Operation and Maintenance
The importance of regular servicing
Medium scale wind turbines (100-900Kw) supported by the FiT or ROC incentives need to maintain high levels of availability to ensure cash flow and overall project returns are viable over their entire lifetime.
An incorrect or weak maintenance regime can lead to a variety of problems including:
- A loss of availability, efficiency and production
- Safety issues, e.g. vibration related electrical damage/fire hazard
- Increased noise and non-adherence to planning conditions
- A lack of insurance cover
Regular wind turbine servicing increases yield and ensures optimal return on investment.
Farm Energy NI’s sister company, Realise Energy Services, follow manufacturer’s recommended service protocols to ensure turbines are kept in their optimum condition and that any issues are identified early. This prevents bigger issues and even bigger costs occurring in the future.
Also based in Magherafelt, Realise Energy Services is a specialist provider of wind turbine operation, optimisation and maintenance services. We provide O&M contracts and ad-hoc operation and maintenance services for a range of medium-scale wind turbines, including Vestas, RRB, Micon, WTN, Pioneer Wincon, Bonus, Nordtank and ATB.
- Reliable remote monitoring, O&M and service provision maximises your turbine availability
- Experienced wind turbine engineers are able to identify and swiftly resolve issues
- Excellent response times supported by contractual service level agreements for peace of mind
- Central Northern Ireland service hubs minimise journey times & the cost of travelling to your site
- Robust supply chain to ensure efficient access to spare parts from turbine manufacturers and individual component suppliers
- Strong communication to ensure you have the latest information to manage your asset effectively
Competitively Priced Packages
We offer a range of competitively-priced O&M packages or can provide tailored packages to suit your specific requirements or those of your bank, funder, insurer or warranty provider. A range of options exist from ‘pay as you go’ to ‘all inclusive’ O+M contracts which provide cost certainty and can be customised to suit your warranty and insurance cover and their levels of cover.
The four main types of service and maintenance contract, all of which include comprehensive monitoring and 24/7 unscheduled maintenance response cover are:
- Standard– Yearly fee covers the scheduled annual service work carried out in line with manufacturer’s service protocols
- Standard+– Yearly fee covers the scheduled annual service work carried out in line with manufacturer’s service protocols and all oils, consumables, wear parts and associated travel costs
- Premium– Yearly fee covers the scheduled annual service work carried out in line with manufacturer’s service protocols and all oils, consumables, wear parts, associated travel costs, unscheduled maintenance and all parts up to a given value
- All Inclusive– Yearly fee covers all servicing, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance costs and all replacement parts, no matter how large or small. Compensated 48 hour service level agreement and annual availability guarantee
For all contract packages the price includes:
- Remote monitoring and control 7 days a week to maximise availability.
- 48- hour service level agreement.
- Tlephone support during business hours
- Waste removal and disposal
- Reporting – individual work reports and annual performance reports
- Statutory annual safety inspection and recommendations
The All-Inclusive contract provides:
- Fixed annual O+M pricing (no extra costs)
- All maintenance – damage, wear and tear or technical problems
- Minimum 4 x quarterly inspections
- 24/7 monitoring and client portal
- All scheduled and unscheduled maintenance
- All replacement parts and consumables including gearbox, generator, etc. if they fail
- Compensated 48-hour service level agreement, (e.g. the turbine will be operational within 48 hours of a stoppage or compensation is received)
- Compensated Annual Availability Guarantee (95%)
- Long-term contracts to provide cost certainty
- Quarterly/annual performance and activity reporting
- Designed to dovetail with insurance policy to lower premiums
Additional Services
Realise Energy Services also offers the following additional services for turbine owners:
- Turbine optimisation
- Control system upgrade and modernisation
- Turbine inspections and reporting (Operation, Performance and Health and Safety Reporting)
- Communication and SCADA upgrades
- Fall arrest and climb assist hoist inspections and upgrades
- Blade inspection. monitoring and repair
- Tower and nacelle painting
- Transformer inspection and servicing
- Oil sample analysis
- Repowering and turbine supply
To find out more in the first instance, contact us on 028 7930 0606 or info@farmenergyni.co.uk
