Harnessing energy with KEB

The United States recently became the third-largest creator of wind energy behind only China and the European Union. Fourteen states – including KEB America’s home in Minnesota – get 10% or more of their energy from wind. Harnessing clean, sustainable wind power is important to the future of power generation, and the market will only continue to grow as our energy needs grow. 

KEB introduced its first Pitch System for wind turbines nearly 20 years ago. Today the P6 Pitch Drive and YAW System are still an important part of our catalog. Many of our OEM customers are outside of the US and work with our colleagues in Germany.

Sebastian Eicke works primarily with wind energy customers out of KEB Headquarters in Germany. His goal is to provide wind energy generation end-users with the same options they’ve come to know as standard in other areas of energy – a customizable product with components that can be selected to fit unique requirements.

“Customers can choose from a wide range of options to adapt each pitch system for different needs,” says Eicke. “With our ten-year experience in the application, we have developed special pitch drivetrains which are easily applicable under extreme conditions.”

“They fulfill the highest demands for quality, dynamics, and positioning accuracy and distinguish themselves in their compact overall size and low weight.”

In a previous post, I discussed the components of the P6 system KEB is able to provide. Currently, the KEB system is the only pitch inverter in the world that combines an inverter, charger, and PLC in one full cabinet solution. The system easily connects to KEB brakes and motor feedback components. Each of these products is available with a wide range of communication protocol options, so they can be integrated with third-party components as needed. 

“The high integration of inverter, charger for energy storage and a fully-fledged PLC in a very compact format is unique in the market. This concept makes the P6 versatile and flexible,” says Eicke.

KEB is also involved in wind energy production beyond the building of new turbines. By using the power of cloud-based data storage and IoT principles we are able to help our customers commission and maintain their systems in a safe and sustainable way.

Being able to communicate with machines in the field can be a huge advantage to any party that maintains wind turbines. The PLC integrated with the P6 system has the ability to connect with communication devices using CAN, PROFIBUS, or Ethernet-ready devices like our C6 Router.

The main benefit of using the C6 Industrial Router in wind turbine applications is it makes maintaining the systems much safer and more cost-effective. Making adjustments to the PLC can be done using our COMBIVIS Connect software right from your desktop. No climbing towers, no expensive last-minute flights.

Information sent via the router to cloud-based systems like Amazon’s AWS or Microsoft Azure can help extend the life of turbines and their components and prevent catastrophic failures. Monitoring trends and customizable alerts are possible with the router and software from KEB, so maintenance personnel will be able to adjust or shut down operations before damaging hardware failure can occur.

Programming specific individual functions are possible when the P6 system is used with COMBIVIS Studio 6  software. End-users can create their own functions, or use the existing function blocks from the included library. Functions are programmed according to IEC 61131 programming languages.

The P6 System is certified by TÜV Rheinland stating safety performance according to EN ISO 13849-1.

Being a champion of wind energy is an important position. Clean, renewable resources are in the future of the US economy, and KEB America is ready to be a part of the trend. If you’d like to join us and want to hear more about KEB products in wind, water, and solar power generation or any of our other environmentally-friendly products drop us a line today.