Wind farm BoP

Author: Francesco Miceli

  • Guy-wire supported mast for a permanent met mast

    Here you have some interesting pictures that we’ve received trying to define the meteorological tower (also known as “met mast”) foundation for one of our wind farms. Strangely, our customer is going to use a wired met mast for both towers (the permanent mast of the wind farm and the temporary mast used to calibrate…

  • Geotechnical parameters for WTG foundations design

    This is the first post after a long silence (more than 6 months), fortunately due to good news (the birth of my first son, who reduced dramatically my free time). I want to thank José Ramon, one of our experienced Project Manager, who pushed me to start again 😉 This post is about geotechnical parameters…

  • Wind energy in 2012: key figures and market evolution

    In this post I want to show some figures about the evolution of the wind sector worldwide, both on the demand and supply side, and what happened in 2012. From my point of view as Vestas employees the biggest new has been that GE is now the biggest wind turbine manufacturer. They now have a…

  • Wind Turbines Precast Foundations

    I’ve recently discovered the existence of precast foundation for wind turbines. Strangely enough, this solution isn’t having a big success, at least as far as I know. By the way, there are several clear advantages: first of all, an important time saving. According to the developer brochure, only 2 days are needed to complete the…

  • Talinay Oriente 90MW EPC Wind Farm

    Although I don’t normally post stories about wind farms I’ve worked at I want to do an exception for Talinay, a project with whom I have a relationship almost emotional. Located in Chile, in the Coquimbo province, near the Limarí river, it has been a project entirely developed by Vestas with internal founds and my…

  • Artificial vision systems for bird impact

    One of the problems of installing a wind farm in an area with a dense bird population is the possibility of impacts between the rotating blades and the animals. A standard solution used in the industry is the use of a (very expensive) bird radar, a quasi-military technology that can spot very small flying objects…

  • Gestamp iConkrete wind turbine foundation

    Some weeks ago a document describing a new type of wind turbine foundation, the “iCK foundation”, landed on my desk. Also known as “Gestamp Hybrid Towers” (GHT) it has been developed and patented by iConkrete and Gestamp. Essentially it is a shallow foundation made of a slab to achieve a uniform pressure distribution, a central…

  • Wind Energy in Jordan

    Together with the projects in Chile and Uruguay I’ve been involved lately in several wind farm developments in Jordan. Currently the country has a near-zero wind energy production, but due to his very strong dependency on energy import (more than 95% of the demand, absorbing about 13% of the GDP) committed to an ambitious plan…

  • Wind Energy in Chile

    After my trip to Uruguay I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Chile, another promising destination in South America. The country enjoys a high GDP growth, with controlled inflation and a stable regulatory framework, and it’s a place where several big players are betting. We are ending the construction of Talinay, a 90 MW EPC wind…

  • Wind Energy in Uruguay

    Uruguay is a small country (at least for South American standards) but it is intentioned to become a giant in wind power, somehow like Denmark in Europe. The country has an ambitious plan of reaching 1,2GW of installed wind power in the next 3 years: considering that present generation capacity is about 2,6GW the figure…