Moventas, one of the world’s leading wind and industrial gear manufacturers announced today the launch of new custom-built Mobile Service Units for wind gears. Moventas unique ability to repair the entire helical side of the gearbox up-tower greatly reduces maintenance costs and therefore the cost of wind energy.
Moventas launched its up-tower repair service last year after successfully completing a multitude of full helical gearbox repairs up-tower. Moventas now offers full helical up-tower service on non-Moventas gears as well as Moventas-made gears. Designed to support Moventas’ up-tower field service program, the self-contained, climate-controlled mobile workshops are outfitted with a retractable roof, a power generator, plumbed air lines, a parts wash basin, and an induction heater. The four units are strategically located throughout North America.
The ability to repair the entire helical side of the gearbox up-tower greatly reduces maintenance costs by utilizing small cranes in place of large capacity boom and tail cranes. Repair times are collapsed by eliminating the need to ship gears to and from service centers and weather delays are mitigated with fewer lifts and smaller components.
“The launch of the new mobile units underscores Moventas’ commitment to becoming the industry’s service leader by migrating repairs from the workshop to the turbine,” said Steve Casey, General Manager at Moventas Portland.
Designed by Moventas’ leading service technicians, the mobile service units are stocked with proprietary up- tower tools and equipped with cutting and welding capabilities, making it possible to offer a wider range of on- site services than ever before. Up-tower services include full helical repair, high speed pinion & bearing repair, intermediate and low speed assembly, as well as planetary sun pinion repair.
In the case of a full helical repair, each gearbox Moventas services up-tower is equipped with CMaS, Moventas’ state-of-the-art condition management system, free of charge. CMaS performs vibration analysis and tracks changes in oil condition and particle counts every 15 minutes, allowing it to catch potential problems that would otherwise be missed by vibration analysis alone. CMaS data is analyzed remotely by Moventas’ highly trained engineers, alerting customer to potential problem before they occur – often months in advance, enabling customers to proactively planning repairs before serious problems occur.
