Falmouth Wind Turbine Gear Boxes

Falmouth Vestas V-82 Faster Identification and Repair of Problems

The Town of Falmouth owns two aging Vestas V 82 Commercial 1.65 Megawatt wind turbines.



From: Windpower Monthly

The wind industry is learning from experience.

At Vestas and Siemens, damage to gearbox bearings is these days being discovered and repaired well before it results in total gearbox failureFaster identification and repair of problemsEver since the wind power industry was apparently caught unawares by the major series failure of gearboxes and bearings which befell it in the late 1990s, customers have asked if the same problems could hit today’s generation of larger wind turbines in the 1.5 MW to 2.3 MW range.

So far, there has been no repeat of the problems seen on machines in the sub-megawatt size class.

But other problems related to bearings and gearboxes have turned up on the bigger machines.

Denmark’s two wind turbine manufacturers, Vestas and the wind power division of Siemens Power Generation, are not about to be caught unawares again, however. Having learned from experience, defects are quickly being identified and retrofits carried out where necessary.

Siemens has already retrofitted the bearings in gearboxes on its 2.3 MW machines in operation, while at the same time exchanging the bearings in wind turbines under manufacture and in its stocks of gearboxes.

Vestas has carried out a retrofit program on various turbine models inherited from its takeover of NEG Micon.

Neither company is prepared to reveal the full extent of the retrofit work or what it has cost, although timely repairs mean the sum involved is far less than when NEG Micon was brought to its knees in the late 1990s by gearbox failures on a large number of operating turbines around the world.

At Vestas, poor gearbox and bearing quality is showing up in larger models, the 1.65 MW, 1.75 MW and NM 2 MW, confirms the company’s Tom Pedersen, director for northern Europe.

The problems are limited to particular gearbox types, he says.

Pedersen declines to be specific about how many turbines are affected and which gearbox makes he is referring to, explaining that Vestas has no statistics over gearbox usage and that the company is currently negotiating with the suppliers.

Vestas retrofits Other sources report that gear units from Jahnel-Kestermann, in particular, have been replaced on the NM 2 MW model and that 2 MW machines not yet retrofitted will most likely have to be.

In total, 24 NM 2 MW machines are operating in Denmark, most of them installed in 2002. Jahnel-Kestermann was a family owned German company before its recent takeover by French Arques Industries (Windpower Monthly, July 2005).

Pedersen confirms that gearboxes have been replaced on a number of the 2 MW turbines, but not on all of them.

He says that gearboxes on Vestas 1.65 kW turbines have had an “excessive mortality,” but that a “statistical excessive mortality” has not been seen on the 1.75 kW turbines.

He declines to name the total cost of retrofitting the gearboxes and bearings on Vestas’ larger turbine models.

“It is a sum that is visible,” he says.In Pedersen’s opinion, Vestas is not putting pressure on its gearbox suppliers to get them to pay for the retrofits, although the company is trying to make suppliers live up to their contracts.

In future, this will be achieved by working together more closely on product development.

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Source :

http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/961329/faster-identifcation-repair-problems