Author: Francesco Miceli
-
Wind farms road stabilization with polymers
Road stabilization with polymers is a method used to enhance the performance and longevity of roads. It basically consist in the incorporation of polymer materials during the construction or maintenance of roads to improve their mechanical properties, reduce maintenance needs, and increase the road resistance to environmental factors. “Polymer” is a very broad term. A…
-
Taking Over in Wind BoP: The Documents, The Dispute, The Day
What happens if the contractor wants out and the owner doesn’t want to sign? A painful interface in the BoP lifecycle. Taking Over (sometimes called Provisional Acceptance, Takeover, Take Over or Substantial Completion) is the milestone where risk, custody, and responsibility shift from the contractor to the owner. In EPC contracts it also unlocks a…
-
Ground Improvement for Wind Farms: 6 Techniques Compared
When shallow soil won’t cooperate, you have more options than you think — but choosing the wrong one costs time and money. Not every wind farm sits on good ground. Several of the projects I’ve worked on had some geotechnical issue that made standard gravity foundations impractical without treating the soil first. Maybe it’s loose…
-
Mobile Substations for Wind Farms: When and Why
A mobile substation is exactly what it sounds like: a full medium-voltage or high-voltage substation mounted on a trailer. You have HV disconnector, HV arresters, protection fuses, a power transformer with on-load tap changer, an LV breaker, control cabinet, relays, metering: basically the whole stack compressed onto a single flatbed that a tractor can tow…
-
Blade lifter in action
I stole these photos from Henry Del Fabbro, who is not only a good friend but also an experienced Tender Manager and Project Manager.This is an example of a project in which a blade lifter was used.The model in question was produced by Goldhofer, a german company developing cool transport solutions (check their page). They…
-
A chat with artificial intelligence: ChatGPT & wind farms construction
I just had a chat with Chat GPT on wind farms. Chat GPT is an advanced language model. Below you can find the conversation. If you want to test it by yourself, here you have the link: https://chat.openai.com/chat Enjoy! Hello! What is your name?Hello! I am Assistant. I am a large language model trained by…
-
Have a look inside: wind turbine blades
Have you ever wondered what a wind turbine blade looks like seen from the inside? This video answers your curiosity. Wind turbine blades are typically made by layering glass fibers in a matrix of epoxy resin (“fiberglass”). This composite material is lightweight, strong, and has good resistance to corrosion. Sometimes there is also a foam…
-
Wind Turbines controlled demolition
I have always felt a strange fascination for videos in which you see huge turbines falling. Browsing around on YouTube, I came across the Loizeaux family, who seem to have an extremely interesting life: they specialise in demolishing structures (LinkedIn). The Loizeauxs, with their company Controlled Demolition, Incorporated (CDI) have demolished dozens of turbines. Here…
-
El Cabrito repowering
In this video you can see the repowering of a wind farm in one of the most beautiful (and windy) areas in the world.It is El Cabrito, in the south of Andalucia (in Spain), halfway between Tarifa and Algeciras. I would love to go and live there one day.It is a park I have visited…
