Haynes offshore wind farm owners manual

[jjb1970]

http://www.renewableuk.com/news/297780/Offshore-Wind-Energy---Owners-Workshop-Manual.htm

 

Yes, this is a promotional booklet published by a lobbying organisation (RenewableUK) and part funded by an equipment manufacturer (MHI Vestas) however for all that it is a nicely produced booklet and a good introduction for anybody wanting to know a bit more about the subject.

[Horsetan]

So, in the tradition of Haynes Manuals, does this mean it's also a Book Of Lies?

[Zero Gravitas]

So, in the tradition of Haynes Manuals, does this mean it's also a Book Of Lies?

The biggest one being "reassembly is the reverse of disassembly"...

[stewartingram]

In our Owners' Club, the best use for a Haynes manual, is always decribed as a "pad to put under the jack when changing a wheel".

 

Stewart

[Kenton]

I used one once to change the water pump on a Hillman Imp on a dark night in the middle of Salisbury plain. Another to take a gearbox out of my Triumph Spitfire (a garage put it back for me). I found them of some use to those of us who know nothing about cars and who only knew the difference between a hammer and a spanner. I was more used to working on tractors. Ah those were the days, before one could afford to put a car into a garage to be repaired. They did, however, give you the mistaken belief that you could do anything on any car and all you needed was a set of spanners, a screwdriver, a torque wrench and a set of feeler gauges .... and of course a hammer.

[skipepsi]

I used one once to change the water pump on a Hillman Imp on a dark night in the middle of Salisbury plain. Another to take a gearbox out of my Triumph Spitfire (a garage put it back for me). I found them of some use to those of us who know nothing about cars and who only knew the difference between a hammer and a spanner. I was more used to working on tractors. Ah those were the days, before one could afford to put a car into a garage to be repaired. They did, however, give you the mistaken belief that you could do anything on any car and all you needed was a set of spanners, a screwdriver, a torque wrench and a set of feeler gauges .... and of course a hammer.

A set of hammers 2 to 28lb and an adjustable spanner (36 inch Stilsons) for the delicate stuff.....

[F-UnitMad]

"Book of Lies"..??!! I was one who found Haynes manuals to be very useful when I first owned a car - a VW 1300 Beetle which I did loads of work on with the help of Haynes, & no mechanical training whatsoever. I even stripped & rebuilt the engine. The only major parts of that car I didn't touch were the gearbox, driveshafts & suspension.

 

It's only that cars are so complex these days (& admittedly, much more reliable) why I don't do much on my current car.

Hopefully my copy of the Haynes manual for the Avro Lancaster Bomber (all Marks) will come in handy, one day...

[BG John]

I always used Haynes manuals for my early cars with no problems, although I never had to do anything as complex as rebuilding engines. I wish they, or anyone at all, would do a manual for my 1999 Fiat Ducato. Even a semi-fictional one would be better than nothing!

[Griffin Road]

I did many a job on a few cars with my Haynes manual . Ok there were always one or two bits left over but the cars always appeared to run no problem

 

M b

[The Stationmaster]

Somebody mentioned windfarms?  Most of those we have seen in our very recent week at sea appeared to be either on strike or encountering the wrong sort of wind

 

 

 

[Reorte]

Yep, they're all stationary in that picture, can't see them turning.

[Horsetan]

"Book of Lies"..??!! I was one who found Haynes manuals to be very useful when I first owned a car - a VW 1300 Beetle which I did loads of work on with the help of Haynes, & no mechanical training whatsoever. ....

 

That was the original aim of the manuals back then.

 

Cars have evolved to such an extent that the manuals are rarely able to keep up with all of the different variations and updates. Hence "Book of Lies". The other thing is that cars are designed in such a way that many parts are no longer treated as repairable by the home mechanic - instead, it's replace with new product / take to main dealer; the Golf 4/Bora manual has a fair number of these "get out" clauses, which - by contrast - the manual for the Citroen CX (which covers only the petrol-engined models) does not seem to have.

[tamperman36]

The trusty old Haynes manual was a must for my first few cars (Morris Marina and MK3 Cavalier) but these days you need a computer just to ask the cars black box whats wrong, and the answer is usually ££££.

 

I wonder if they would do Haynes manuals for the preserved diesel locos, I would love one for class 37's and 47's if not a few more.

[The Stationmaster]

Yep, they're all stationary in that picture, can't see them turning.

 

Well spotted - as you have said, none of them were turning.

[Edwardian]

The Offshore Wind lobby is very wealthy, very well organised and has been able to dominate DECC's thinking for sometime, though DECC based its policy decisions - to axe onshore wind and solar support to free-up budget for offshore wind - on data that was at least a year out of date.

 

DECC's successive subsidy schemes have been a car-crash and have done terrible damage to market and investor confidence by proving again and again that the UK government simply cannot be trusted when it says it will give sustained support to technologies in return for investment in them.

 

I learn with a great deal of satisfaction that DECC is to be no more; no doubt something equally underhand and incompetent will assume its renewables mantle.

[Zomboid]

Well spotted - as you have said, none of them were turning.

I suspect they're not part of base generation, so get shut down when they're not needed. They'd be running a lot more after dark if that's the case.

[Zomboid]

I learn with a great deal of satisfaction that DECC is to be no more; no doubt something equally underhand and incompetent will assume its renewables mantle.

Subsumed into Business & Industry, or whatever its name is.

[tamperman36]

With all those off shore wind farms standing on large masts in a large body of water wouldn't it have been an idea to have combined wave energy equipment within the area of masts thus increasing the potential power coming from the site and also allowing it to carry on producing power during storms.

[jjb1970]

Combining offshore wind and wave is not easy. No doubt it could be done but wave energy conversion is much less mature than wind and the results of some of the technologies that have been developed have been less than great. There is also the problem that the locations of offshore wind farms are not selected based on expected wave energy. Offshore wind is already expensive, building in a wave energy conversion system would make the transition pieces a lot more complex (expensive) as well as the associated control systems.

In terms of the turbines, they generally run whenever there is wind and they are available to run, it is usually the thermal stations that run up and down to regulate the grid, not offshore wind. The future of thermal in the UK is increasingly peak lopping and supporting renewables on low wind days, that has significant implications as it calls for flexible plant (as a simplified generalisation you can design thermal plant for optimum efficiency or for flexibility, but not both) and also there will be maintenance and operational costs to keep the plants available for long periods when they are not needed. None of which is insurmountable or especially onerous but it can often be made into a big issue by some critics of renewables.

On the economics and DECC, that is a political argument rather than a technical one and in a sense the real issue is balancing long and short term cost and risk I think.

[jjb1970]

Something that may alter the economics (noting that the offshore wind sector is already making a big effort to reduce cost) is the potential shift to floating units which would get rid of the costly foundations and even allow assets to be redeployed.

[Clearwater]

From where I'm sat, there's a lot of potential change and opportunity in the sector. I think there's a couple of stages of development to come to complement the variability of off shore wind. I'm not sure that it is possible to model, with any certainty, how wide scale adoption of smart metering, small scale domestic solar and, crucially, battery technology will impact the grid balancing flows.

 

However, offshore is hear for a while. The funding market has got itself comfortable with the risks and the newer Cfd mechanism is pretty investable

 

David

[jjb1970]

I think some of the small battery storage units being developed for domestic users will be transformational as it will give the system the capability to compensate for the intermittency of wind without needing to use thermal power plants. One of my objections to the subsidy regimes we've had for renewables is not that I object to the idea of subsidising renewables but that there wasn't enough directed into energy storage.

[alastairq]

Coming back to Haynes manuals......... IMHO one of the best books I have (with regards to air cooled VWs) is the John Muir 'How to keep your VW alve' manual. The line drawings are so much clearer than Haynes overexposed photos!!

[Ron Ron Ron]

 

[Ron Ron Ron]