By Rikki Stancich in Paris

i4 Product Design, a Scottish-based product development company, is in the process of delivering a retro-fitted cabling solution that could potentially save wind farm operators  hundreds of thousands in replaced cables and O&M costs.

WindEnergyUpdate speaks to Brian Combe, managing director of i4 Product Design, about this and other cost-saving solutions that i4 Product Design is developing for the wind industry.

WindEnergyUpdate: i4 Product Design recently delivered a solution for 16 onshore windfarms throughout the UK, resolving a cabling issue that saved around £50,000 per turbine. Can you explain more about the problem?

Brian Combe: Our client is experiencing operational issues of cables chafing off a pipe, which is causing the insulation to be worn away. If the problem is left unchecked, it could lead to the replacement of the main cabling clusters for all of their turbines in their UK wind farms.

The area affected is the cable entry to the pipe at the yaw room platform, which is a steel platform that has a hole with a plastic pipe emerging from that hole, through which around 16-20 cables are guided.

As the nacelle yaws, the cables rotate within the pipe. In this instance, the edge of the pipe was cutting into the cable insulation as the turbine was yawing back and forward.

WindEnergyUpdate: Is the problem specific to the one company, or is this an issue faced by all wind farm operators? 

Brian Combe: If wind farm operators have turbines which have a yaw platform with a protruding pipe which locates the main cable cluster then, yes, there may be an issue if the original design solution for the turbine did not take into account the fact that the cables need a good bearing surface to slide on

WindEnergyUpdate: How has i4 Product Design resolved the problem?

Brian Combe: The solution itself is very simple, however, it took a lot of clever thinking as to how it could be implemented.

We designed 2 identical u-shaped plastic molded parts (so, two halves), and we located the two halves, which clip together, around the cables. This plastic collar assembly is then positioned into the mouth of the pipe and located to its internal diameter by external leaf springs and secured with metal brackets to the platform. The solution then provides the cables a good bearing surface to operate on.

The tricky part was coming up with a generic design solution that could be adapted to the wide range of pipe diameters used on the turbines.

WindEnergyUpdate: How was the solution then deployed?

Brian Combe: Having come up with a solution, we then went through the due diligence of managing the procurement of production parts from our vendors in the Far East and Scotland to enable us to provide kits and fitting instructions to allow our clients maintenance engineers to fit on-site. We accomplished all of this within a very tight time-scale.

Because the solution is ‘retrofittable’, it is of interest to turbine manufacturers, wind farm owners, operators and maintenance service providers. The solution also ensures that there is minimum turbine down time required.

WindEnergyUpdate: So you troubleshoot, design a solution, and then manufacture, and supply the necessary product to get the job done? 

Brian Combe: That’s correct. It takes the heartache out for the client, in that we take ownership of the problem; we develop a solution and then manage the logistics of product supply, within a given timeframe.

WindEnergyUpdate: What would the cost implications have been had the company not taken action on the cable insulation?

Brian Combe: The solution we delivered was for 200 turbines. Ultimately, if they had let it go on unchecked, they possibly would have had to replace all the cables. The costs could have been astronomical, if you consider the costs associated with sourcing and retrofitting new cables, and the turbine downtime required to refit the cables.

WindEnergyUpdate: Are you working on any other solutions for wind farms at present?

Brian Combe: While I cannot go into too much detail at this stage, we are currently resolving issues for a further three problems relating to health and safety, for the same company. We have already presented the conceptual design and we are now waiting for the go-ahead to commence detailed engineering design to enable us to have kits manufactured and ready for fitting.

To date we have been servicing the needs of the UK and Irish sectors of wind farms for this particular company, but it now looks as though we may begin providing solutions for the company’s operations in Germany, Portugal, France and Italy as well.

WindEnergyUpdate: Have you identified any other niche areas in the wind energy market that are crying out for a solution or design improvement?

Brian Combe: Within our company, we are predominantly industrial and mechanical designers with a creative and innovative approach to delivering solutions. But we don’t have experience in the renewables sector per se, so we rely on the industry to approach us.

It is not a case of us pushing ahead with new concepts for the wind industry – there are already wind energy specialists out there who do that. Rather, we compliment the specialists and add value to what they do.

What we are trying to do is make in-roads into companies and organisations in order to troubleshoot design and operational issues.

WindEnergyUpdate: What kind of fee does i4 Product Design command for this type of ‘holistic’ problem solving?

Brian Combe: For bespoke solutions the cost can vary extensively depending on the issue to be resolved. Once a solution has been designed, we can then provide a cost matrix according to the product solution and the number of kits ordered.

Over the last six years (since the launch of i4 Product Design) we have designed over 60 products for a range of sectors, including medical, communications, defence, playground equipment, consumer products – and now, for the wind energy sector.

To respond to this article, please write to the editor:

Rikki Stancich: rstancich@gmail.com