Moog Launches New Modular Pitch System at EWEA 2013 (Austria)

Moog, a leader in providing blade pitch control, slip ring and rotor monitoring solutions for the wind energy industry, presents its latest AC Moog Wind Turbine Pitch System at EWEA 2013, Europe’s premier wind energy event, being held in Vienna on 4 -7 February.

Innovative modular systems and products from Moog for wind turbine pitch control provide extra advantages in safety, reliability and reducing the overall cost of energy. A pitch system monitors and adjusts the angle of the wind turbine blades that controls the rotation speed of the rotor.

Moog’s pitch platform provides several innovative features that will benefit turbine manufacturers and operators. Moog set four goals when developing the new pitch systems and products: 1) Improve turbine reliability 2) Reduce the overall cost to the turbine operator of producing energy 3) Meet global safety certification requirements  and 4) Create modular designs which are easy to integrate into the customer’s turbines.

Moog’s engineers designed a more compact, modular AC architecture and achieved a significant reduction in complexity. This reduced the overall number of separate components in the system to increase its reliability. The benefits to the turbine manufacturers and operators are less downtime for maintenance and higher productivity. The end result is a reduction in cost to the operator of producing energy.

The Moog AC Pitch Servo technology has also been proven to be very safe and reliable. In 2012, the Moog Pitch Servo Drives (Pitchmaster II and Pitchmaster II+ models) obtained TÜV certification for compliance with the certification guideline GL2010 and the international standard ISO 13849-1. The Pitch Servo Drive is a key component in an electric pitch system that is responsible for control of the blade angle during wind turbine operation and for the feathering safety function.

Some enhancements to the existing pitch system platform are the additions of the proven Moog Ruggedized Motion Controller and Remote Terminal Software to the wind energy portfolio. The IP67 class motion controller has an extended temperature range from -40 °C up to 70 °C (-40 °F up to 158 °F). It is designed for extreme environmental conditions such as high shock, vibration and humidity.

The controller and associated software integration has been extensively tested by Moog to ensure their reliability for use in harsh pitch system environments. This product, in combination with the Remote Terminal Software for monitoring and scheduling maintenance, will enable Moog to further increase the reliability and availability of its pitch systems worldwide.

“Moog’s continuing focus on modularizing its pitch system will help drive cost savings by optimizing the engineering, manufacturing and aftermarket effort,” said Dr. Mark Bergemann, market development manager Europe at Moog. He concludes: “It will provide simpler scalability and faster integration of next-generation technology.” 

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Press release, February 5, 2013; Image: Moog