ICE DETECTION
A
phids – this is what the climbers who venture into An unexpectedly mild breeze ensures that the sensor patch
the airy heights of wind turbines call themselves. can be installed even this late in the year. The location on the
And the system here in the Swabian town of Lauter- Swabian Alps was chosen by the project partner and opera-
stein is one of the largest specimens to be installed onshore, at tor, the wpd windmanager company. An alternative system is
140 meters hub height. But, of course, industrial climbers ar- already in use here. The aim is to obtain even more precise
en’t afraid of heights. And so even Tommy Liebmann doesn’t results on ice formation.
let himself be shaken by his lofty position at a height of more
than 100 meters. He calmly roughens the surface of the ro- Unwanted ice machine
tor blade and glues on a very special bandage deftly with his Ice is a real spoilsport for WTGs. In cold regions, in cool weath-
hands. er, or at high altitudes, moisture can condense on the blades in
“It’s all about giving the wind turbine a new feel,” explains
Karl-Heinz Meiners. The project manager from Phoenix Con-
the system and freeze to ice. Individual crystals become layers
of ice. They can quickly become centimeters thick.
tact stands at the foot of the impressive structure and adds, The problem is, this doesn’t happen evenly. An aerodynam-
“Specifically, detecting ice on the surface. The aim is to ret- ically shaped, smooth rotor blade becomes a wrinkled land-
rofit an existing wind turbine generator with an ice detection scape of ice. This slows down the momentum, and therefore
system that can actually measure the formation and thickness the yield, of wind power. Drastically, at that.
of ice.”
In addition, the finely tuned system changes due to imbal-
ances. All rotating units are subjected to a significantly higher
load, drastically reducing the service life of the system. Expen-
sive damage to the system is imminent.
Lukas Christ and Karl-Heinz Meiners, pictured
with one of the 24 sensor patches that send
their signals to the control electronics
24
UPDATE 4/20
The Phoenix Contact innovation magazine