SPOTLIGHT ON IRELAND
FEATURE SPONSOR
POWERTEAM PLUGS IN £3.6M WIND FARM
ONE OF IRELAND’S FASTEST GROWING HIGH VOLTAGE (HV) ELECTRICAL DESIGN AND BUILD COMPANIES POWERTEAM, A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF ESB, IS IN THE FINAL STAGES OF COMPLETING THE £3.6M ELECTRICAL SUBSTATION CONSTRUCTION AND FIT OUT FOR THE ATHEA WIND FARM IN COUNTY LIMERICK.
The wind farm, located to the north of Abbeyfeale, close to the village of Athea, will add a further 34MW of wind capacity to SSE’s portfolio, bringing its total operational wind farm capacity in Ireland to over 500MW.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Powerteam was responsible for the electrical design of the substation which will connect the 16 turbine wind farm to the electricity grid, procurement of equipment, civil engineering work, installation of electrical equipment, commissioning and testing of installed equipment and overall project management.
Alastair Dawson, Managing Director, Powerteam said: “The Athea project is our seventh wind farm project for SSE and our 42nd wind farm project in the UK and Ireland. Those 42 wind farms represent enough renewable energy to power more than 675,000 homes for a whole year.
“During construction Powerteam employed 25 people and helped boost the economies of nearby towns by working with various local suppliers.”
IRELAND’S NATIONAL TARGET Athea and other SSE wind farms located in West Limerick, will help towards achieving Ireland’s national target of 40% renewables by 2020 and the EU’s mandatory 20% reduction in carbon emissions.
Alastair concluded: “We are delighted to be part of the Athea project which builds upon our relationship with SSE both in the UK and Ireland. It is also pleasing to be nearing completion of the Athea project having completed similar work on the Dromada wind farm in 2010, also for SSE Renewables, a few miles from Athea.”
PROJECT PROGRESS
Seamus Lynch, SSE Renewables Project Manager for Athea Wind Farm, commented: “Over the coming months we’ll be assembling the remaining
THE GLOBAL WIND ALLIANCE PROVIDING O&M SERVICES– WHATEVER WAY YOU WANT IT
The Global Wind Alliance (GWA) operates as a virtual corporation, providing operation and maintenance services for wind farms. It is headquartered in Northern Ireland and has 12 member companies from across Ireland, UK and mainland Europe.
WELL ESTABLISHED
The GWA is well established in this field with each of the member companies being specialists in their own range of services. As the wind industry matures, the dependency on OEMs to provide all the knowledge and support for wind farm owners is changing but it is good to know that the jump from an OEM to an ISP does not have to be made in one go. It can be done progressively, balancing risk and reward. Examples of this can be seen in some of the recent solutions that GWA members have provided to owners.
UK’S FIRST SUSPENDED PLATFORM FOR BLADE REPAIR
Blade experts, Renewable Advice, were called in when a blade defect was observed during a scheduled service, but the OEM was unable to schedule a suitable time to undertake the repair.
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www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
Renewable Advice, who have the UK’s first suspended platform for blade repairs, was on site within 72 hours and a repair on both the inside and outside of the blade was successfully carried out on the crack which was completely through the sandwich structure of the blade shell.
GEARBOX INSPECTIONS JUSTIFY INVESTMENT
Independent service providers are often used for end of warranty inspections, Stork Technical Services demonstrated the value of these inspections when they performed gearbox inspections on a site with 40 turbines recently. To minimise the costs, the owner chose to have just 10 of the turbines inspected. The first 9 were in good shape, but the 10th showed main bearing damage. Undetected, this would have incurred costs of almost €500K for the owner. Stork were then contracted to inspect all the remaining gearboxes in the wind farm and 2 more gearboxes were discovered with major gear problems. This highlights the importance of end of warranty inspections as an activity not to be overlooked.
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