maintenance in cantera

taking down the blade

thinking if a ladder inside a dump truck is really the best way up

yup, it is the best way up

project complete

The wind turbines we build for WindAid are super simple is structure and as durable as we can make them. The turbines are installed in pretty inhosptable places, battered by wind, dust and goodness knows what else.

Luckily for us, the later half of this week, we got to head out to two sites and perform maintenance on two turbines installed a few years ago. Whilst both were still working, it seemed the wind has pushed them off center, decreasing the amount of energy they are producing.

On Thursday, we drove an hour outside of Trujillo to the desert town of Cantera to try and fix the first turbine. We hit our first challenge almost immediately - to access the turbine, we were supposed to have access to a large CAT tractor that would lift us into the air - as the tractor was not working, we improvised, using a wooden ladder placed inside a dump truck (for height) parked next to our turbine!

Once up to the turbine, our plan was to drill two holes into the steel pole and through the wooden post, through which we could pin the turbine in place using steel screws. Unfortunately however, no one had really thought through the fact that once the turbine stopped running, we had a limited amount of power to run the power tools needed to drill the holes! Problem solving skills at the ready, we managed to high jack electricity from an old truck battery.

I suppose it should have been expected, but due to our own lack of planning, a few surprise challenges and the general pace of work in Peru, what should have taken a morning to fix ended up taking close to seven hours. But at the end of the day, this little house on the outskirts of town had their power back thanks to us and thanks to the wind.