Safety is of paramount importance when working at the dizzy height of a wind turbine. Brad Prickett, the senior lubrication engineer at ExxonMobil Fuels & Lubricants, located in Houston, gives PES his insight on how this can be improved. This is his area of expertise as he has worked with wind turbine operators since the mid-2000s.
When it comes to the safety of your wind turbine operation, lubrication can have a bigger impact than you might think.
That’s because the greatest safety risks to an operation typically occur during equipment servicing and maintenance.
Take, for example, a routine oil change. What is a fairly straightforward process for ground-based equipment becomes much more complex for wind turbine equipment, as maintenance teams must ascend the tower, sometimes to elevations as high as 400 feet, before carefully inspecting the equipment to determine if any additional servicing is needed before refilling components with the new oil.
This is no easy task, which is why one of the most effective opportunities to enhance the safety of a wind turbine operation is by reducing human-machine interaction (HMI), or the frequency which maintenance personnel interact with wind turbine equipment.
Reducing HMIs requires having a robust lubrication program that prevents unnecessary downtime and extends the service intervals of wind turbine equipment.
With that in mind, here are a few key guidelines to optimizing your lubrication program and enhancing the safety of
your operation.
