Wind
New Wind Farm in Iowa
Customers
- OEM (Wind Turbine)
Utility
Location
- Iowa
Ethos Services
Construction Services
- Inspection Services and Third Party Representative
- Owner’s Representative
- Electrical Inspections
Project Specs
- 200 MW comprised of 100 2 MW turbines
Situation Overview
Ethos was contracted by the utility to function as its Owner’s Representative, conducting mechanical inspections on the turbines on a new utility wind farm in Iowa. Ethos’ team performed inspections, verified progress reports, created job books, and developed punch lists and tracked project progress towards completion.
In the course of Ethos work, the Ethos inspections team identified a warranty issue (a Yaw flaw) that required corrective action by the OEM. The OEM was aware of the issue and arranged to bring in technicians from multiple subcontractors to perform the corrections (retrofits) across all 100 turbines with the goal of meeting a revised schedule.
Weeks into the warranty efforts, Ethos team members on the owner’s side noted discrepancies between the warranty teams’ reported progress vs. actual progress. The OEM investigated and found significant leadership and reporting issues within its retrofit teams. With additional delays piling up, the owner requested that the OEM develop an alternative plan and recovery schedule given the project was six months behind schedule. Given Ethos’ knowledge and earned trust on site, the OEM requested that the owner allow the OEM to contract Ethos to lead the warranty-related efforts and to bring in additional personnel to supplement the efforts.
The Ethos Solution
- Quality including documentation
- Tooling
- Site planning
- Organization
- Final walkdowns
The OEM’s remaining subcontracted labor teams were then split into 14 three-person crews to complete the retrofits.
With the new structure and leadership Ethos’ manager determined that additional tooling was required to make the field crews proficient. The OEM authorized Ethos to provide over $500,000 of tools required to complete the work. As work proceeded Ethos’ manager determined additional controls were required to enable real-time monitoring and risk management including trackers and documentation in the form of images and video of completed work.
The Impact
Prior to Ethos taking over, the OEM provided a recovery schedule forecasting a six-month delay in Commercial Operation Date (COD) with risk of additional slippage. Ethos’ project leadership changed the direction of the project.
More than a month into the Ethos led recovery, the OEM sent a senior executive to verify the progress being made. The senior executive was prepared to stay as long as necessary, however, when he saw the progress, he was impressed and left the site with full trust in Ethos and the on-site team.
As the retrofit proceeded, Ethos’ on-site leadership identified another opportunity to further improve delivery dates; they began providing the punch lists to the CIM teams.
Ethos was trusted as a partner to work for both the utility as an owner’s representative and with the OEM to get the job done. Under their leadership, the project was successfully completed nearly two months ahead of the recovery schedule.
