I would like to know what percent of wind turbines in Illinois have vibration or condition monitoring systems on them? Also what criteria is used to determine if they do or do not monitor the turbine?

Hello David,

I forwarded your question on the Wes Slaymaker, a Mechanical Engineer that has been working in the wind industry for many years. Here is his response:

All the turbines have vibration monitoring- most of them use a ball in a cup
type sensor, with the ball gets rattled out of the cup, it activates a switch
and turns the turbine off. Condition monitoring is done via the SCADA system.
These turbines all have sophisticated computer controls, monitoring constantly
over 100 parameters. These can be accessed by phone or web.

Wes Slaymaker, P.E.
Project Engineer
W.E.S. Engineering LLC
2105 1st Ave S.
MPLS, MN 55404
Website: http://www.wesengineering.com
email: wes@wesengineering.com
612 210-7579
612 813-5612 fax

Thanks for the question and feel free to post further questions on the network or contact Wes or myself.

Brian