Hi, A few questions and thoughts on GF to date.
What sort of distance does the maintenance team have to travel to be onsite? I ask as the last update said they will be onsite ‘today’. Was that 06.00hrs today or rocking up at 16.00hrs this afternoon? What does the contract state?
I am also interested in who is answerable for these breakdowns and how pro active are you being in preventing them?
Do you have daily checks in place? A point in case is the dropping out of comms from the turbine. What is causing that and why has it not been effectively repaired in the year the turbine has been running?
I think your communication is poor and reactive and I think you as a company should be properly answerable to we the owners for the poor performance to date this month.
I think there is a lot of hiding behind ‘We so Green, Hip & Hey, look at us go’ and I also think you are missing a bottom layer in your business regarding the hard reality of engineering maintenance and being answerable. Here is where we are so far in 13 months of operation. You should be striving to do significantly better in year two.
Turbine output
05/04/2022
You might have noticed the generation from the turbine dropping off at some points. We're aware of the issue. The grid company is sending a signal to the turbine to stop at certain points. We're working with them to resolve the issue.
Data feed + 500 hours service
05/04/2022
The Operations and Maintenance team have been on site today doing the 500 hours service check, testing the torque on every bolt and doing a very thorough job. They have confirmed that the turbine has been generating today and will reboot the router to get the comm's back online tomorrow.
Turbine stopped for a service
21/04/2022
The turbine is stopped as the service team is on site working on it.
Blade inspection today
26/04/2022
The turbine is having its blades inspected today. It will be turned off whilst the inspection is taking place, so expect drops in generation at some points today.
Outage at Graig Fatha yesterday
12/05/2022
There was an outage at the wind farm yesterday. We are investigating the cause with the turbine manufacturer at the moment.
Maintenance crew is on site today at Graig Fatha
21/06/2022
A maintenance crew will be on site today checking the blade sensors. Your turbine will be switched off during this period. Wind speeds are forecasted to be a very low today which means very little/no loss to generation.
Maintenance at Graig Fatha today
07/07/2022
The turbine maintenance team are on site at Graig Fatha today doing some equipment testing. It shouldn't affect generation and today is forecast quite low wind speeds anyway.
Graig Fatha turbine is off
08/07/2022
Graig Fatha turbine is off due to a hydraulic oil level issue. Technicians have been informed and are scheduling a visit to fix it. Wind speeds are forecast to be low, so lost generation should be minimal.
Technicians on site today to resolve hydraulic oil level
11/07/2022
Technicians have been on site today to review the hydraulic oil level issue. We expect this to be resolved today. For further context, wind turbine maintenance of this kind is very much anticipatory. Graig Fatha’s sensors are continually running checks to ensure any issues can be addressed before they cause a problem. Oil levels tend to drop when it is not very windy (as it has been recently). This is normal. We don’t want to run the turbine when the oil levels are too low as this could cause damage. By doing this work now it keeps the turbine running optimally. But it does mean that the turbine has needed to be switched off. Very low wind speeds were already anticipated this month and were factored into members’ assumed generation/savings at this time of year. So this recent switch off has meant minimal disruption for members.
Service team at Graig Fatha today
01/08/2022
There will be a service team on site at Graig Fatha today. There may be some turbine stoppages while they check equipment.
Graig Fatha off today
05/09/2022
There is an issue with the turbine's pitch system. It couldn't be resolved remotely, so the maintenance team will need to visit and investigate. It may not be until tomorrow that the team get to site, so the turbine is likely to be off for all of today.
Graig Fatha off for maintenance
10/11/2022
The maintenance crew is at Graig Fatha today and tomorrow to carry out regular 6 monthly checks. They timed the check it on the basis tomorrow is forecast to be fairly low wind speeds, so minimising losses, despite today being quite windy.
Graig Fatha 6 monthly check up 21st-23rd Feb
21/02/2023
Your Graig Fatha turbine will be having its 6 monthly check up from Tuesday 21 Feb to Thursday 23rd. The maintenance team have tried to time it to coincide with low winds as far as possible and will endeavour to keep downtime to a minimum.
Graig Fatha - off line for 2 days for grid works
13/03/2023
There are grid works happening near Graig Fatha so the turbine won't be able to export for a couple of days. We will update you as soon as we get any further information. Apologies for the earlier message which said the grid works were complete - there was a miscommunication our end.
Hydraulics issue
20/03/2023
The hydraulics at Graig Fatha have been playing up during the last few days. We were in touch with the turbine operator over the weekend to keep it operating as much as possible and a service team are due to be on site today.
Graig Fatha resumed generation
22/03/2023
The service team were at the turbine again this morning and it has now resumed generation following maintenance on the cooling system.
Service team on site today
23/03/2023
Unfortunately a further hydraulic issue has been detected and the service team will be onsite today to investigate. We will update as soon as we know more.