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The main gearbox drives the generator marking it a critical piece of equipment. Advanced designs and overall importance to system performance makes gearboxes costly to repair or replace after the warranty expires. For example, replacing a gearbox in a 2.5MW turbine can cost a company more than £400,000 when you add in the price of a new gearbox, labour, crane rental, and lost revenue from turbine downtime.
To minimize the chance of a premature gearbox failure, OEMs recommend routine, scheduled maintenance, oil-circulation equipment, and an oil analysis.
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Although the maintenance staff traditionally changes the oil, there are many physical and logistical challenges, including the climb up-tower, remote turbine locations, weather extremes, limited available utilities, numerous trips lugging down used oil, lifting 20 litres of new lubricant up an 80-mtr tower, and finally pouring it into a gearbox. Following established OEM procedures, the oil change for a wind turbine gearbox generally takes about eight hours and requires three maintenance technicians.
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Windtex, in conjunction with The Chemical Corporation, can supply vastly reduced oil change times by using their purpose designed truck mounted oil exchange unit, all oil is pre-heated and pre-filtered to DIN ISO 4406:99 cleanliness standards via a closed-circuit procedure to ensure the cleanest oil is delivered.
- A safer, cleaner, faster and more cost-effective method to exchange lubricants
- Pumps are designed for both onshore and offshore use
- The use of product dedicated hose systems to help remove the risk of any cross contaminations.
- The use of product dedicated holding tanks and pumps
- On-board product filtration systems to pre-clean products to DIN ISO 4406:99 cleanliness standards
- 130-metre-long hose reels fitted as standard
- Gear Oil Tank - Up to1500 litre capacity
- Hydraulic Oil Tank – Up to 500 litre capacity