By Hannele Korhonen, MC Planner, and Thomas Anderson, Wind Turbine Technician, both Deutsche Windtechnik Ltd.

Early September 2023, one of the major component teams of Deutsche Windtechnik (DWT) was mobilized to remove the rotor at Black Hill T18 for a blade repair. This blade repair was realised in a new collaboration with the blade specialist WTG Offshore (works also onshore), who was approached to carry out the blade repair itself. 

To get all the documentation in place, intensive planning and preparation was needed. All the parties involved pulled together to have this done in a timely manner to secure the works: admin team, engineers, major components team, warehouse staff, service providers and our customer.  “From my point of view, the work on T18 from start to finish were well planned and well executed”, said Fraser Gordon, Site Operations Manager – Scotland South at RES. “There were no complaints from landowners regarding the increase on vehicle movements, therefore this was well managed by the onsite team.”

Within 15 minutes the rotor was on the ground and being secured

On the day of operation the major components team attended the site and made sure all paperwork was in place and correct. The ground equipment was set up with cranes and containers and the toolbox talk was held. Then the turbine team ascended the tower and began the preparation and strip down job, while the ground team continued the ground preparation. Once all the teams were ready, the team then proceeded to set up for the lift. This step is a complex tandem lift and involved fitting the rotor lifting bracket, the blade bracket and the attaching blade tag lines. When this was complete the team proceeded to remove the rotor. Our major components team is well versed in the procedures with the amounts of component jobs carried out to date. The controlling of two cranes and tagline teams was achieved by using radios. The lift went ahead safely and with no issues. Within 15 minutes the rotor was on the ground and being secured.

Now it was time for the team of WTG Offshore to start the meticulous work of repairing the blade. The daily reports showed that the team was doing good progress. In the end, the rotor was lifted back up the turbine by DWT within the planned time. The remounting of the rotor is basically the reversal of the down procedure and again went ahead without a hitch. The works were completed ahead of schedule. 

Safety was kept to high standard

Fraser Gordon from RES: “We haven´t received any incident reports which indicates that safety was kept to high standard. In the future, we look forward to working with DWT again on projects such as this one. We want to continue supporting each other throughout the process and we will always look to continuously improve on what we do.”

Deutsche Windtechnik would like to thank all parties involved in this successful project.