Wind farm BoP

Author: Francesco Miceli

  • Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Compliance for Temporary Wind Turbine Lighting

    I’ve been contacted by Mr Stewart Erwin who asked me to incorporate his article. I think it’s interesting (even if it’s focused only in the US market) and on topic. It was originally published on LinkedIn. Mr Erwin works for Carmanah – feel free to contact him for more info. (Beguinning guest post) There are…

  • Trenchers in a wind farm: do they make sense?

    In a nutshell, the answer is yes – at least if you are able to find one nearby at a reasonable price. In general, you will have several alternatives to dig your cable trenches: Backhoe Backhoe with hydraulic breaker hammer Explosives Trencher The smarter choice will depend on the hardness of the rock. In general, the…

  • Cost drivers in Electrical Balance of Plant

    Due to my education as a Civil Engineer there I already wrote a substantial number of posts regarding cost of the civil BoP. However I do not want to neglect the electrical side, which as you might already know is usually accountable for approximately 50% of the total cost  of the balance of plant of…

  • EBoP vs CBoP – where is the money?

    There are several recurring questions that I normally hear at least 3 or 4 time each year. Some are variants of things like “How much does it cost 1 Km of road in Brazil?” – this was asked by my ex colleague Pau many, many years ago but it’s still a classic for me, and…

  • EWEA 2016

    Some days ago I’ve had the opportunity to spend an afternoon at the EWEA summit, the European Wind Energy Association main event. It was held in Hamburg, city where I have the pleasure to live since December 2015, and it was simply HUGE. This year, both onshore and offshore were held together, resulting in an…

  • Is wind energy really unpredictable?

    I know that I’m probably biased on this subject but I want to spend a few words on a recurrent subject that pop up often in my discussion about wind energy with people from different sectors and way of life. Basically, a standard argument about wind energy is that it’s unreliable and unpredictable. In my…

  • Wind farms Road Survey: 3 things you should ask

    One of the first point that I try to spot when I receive an offer for a wind farm is an unusual dispersion in prices among subcontractors. Usually, it means that there has been a misunderstanding regarding the actual scope of works. Several items have usually very stable, predictable prices. This is the case for…

  • Karst problems in wind farms: use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)

      For the second time in 2 years I’m working at a wind farm with a potential karst problem. If you’re reading this post you are probably aware of what is karst – basically, the result of dissolution of rocks such as limestone and gypsum, that can produce beautiful landscaping results (such as caves, sinkholes…

  • SCADA Miner: getting more from your SCADA data

    This week I’ve had the pleasure to meet (virtually) Tom, an electrical engineer specialized in SCADA. Tom developed an interesting software called “SCADA miner“. Basically, the software automatically dig the available data from various sensors and cross check the information to spot actual or potential problems that might go unnoticed, “lost in the sea of…

  • Gravel columns in wind farm foundations

    I’ve just received a short technical summary of the works performed in Raki (Chile) from Terratest, the company who has made the gravel columns. Unfortunately it’s in Spanish, but the pictures are beautiful 😉 About 9000 meters of gravel columns have been put in place. The diameter is 80 cm, while the length changed depending…