CanWEA Attracts Top OEMs

Officials for the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Toronto say they sold out all 350-booth spaces to 235 exhibitors at the September event. The attendee count topped 2,000. What’s more, the conference drew ten utility and commercial wind turbine OEMs, a list that includes Acciona, Enercon, GE, Mitsubishi, Northern Power, and Siemens.

In conferences, several executives expressed a need for the loosening of credit to grow the market, which remains slower than most expected this late in the year. There was talk of supply-chain expansion as foreign OEMs work to domesticate their versions while other firms look to get started in North America.

There was good news for Ontario. The parliament for Canada’s largest province passed legislation for a Feed-in-Tariff ($0.19/kWh by one account) that will encourage new wind installations by providing fixed prices for onshore and offshore wind parks for the next 20 years. The law also calls for 25% domestic content for Ontario projects. That provision got high scores from local manufacturers. I n addition to OEMs, a range of support companies displayed equipment such as:

• N RG Systems (nrgsystems.com), a manufacturer of met masts and related equipment, showed devices such as 95-in. mounting booms for sensors, and sensors that assess wind shear and turbulence and help calculate a total wind volume and density.

• Kluber Lubricants (kluber.com) had information on its oils and greases. Among its recent products were three synthetic lubricants for wind turbines.

• Thomas & Betts (meyersteelstructures.com) showed the Quickpin, one way to get away from slow-to-apply nuts and bolts that often attach line-support arms to power transmission towers. It is a long unthreaded pin placed in the same connection holes drilled for bolts, but secured without the precise torque required by conventional fasteners.

• Tyco Electronics (http://energy.tycoelectronics.com/elbow) introduced the 35 kV 600 Amp T-body elbow arrester. The device is intended to protect underground cables and high voltage apparatus from lightening and switching-transient surges.

• Carbone of America (carbonebrush.com) displayed several new slip-ring designs.

Nat Labs & OEMs Have Ideas, Suggestions for Suppliers

The recent Wind Power Explained conference, presented at the Design and Manufacture Expo in Chicago, slated a full day of discussions to attendees on topics presented by the DOE, NREL, Sandia Labs, GE Energy, Northern Wind, and Clipper Windpower. Here’s a sampling:

“The DOE recognizes the challenge in making wind energy a reliable and integrated source,” said Ron L. Harris, from the agency’s Office of Energy Efficiency. Harris told how the DOE wants to ensure that the supply chain for wind equipment is sufficient to increase market demand and consistent with a goal of supplying 20% of the U.S. electricity needs by 2030. In the Q&A session, Harris mentioned that developers of small wind turbines should submit ideas and products to the U.S. Army because when deployed in CanWEA attracts top OEMs Officials for the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Toronto say they sold out all 350-booth spaces to 235 exhibitors at the September event. The attendee count topped 2,000. What’s more, the conference drew ten utility and commercial wind turbine OEMs, a list that includes Acciona, Enercon, GE, Mitsubishi, Northern Power, and Siemens. In conferences, several executives expressed a need for the loosening of credit to grow the market, which remains slower than most expected this late in the year. There was talk of supply-chain expansion as foreign remote regions, they would like to take power sources other than gas-powered generators, and small turbines might work well.

Sandy Butterfield, Chief Engineer, National Wind Technology Center, discussed his experience with gearboxes. “They were a source of reliability problems and maintenance costs in early designs,” he said. “Fatigue loads were the driving loads. Since then, development of standards, such as IEC 61400-22 have helped improve their design so they are more reliable. Focus has now shifted to bearings.” Regarding turbine size, Butterfield points to the problems of shipping, such as bridges too low for large turbine blades and nacelles, that will keep land based turbines to about the maximum where they are now. “Off shore, however, the designs would have no restrictions so turbines could grow to 10 MW and larger,” he said.

Paul Veers, Technical Staff, Wind Energy Technology Department, Sandia National Labs, discussed how to get more power out of the wind. Recent designs have gotten bigger and taller. But a larger rotor increases in cost with the cube of the length increase, and taller-tower costs go up with height to the fourth power. “Hence, the only way to win this cost battle is to build rotors that are smarter and components that are lighter,” said Veers. Then he showed several ideas for doing so.

Lawrence D. Willey, GE Infrastructure, Wind, said the U.S. is likely to see a doubling of energy needs by 2030. Good news is that wind is now cost-competitive with other fuels. “The company has developed software for engineers to guide their design work with regard to cost and includes influence coefficients that drive costs.

What’s more, engineers have lots of ideas. A value analysis is one way to weigh them. “It’s also a way to tell we are working on the right thing for customers and ourselves,” he says.

A project start is the time to put in all the design options. “You can’t start early enough when it comes to designing to cost,” he added. Even for subcomponents, this makes sense. Money spent at a project’s start is money spent wisely. When manufacturing begins, its too late for cost savings,” he says.

Taylor Robinson, VP of Global Supply Chain for Northern Power Systems, discussed how the design of company turbines makes for an efficient supply chain. “We want a supply chain close to the company and working quickly. The concepts here goes back to six sigma and lean,” he says.

“Quality will be essential from suppliers, and they must deliver on time and at the agreed cost,” he said. Components for his firm’s 100 kW turbine come from Europe and U.S.- based suppliers. One turbine a day is their production target. “Another goal is to get suppliers delivering more complete subsystems rather than a few components. With the right partner, it is possible to have more control over a design from a supplier than if the parts were made in-house,” he said. Further work will go into long-term agreements with suppliers, but they will have to be win-win agreements.

Derek Ptech, Director of Engineering for the 2.5 MW turbines at Clipper Windpower, said value analyses come from designing to cost. One industry trend is certifying technology by third parties.

An industry driver is that energy consumption will be up by 50% in 2020 from a population growth of 20%. “The more steady feed-in laws in Europe have resulted in steady growth there. Likewise, because Texas has an RES, it has a greater install capacity than other states, so a national RES would be a boost to the entire industry.”

Ptech added that increased reliability is one governing ideal for the company turbines because some components have no backup. “For instance, pitch mechanisms in the hub for each blade work independently and so have batteries to run them in case conditions take the turbine off grid. Dramatic events define design conditions,” he said. Another example is that the Clipper has four generators so that one, two, or three of them can be removed and the turbine still produces power.

CanWEA attracts top OEMs

Officials for the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Toronto say they sold out all 350-booth spaces to 235 exhibitors at the September event. The attendee count topped 2,000. What’s more, the conference drew ten utility and commercial wind turbine OEMs, a list that includes Acciona, Enercon, GE, Mitsubishi, Northern Power, and Siemens.

In conferences, several executives expressed a need for the loosening of credit to grow the market, which remains slower, they say, than most expected this late in the year. There was talk of supply-chain expansion as OEMs work to domesticate their version while other firms look to get started in North America.

There was good news for Ontario. The parliament for Canada’s largest province passed legislation for a Feed-in-Tariff ($0.19/kWh by one account) that will encourage new wind installations by providing fixed prices for onshore and offshore wind parks for the next 20 years. The law also calls for 25% domestic content for Ontario projects. That provision got high scores from local manufacturers.

In addition to OEMs, a range of support companies displayed equipment such as:

• NRG Systems (nrgsystems.com), a manufacturer of met masts and related equipment, showed devices such as 95-in. mounting booms for sensors, and sensors that assess wind shear and turbulence, and help calculate a total wind volume and density.
• Kluber Lubricants (kluber.com) had information on its oils and greases. Among its recent products were three synthetic lubricants for wind turbines.
• Thomas & Betts (meyersteelstructures.com) showed the Quickpin, one way to get away from slow-to-apply nuts and bolts that often attach line-support arms to power transmission towers. It is a long unthreaded pin placed in the same connection holes drilled for bolts, but secured without the precise torque required by conventional fasteners.
• Tyco Electronics (http://energy.tycoelectronics.com/elbow) introduced the 35 kV 600 Amp T-body elbow arrester. The device is intended to protect underground cables and high voltage apparatus from lightening and switching-transient surges.
• Carbone of America (carbonebrush.com) displayed several new slip-ring designs.
  

  Among the many new devices on display at CanWEA 2009 was the Tyco T-body elbow arrester. The devices are shielded and submersible, and meet performance requirements of IEEE C62.11.

Northern Power Systems launches in Canada

BARRE, VT – Northern Power Systems, Inc. announced its expanded presence in Canada. The unique permanent magnet direct drive (PMDD) design of the Northwind 100 ensures higher energy capture, grid-friendly power quality, low noise ,low maintenance operation and is ideally suited to support the fast-growing Canadian market.

Northern Power Systems’ recent and upcoming installations in Canada vary in size and geography and address a range of wind power challenges. The company celebrated its most recent Northwind 100 installation in Kensington, Prince Edward Island where the 100kW turbine will completely power the town’s wastewater treatment plant and save the municipality nearly $50,000 every year. The Northwind 100 installed in Porters Lake, Nova Scotia in May at Atlantic Superstore, Canada’s largest supermarket chain, has already offset 25 percent of the store’s electrical needs, saved thousand of dollars in energy costs and increased retail customer traffic. Finally, an installation of three units is currently being installed in the small community of Ramea, Newfoundland which will mark the beginning of a five-year innovative research and development project with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, a Nalcor Energy company, for isolated wind-diesel-hydrogen generation systems.

In addition to the company’s base Northwind 100 wind turbine, which has become the standard in community-scale wind power applications across North America, Northern Power Systems offers a Northwind 100 Arctic turbine with an exceptional track record in extreme cold climates. The Northwind 100 Arctic is the only turbine on the market capable of operating at an ambient temperature of -40°C and features coated blades to minimize ice build-up and maximize uptime.

“With certification across North America to meet rigorous Canadian Standards Association CSA C22.2 and UL1741 safety standards, and with the Northwind 100 Arctic that offers high performance even in the harshest Canadian winters, the Northwind 100 has distinct advantages over traditional geared turbines that are not well suited for community wind applications,” said Jim Stover, Northern’s Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management.

Northern Power Systems’ specialized customer service, delivery and technical teams work directly with Canadian customers to provide project development guidance, factory-certified training and continuous “24/7” turbine monitoring and technical support.

“Northern is pleased to have installed its first units in the important Canadian market and we look forward to providing reliable turbines and world class performance to schools, businesses, farms, municipalities and remote communities across Canada,” said John P. Danner, President and CEO of Northern Power Systems.

Northern Power Systems will showcase its capabilities at the 2009 CanWEA Annual Conference and Exhibition in Toronto, Canada on September 20-23, exhibiting at booth 806.