Power plant products |
‘Revolutionary’ crane does the heavy lifting at Whitelee
The UK’s largest onshore array – ScottishPower Renewables’ 539 MW Whitelee Windfarm near Glasgow – is the first site in Europe to use a kind of crane technology that its developer LiftWerx describes as ‘revolutionary’. The nacelle mounted crane has been used to replace gearboxes on two wind turbines. Designed for swift assembly and dismantling, the innovative ‘Uptower’ crane technology was chosen by ScottishPower because of the enhanced safety, environmental and operational benefits it promised compared to conventional ground-based cranes. These include fixed mounting of the crane in the nacelle, so the crane cannot collapse and is independent of groundconditions; a smaller amount of equipment and correspondingly lower transport costs; shorter boom lengths and remote controls on the crane offering better visibility and safety for crane operation; reduced potential for fuel spillage; electrical operation; and higher operational wind speed capability.
Joe Mitchell, Operations and Maintenance director for ScottishPower Renewables, commented: “The Uptower crane is an incredible piece of kit – truly impressive and extremely innovative – and we’re proud to be the first company to test this technology anywhere in
Europe. Innovations like this play a critical role in developing safer and more cost-efficient solutions in renewables operations and maintenance … we’re already speaking to LiftWerx about next steps and other opportunities to make use of this technology.”
Lasers could help prevent ‘galloping’ lines
New research is finding that an answer to the winter issue of ‘galloping power lines’ could lie in copying the topography of natural objects – such as a lotus leaf. Galloping is a phenomenon associated with freezing rain coating power lines. As rain freezes onto the line, it forms a teardrop shape that encases the wires and acts like an aerodynamic wing. When wind blows, wires can start to move up and down in an oscillating motion. This can cause outages if lines come into contact with each other, and may damage equipment on the poles such as the cross arms. The phenomenon can occur anywhere but is more common in rural stretches where there are fewer obstructions to disrupt the wind, leaving lines more exposed to high winds.
Air flow spoilers that wrap around the line can
help keep wires from bouncing so much in the wind but Omaha Public Power District, OPPD, is using a newer technology in some of the areas that have been prone to galloping before. Researchers at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln, UNL, are looking at using lasers to help solve the problem.
A multidisciplinary team at the Center for Electro-optics and Functionalised Surfaces, CEFS, is using lasers to create surfaces that mimic those found in nature. These include ‘super- hydrophobic’ surfaces such as the lotus leaf or a shark’s skin, which cause water to slide off rather than absorb or wick into the structure. In the lab, CEFS researchers have coated small sections of power lines and tested them to see how they react. The portions that have been treated by
the laser do not absorb the water – instead it bounces off.
The lasers use extremely short-burst pulses, only fractions of a second. Boeing has used the surfaces UNL has created for anti-icing work on aircrafts. “We create micro and nanoscale surfaces,” said Craig Zuhlke, a co-director of CEFS. “You have to get the surface texture and the chemistry right for it to work. We’ve shown we can create anti-icing surfaces and that we can process small pieces of power lines.” For now, the technology isn’t scalable. The lasers can currently treat a few square inches in an hour. “That doesn’t get you very far on a power line,” Zuhlke says “But laser technology grows so fast that it’s hard to say where this will be in five to 10 years.”
Erosion protection for offshore WTG blades
Erosion specialists Edge Solutions has secured two follow-on orders to install their Armour Edge blade protection system at offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea and the southern North Sea. The new contracts follow the successful trial application of the company’s custom-made erosion shields with the same operators at (un- named) sites in 2020 and 2021.
The work will be carried out during this coming summer using the highly durable shields which have a predicted lifespan of more than 20 years, with each shield formed to fit the installed
Siemens 3.6-120 and Senvion 6.2M126 offshore wind turbines
Edge Solutions MD David Urch said: “These latest orders are a great validation for our product which has now been operational through two tough winters. We are now seeing repeat orders … and each new installation gives us increasing confidence in the ease of application of our system, resulting in less downtime for operators. Feedback from customers is allowing us to further improve the system with end-to-end flush joints which will further simplify application
38 | June 2022|
www.modernpowersystems.com
and enhance performance.” The Armour Edge shields have been developed using a tailored version of INEOS’s extremely tough ‘Luran SC’ thermoplastic material, created specifically for wind turbine blades.
Each shield is up to one metre long and is custom formed to the exact blade type and then bonded into place. It is designed to allow rapid installation. A recent study by ORE Catapult predicted that the shields would have an operational lifetime in excess of 50 years.
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