January 2020
Successful Spare Parts Strategy for Wind Turbines
After the wind turbine “infant mortality” lapse and OEM warranty period expire, the one shop-stop of Wind Cluster® offers access to more than 50.000 original wind turbine spare parts, repair materials, and accessories for all major wind turbine brands.
During the wind turbine “infant mortality period” and out through the first 2 – 5 years of asset operation, most asset owners and operators like to have OEM warranty and service contract. Once a sufficient operating history has been built up, the asset owners prefer to seek a more cost- effective solution for the remainder of the wind turbine operational life given their newfound understanding of how to do service in a cost-effective ongoing manner. However, at the other end of an asset’s operational lifetime, there are wear-out failures due to the consumption of useful life for each component based on the operational history of the machines. Maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) activities are necessary to ensure safe and reliable machine operation. Non-availability of spare parts could lead to machine downtime. Inventory costs, on the other hand, need to be considered to attain economic machine operation. Spare parts strategy for old turbines will be different, somehow, from new turbines’ strategy. In some cases, parts for old turbine designs are not easy to find. Parts with long lead times entail high operation costs.
It’s important to know what parts of the wind turbine you need to focus on. Based on studies, the most critical parts are the gears, which usually cause the longest downtime, the electric system, which has the highest amount of failures, and the blades which have the highest purchase cost. Other critical parts are the control system and the sensors of the wind turbine, which both have a high amount of failures and a significant amount of the downtime and purchase cost.
The economic ordering quantity, or the optimal order size, is an important factor to minimize total costs. If orders for multiple parts can be combined, this might save ordering costs and reduce the costs of the total spare part management, even though the inventory has not reached the “reorder point” or the previous parts review period has not yet ended.
Wind Cluster® offers a fast access to more than 50,000 original wind turbine spare parts, repair materials and accessories for all major wind turbine brands such as Vestas, NEG Micon, Enercon, Senvion, Suzlon and many more. We can assist with a fast, smooth and cost-efficient sourcing of spare parts. Send your request directly by e-mail and let Wind Cluster® make it easy to do wind business.
USA and Canada
Sam Salem – Regional Manager
Phone: 518-210-8282
salem@windcluster.com
India
Kesevan Ramesh – Country Mngr.
Phone: +919840079821
kesevan.ramesh@windcluster.com
Denmark
Peter Nyegaard Jensen – CEO / Mngr. Director Phone: +4570202256
pnj@windcluster.com