Remember to nominate your organization for the “2nd Wind O&M Dallas Awards,” as part of the 8th Annual Wind O&M Conference.

If you’re proud of your organization’s hard work and dedication to the wind industry, now is the ideal time to celebrate your accomplishments. As part of the 8th Annual Wind Operations & Maintenance Conference (in Dallas, Texas on April 11, 2016), nominations are being accepted for the “2nd Wind O&M Dallas Awards.

Following the success of last year’s inaugural awards, three exciting new categories have been added to the line-up.

“Entering these awards is a great PR opportunity for any organisation. Even being shortlisted as a finalist enhances your business credibility,” said Kerr Jeferies, Project Director of Wind Energy Update (organizers of the conference & awards). “The Wind O&M Conference is the industry’s largest and most influential conference and exhibition. It’s attended by the decision makers from the key IPPs, Utilities, Investors, OEMs, ISPs, Consultancies and Specialist Service Providers making it the perfect opportunity for you to showcase what your company has achieved over the past year.”

Jeferies added: “Distinguishing yourself amongst peers and competitors can open new doors: you could retain and attract new customers or find new suppliers. Importantly, it also boosts employee morale and can help attract new talent.”

The eventual Wind O&M Dallas Award finalists are selected by an impartial panel of industry experts. Then the winners of each category are chosen by a public vote in late-March. Winners will be announced at a Gala dinner on April 11, at the Westin Galleria in Dallas, Texas.

This is what Marc Huyzer, Managing Director of Spares in Motion, says about winning an award in 2015: “That over 400 wind professionals from North America voted us ‘Best Industry Newcomer’ was a great honor and generated plenty of positive reaction from wind turbine owners and operators worldwide. The award helped us spread the message about how we help buyers in the wind turbine sector find and select spare parts, component repairs, second-hand wind turbines and wind turbine services.”

Why not think about how you stand out from the crowd and then put your company forward for one or more of the following award categories?

• Best Technological Innovation – 2015 Winner, Bachmann
• Best example of O&M – 2015 Winner, Upwind Solutions
• Wind-farm Owner of the Year – 2015 Winner, EDP Renewables
• Wind Turbine Manufacturer of the Year – 2015 Winner, Vestas
• Wind Service Provider of the Year – 2015, EDF Renewable Energy
• Best Industry Newcomer – 2015 Winner, Spare in Motion
• Sub-Supplier of the Year (New for 2016!)
• Wind Farm Investor of the Year (New for 2016!)
• Exceptional Individual Achievement (New for 2016!)

Follow the easy step-by step Awards Nominations Guide to get a head start as you prepare to attend this premier onshore wind industry event. It couldn’t be easier. You have nothing to lose and everything to win.

“Winning an award demonstrates the hard work and dedication organizations commit to, to provide a successful, commercial, investable business models. In addition, it means guaranteed media attention with a unique opportunity to promote your products or services,” explained Kerr.

The 2016 winners will be presented with a unique trophy and certificate by Principal Awards Hosts and Sponsors. Last year, great weight was thrown behind the value of an award due to the support of energy giant E.On Climate & Renewables NA, and premier training provider, Danish Wind Power Academy – who sponsor again for 2016.

Awards nominations close midnight February 16, 2016.

Learn more here.

Wind Energy Update
http://analysis.windenergyupdate.com

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What is our research process and why?
To stay up to date with the industry, and ensure that our wind O&M conference agenda doesn’t miss a trick, we reach out to and speak with the wind industry’s elite executives and O&M specialists to get a handle on what’s going on. We’re interested in understand what keeps these professionals awake at 3am, what innovations are making them excited and where they see critical challenges waiting to be overcome and opportunities reaped.

All our research has taken place in informal conversations with 50+ of these key decision makers over the past 10 weeks, giving us a glimpse into the state of the wind industry as it is right now, so as it was 12 months ago. So instead of sitting on this wealth of fresh insights, we wanted to share with you the key facts, perspectives and concerns of the O&M sectors chief stakeholders right as you plan your work through 2016. Why you need to care about Wind O&M?

Operations and maintenance (O&M) in the wind industry refers to lifecycle management of onshore wind turbines and frontline energy distribution facilities. We’ve found over the years that the main goal of professionals in this field is to ensure the reliability and longevity of critical assets by reducing the ratio of O&M spending vs. energy generation by reducing costs or optimizing energy production, and reducing overall downtime. In the wind industry in particular, it is important to understand the technology or processes that results in increased reliability of assets – or lower maintenance costs – that will directly impact owner/investor returns on wind energy. However, we’ve also found that as many turbines age and get to the wrong end of the ‘bathtub’ curve right across the U.S. this job is getting far harder, as turbines failure risk starts to increase again.

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An industry overview
With 36 GW of new wind turbine capacity installed in 2013, and an additional 51.5 GW in 2014, it is clear that the wind industry requires an increasingly robust, distributed, and consolidated O&M services apparatus to meet this cumulative growth and attend to the ever complex challenges which a growing and maturing industry presents. The emergence of new onshore markets, an ageing fleet in established markets, increase in turbine capacity and a diversification in owner-operator profiles has led to a boom in the services space with an increase in both volume and type of O&M service providers and service options.

These factors have also altered the requirements in O&M service provisions and challenged the boundaries

This article introduces a research paper that examines the pros and cons of the different O&M approaches applicable to wind farms. Photo: BenQ Digital Camera

of O&M best practice. Within this ever complex services landscape there are an increasing number of considerations for both consumer and provider in the selection and deliverance of O&M service contracts, respectively.

For owner-operators, key considerations range from how often should I reconsider my service strategy to what is the optimum contract service contract length I can negotiate? And, from what are the financial and risk implications of switching service strategy to how do I balance investor risk adversity with securing the optimum ROI across my assets lifecycle?

For service providers, key considerations range from how often and at what stages in the project lifecycle do owner-operators tend to reevaluate their O&M service strategy to how can we align with customer’s objectives through the offering of energy-based availability as a reliability metric within contracts? And, from how can we secure full-service or full-wrap agreements and avoid leveraging our performance and reliability enhancements to competitors beyond the confines of our contract phase to should our services portfolio offer asset life-extension and re-powering options?

The Wind Energy Update Onshore O&M Service Options Report 2015 provides clarity for stakeholders across the services value chain through insight and analysis that can be easily transformed into actionable intelligence to guide and enhance service selection and deliverance experiences.

The authors say key reasons to purchase this research include:

■ Stakeholder perspectives:  Identify the preferences of owner-operators in the selection of service contracts including driving factors and reassessment cycle periods, as well as the deliverables offered by service providers through exclusive in-depth interviews across the value chain

■ Inter-company and inter-market lessons: 15 focused case-studies covering a range of topics to bring you key lessons and the latest breakthroughs in the O&M services space, from the gains associated with a cross-transfer of knowledge between OEMs and ISPs to an examination of Virtual Power Plant deployment in different markets.
■ Exclusive global industry survey results and analysis: 144 responses from targeted stakeholders across the O&M service industry providing unparalleled insight, including; contract lengths, service strategy re-evaluation timeframes, maintenance responses to ageing fleet, contract cost variation expectations over the next two years and service strategy deployment breakdowns.
■ O&M market sizing: Comprehensive, up-to-date and digestible facts and figures on market sizing and trends, company share and O&M market sizing.

More information on the Wind O&M Dallas 2016 conference can be found here.

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