Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/142338
energyspecial "Inside a Mercedes, for example, there is a whole suite of vital components that makes up this luxury car, but this is seldom acknowledged. Similarly, more than 70,000 of the world's wind turbines are driven by our gearboxes," says Ralf Lotter, who looks after the Winergy business for Siemens, a global provider of gearboxes and couplings specifically designed for wind turbines. "And not many people know that it's the drives that make wind turbine investments more economical, especially when they are serviced and optimised for maximum efficiency," Lotter says. According to the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, gearboxes and generators combined make up 30 per cent of investment costs – reason enough to keep protecting those critical components through the best possible life-cycle servicing. "If a bearing is damaged, it could potentially lead to a full drive train replacement worth several hundred thousand dollars. When you combine the loss of production and labour costs, this small issue could quite easily lead to a large-scale loss in productivity and financial gains," says Taylor. Taylor's example, and others like it, is the reason Siemens is so committed to life-cycle operation management. The technology giant believes in using quality products, not just in the initial investment but also in competent after-sales service. "When doctors and patients can diagnose a health issue at its early onset, there's a high likelihood of treatment success. It's the same case for wind turbines – the earlier a fault is identified, the greater the flexibility for managing its degradation. This is why a regular servicing program, along with dedicated local expertise, is so important for the 20- to 25-year life cycle of wind turbines," says Lotter. "According to the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, gearboxes and generators combined make up 30 per cent of investment costs." Service solutions that make sense For a service technician such as Taylor, the availability of spare parts can mean the difference between a successful and a frustrating day. Such complex structures require a multitude of components to literally set the gears in motion. With this in mind, Siemens maintains a large inventory of spare parts, including stock in Australia, enabling rapid customer access. For Taylor and his team, this means that jobs get done faster; for the customer, it could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in saved downtime costs. Siemens also provides preventative maintenance services via its own local experts, backed up by a global team. Whether they're conducting online monitoring or individualised analysis in situ, early detection of failures reduces the chance of unexpected downtime and allows for scheduled repairs. For special service contracts, Siemens offers a spare-parts reservation system that guarantees availability for a given period, acting like an insurance policy and allowing clients to forecast parts they're likely to need. To extend its sustainable value even further, an exchange program for gearboxes is available. Damaged gearboxes can be fully refurbished and offered back to the market with 'as new' warranty periods for the price of the refurbishment only. This exchange program allows customers to replace damaged gearboxes with refurbished ones immediately rather than having to wait for new replacements, not only saving on capital costs but on the costs of labour and machinery. All this requires local expertise – from the ground up to the turbine – to make it happen. And this is where the likes of Taylor and his team can really add value. Having local, specialised engineers on site means wind turbines can be serviced and maintained in situ and repaired with the least amount of disruption to business. Driving a sustainable ENERGY future While we still have a long way to go in our quest for a sustainable future, a small team of dedicated, highly specialised technicians is trying to gain the greatest possible efficiency from the steadily growing fleet of wind turbines across Australia. Taylor says he never expected to be climbing wind turbines for a living; nor did he think it was possible to fuel a city's power supply through wind power. On both counts, he stands corrected. Left: Top job – specialist wind turbine technician, Brian Taylor, maintains Winergy gearboxes for some of Australia's most prominent wind farms.