Evolving wind industry requires continued investment to drive turbine growth
Romax Technology, the world’s leading independent wind turbine condition monitoring and service provider has reaffirmed its commitment to driving offshore wind energy, after announcing that is has now provided long term services to over 5 GW of wind turbines globally, including over 40 per cent of the UK’s offshore fleet and a large proportion of the North American operating assets.
In reaching the target of 5 GW Romax now has access to a heightened range of data and knowledge which can be applied to future operations as well as enhancing its range of practical engineering solutions.
Romax supports wind asset owners and operators right across the globe with products and services designed to maximise sustainable energy yields that optimise the balance between turbine and component performance, and operational costs.
As well as being able to celebrate the success of achieving the highest number of certified wind turbine gearbox designs in the market, Romax also has the technology to monitor performance with InSight software and services.
InSight predictive maintenance solutions combine a unique mix of engineering skills, consulting expertise, specialist software and field experience in drivetrain technologies. This mix of monitoring and inspection services enables wind farm owners and operators to schedule maintenance checks and make significant cost savings.
Dr John Coultate, Head of Monitoring and O&M Consultancy from Romax states that in light of investment there is likely to be a bigger emphasis placed on condition monitoring and in order to address this access to larger data streams is going to be essential:
“The wind energy sector is rapidly evolving and in light of this it’s imperative that we are able improve the robustness, performance, efficiency and reliability of turbines. Currently over 75 per cent of expenditure for wind farms, both offshore and onshore is tied to operations and maintenance. This puts huge pressure on the sites to make use of all the data generated in order to ensure that it is analysed effectively to future-proof against failures and downtime. This is not always possible and that is where we can help.
“At Romax we now have access to extraordinary volumes of information that allows us to ultimately increase our benchmarking, providing users with improved visibility and accuracy over faults, enabling them to plan, prepare and prevent future failures. It is vital therefore that we continue to build on the knowledge gained to set new targets to drive the industry forward.”
Dr. Ashley Crowther, Global VP of the InSight Division encourages the industry closing the gap between field experience and technology development in wind turbine predictive maintenance, “We are pleased to have had a long term engagement with our clients on these 5GW of assets. Tracking issues on this volume of machines over many years allows us to continue to innovate and apply the right design and simulation technology with a truer understanding of the reliability issues over the product lifecycle.”
For decades, Romax has pioneered technology for simulating and predicting the life of transmissions and rotating machinery. Romax’s methods for durability and life prediction have been validated through extensive testing and series production and are trusted by manufacturers across the globe.
About Romax Technology Limited
Founded in 1989, Romax is a global provider of software and services for the design, analysis and optimization of transmissions and drivelines for the automotive, bearings, wind energy, off road, rail, marine and aerospace sectors.
Romax has over 300 customers worldwide, including the majority of OEMs across the transport and wind industries. It has won a number of industry awards, including two Queens Awards for Enterprise in International Trade and the British Engineering Excellence Award for Consultancy of the Year 2014.
Romax is headquartered in Nottingham, United Kingdom and operates through 12 offices globally. For more information, visit www.romaxtech.com.
