Hey, all

So, I graduated wind school in 2018, worked in the industry for a very brief time but left for a number of reasons. However I'm looking at going back because...well, money

When I was hired, I started at $16 an hour with $600 a week per diem doing wiring and unwiring. What's it looking like these days for yall?

Hey, all

I graduated from wind school in 2018, worked as wind wiring technician in Iowa and passionately hated it. Largely because of the people I worked with and the major isolation and loneliness though. I ended up leaving the field for a few different reasons and doing a variety of other things.

Flash forward to now, my wife is due with our first next month and we're really trying get our finances back on track after a rough stretch. Now, we live in an RV so finding a place to live won't be an issue. However I'm curious if anyone here travels with their family. I don't plan on doing it forever, but at least long enough to knock out the debt we accumulated and to rebuild our savings.

Does anyone here travel with their families? What's it like, especially with a new born?

Ex FieldCore guy here. Anyone have any lines on companies currently hiring commissioners?

I went through the list from the job fair but I'm getting zero responses.

When I read that Mingyang is working a turbine with 18-28 MW capacity and 290 meter rotor and CSSC Haizhuang is planning a 25+ MW turbine with a 300+ meter rotor, I decided to do a deep dive into the Chinese wind industry. What I found really surprised me and it isn't well covered in the Western media. I wrote up an article on my blog to explain that the Chinese offshore wind turbine manufacturers are leapfrogging over the Western manufacturers:
https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2023/04/12/chinese-offshore-wind
To document how far ahead the Chinese OEMs have gotten, I created a spreadsheet of the 402 offshore wind turbine models that have been announced since the first offshore turbine in 1990. (See the end of the article to download the spreadsheet.)

I also created a spreadsheet of all the tech transfer and licensing agreements that I could find between foreign companies and Chinese turbine OEMs. I calculate that 86% of the wind turbines installed in China today come from Chinese companies that got their early turbine designs from Western companies or from Western companies manufacturing in China. I find it absolutely astounding how the Chinese OEMs went from licensing foreign turbine designs to designing the biggest turbines in the world.

Hopefully this data will be a wake-up call to people working at the Western wind turbine industry about the scale of the threat that they face from the Chinese OEMs. However, as someone who spends sleepless nights thinking about climate change, I take heart at what the Chinese manufacturers are doing. If companies like Mingyang and CSSC Haizhuang can produce 25MW offshore turbines by the middle of this decade, we truly have a shot at 100% renewable energy by 2035 and keeping global warming under 2ºC.

Feedback welcome.

Here are some graphics and tables from the article:

https://preview.redd.it/7250bd3ktita1.png?width=817&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=ea7cf3d3685916e1885f6185f28c684497fdb9c8

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Tldr: stackable v a w t turbine idea solid mounted coils with rotating magnets upper and lower sealed into a shell why doesn't it exist. Feel free to steal this idea. I want it to exist if it doesn't already. If you can make it and make money from it do so.
Alright this is merely a spitball crazy concept. At least as far as I'm aware this doesn't exist or is not being marketed at least. Every motor / generator I've been able to find for vertical axis or horizontal axis turbines have been center shaft magnet rotating within the coil array. What if you had a center post mount or pole mount motor that was stackable. One where the coil array, was mounted or set to the mounting pole with a set screw. Then you case the coils within a two piece shell with bearings around the pole ceiling the magnets and the coil into a housing. The magnets are on both sides of the coils within that casing spinning by the propellers or arms or whatever term you want to use for the blades that the wind will push against. You can run the electrical wiring from the coils through the pipe because it would be in the center and water would not be able to enter. That would allow you to stack this motor and lengthen/heighten your vertical turbine with multiple motors making it however tall you like with whatever wattage you prefer or need. The coils would not rotate with the magnet housing because they would be set solid to the post or Pole that was driven into the ground or mounted solid concrete. The magnets could then be glued set into or otherwise fixed to the upper and lower shell that cases the coil array. I don't know much about engineering for the limitations of this as far as wattage or efficiency or any of that really but generally you could make the coils whatever size you want and the disc whatever diameter you want and stack this to whatever height you want using thick high Gauss rating magnets the kind for pulling cars out of the water or teeny tiny little dot magnets used to hold a picture on the fridge. I haven't been able to find something like this I want something like this but I got limited time to make things test it or make sure it's not going to just explode or melt down because I use the wrong wire gauge.

I got this job offer recently with a big company in the wind turbine industry. Had not heard of them before because I mostly applied for jobs in electronics and software. Since I've been applying for a year now, I am currently open to working in any innovative engineering company. I want to accept the role and I've been doing some reading to understand how my day-to-day would look like. I have a few questions to get some advise from people who are more experienced in the field:

1. Rostered shift life would be hard - How hard is it actually? Would I have to sacrifice on a lot of social life?
2. 8 hour shifts on an office chair - Would I need to be actively watching data? In my current job im always moving around and except for half hour during an 8 hour shift. So this would the complete opposite of what I am used to.
3. Is it a good role to enter the field? - Since I started reading, I got a lot more interested in the field. Ive been trying to study more on the wind energy industry. I would enjoy the work that I would need to do.

I think I would like my day-to-day responsibilities since I find the field interesting and challenging. I am concerned if it would become long and boring staring at a computer screen. I don't mind grinding it out in the role for a year or so while I look for other opportunities in engineering. I am an international student in the country and this experience is generally the best way to break into the job market here. I think I'll be okay with cons considering my situation. How should I prepare myself? Do I need to be ready to adjust to a non-normal work timings unlike a 9-5? I enjoy working but I always try to balance it out with my everyday life. What sacrifices would I need to make?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I get that the field is growing rapidly, but after further inspection, isn't it currently exaggerated by how many people can actually enter this field? A change of 4.9 thousand people isn't that much in comparison to just being a cook or a nurse.

Asking cause I am interested in the current state of wind.

Hello! I'm working on a project as a student for an offshore wind company. I'm a physics education student and I'd like to keep my project in my area of education, and get some feedback from this sub about some ideas I have.

Initially I wanted to somehow relate the offshore wind turbines to lighthouses and how they might help each other but other than being really tall buildings I can't come up with any connections.

Then I was thinking about doing something about why we build our wind farms the way we do in regards to the physics of air pressure when higher in the sky, being on water where there's less obstruction such as buildings, or how/why we build the turbines x dimensions apart from each other so not to impede their efficiency.

The last idea I've come up with is to discuss how the length if the blades makes a difference in the energy we can capture. I was thinking like make an interactive aspect where kids can come in and manually rotate different sized turbines and see the difference in energy output from rotating a 2 inch turbine to a 2 foot turbine.

I'd just like to hear some thoughts about what you would like to see in trying to education people who may be afraid of these new energies. We will be bringing in kids over the summer from the local boys & girls clubs as well as a couple local middle/high schools and I dont know which of these may be best for educating them AND entertaining them.

Thanks! I'll probably be crossposting this to some other subreddits

Hey ladies. Can you talk about your general experience as a woman wind technician? What do you wish you knew when you got your first job?

I will be working for a 3rd party company and anything you can advise I’m here for!

Are you a dude still reading? Do you have thoughts or concerns or appreciations about women wind techs?

If it matters I’m in the usa btw.

Please and thanks everyone!

It would be amazing if we could put, say, 18 megawatt wind turbines on floating platforms, out to the same depths we put oil drilling platforms. Do you guys think this is possible, and if so, how far away are we from this?

Sometimes driving through the farm lands or the open areas across North America I have seen the fields of the massive wind turbines.

It was an incredible sight to see as they really started to populate the areas.

Whenever I hear of the advancements in the solar and wind field it seems to come down to battery storage advancements.

Don't get me wrong I am super excited about this as it is a big part of the puzzle when it comes to renewable energy and changing our energy infrastructure for the future.

However when it comes to wind energy technology is there some other things that probably are going to be breakthroughs or advancements in the next 10 years to look forward to?

Hi does anyone know how to use OPENFAST to find power and torque values. I have a data set of average monthly wind speeds for a given location

Hey, all

So this a hypothetical question for the semi-distant future. I graduated college as a certified wind turbine tech in 2018, worked as a wind wiring technician for a time before leaving the field for personal reasons. I'm looking at going back, mainly for financial reasons but I'd prefer to not do it long term.

I'm curious, what did y'all choose to do after! Did any skills you develop transfer to your new job?

Hey, I'm an 18-year-old high school graduate who is extremely passionate about becoming a Wind Turbine Technician. I'm ready and willing to travel anywhere in the US to pursue my dream, but unfortunately, my financial situation is holding me back from attending school.

I'm looking for some practical advice from the community on how to get started in this field without going to school or with limited funds. I know that education is important, but I also believe that hands-on experience is just as valuable.

I'm willing to start from the ground up and work my way to the top. I'm not afraid of hard work and I'm willing to put in the effort required to succeed.

So if any of you have any tips, suggestions, or experiences on how to break into the Wind Turbine Technician field, please share. I'm open to all ideas and eager to learn.

-Thanks in advance for your help and support!

I live in Northern Colorado and live in a pretty wind-driven area. I started exploring this option but I'm completely lost as many of the reviews on products is not particularly favorable for a simple home edition. I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction.

I'm going to have a 17.6 kW solar array installed on my roof next month. However, during days like today and quite frankly this whole winter, where it's been very gray and windy, I would like to have something to help supplement the solar power and effectively enable me not to rely on Xcel energy at all. Any help is appreciated

Hello I am 23 years old and I recently came into a large settlement and I am looking for possible investments. One area I thought I'd look into is renewable energy specifically wind turbines. My plan is to either pay for a commercial wind turbine to be built on an established wind farm or buy a commercial wind turbine that is already built on a wind farm and give some of the profits I receive to the owner of the wind farm as "rent." However, I cannot find any helpful information online so I was hoping to find some helpful advice from this sub. If anybody could point me in the right direction or just any advice in general will be greatly appreciated! Thank you

I am imagining some modeling and controls realated task. Obviously I lack knowledge with the power grid side of wind turbines. Who is mostly responsible for such control and software tasks? I noticed that there are a few positions by the main manufacturers available in Germany. However, I would have imagined more. I like controls but I also really want to make sure. To later work in a sustainable field. There also seems to quiet a bit of machine learning energy marked research. Do you know how relevant this field is?