Wind turbine inspections assure continuous power production
Wind turbines require scheduled and unscheduled maintenance around the year. Wind park technical crew has to be able to visit turbines any time in order to fix any issue that would prevent plant’s continuous power production. Most importantly, they have to be able to work in turbines safely. Therefore, wind turbine statutory safety inspections have to be done annually, ensuring that the fall protection equipment, service lifts and fire extinguishers are safe to use.
We take care of inspections of wind turbines. Our experienced team inspects everything from the base of the wind turbine to the tip of the blades. Caverions team has expertise in the whole life cycle of a power plant, from design table to manufacturing and operation and finally to controlled dismantling. Our experts are highly skilled and qualified with a strong background in wind turbine design, manufacturing and maintenance which enables us to understand the needs and requirements of our clients.
Wind turbine inspections
The goal is to ensure continuous operation of the wind turbine and high quality of the maintenance actions with regular inspections. Our audit content has evolved during hundreds of inspections and, of course, we also customize the audit to meet the right type of power plant and our customer’s requirements.
Inspection of service documentation attempts to identify acute flaws in the power plant and potential life cycle issues. In addition to visual inspection, we carry out special inspections and measurements, including power unit endoscopy imaging, alignment measurements, thermal imaging and vibration measurements.
We have checked hundreds of wind turbines from many manufacturers for example Vestas, Siemens-Gamesa, Nordex, Enercon, GE-Alstom, Hyundai and WinWind.
Statutory inspections for all safety equipment
The owner of a power plant or electrical equipment is always responsible for safe operation of their property. Different safety systems require periodical inspections. Basically in wind turbines there are two types of equipment, which require regular inspections by a competent person: safety equipment and electrical equipment.
A typical wind turbine includes the following safety equipment:
- Ladder with fall protection system
- Service lift
- Electric chain or wire hoist
- Anchorage points
- Fire extinguisher
- Evacuation device
- Personal protection equipment, if placed in the turbine
All of these require either training, certification or experience for the person/company performing the inspections.
There are courses giving needed qualifications for inspecting ladder and anchorage points. Electric chain or wire hoist and fire extinguishers are the most complicated ones. If the crane lifts over 500 kilos, an official certification valid in Finland is needed for the inspector.
Fire extinguisher inspections in Finland can only be carried out by Tukes approved Fire extinguisher agency. The agency must also have a certified responsible person. Fire extinguisher inspections and service are described in detail in Decree of Ministry of Internal Affairs SMa (917/2005).
In addition to official certificates and trainings our inspectors have extensive experience in installing, maintaining and using various safety systems. This gives us advantage in focusing our attention to the most important issues during our inspection. We have been working with these issues for years and we’ve built our expertise by performing all these inspections professionally. During the last year or so, we have done over 100 inspections.
Blade inspections
We take care of wind turbine blades from design to energy production. Let us to inspect, plan and organize the safety of your investment with years of experience.
Blades are the most critical part of wind turbine in many ways. Damage of a blade causes not only a break in power/energy production but also a serious safety threat. With regular inspection the risk of damage can be reduced significantly. Our experts have long experience about blades starting from the design table to use in production. In our service selection are blade inspections in factory and at site during construction and production phases.
Recent development of drone technology enables a very quick and cost efficient way to inspect the blades. Within a down-time of about half an hour per turbine, every inch of blade surface is documented by a High Definition photos. Additionally, thermographic imaging can be used to reveal any discontinuity under the surface. Our experienced blade specialists analyse the photos, document the results and give the recommended actions.
End of warranty and due diligence inspections
Whether you build new wind park, warranty period by the OEM is ending or existing wind park is due to be sold or purchased, we can carry out the needed inspections with professional approach detailed to your specific needs. Before turbine take over it is reliable to inspect the turbine thoroughly. Possible deficiencies in individual turbines or repeating flaws in the whole wind park can be identified in the inspection. Repair work can then be carried out by the OEM´s project personnel and you will not lose valuable production time afterwards. We can offer the right and customer detailed inspection package for all turbine brands.
When warranty period by the OEM is ending or a wind park ownership is about the change, it is recommended to perform a third party inspection. The purpose of the inspection is to find any defects that should be corrected before warranty obligation can be considered to be over. When both the buyer and the seller know the exact condition of the wind park the purchase action goes through smoothly and possible corrective actions can be decided before closing the deal. We will take care of the whole process from planning the inspection to execution and verifying the corrective actions. Our extensive experience in designing, manufacturing and operation of wind turbines helps us to identify the most crucial issues. We are experienced in taking into account every substantial issue affecting turbine life cycle, but not forgetting the smallest details.
Endoscope inspections
Sometimes it is sensible to visually inspect condition of main bearings and gearboxes of the wind turbines by endoscopy imaging. You will get visual images of the power unit components and possible failures and their severity can be identified effectively. When there is exact information about the progress and severity of the failure, the corrective actions can be designed well before hand. It is also possible to decide to restrict the power of the turbine in order to protect the turbine for extra failures or hinder the failure progress.
Our endoscopy imaging services is provided to you together with our sub supplier. They also import endoscopy imaging equipment to Finland, so they always have the best equipment that is available. They will take the images on site and our power unit expert will analyse the images and write the report with recommended future actions.
Gearbox - Generator alignment measurements
If you are in need to check gearbox-generator alignment, the right place to contact is Caverion. We can provide you quick alignment check with state-of-the-art equipment.
There is a minimum need to dismantle anything from the coupling. We will just install the laser sensors to gearbox and generator flanges and slowly rotate the coupling. Our instrument will calculate the parallel and angular misalignment values straight away and basically the report is ready immediately in the turbine. We will always compare the measured results with the OEM given tolerance values if applicable.
