The United States Department of Energy has awarded a program to Juhl Wind, a leader in community-based wind farms, and Honeywell International to check how a new “Condition Monitoring System” can be applied to offering data monitoring remotely for the maintenance of wind turbines. The technology will be provided by Honeywell for the project and installation, monitoring, field application, and support will be provided by Juhl Wind. The technology will help to reduce maintenance costs and improve reliability of wind turbine systems.
CEO of Juhl Wind, Dan Juhl, said the company is happy to be partnering with Honeywell on this Department of Energy project for testing an advanced system. In the past, the company has worked with several industry leaders, state and federal officials, but this is the first time it is taking an active role in a federal project. This demonstrates the company’s increasing wind farm and maintenance business, Juhl said.
Juhl commented that the company at present provides a comprehensive range of services for wind farms that include operations, maintenance, and administrative services for projects that the company has developed and aim to offer these services to most of its new wind projects also. The maintenance business will become competitive and reliability will also be improved with the condition monitoring system from Honeywell. In the next few years, the company is anticipating a substantial growth in its maintenance business, Juhl said.