Automation Speeds Up Turbine Production

[kristopher]

Automation Speeds Up Turbine Production
Increasing automation in the wind industry is equivalent to the changes that resulted in the mechanisation of the automotive sector nearly a century ago.
By Richard Baillie, Contributor October 18, 2011

LONDON -- Nordex has modernised its European production centre in Rostock in order to significantly improve the efficiency and production quality of the plant. In doing so it is continuing a trend toward automation in the wind industry, which is broadly equivalent to the changes that resulted in the mechanisation of the automotive industry nearly a century ago.

Nordex has converted its nacelle and switch cabinet factory to continuous flow production. The results of this modernisation are standardised work processes and shorter throughput times, making it possible to triple capacity in the two-shift operation from 330 to around 1,000 turbines a year. This equates to output of 2,500 MW. Nordex has also reduced the production time and rotating stock by some 30 percent. Throughout time has fallen from 13 days to just five days.

Overall, Nordex has set up three lines for the main components — the nacelle, hub and drive train — and three further lines for pre-assembly. The company decided in favour of a rail system with friction wheel drive. For this the technology had to be adapted to the existing hall layout. The most suitable solution proved to be a skid system with an angular transfer unit designed to take heavy weights. For construction of the switch cabinets the skids are moved by a drag chain conveyor. In this way Nordex has converted the entire nacelle assembly to continuous flow.

A Low-vertical Integration Approach

Nordex is taking a low-vertical integration approach to supply chain management, says CEO Dr Marc Sielemann, whose own background is in the automotive industry. "In the early stages (of windmill production) the supply chain might not be developed so you may do things you otherwise wouldn’t, but in the long run nobody can be the best at everything. Someone who is best in the decathlon won’t win the 100 metrers and so we are building a team of highly professional partners, each belonging to the best in their sphere."

But this new technology is only one ...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/10/automation-speeds-up-turbine-production?cmpid=WindNL-Wednesday-October19-2011

[Riftaxe]

1. Interesting, now to hold those people who own wind farms

to the same laws as a dunce with a shotgun killing endangered birds...then we can focus on a real renewable energy while they are bankrupt and sitting in prison.

[Gore1FL]

2. I hate seeing animals die.

I have to think a few dead birds from rotor strikes is better than killing the entire planet with fossil fuels. While I am supportive of other alternative renewable energies, each comes with it's own problems. If we dismiss "better" in the search for "perfect," we'll continue to burn dead plants until we perish as a race.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Please don't fall for (or assist by spreading) the misinformation campaign against renewable energy.

The business about birds and bats is unfounded, based on much older designs and overblown to encourage resistance to change.

Same as the meme that a Hummer is greener than a Prius because of the batteries.

Utter bullshit.

Thanks in advance.

[Riftaxe]

4. So state wildlife services are now part

of a grand conspiracy... lol even i cannot go there with a straight face. Why don't you go review your facts for a bit.

Is it an alien presence that has controll of these helpless Marshals and rangers? Perhaps they are being knocked out, probed and their reports substituted?

Like it or not, wind power is a loser for purely straight forward reasons, solar power is a loser unless you like living in a toxic cesspool (which is why no one other then China is willing to manufacture at production levels for even a cost loss atm).

This kind of leaves Tidal and Geothermal, one is impractical in most areas and the other lacks the infrastructure required to deliver it, neither is as environmentally deadly as wind and solar.

[NYC_SKP]

6. I see you are accepting the solar = toxic claims as well as the bird murdering wind turbine myth.

Wind and solar are deadly? Really?

Look, all technology is deadly and toxic to the pre-technology state of the natural world.

What would you like to do for electricity and transportation power?

Coal, petroleum, uranium, and natural gas?

For how may generations would you like to do that, and then what your big plan for after that?

:shrug:

[TheWraith]

8. At least there's some merit to the issue of toxic PV production byproducts.

There are genuine toxic byproducts to the creation of photovoltaic cells.

As for birds, well, here's a chart of how man-made bird deaths stack up.

[kristopher]

9. No, there isn't. The toxic by-products of solar are completely and economically recyclable

When I say "economically" I mean the recycling process is more cost effective than using fresh raw materials. And please don't point to the village in China where a polluter was doing unauthorized dumping. It is not representative of any sort of widespread problem with waste and the solar industry.

[jpak]

10. Yeah - in China, where they put melamine in baby formula & use pesticides on "organic" farms

please to post links to PV plants in the US and Europe with same problems?

:D

[FBaggins]

13. Where do most PV panels come from?

I suppose that's ok. Who really cares what happens to the environment in China, right?

[txlibdem]

11. +1

See my post below: wind farms do not kill birds, mining kills birds, as do electrical lines, cars, etc.

[kristopher]

5. And yet all the environmental groups insist that renewables are by far the most benign.

They also think renewable sustainable energy is the best way to address climate change.

Japan criticized for pushing nuke plant exports despite accident

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan has been given the Fossil of the Day "award" at a U.N. climate change conference in Panama for pushing a scheme to promote its exports of nuclear power generation technologies to developing countries as a way of curbing global warming, an international environmental group said Monday.

The Climate Action Network, which groups some 700 nongovernmental organizations in 90 countries, said in a press release it had given Japan "first place" in the award for pushing for a mechanism for exporting nuclear technology despite the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The network said the Fukushima calamity "certainly destroyed the myth that nuclear power is safe and clean" and rapped Japan for its failure "to learn an important lesson from the accident."

In a working group meeting on climate change in the Central American country, Japan refused to drop the option of including a scheme under which exporters of nuclear plants to developing countries can earn emissions credits in the so-called "clean development mechanism," the network said.

The mechanism...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111004p2g00m0dm048000c.html


IPCC: Renewables can supply more far energy than needed at highly competitive cost
100 Percent Renewables: The Resources are There, Says UN Report
By Carl Levesque, American Wind Energy Association
May 16, 2011

Renewable energy sources are expected to contribute up to 80 percent of global energy supply by 2050, according to a new report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Among the report’s points of emphasis: wind power alone is capable of supplying more than 100 percent of future demand.

“The report clearly demonstrates that renewable technologies could supply the world with more energy than it would ever need, and at a highly competitive cost,” said Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council. “The IPCC report will be a key reference for policy makers and industry alike, as it represents the most comprehensive high level review of renewable energy to date.”

The 1,000-page report, which was adopted by 194 governments after marathon negotiations on May 9, considers the potential contribution from wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, hydro, and ocean energy, as well as their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, their integration into the energy networks, their contribution to sustainable development, and the policies which are needed to put them in place. Following a review of 164 scenarios, the IPCC found that renewables will play a key role in any successful plan to combat climate change....

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/05/100-percent-renewables-the-resources-are-there-says-un-report?cmpid=WindNL-Thursday-May19-2011

[txlibdem]

7. I don't blame you for wanting to protect birds-but you are going after the wrong culprit

Wind turbines kill only a fraction of the birds that electricution, agriculture, strip mining, logging, etc., are. Houwe cats kill 100 Million birds a year!
http://www.currykerlinger.com/birds.htm
http://magblog.audubon.org/more-1-million-birds-cyprus-killed-illegal-trapping-fall
http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/ -- nice chart here, shows wind turbines not a significant cause

How many bird deaths are wind turbines responsible for? Very few.
http://www.currykerlinger.com/studies.htm

[jpak]

12. ...and white nose syndrome (fungal infection) is the major threat to bats - not wind turbines

http://scienceline.org/2011/10/white-nose-syndrome-is-threatening-north-american-bats/

A 2.5-foot Malayan flying fox named Camilla clung to Rob Mies’ wrist, stretching for a chunk of melon. Mies remained calm, undeterred from communicating his dire message. Bat species are in decline all over the world, but the greatest crisis is occurring here in North America, he said at a recent talk at the American Museum of Natural History.

“White-nose syndrome is causing such catastrophic mortality that it may be the worst wildlife catastrophe in the last hundred years,” said Mies, who is director of the Organization for Bat Conservation. A deadly fungus that has been in the United States for only five years, white-nose syndrome has already killed more than a million bats. One of the most affected species is the little brown bat, a mouse-sized bat that often roosts in suburban attics. Because of white-nose syndrome, Mies said, the “little brown bat could go from one of the most common mammalian species in North America, to one of the least common, if not extinct.”

The aptly named fungus, Geomyces destructans, prefers cold environments like the caves where bats hibernate. Infected bats have white, mold-like growths coating their noses and wings. The fungus causes hibernating bats to wake up four to seven times more often than normal, and the extra movement burns their stores of body fat. With no food available until spring, infected bats starve to death.

G. destructans was first recorded five years ago, in upstate New York’s Schoharie County, although Mies estimates that it arrived in the United States a few years earlier. “ is most likely from Europe, either transferred here on someone’s boots or gear, or possibly even by a bat stowed away in a crate,” he explained.

<more>

[txlibdem]

14. I hadn't heard of that fungus affecting bats. It seems we are killing everything on the planet

with our chemicals, fossil fuels and habitat destruction. Look at the Pacific ocean garbage continent (I was going to say garbage patch but it's too huge to be anything but a continent). Fish are dying off. Another poster just posted about 2 more fisheries that are wiped out by the unsustainable practices of our fishing industry. It makes me so sad.

Now here is the scary question: When is all that crap going to start killing us? Or has it already...

[kristopher]

15. At the end of ten years this single plant should be responsible for manufacturing ...

...about 25 GWe of wind turbines. I estimated the total amount of electricity produced as the turbines come online over time and at the end of that 10 years, operating at 33% capacity, they would have provided a cumulative total of approximately 389.7 TWh.

Given the standard 20 year life span for the turbines and assuming the plant continued production of the same product, this factory will max out it's contribution to growth of wind power at 50GWe when it hits the 20 year mark and starts to build replacements for those wearing out.

That 50GW of turbines should actually produce approximately 144TWh of electricity every year.

50GW faceplate capacity X .33 capacity factor = 16.5GW of production

That 16.5GW equals approximately twenty (20) 1GW nuclear reactors operating at the international average capacity factor of about 80%.

That's one factory making what is now a rather small wind turbine...