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Esteyco’s braced foundation: an update
This article is an update to the post I have made some time ago on Esteyco’s Braced Foundation. I have been contacted by David Sarrasín, Product Development Director at Esteyco. He provided an interesting presentation of the braced foundation solution. He also gave me more context on the solution. This is the additional info he…
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Transporting wind turbine blades: when something goes wrong
A collection of videos featuring the transportation of wind turbine blades – some truly impressive.
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Live Long and Prosper: useful life of wind farms
The useful life of wind farms continues to increase. When I started working on the first wind projects in the 2000s, the ‘standard’ useful life was 20 years.Now it is not uncommon to see projects with a useful life of 30 or 35 years, and it seems that in some cases it is up to…
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Evolution of wind energy CapEx in the US
Wandering around the net, I found this interesting dataset of US wind projects:https://emp.lbl.gov/wind-energy-capital-expenditures-capex It is the parte of thw ‘Land-Based Wind Market Report 2022‘ study, done by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). It is a very interesting collection of data – the CapEx of dozens of wind projects built…
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Deep Impact: rising interest rates & wind energy
How strong was the impact of rising interest rates on the renewable energy sector? A lot, if we look at the S&P Global Clean Energy index. The index consists of the major companies in the renewable energy sector – not only folks likes of First Solar, Vestas and Ørsted (formerly Dong Energy), but also Chinese…
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What is a Site Assessment Report?
The Site Assessment report (also known as wind resource assessment or site suitability) is a document containing the results of a detailed study to confirm that a specific turbine model can be used in a project and how much energy it will produce. Both points are extremely important: not only is it necessary for the…
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Wind farm siting and environmental considerations
Wind farm siting, i.e. the decision of where to place the wind farm we are working on, is obviously crucial: while many other aspects can be changed at a later date (turbine model, tower height, installed power, etc.) the choice of the area in which we want to install the wind farm cannot be changed….
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Hacked!
If you have visited this website before maybe you have noticed a renewed look – and possibly even the fact that the website has been down for a couple of days. The reason behind was a hacker attack, that forced me to rebuild it totally. In case you are interested in the topic, here you…
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Making new friends: grid friendly wind turbines
Renewable energy is revolutionizing the global power sector, with wind energy emerging as a key player in the transition towards a sustainable future. Wind farms, harnessing the immense power of nature, are sprouting across landscapes, powering homes and industries while reducing carbon emissions. In this website we explored the advancements in wind farm engineering and…
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Pandemic, war, inflation & Balance of Plant
What were the consequences of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine on balance of plant (BoP) prices? If you are reading this article, you probably know that the Balance of Plant (BoP) refers to all civil and electrical works necessary for the operation of a wind farm, excluding the turbines. The BoP will therefore…
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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…
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Nabrawind Skylift
A new article written by my friend and colleague JR Carril. JR is a civil engineer specialized in renewable energy. He helps me to keep this blog going as I can’t find the time to write new articles.Thank you JR! For those who don´t know them, Nabrawind Technologies is a Spanish company based in Pamplona,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Concrete laminar wind turbine foundations: a video presentation of the concept
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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…
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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…
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Concrete laminar wind turbine foundations: doing more with less
Concrete laminar foundation (or CLF) is a new type of wind turbine foundation developed by my friend José Carril and the team of MS-RDITECH. The CLF foundation is a new wind turbine foundation concept based on laminar elements. It is composed by 3 main elements: a lower slab, a central cylinder and a top shell….
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Road Design & Earthwork Optimization Software for Wind Farm Networks
I have been contacted by Erin Wasney, Business Development Manager at Softree Technical Systems. She proposed to write a guest post on RoadEng, a software developed to design long roads and large networks of low volume roads faster and easier than other civil design software. I am more than happy to share his post with…