Swedish company SKF carried out an initial audit of the 2MW Vestas turbine deployed at Ideol’s Floatgen floating offshore wind farm off the coast of France.
The work took place before installation of the project at Ecole Centrale de Nantes’ SEM-REV test site located 20km off the Atlantic Coast, where Floatgen has been delivering electricity to the grid since 18 September.
A team from SKF Solutions Factory France examined the main bearings, the quality of the grease and the electrical system of the generator.
They installed a continuous vibration-monitoring system to cover the whole kinematic chain, which includes the main bearings, the gearbox and the generator, to assess the vibratory performance of the machine remotely.
The V80 Vestas turbine is installed atop a floating foundation provided by Bouygues Travaux Publics.
Floatgen is linked through a dynamic cable to a hub located at the end of the export cable, which was delivered by Silec.