to fulfilling their aim of reducing… Read more »
A global increase of electricity consumption along with the expected exhaustion of fossil fuel sources are ushering in a new era of environmental awareness that is opening up opportunities for the use of renewable energy sources such as wind power. With expertise in both automotive and industrial technology, PES discovers why ZF supports gear-driven wind… Read more »
Paolo Brianzoni, CEO of Visual Working SA, talks to PES about the exciting developments in drone inspection. The company is pushing the boundaries to bring the ultimate in image quality and data richness. This means there is the occasional crash, but they just pick themselves up and improve… PES: Welcome to PES Wind magazine. Thanks… Read more »
Universal Transport is driving energy transition forward. The transport of components for wind turbine plants requires a vast amount of intensive preparation; the 70m long rotor blades, especially, create a real challenge. This kind of job is all in a days’ work at Universal Transport, one of the leading contractors in the area of large… Read more »
Drones are starting to change many industry sectors, especially in maintenance and services. SPECTAIR GROUP is one of Germany’s biggest players in the drone industry. Besides surveying, monitoring and industry inspections the SPECTAIR GROUP serves the wind industry. PES met up with Marius Schroeder, Head of Marketing at SPECTAIR GROUP GmbH in Germany, to find… Read more »
PES caught up with Danny Ellis, CEO and co-Founder of Skyspecs, to hear about the latest drone inspection technology. It’s an exciting time for Skyspecs as they look towards expanding their services in Europe. PES: Welcome to PES Wind magazine. Thanks for talking with us. Would you like to begin by explaining a little about… Read more »
In 2010 researchers of the acoustics & vibrations department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) started working on the topic of FSHM (Foundation Structural Health Monitoring), back when this abbreviation was not very well known in the wind power industry. Going back six years ago, the main research in the field of sensors and monitoring… Read more »
Jan Willem van der Graaf, CEO at Seaway Heavy Lifting, talks to PES about the decrease in oil & gas projects, due to the slump in oil prices and the increase in interest in contracts for renewables. PES: Welcome to PES, thanks for talking to us. You are active in several industries, is wind energy… Read more »
Words: Dipl.-Chem. Joachim Rother, Technical Director, novatic COATINGS Group The novatic® COATINGS Group has an extensive portfolio of high quality coating materials, for industrial corrosion protection, for use in various industries. There is a wide range of corrosion protection systems and applications available ranging from easy to use, for the protection of interior steel constructions,… Read more »
When we last spoke to Henning Weisz, the CEO of Global Tarps (Group MPASIA), it was following a 12 month growth period that had also seen the company maintain its reputation for quality and service. We caught up with Henning once again to find out how the business has been performing recently. “We control the… Read more »