Author: Francesco Miceli
-
Target Price for BoP: a basic introduction to a complex topic
There is an old joke that say something like “What happens when you put 10 economists in a room? You’ll get 11 opinions.” My experience with Target Price is similar: I’ve heard many opinions in favour and against it and probably in general it’s not “right” or “wrong”, but it’s a strategy that, depending on the…
-
Wind turbine foundations cracks – an update
I already discussed in another post a frequent problem of with turbines foundation, the appearance of cracks. In general, my impression is that the new foundations with anchor cages are much more reliable that the previous technical solution (the “embedded ring” – the industry standard some years ago). However, every now and then I still…
-
I trust you, but… Professional Indemnity insurance
The Professional Indemnity insurance, also known as Professional Liability or “PI” here in Europe and “Errors & Omissions” at the other side of the ocean is an insurance who protect individuals (engineers, geologist, topographer…) and companies in case they made gross mistakes, negligence and similar errors causing losses to the counterpart who purchased their service….
-
Types of cranes
Even if I’m not a specialist I would like to dedicate a post to a relevant element in a wind farm construction – the crane. Crane procurement and wind turbines installation is normally organized by a specialized department, staffed with experts who knows what are the cranes available in the market and the implication of…
-
With a fair wind – something interesting to read this summer (if you like wind farms)
If you are reading this blog, chances are that you are somehow interested in wind energy. And if you are looking for a good, interesting book on this topic I would suggest you to start from here: With a fair wind (full disclosure – I’ve written the chapter on Civil Works). It is a book…
-
Time is never enough: Early Works
Early Works, sometime also called Preliminary Works, Limited Notice To Proceed or something similar, are a common project strategy that is currently more frequent than ever before. Basically, it means that some field works, engineering tasks and/or procurement activities are done before that the EPC contract enter into force. EPC contracts have usually a long…
-
Piled foundation for wind turbines
I’ve noticed last week that the blog has no post on piled foundation and decided to write a couple of words on the topic on a flight back to Hamburg. Piled foundations is a broad term that include several technical solution aimed at increasing the bearing capacity of the soil when design requirements such as…
-
Where do I go from here? Careers path in the renewable industry.
This post is about my personal experience with possible careers path in the onshore wind industry – what are the easy and the not so easy movements. I believe that the main concepts would be applicable to similar industries, such as Solar or Offshore. It’s applicable to medium and big size companies organized in a…
-
Google: powered by wind
One interesting fact that you might not know is that the Big G (that is, Google) decided several years ago to power 100% of its activities using renewable energy. They reached their objective in 2017: what is surprising is that they started only in 2010, with a wind farm in the USA. Basically the strategy…
-
Serrations: how to reduce those noisy vortexes
Every now and then a new technical solution appears in the wind energy business and it’s slowly implemented in the new wind turbines. A good example is the use of trailing edge serrations – not really a new idea (it has been around for several years) but a simple solution that it’s spreading and gaining acceptance…