Day iv : Turbine Maintainance in the Sun

Today was an interesting day, we got to Zorritos in the morning and I got my first sight of a wind turbine here in Peru. The park consists of three 10kW turbines located on a hill above the "Cristoforus Columbus Hotel" which it also powers, which is convinient as it also provides us with a place to stay.

After dumping our bags and meeting up with another WindAid employee, Snr. Abel we headed straight up to the turbines where Fernando and Snr. Abel inspected some stuff on the control screen of each turbine, while I took pictures.

Then we ate breakfast and chilled by the pool while it digested, after which they used a hydraulic pump to drop one of the turbines to have a closer look. After opening it up we could see that there was a leak in the hydraulic fluid used in the turning and braking mechanisms of the turbine. The leak was a result of a poorly installed seal for one of the screws, so we headed down to Zorritos to pick up a replacement. After buying a few spares at a local hardware store we stopped by a cafe on the beach to grab a bite to eat, and drink some chiche - a local drink made from purple corn.




After walking the food off on the beach where we got to see birds and men alike out to catch some fish, we took a taxi back to the site, fitted the new seal, cleaned up the mess and raised the turbine. The next thing to check was a little house 200m from the towers where the batteries, inverters and distribution set up is housed. Here I got a valuable insight into one of the many challenges Windaid faces in Peru, as due to lack of checking and upkeep from the hotel, some of the electronics had been chewed up by what looked like rats. Thankfully it had still left the turbines able to operate, but showed the lack of effort made by the hotel to keep an eye on their energy supply - infact, the person trained by Fernando to maintain the equipment no longer works there, and no one had thought to replace him!

After that the rest of the day mainly consisted of resetting the automatic orientation systems of the turbines, and then observing if they aligned - which mostly, they didn't...