Assessing value before decommissioning
Telos is Reblade’s condition assessment of the working life remaining in each turbine’s high-value components, and it stands for Turbine End-of-Life Options Service. A Telos assessment will show you which components are worth selling and what they could return.
Telos is available to owners working with Reblade, either when we prepare your Decommissioning & Restoration Plan (DRP) or when we are appointed as your decommissioning contractor. The DRP stage is the ideal time to carry it out, because the results can then shape the decommissioning methodology.
A market for high-value components
A windfarm’s gearboxes, main bearings, shafts, bedplates, pitch and yaw systems and towers represent a significant share of the value in its turbines. Most decommissioning providers scrap everything, whatever their condition, even though there is demand for these components.
For operators running older turbine platforms, who need replacement parts that are often expensive, slow to obtain or no longer manufactured, a component with known remaining life can decide whether another windfarm keeps generating or is decommissioned early. If you operate the same turbines elsewhere, you can also keep rated components as spares for your own fleet.
Whether a component is sold or retained, it stays in use and out of the waste stream, and a documented record of reuse supports your ESG reporting to planners, regulators and investors. Revenue from any sales can also help to offset the cost of decommissioning.
What a Telos assessment covers
Each Telos assessment looks at the turbines on a site individually. Turbine-specific models are calibrated against the site’s SCADA data and then used to calculate the fatigue each major component has accumulated and the working life it has left. The method follows the approaches set out in the international standards for wind turbine lifetime assessment, and it shows how differences in operation and wind conditions across the site, such as curtailment, sector management and shutdowns, have affected each machine. Where some operational or technical records are incomplete, the assessment works with what is available.
Every high-value component is given a condition rating, with the cost of removing it intact factored in. The findings are reviewed with you so that assumptions can be tested and next steps agreed. You can then choose which rated components to retain for your own fleet and which to sell. Components you choose to sell are taken to market through Reblade’s resale network to operators who need those parts. Where a component does not find a buyer, you will have a documented record that resale was tested before it went for recycling.
Why Reblade
Understanding what a turbine’s operating data means for a particular gearbox or main bearing requires insight from people with operational expertise. Telos brings together specialist engineering analysis with Reblade’s knowledge of the turbines and operating conditions in the UK. As Principal Contractor on windfarm decommissioning projects, we also know what’s needed to remove a component intact, so we can judge whether recovering a component rated for resale is worth the cost. Telos is part of Reblade’s Plan, Deliver, Recover approach, and the assessment made at the planning stage determines what is recovered when the site is decommissioned.
Talk to us
If your windfarm is approaching decommissioning, or you are preparing a Decommissioning & Restoration Plan, talk to us about adding a Telos assessment. We can explain what it would involve for your site and which components are likely to be worth rating.
Contact us
We would be happy to speak with you in more depth about how we can support your decommissioning plans.