Thursday 30 May 2013

Top-rated weather services get wind turbines up and running faster

www.utilityproducts.com
18 Apr 2013

Wind farms rely on the weather around the clock, for better or for worse. Windy days help turbines pump clean power across the grid, while quiet days require other forms of electricity to keep reliable power flowing.

But, how weather impacts wind farm construction is considered less often. Towering turbines and wide-open locations mean crews must be certain about weather conditions before bringing in equipment or scaling structures. To ensure the safety of crews, efficient project budgets and reasonable customer expectations, a weather forecasting service is an essential, indispensable tool during construction and subsequent maintenance.

Relying on generic, publicly available weather forecasting is risky to crews and is not cost-effective for operations. Instead, location-specific, customizable weather forecasting and alerts that display conditions in real-time will give construction crews the information they need to complete work and communicate project expectations or delays to the customer. Users of Schneider Electric's MxVision WeatherSentry Online, for example, find its real-time lightning displays and detections are critical for determining when to continue construction and when to leave the area. When using another tool that doesn't display lightning until long after it has happened, crews have less certainty about whether to continue working, which can cost time and money.

Read More…

0 comments: