By Rob Budny, VP of Renewables, SparkCognition The Russian invasion of Ukraine exposed the starkest challenges of fossil fuel dependence on a global level. The volatility of record-high power and fuel prices rocked economies and consumers while global CO2 emissions soared to a historic high and put the goals of the Paris Agreement at risk.…
February 2023 Issue: We Can Better Maximize the Potential of Wind Portfolios
Windpower Engineering & Development is a growing wind-power resource targeting professionals involved in all aspects of a wind farm’s lifecycle, including developers, engineers, technicians, manufacturers and researchers that work to site, build, maintain, repair and optimize wind-related components, software and projects. The goal at Windpower Engineering & Development is to educate and expand the knowledge…
Cranes cost 50% of wind turbine maintenance expenses. Here’s how to reduce that
By Gerrit van Doornik, President of Wind Solutions, Clean Energy Services Ever since its invention to lift water for irrigation 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, the crane has been essential for lifting and moving heavy loads. The Roman empire added treadwheels so a single person could lift thousands of pounds. The first hydraulic-powered crane dates…
Selecting the right remote operations partner for your wind portfolio
By Amy Komatsuzaki, VP of remote operations, IHI Power Services Corp. Wind power generation represents a growing segment of wind power globally and in the United States. From 2000 to 2021, the amount of wind power generated in the United States grew from 5.59 terawatt hours to 379.77 terawatt hours. The renewed emphasis on green…
December 2022 Issue: 2023 Renewable Energy Handbook
Welcome to the 2023 Renewable Energy Handbook We’re wrapping up another hectic year for renewable energy policy in the United States. And as busy as everyone has been, we’re sure a few standout stories missed your eyes this year. Don’t worry, this handbook reviews what has been trending in both the solar and wind industries…
Competence is just as important when building the offshore wind workforce
By Wayne Mulhall, Managing Director at James Fisher Renewables The news is awash with positive stories about offshore wind; technical surveys have commenced for Finland’s latest 2.1-GW project, Australia’s state of Victoria has released its Offshore Wind Implementation Statement setting out steps to install 9 GW by 2040, while the Chinese city of Chaozhou plans…
Three reasons why digitalization of wind farms is reshaping green energy
By Dominique Verhulst, Global Head of Utilities, Nokia When Hurricane Ian hit Florida in September, it was the 15th climate disaster in the United States in 2022 that individually caused billion-dollar damage. Similar evidence of climate change is everywhere. More than 33 million people were impacted by floods in Pakistan this year, and an ozone…
Can we power offshore support vessels with renewable energy?
By Wei Huang, Ph.D., director and global offshore market sector lead of offshore support vessels, ABS Demand for the offshore support vessel (OSV) services is growing. In 2020, the market reached $13.78 billion, despite the economic chaos and disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2028, demand for OSV services is set to expand by…
Floating wind: A global opportunity or an endless dawn?
By Mark Goalen, director of offshore engineering, Houlder Scaling renewable energy capacity is critical to the global energy transition and the decarbonization of difficult-to-abate industries. While it is widely recognized that offshore wind can play a key role in increasing this renewable energy capacity, many people do not appreciate that for this ambition to become…
Wind Spotlight: RAD Torque debuts its latest battery-powered torque wrench
In this episode of the Wind Spotlight podcast from Windpower Engineering & Development, we are joined by Brian Warmerdam, product manager at RAD Torque Systems, to discuss the company’s latest offering in torque wrenches. RAD Torque is a Canadian Manufacturer producing battery-powered torque wrenches used in a range of industries, including mining, aerospace, and, of…
Wind energy operators must address these 5 areas to exploit the full value of monitoring
By Evgenia Golysheva, VP of strategy and operations, ONYX Insight Most operators in the wind industry rely on some form of condition monitoring system (CMS) to preserve the operational longevity and high performance of their assets. And it seems to be doing the trick — the implementation of such systems in wind energy has been…
September 2022 Issue: Engineering Simulation Software Can Increase Offshore Wind Adoption
Windpower Engineering & Development is a growing wind-power resource targeting professionals involved in all aspects of a wind farm’s lifecycle, including developers, engineers, technicians, manufacturers and researchers that work to site, build, maintain, repair and optimize wind-related components, software and projects. The goal at Windpower Engineering & Development is to educate and expand the knowledge…
One good turn deserves another – setting the standard for wind energy maintenance
By Conor Wilkinson, EMEA Commercial Brand Manager, ExxonMobil Fuels & Lubricants Energy security and sustainability are headline topics – soaring gas and electricity prices and growing concerns about climate change have guaranteed that. Part of the answer is an increased focus on wind power; as a result, it is significantly growing in importance as part…
Plugging offshore wind power into our energy grid
By Ralph Kurth, Senior Principal, Energy; and John Crowther, Senior Principal, Environmental Services; Stantec With President Joe Biden setting a 30-GW offshore wind goal by 2030 for the United States, the industry is ready to take off. This massive development is a very ambitious goal that will require detailed engineering and planning. One thing that…
How lidar powers wind energy in offshore environments
By Matthieu Boquet, head of market and offering, wind energy, Vaisala Government organizations around the globe are increasingly implementing policies and programs aimed at increasing the number of wind turbines and the amount of power generated from wind energy. To meet this demand, there is continued innovations in the design, development, performance testing, operations and…
How engineering simulation software can increase offshore wind adoption
By Guillaume Lechaton, Sales Director for Wind and New Energies, Akselos Offshore wind is going from strength to strength. 2021 was a record year for the industry, with almost 21 GW of capacity added globally, up from 6.1 GW in 2020. Total offshore wind capacity is now at 57 GW and is expected to reach…
The prioritization of innovation over process is hampering manufacturing
By James Montgomery, VP of Solutions, Andea A deep disconnect between R&D and manufacturing is jeopardizing efforts to increase speed to market and achieve economies of scale for complex new technologies while harming safety and sustainability standards. The hand-off from product design and development to production creates significant risks as engineers prep the shopfloor to…
Improving offshore weather forecasting with machine learning
By Intissar Keghouche, DELFI lead, StormGeo “All models are wrong, but some are useful,” the statistician George Box wrote in 1976. This familiar aphorism sheds light on the fact that models cannot capture the complexities of the real world. Whether we use models to study financial market mechanisms, predict optimal healthcare strategies or, for any…
Can the United States reach its offshore wind target despite operational and financial challenges?
Article shared with permission from Enerdatics In Jun 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a new federal-state partnership to expand the domestic supply chain for offshore wind. The government is endorsing a set of federal, state and mutual commitments to incentivize manufacturing facilities for components, port capabilities and logistics networks. The measures are aimed…
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail: Operators will inherit the impact of greenflation – and they must be ready
By Evgenia Golysheva, VP of strategy and operations, ONYX Insight In their quest to lead the fight against climate change, clean energy industry stakeholders have had to overcome no end of challenges. And in doing so, huge progress has been made; the levelized cost of solar and wind energy has tumbled in the last decade,…