Operations & Maintenance
RSS feedNews & in-depth analysis of wind farm and turbine operations & maintenance, including turbine & blade failure, access, monitoring & control systems, health & safety, refitting, repowering, wind monitoring and site security.
Onshore jobs plummet amid UK government inaction
Thousands of onshore wind jobs were lost in the UK between 2016 and 2017, while employment in offshore wind has more than doubled since 2015, according to government figures.
Hitachi suspends production, favours Enercon
Hitachi will stop producing its own turbines and instead focus on distributing Enercon machines in Japan and overseas, expanding a 20-year-old collaboration agreement with the German manufacturer.
'Risk mitigation strategies increasingly popular'
A new generation of buyers and improved data are making risk mitigation tools increasingly popular, according to the CEO of a valuation and risk analytics firm that provides risk management services for renewable energy.
News and Analysis
New York ups offshore plans to 9GW
Plans to nearly quadruple the state's offshore wind target to 9GW by 2035 have been unveiled by New York governor Andrew Cuomo.
PNE repowers German wind farm to 21.6MW
PNE has completed repowering a wind farm in north-west Germany, halving the number of turbines, but more than doubling its output, the developer claimed.
Long-distance wake affects nearly all US sites
Almost 90% of all operational US wind farms in 2016 were close enough to other projects to either cause, or be affected by, wake effects.
German wind output to increase in 2018
Renewables are expected to cover 38% of gross electricity consumption in Germany in 2018, according to preliminary figures, up two percentage points from last year, with grid upgrades also on the horizon.
'Bend-twist coupling' tests begin
Blades equipped with 'bend-twist coupling', which enables them to react to varying wind speeds, will be tested by the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems (IWES).
In depth
Windpower Monthly's highlights of 2018 -- part 2
Auctions were the dominant theme in the second half of the year. Wind took a beating from solar PV in technology-neutral tenders, while low prices and permitting delays led to several onshore rounds in Germany and France being undersubscribed. Manufacturers were feeling the pressure too, with big names reporting falling revenues despite growing order books.
Windpower Monthly's highlights of 2018 -- part 1
From auctions and acquisitions to boardroom upheavals and political wrangling, plus a few turbine launches on the way, we pick out some of the key stories from Windpower Monthly's 2018 coverage.
Managing increasingly diverse wind portfolios
One of the most common challenges faced by wind-farm portfolio owners in today's market is that of asset diversity. Diversity takes many forms within a portfolio -- asset age, wind-farm size, turbine technology, IT systems, service provision model, wind climate and location among them.
WindEconomics: Database reveals long life of US turbines
UNITED STATES: A recently released database of American wind turbines provides evidence that lifetimes of 20 years or more can easily be realised, with the oldest machines having been commissioned 37 years ago in 1981.
Comparing offshore output for 2017
GERMANY/UK: Offshore wind generation is rising as capacity grows, but how did individual sites perform during 2017? Windpower Monthly looks at key German and UK offshore projects.
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