Company insight


The efficiency holding wind power together


In an environment where wind energy is becoming increasingly popular – and towers themselves are becoming larger – finding partners capable of manufacturing adequate turbines can be tough. But as one Finnish welding giant is demonstrating, automation and sophisticated machinery can go a long way towards filling the gap. We talk to Christian Beltoft at Pemamek to learn more.


main beneficiaries. Taking into account the current global turbulence, many countries are attempting to ween themselves off of gas, with Germany, the US and others building turbines at speed. Not that this revolution is easy. From larger-scale production to exploiting automation and robotics, only the most experienced of companies can hope to thrive in this exciting new world, something one Finnish company is proving with aplomb. Few can better assess the difficulties facing wind energy than Christian Beltoft, the wind energy segment sales and development director at Pemamek. As Beltoft explains, the sector’s main problem is one of scale. That is true in terms of the number of new turbines being ordered, but also in their size. “The challenge here,” says Beltoft, “is definitely the weight and the diameter.” It’s hard to disagree. With the diameter of an offshore tower foundation increasingly surpassing the 15m mark – and weighing even more than 3000t – Beltoft suggests that


G


eopolitics is changing our relationship with energy – and wind power looks to be one of the


many production companies simply lack the ability to fulfil such specifications. Even for those that do, ensuring the towers are robust enough for life at sea is another struggle, as is welding a turbine’s conical shells together sturdily.


Pemamek approaches these challenges in a number of ways. Perhaps most fundamental is its sophisticated welding equipment. The HPS 15000 and TPS 15000 are Pemamek’s twin head and tailstock offerings, perfect for welding long and conical wind tower shells. As Beltoft says, a crucial aspect of the design is what he calls a “star” – a six-armed device that shifts even the biggest shells in place, ensuring welds are smooth and secure, and keeping the shells themselves flawlessly circular. From there, Pemamek is also investing to develop more high-tech machinery. Robotics is a major focus here, with the firm developing a system that can automatically weld wind tower structures, such as door frames or jackets, all with limited human intervention. To explain what he means, Beltoft gives the example of one of Pemamek’s marketing staff. Despite having


zero engineering experience, she successfully inputted a flawless robot-operated weld with just five minutes training. Of course all of this has serious consequences for how wind structures are manufactured. For one thing, removing humans from the equation ensures that welds are almost always perfect, and when they’re not, Pemamek’s engineers can assess the data to see what went wrong. Pemamek’s work is so often reliable, in fact, that Beltoft says inspectors rarely make visits, a far cry from elsewhere in the industry where they “more or less live” in the factory. More broadly, Pemamek’s hands-free platform promises other efficiencies. Relying on fewer manual workers will firstly make manufacturing cost-efficient. In a world where most welding is automatic or semi-automatic, meanwhile, staff can be redeployed to other areas, particularly precious in an economic climate where manpower can be hard to come by. Not that Pemamek seems to suffer from this particular problem. In fact, the company hopes to hire 40 new employees by the end of the year. The idea, Beltoft says, is to cut project lead times and “deliver faster than a lot of our competitors.” It helps that the company is headquartered close to Turku, Tampere and Helsinki, home to Finland’s main universities, a situation that ensures Pemamek only hires “the best of the best.” Of course, all those new workers need to go somewhere. But here too Pemamek is ahead of the pack. The company plans to build new factory space costing €10m, bringing the total to 27,000m2


. Dovetailed


with €5m for R&D and Pemamek seems perfectly placed to broaden its capabilities even further. Given everything that’s happening in the wind sector right now, that’s surely just as well. ●


Automation processes allow wind turbines to be constructed swiftly and without fear of human error. World Wind Technology / www.worldwind-technology.com www.pemamek.com 21


pedrosala/ Shutterstock.com


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