Company insight
elsewhere, potentially from non- renewable sources. Every day of downtime has both financial and environmental cost.” For failed generators, the alternative is refurbishment or replacement by the OEM. Most offshore wind farms are in the North Sea, and the majority of the UK’s onshore wind farms are in Scotland – not so far from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. “We believe that damaged and failed turbine generators – if they are selected for repair – are often shipped from the North Sea to the country of origin, to the OEM, in which could be anywhere from Germany or Denmark to somewhere in Asia,” says Robson. “These generators would ship right past us on a several hundred mile round-trip, while we are here in Newcastle with the knowledge, equipment, skills and materials to do the work.”
A real market need
Houghton International has received many enquiries from wind farm owners and operators since GCE and is building a strong pipeline of turbine refurbishment work. The service can cover all turbines, onshore and offshore, standard drive train and direct drive, from any manufacturer. With the forecast boom for the UK’s wind industry and the need to reach 50GW of wind power by 2035 by keeping the existing footprint running, HI’s team saw the potential for a turnkey service. Like any infrastructure, wind turbine manufacturers and owners do not always have the resources to remove, repair and replace key components themselves, or manage multiple subcontractors.
For Houghton International, Grannell Community Energy’s Enercon wind turbine represented a breakthrough for their business, showing that it could fully refurbish generators.
International can be the principal contractor to control the whole process of removal, transport, workshop, repair, storage and recommissioning – we have more control, and this gives the customer better value. We have a strong network of contractors who can add value in each of their specialist areas.”
The management team at HI are measuring the generator repair and upgrade on all three core metrics: cost, environmental and time savings, especially environmental, as well as the improved performance in the final product. Their sustainability message is: why ship generators across continents when you can upgrade and repair them here in the UK? “We have the experience, tooling, process and reverse engineering knowledge to offer a high quality, competitive lead time service for any wind turbine generator,” says Robson. “And knowing that we are saving
“We are playing catch-up with the EU and are somewhat beholden to their manufacturers, so we must have in-house capabilities here to operate, maintain and repair turbines.”
HI will assess and price the contract and project manage the work. The business works with specialist subcontractors, including Second Wind Energy, to remove and transport the generators to and from HI’s facility. A single point of service could save customers money and realise big efficiencies. “It is a turnkey value proposition,” says Robson. “Houghton
companies cash and making measurable reductions to their environmental impact, it’s a very exciting prospect.”
Growth industry needs domestic capability
A very important aspect of the solution is to give UK turbine operators more autonomy. “Wind power is a massive growth industry in the UK and we’re
World Wind Technology /
www.worldwind-technology.com
now outside of the European Union,” says Paul at Second Wind Energy. “We are playing catch-up with the EU andare somewhat beholden to their manufacturers, so we must have in-house capabilities here to operate, maintain and repair turbines. Having the intellectual property of generator repair for, for example, Enercon turbines in the UK is now really, important.”
Paul expects there to be a big uptake, especially for certain turbine generator models which have known failure items. There is not currently enough expertise in the UK to provide the whole service and, typically the Europe-based manufacturers are not providing a fast enough service to turn them around. “Some providers want to first sell you a new turbine, and second sell a new generator. Repairing and reinstalling a generator is not a priority for them.” Considering the life cycle costs of wind farms, high quality refurbishment is a compelling solution for wind energy operators. Research by Scotland’s ClimateXChange group, from 2015, shows that the manufacture and installation stages together account for over 90% of the total life cycle carbon emissions of an onshore wind farm not constructed on peatlands, and 70% of an offshore farm. Maintenance and operation activities only make up about 6% of onshore wind farm’s life cycle impact. By extending the life of generators and working components, not replacing them, operators can significantly reduce wind farms’ total carbon impact as well as save money. ●
www.houghton-international.com 27
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