Wind energy is now officially the fastest growing energy source in the world. With economic as well as environmental pressures driving the move to sustainability, the global growth of the wind energy sector is posing supply chain challenges that manufacturers like Southco are gearing up to address, working in partnership with the global turbine manufacturers to ensure that supply can keep pace with demand.
With global warming a reality, consumers are becoming increasingly environmentally aware and at many levels are looking for commercial approaches that place less pressure on natural resources. While mass personal choice will in the long-term influence providers, it is at government level that the real pressure is starting to be seen. In 2006, the EU set out its vision for an energy strategy for Europe. Declaring that Europe is “entering a new energy landscape”, it identified the need for a more sustainable, efficient and diverse energy mix.
In the same year that saw the EU embarking on its mission to create a single energy strategy, the wind power industry achieved record growth. This February, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) announced a 32% annual growth for 2006 over 2005. Its figures, which include wind energy developments in more than 70 countries, reported the installation of 15,197 MW, taking the total installed wind energy capacity to 74,223 MW, up from 59,091 MW in 2005. In terms of economic value, the wind energy sector has a total value of new generating equipment installed in 2006 reaching €18 billion, or US$23 billion.
While Europe is still leading the market with 65% of the global total installed capacity, other regions are starting to catch up, with Asia experiencing the strongest growth outside Europe. China more than doubled its total installed capacity, making it the sixth largest market world wide boosted by the country’s new Renewable Energy Law. Back in the UK, which saw its first commercial wind farm start generating 15 years ago, a record-breaking 630 new megawatts of wind energy had been commissioned by the end of 2006, a 50% increase on the 2005 performance. According to the British Wind Energy Association, 2007 will be a critical year for the renewables sector: the government’s targets for 10% of UK electricity supplies to come from renewable sources are only three years away.
Announcing the global figures for 2006, the GWEC referred to constraints facing supply chains for wind turbines. Amedeo Aversa of engineered access solutions supplier Southco explains: “In the wind turbine industry it is the top 10 global suppliers who drive the market, and the GWEC figures show that growth is genuinely becoming global. This obviously puts pressure on the wind turbine manufacturers to develop global capabilities and it also pushes those pressures down the supply chain. For the manufacturers, it is essential for successful delivery at such a critical period in the industry’s growth that they find supply chain partners who can match them in weight, expertise and global coverage.”
As Southco points out, strength in one territory alone is insufficient to support an industry that is projecting growth in Europe, North America and Asia. Even the relatively young African and Middle Eastern market saw a 63% growth in 2006 with signs of future development. Aversa continues: “In this context it is even more crucial that there is a perfect fit between OEMs and their supply partners. Technologically it is a fast-moving environment and it is also one in which product reliability is essential. Manufacturers are looking to suppliers who can offer them global support with innovative products that can match the life cycle expectations of the installations they are building. If you were looking for a single phrase to sum this up it would be ‘global connectivity’.”
One leading wind turbine manufacturer has described what their organisation is looking for in the supply chain partnership by saying: “We are looking for integrated product development with strategic suppliers who must share, live and implement our mission.”
Commercially, wind turbines have to be competitive, well-functioning and delivered on time. With their technological complexity having increased dramatically, reliability is the challenge with failure not being an option. For Southco, this means the ability to supply critical components to one of the most critical systems on a wind turbine: engineered access components on the electrical pitch system.
One of the most vulnerable systems in a wind turbine, the importance of the pitch mechanism is increasing with the development of larger wind turbines. Part of the safety system, it plays a key role in power control and load reduction provisions and it controls the pitch of the blades to achieve the optimum angle for the wind speed and rotation speed.
Southco products help manufacturers solve five key problems: security, vibration control, ease of service, corrosion resistance and cost effectiveness. With a range of solutions on offer, the ‘perfect’ fit solution already chosen by two of the leading OEMs is Southco’s E3 stainless steel vise action compression latch. Designed specifically for environments where vibration, noise or environmental sealing are a concern, the E3 provides vibration control even in the harshest wind conditions in-shore and off-shore with a secure fastening which will not open or come loose accidentally. Their sealing performance, which involves the compression of a gasket, makes them suitable for NEMA 4 and IP65 applications and they have been successfully tested to over 500 hours of salt spray. Other key requirements they fulfil are ease of installation/replacement, tool operation for restricted access, with the durability and corrosion resistance of stainless steel.
Aversa says: “OEMs see benefits in switching from draw and cam latches to the E3 because of the problems they have experienced. These latching solutions have limitations in the pitch mechanism application because they are difficult to access given the space constraints in the nacelle, making maintenance a problem. In addition they are less able to withstand vibration which, due to the nature of the environment, can pose a safety hazard as the vibrations may cause the pitch system enclosure to accidentally open, forcing the wind turbine to stop. The consequence being extremely high downtime costs. Obviously there is a cost factor involved in selecting a highly engineered component but in the long-term a vise-action compression latch offers substantial performance and durability advantages in these critical applications.”
As a strategic supplier to the wind generation industry, Southco predicts a much broader application of its products in systems onboard the wind turbines such as control panels and switchgears. However, it is the company’s global positioning and capabilities that it sees as being its key selling points in this growing international industry.
Aversa: “We have listened to what the leading edge OEMs are saying. To fulfil both environmental and economic expectations, they are looking for minimal lifetime costs and the focus has to be on reliability. To meet these requirements, our OEM customers are looking for strategic suppliers who can partner with them as they move out of the European market into the global world of wind energy and manufacturing. One summarised it by saying that it is a matter of saying goodbye for ever to a local mind set. Globalisation is a concept that Southco has already embraced so we can move forward confident that we have the support infrastructure that these strategic partnerships need. In addition, Southco’s wealth of experience and expertise in demanding industry applications such as electronics, energy equipment and marine provides an immense engineering resource that the Wind Turbine OEMs can leverage in their industry specific engineering challenges.”