Renewable Energy - Cast your fortune to the winds
Search the internet for the keywords 'wind power', 'manufacturing', 'process' and 'industry' and see what you find. After a little delving in relation to business, the sector you might come across most is farming and 'wind farms', but not much about wind power for manufacturers and process plant operators. A pity, for it seems these enterprises would benefit by offsetting their energy bills with 'green' electricity generated from one or more wind turbines on their premises. This is no longer far-fetched: in recent decades wind power generation has become a highly developed industry.
Sustaining the future - making it happen
Ever a practically-minded body of men and women, the SOE's annual conference in Birmingham was particularly well worth attending, because it was not so much about the threats to the world environment and the nation's energy supply as it was about looking at the options, practical and financial, for doing something about it and, hopefully, making a little money along the way.
Minimising yaw brake noise
Maintenance of wind turbine generators (WTGs) aims to sustain efficiency levels and ensure continued reliability, while also dealing with any other concerns that may be raised, as Mark Venables discovers
Money for nothing?
There's no such thing as a free lunch - and that holds true for green energy generation, too. Even with wind farms, there is the price of the plant, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance. There are also safety inspections under the relevant legal provision, mostly LOLER (Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations) and the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000, which are not cheap.
Health check-ups reap big rewards
In the age of lean, condition monitoring of capital equipment is an obvious aid to efficient operation, as opposed to waiting for something to break down. As Chris Haines, Rockwell director of customer support and maintenance UK and Ireland observes, "in an effort to improve business performance and meet shareholder expectations, many engineering, operations and maintenance departments are faced with the reality of having to do more with less. A manufacturer who views maintenance operations as a long-term investment can reap the benefits of significant returns and process improvements".
Better crystal balls
With a breakdown in plant sometimes so catastrophic (failures of lubrication pumps have resulted in shutdowns of more than a year before new parts could be made), it is astonishing that so few plant engineers make use of increasingly sophisticated, easy and low-cost equipment to monitor and predict trouble.
Green choices
More and more organisations are hoisting the environmental flag and flying it proudly over their businesses as the move to greater corporate responsibility - and potentially punitive legislation - takes a tighter hold on industry's thinking.
The self generation society
There is a growing movement towards generating electricity from wind and water locally, with rooftop wind turbines, small hydroelectric plants and solar photovoltaic cells.
Turbine towers
British manufacturing is on the mend. Alan Fitzpatrick reports from a site in Wales capitalising on the rush for wind power
Turning the tide
While wind farms, for most of us, are the iconic, if not entirely friendly, face of renewable energy, there's a quiet revolution readying itself for launch on an unsuspecting public. The new talking point will be marine turbines. Not only could they challenge wind, but also nuclear plants - and soon. As we go to press, a full-scale commercial marine turbine, designed to harness tidal energy, has been installed and commissioned on the Irish coast, and is undergoing final tests before running up initially to 1.2MW electricity generation.