Wind Today - Q4 2008 - (Page 15) are dedicated to specific wind farms so they become experts on those turbines. From the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) room, Kolitz and his crew monitor turbines’ operations. “Computers at the turbines provide data regarding temperatures—outside temperatures and gear oil temperatures—as well as whether units are running properly,” says Kolitz. Kolitz says several crews are assigned to general maintenance of the turbines which involves greasing, lubing, testing, and torqueing. Other crews are dedicated to troubleshooting and repairing turbines. “Technicians come in periodically during the day or call for a report to see which turbines have gone off-line,” says Kolitz. “We keep a log book for each turbine’s history so we know the actual input and output of each machine,” he continues. Stall Strips. Kolitz says his projects have meteorological (met) towers that monitor actual wind speed for several areas within the wind farm. The actual wind speed on each turbine (the amount of kilowatts a turbine puts out each minute) is also documented. “Wind turbines produce more energy in the denser climate created by cooler winter temperatures,” says Kolitz. According to Kolitz, it’s important to monitor wind speed with Micon 700 kW wind turbines at one project so they don’t capture too much wind and trip offline from over production. “We try to keep production right around the 700 kW rating without producing too much more,” says Kolitz. Kolitz explains that if a turbine shuts down for over-production, it will remain shut down until wind speeds drop below a set parameter that allows the turbines to restart. “If this happens, we lose a lot of production,” Kolitz says. According to Brown, wind turbines with variable pitch blades can be adjusted remotely to capture more or less wind, depending on wind speed. “These older turbines, however, have fixed blades,” says Brown, “so they need something else to reduce the wind’s impact on the blade.” Kolitz says that during seasonal changes technicians can manually adjust the pitch of blades on some turbines that have fixed rotors. “These turbines, with blades 44-48 meters in diameter, are too large to do that,” Kolitz says. Response No. 151 15 http://www.windlogics.com
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