Consider the conditions inside a massive wind turbine: Its perched hundreds of feet in the air, beat by winds strong enough to create thousands of watts with each turn of its massive blades, under constant pressure from the weight of the huge apparatus and buffeted constantly by the physical effects of weather, ozone, and gravity. It’s one tough environment.
Turbines are a part of Nissens’ OEM division. The team is responsible for the development of complete thermal solutions for wind energy, forestry machinery, and hydraulic systems.
For 25 years, Nissens has supplied cooling equipment for the wind power industry. The company says it has built considerable in-house knowledge about the needs and applications of clients which the company has converted into high-quality, customized cooling systems. Today, the company supplies the world’s leading global wind turbine manufacturers.
The task of the R&D team is to introduce cooling solutions to the market that are first movers and set new standards for technical performance. They closely follow the market and act upon the new trends.
The company originally used its dedication to cooling to grow into an experienced supplier of cooling components to the wind turbine industry. Today, it uses its expertise to offer complete cooling systems covering every cooling need in a modern wind turbine. As a result, products cover devices to cool gear oil, generators, transformer oil, converters, hydraulic circuits, and power electronics.
The company says it spends only three weeks from the design freeze to the supply of the first prototype. Any product adaptation requested by our customer benefits from having all Nissens’ key processes in house: design, engineering, prototyping, product adaptation and product validation.
The market is moving towards larger turbines. At the same time, there is an advantage linked to gathering all cooling solutions in one integrated cooling system. The aim is to increase the technical performance and keep the operation costs at a minimum. To respond to this evolution, Nissens has developed a new and larger water cooler, which has doubled the length of what has conventionally been possible to manufacture in one process. The company has decreased the internal pressure drop to limit the operation cost, and still managed to reduce the material weight at the same time. Design life is a minimum of 20 years.
The hydraulics in brakes and pitch circuits require cooling. The best way to obtain that is by uniting all heat sources in one circuit. The advantages include:
• No long hose connections
• No risk of oil leakage
• No cold start issues provoked by frozen oil
Furthermore, the solution offers optimal use of the water cooler at the rear of the nacelle thanks to the mutual connection factor, because full, simultaneous cooling of all systems is rare. The company supplies larger coolers, a new and unique heat exchanger design as well as complete cooling solutions built on an in-depth system know-how and understanding of our customers’ application needs.
Nissens Cooling Solutions, a North Carolina-based manufacturer and international supplier of industrial heat exchangers products, climate-controlled products and thermal solutions, has supplied thousands of cooling components and systems for the wind turbine industry over the last three decades.
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