It took two engineers from Availon North America a matter of hours to repair and bring on-line a Vestas V27 225-kW wind turbine that belongs to the Story County Medical Center in Nevada, Iowa. The turbine was commissioned at the end of 1994 but stopped working in April 2011 when the power supply for the PLC controller died. The part, one called “inactive”, is still available but difficult to find and expensive. Replacing the failed part with a not-yet-found version was the only solution offered by the service provider. Due to the high cost and the long lead time, the clinic decided to just leave the turbine unrepaired until another solution could be found.
Andrew Engle, mechanic product support engineer for Availon, checks a couple more items in the nacelle of the once ailing Vestas V27 that is sited on the grounds of the Story Country Medical Center. Assisting in the project but not shown is Weston Smith, an Electrical Product Support Engineer.
So the turbine sat idle until its project coordinator, Jim Miller, learned of Availon North America’s experience servicing wind turbines. Within 24 hours of agreeing to service the turbine, Availon technicians had the unit back on-line. How did they do it? Availon says their engineers, who frequently service Vestas turbines, recognized that the company’s more recent V80 uses a similar power supply with just a few more features. The crew installed the readily available supply and gave permission for the turbine to return to productive work.
WPE
Filed Under: O&M
