Author: Francesco Miceli
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Self lifting precast wind towers
A couple of months ago I’ve been invited by Esteyco to the erection of a prototype auto lifting precast wind tower. Although I was unable to attend due to other meetings I want to describe shortly their invention, which looks interesting. Basically, the idea is to create a tower that can “lift itself” without the…
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Raki wind farm, Cile
A spectacular video of Raki wind farm, a beautiful project I’ve worked at. Owned by Rame Energy (formerly Seawind) It is a 15 MW wind farm in the Bio Bio region (more or less in the middle of Chile). WTGs are 5x V112 3MW turbines, and civil works have been developed by CJR. The…
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Slopes stabilization using Vetiver
I’ve recently worked on a slope stabilization preliminary project. Among other action, the use of Vetiver grass for stabilization purposes has been suggested by the customer, who had used it successfully in another wind farm in the same area. Although this technique is used in Italy and other European country I was not an expert,…
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Disclaimers you shouldn’t accept in a BOP/EPC turnkey contract
Having the pleasure of studying dozens of subcontractors offers each month I’ve already seen a huge number of disclaimers. Some of them are reasonable, some of them can be removed (basically, giving a price tag to the subcontractor risk excluded by the disclaimer) but some are “deal breakers”. Which are the disclaimers that I warmly…
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Blade lifter: from dream to reality
This post is a follow up of my other post on the blade lifter. When I’ve been discussing about this solution with the other guy in the business 3 or 4 years ago, they told me it was something utopic, a “nice to have, but still a dream”. Well, apparently now the blade lifter arrived,…
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The five most abusive prices I’ve seen in the last years
Having the opportunity of working at several project worldwide I already discovered that the idea of what is “cheap” or “expensive” may vary a lot depending on the country. Also, huge countries like Brazil or Chile may show a relevant price dispersion depending on the area (Patagonia or Atacama desert?). A third consideration is that,…