Remaining useful life of electric chain hoists

Event date: 19th of June 2024.

One of our bigger on and offshore members is conducting a big piece of work about the nacelle chain hoists and would like to know if other turbine owners are looking into this and doing something about it.

They would like to meet up with other wind asset owners to discuss the relevance and applicability to the wind industry of calculating of Safe Working Periods of Operation for electric chain hoists as per the technical guidance of Standard FEM 9.755, and its applicability for the wind industry.

Text from the O2O WIND member who wants to explore this topic:

Some European chain hoist manufacturers use the technical guidance provided by the FEM for the design and maintenance of their electric chain hoists. Their O&M manuals issue clear instructions to calculate and record remaining useful operational hours, or in other words, Safe Working Periods of operation, with the goal to complete a general overhaul of the hoist when the theoretical design maximum number of operating hours has been reached.

After a deep dive into this topic and talking to different parties, including statutory inspection service providers, turbine OEMs and chain hoist OEMs, it is clear that there are mixed opinions regarding the applicability of this requirement to the wind industry and the topic is quite convoluted, hence, with your collaboration, I would like to bring up this topic for discussion at asset owner level.

• Do you have any concerns regarding the maintenance carried out to your chain hoists?
• Do you think the maintenance carried out to your chain hoists is suitable and sufficient?
• Are you aware of the existence and contents of the technical standard FEM 9.755?
• Is anyone aware if the remaining operational hours are being calculated and recorded in your hoists?
• Does anyone follow a different maintenance plan from what was done by the turbine OEM for hoist maintenance on turbines under self-performance (in-house maintenance)?
• Does anyone carry invasive maintenance to the hoists?
• Do you see the need for tracking the used hours of operation even if the value is very low compared to the number of hours in the same period, for instance in a manufacturing environment a factory or a workshop?
• Does anyone have any interest in raising this question with their contacts in the OEMs?

Date and time

19th of June. Duration: 2 hours. Starts at: BST – London, Dublin at 11 am; CEST – Stockholm, Hamburg, Madrid at 12 am; 

Format for this roundtable session - max 7 participants

To create intensive discussions, we will only include seven wind asset owners, one participant per company. You are expected to know this topic and participate actively in the meeting.

Apply to participate - application deadline: 16th of February.

The meeting will be held online. There are no fees involved for participants. Please note only professionals employed by an energy company owning wind farms can apply. We will let you know if your company will be included in this roundtable session.