GE-Tamoin Consortium Signs Milestone Wind Turbine Service Agreement with Iberdrola

News release from GE:

15 May 2012

GE-Tamoin Consortium Signs Milestone Wind Turbine Service Agreement with Iberdrola

 

• Largest Single Maintenance Agreement for GE Wind Turbines in Europe
• Covers 310 Wind Turbines at Projects Across Spain
• Three-Year Agreement to Help Iberdrola Reach Clean Energy Goals

MADRID, SPAIN—May 15, 2012—A consortium including GE (NYSE: GE) and Spanish energy services company Tamoin Energías Renovables signed the largest single GE wind turbine maintenance agreement in Europe with Iberdrola Renovables S.A. of Madrid. The contract with Iberdrola, one of the world’s largest wind energy companies, covers servicing 310 GE wind turbines installed in Spain.

The agreement is set for three years with an option to extend for two additional years and provides the foundation for a long-term relationship among Iberdrola, GE and Tamoin. GE will act as the technology partner in the consortium to provide high availability and reliability for the installed GE wind turbine fleet by supplying parts, specialized labor and technological support, while Tamoin will supply skilled labor.

The scope of the agreement includes planned and unplanned maintenance for the GE wind turbines at the following Iberdrola wind farms: Cuesta Colorada, Cerro Calderón, Cerro Palo, Muela 1, Maza, Calleja, Isabela and Sierra Quemada y Gavilanes.

“Our goal, in collaboration with our partner Tamoin, is to provide Iberdrola with the highest level of service to help optimize operations while maximizing production,” said Ramon Paramio, Europe wind services leader at GE’s renewable energy business.

The GE-Tamoin consortium has been working with Iberdrola for the past two years under an existing services agreement at Iberdrola wind farms in Germany and Poland. In addition, GE has provided equipment and services to Iberdrola for a wide range of energy projects over recent years, including the thermal, aeroderivative and renewable energy sectors.

The services unit of GE’s renewables business has been growing rapidly. GE more than doubled its investment in services research and development in both 2010 and 2011, as it continues to build a world-class portfolio of services. GE’s wind service solutions incorporate the company’s advanced technology, global resources and service facilities and a network of skilled, highly trained local technicians who are closely connected to GE’s engineering organization. GE service agreements give customers access to GE’s suite of wind turbine upgrades, which are based on technology evolution and in-depth product knowledge.

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Post from the U.S. Dept. of Energy blog:

New Licensing Agreement Opens Energy Patents to NGOs, Non-Profits

February 17, 2012 - 11:20am

To reduce the amount of firewood Darfur refugees need, Berkeley Lab scientist Ashok Gadgil and colleagues modified an existing cookstove design to create one that is 75 percent more energy-efficient than the three-stone stove traditionally used in Darfur, and is appropriate to the environmental conditions and food preferences of the local inhabitants. | Photo courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Michael Hess

New Media Specialist, Office of Public Affairs

What does this project do?

• It accelerates progress toward improved health, energy sustainability and economic growth in some of the low-income and lower-middle-income economies. Find out which countries this agreement assists.

The technology to improve access to fuel, electricity and clean water for some of the world’s poorest people may already be in the patent portfolios of the Energy Department’s National Labs. The challenge, however, can be finding dedicated organizations willing to develop the technology and bring it to market, which can mean bringing energy technology to the most remote parts of the world.

As part of President Obama’s Global Development Policy, a new licensing agreement opens a number of Energy Department patents to qualified non-governmental and non-profit organizations. Just as was offered to innovative startups with America’s Next Top Energy Innovator Challenge, selected organizations only pay an upfront fee of $2,000 and a royalty of up to 2 percent of gross sales of licensed products.

Through new technology, the goal is to accelerate progress toward improved health, energy sustainability and economic growth in some of the poorest countries in the world, many of which are in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Many organizations already have a presence in these countries educating populations, caring for the sick, and improving standards of living by advancing the technology used to perform their most rote and domestic of tasks, like how they cook their meals.

In 2005, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory launched a pilot program providing Ethiopians with an inexpensive, durable cookstove. Like an estimated 3 billion people, or half the world’s population, many Darfuri cook their meals over an open fire. The heaps of burning wood, dung and other biomass are too inefficient and dirty in a country where deforestation is rampant and respiratory disease from soot is on the rise.

With these specific needs in mind, researchers developed a cookstove that gets hotter more quickly with less fuel and produces less soot. Stemming from a partnership with Technology Innovation for Sustainable Societies, there are currently 20,000 Berkeley-Darfur Cookstoves distributed in the country. The same organization has also helped get stoves to nations facing similar challenges such as Ethiopia and Haiti. This cookstove project exists independent of the latest White House initiative, but showcases an important instance when the labs have opened their intellectual property to a non-profit organization.

Berkeley is also home to the newly created Institute of Globally Transformative Technologies to work with existing partners, such as the Technology Innovation for Sustainable Societies, to deploy more sustainable technology in the war on poverty.

As the Global Development Policy gears up, similar projects will emerge aiming to alleviate social, heath or environmental issue in some of the poorest communities in the world. There’s a lot to consider when developing technology for a developing country, and red tape shouldn’t be one of them.