How Active is Active Pitch Control for Wind Turbines?

In this episode of Uptime, Joel Saxum and Allen Hall sit down with the CEO of AC883, Lars Bendsen. AC883, a Canadian ISP specializing in blade repairs, has gained recognition for their unique approach to pitch alignment during the frozen ground season. Pitch misalignment is a topic of growing importance in the wind energy industry, and in this discussion, Lars shares his insights on its impact and challenges. He raises thought-provoking questions about the effectiveness of active pitch management and its potential limitations in practice. Join us for this engaging conversation as we delve into the complexities of pitch alignment, mass imbalance, and other critical aspects of wind turbine maintenance. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.comAC883 - https://www.ac883.com AC883 Interview Allen Hall: We're here at CanREA with Lars Bendsen of AC883. If you are familiar with AC883, they are an ISP up in Canada that does all kinds of blade repairs. And one of the more interesting things that they do that's unique is pitch alignment. So this is pitch alignment season when the ground freezes over and they take their equipment out and make sure your blades are pointing in the right direction. And which Evidently, it is a thing that a lot of blades are not pointed in the right direction.  Joel Saxum: Yeah, Lars has shared that with us. Big problems all over the place.  Lars Bendsen: It's for sure a topic that's become more and more evident. There's more and more people out there doing the same or similar way of detecting a pitch misalignment. Yeah. Of course, there's more awareness around it now than there was when we started doing it with our methods of doing it. So it's for sure become a topic. There are also more engineering reports coming out from NREL. And from sorry, from the German Institute as well. Yeah. So there's ton of rebar coming out of the damages that misalignment causes. Joel Saxum: Yeah, it's like running a car down the highway without an alignment on the front  Lars Bendsen: end. You're gonna just... It's funny, if you have your right tire and your car is unbalanced, you go in right away to get it changed. Which you don't do with your turbine, you just let it run. Yeah, because turbines are cheap, right? Yeah, exactly. It better cost any money.  Joel Saxum: Ha! We've been talking with Lars, of course, always great conversations, the knowledge that he has. And the AC 883 team and we've stumbled upon a theory that we want to talk about. So it, with the knowledge of pitch alignment and what you guys see out in the field, and of course seeing all kinds of different OEMs and issues that pop up, you've come across one specifically that we've been talking about. Want to share that with us?  Lars Bendsen: Absolutely. I think it's me throwing it out there and also to get some great feedback. So it's my theory. And what we have seen is the the topic on active pitch. Which means you're twisting the blades half a degree every time you pass the tower. And the reason they do that is? Let's do it because if you take some of the the, what do you call it, the What do you call it? I lost the word, right?  Joel Saxum: What do you call it? It's like Wind buffeting causing  Lars Bendsen: deflection. Take the other way so we don't have that and you can actually run in higher winds as well. Okay,  Joel Saxum: yeah. Yeah,