There’s no denying that Canada’s wind power sector has grown exponentially in the last two decades. Canada is currently the ninth largest producer of onshore wind, with its cumulative capacity of wind power increasing from 1,842 megawatts in 2007 to 15,132 megawatts in 2022, according to Natural Resources Canada. Statistics aside, just go for a long drive on a country road in almost any province, and chances are, you’ll spot wind turbines dotting the landscape.

But what happens when they break down or need maintenance?

Towering hundreds of feet in the air, wind turbines present a unique set of challenges – and opportunities – to maintenance workers compared to other power sources.

To find out more, we spoke with Reuben Burge, president of Nova Scotia’s RMSEnergy. An aircraft maintenance engineer, Barge formed Rotor Mechanical Services (now RMSEnergy) in 2003, which built and maintains several wind power projects, including the Dalhousie Mountain Wind Farm.

Burge says that today, his primary focus is on the maintenance of their wind projects, rather than establishing new ones. He says his approach has been doing the best work for the turbines themselves – as opposed to what’s best for the business or the contracts.

“It’s just what works for the turbines and that’s how we get our availability results, low maintenance costs and even happy employees out of the deal.”

The most unique factor regarding wind turbine maintenance, compared to other utilities, is that the turbines are generally running and unattended at all times. Traditional power generation projects will have people working on-site daily. This means that remote monitoring systems are a must, since there are no regular employees to flag when issues arise.

“We have a lot of remote capabilities – alarms, sensors, cameras on the internet that tell us what condition they’re in,” says Burge. “The other really big difference is that the business end [of every turbine] is up 265 to 400 feet in the air. Your employees aren’t working in a shop or a comfy environment.”

As one might expect, Burge says most of the actual maintenance tasks are related to the electrical components and moving parts. A slip ring is a good example – a rotating component that takes power from the stationary side of the nacelle out to the rotating side of the hub. That ring has fingers and brushes that can wear down or have negative impacts from moisture or dirt.

“They’re basically off-the-shelf style motors used to rotate a component – you rotate a small drive unit, or pitch a blade, pitch the whole nacelle, the odd brake line failure which you’d get an alarm for if you had low pressure. For the most part, you can predict those. There’s also the odd hydraulic line failure which would either cause the turbine to fault or at least alarm and tell you that it needs attention.”

Newer models may also have a circuit board included, which can get damp and worn out, meaning they would require a replacement. But the primary maintenance needs are centered around parts that rotate and move.

Maintenance schedules are flexible, notes Burge, and with good reason. You don’t want to take a turbine offline for maintenance while it’s at a peak generating time unless it’s absolutely necessary. Unless there’s a pressing repair needed, they will perform maintenance during times of low winds whenever possible. Wind power production is the result of availability, he says, and production suffers during downtime.

“We try to foresee how long will, let’s say, a specific bearing grease stay in the bearing,” says Burge. “Will that stay in six months? If it won’t, you have to quickly go up there every three months to put a shot of grease in that bearing or you’re going to start having random bearing failures that cause you to go up the tower outside of regular maintenance intervals. Some items, we end up going up the tower three to four times a year, but it’s just a quick climb, address those specific items and leave so we won’t shut it down for very long. And then that bearing is likely going to make it to the next interval.”

Burge says he has been very lucky to have reliable crew – most of his employees have been with him for at least a decade with very little turnover. He thinks one of the reasons why is that the company operates in a relatively small area so there isn’t that much travel involved.

Obviously, it’s not a job suited to people with a fear of heights, though Burge says everyone has a moment of fear when they first climb out on a turbine.

“The first time you climb out on a nacelle and have to climb in the little hatch door over the edge, that’s just a feeling,” says Burge. “You have to take it carefully every time and trust your safety equipment. Eventually that trust translates into not a fear of it.”

Every turbine has a ladder for crews to climb, though some of the larger models will even have an elevator. “Every tower is also equipped with a rescue bag, so you can rope access yourself down out of the tower,” adds Burge. “In fact, you could rope access multiple people down with this device. So, if you have to get down quickly, you just drop the rope out the hatch and go to the bottom.”

Burge also sends his techs for additional training with OEMs like General Electric to ensure they have the most up to date skills. The business also regularly rents mobile cranes when larger scale maintenance – such as replacing gearboxes or generators – is necessary.

Having worked with turbines since the early 2000s, Burge says that the business hasn’t changed all that much other than the scale. There’s bigger turbines now, with much larger blades requiring larger and larger cranes for installation.

All of that means the logistics can be a bit more complicated, but the work itself is still very similar. “All in all, nothing has really changed. I was just in a brand new one the other day and, to me, it feels like being in my 20-year-old GE turbine. There’s really not that much difference. They’re larger, in some ways simpler, and in a lot of ways better. They’ve improved a lot of components.”

Contrary to popular narratives, Burge says he’s never had any challenges with interactions between the wind turbines and wild animals.
“It’s not an issue if your project is sited properly,” says Burge. “Obviously, you’re going to avoid migratory bird flight paths, that’s the only real concern.”

There may be a day in the future when the majority, or even all, of our power generation is produced through renewables. In the meantime, using renewable energy sources like wind and solar to supplement existing sources would have significant benefits as we move away from more environmentally destructive generation methods.