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April 30, 2021 – Wind Study | Answer 17

No screws loose here! This week’s Wind Study called for some sharp (and tight!) math skills.

Check the answers to Monday’s homework questions about torque, force, bolts, and wrenches – to see if you solved the equations used to help ensure our wind turbines are extra sturdy!

Download the answers here.

And find the questions from Monday here.

Remember, this educational series can always be found on Facebook and Twitter!

 

 

On a construction site, the occurrence of trips and/or sprains are somewhat inevitable. But what if we told you the impacts of these incidents could be significantly reduced by an activity that takes less than four minutes?  

Check out today’s Safety Minute to learn more about “Stretch-and-Bend” – a simple daily activity that can have a major impact on your construction team’s well-being.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss a future minute.

There is no shortage of highly visible public figures in our lives. Celebrities, athletes, politicians in the spotlight – the list goes on. Those public figures have an impression on all of us to some extent or another. Some   have so much of an impact that they’ve garnered the title of “influencer.” On a less public scale, there are plenty of people visible to smaller circles who have their own spheres of influence. Leaders in our workplaces, dynamic people in volunteer roles in our communities, churches, and schools, and even strong personalities in our own families.

I don’t think it is uncommon to reflect on the impact various people have had on us, but I do think we spend much less time considering the impact we have on others, particularly those who aren’t in our most immediate circles.

My husband and I have four kids, and to say things were a little wild in our household when they were young would be an understatement! One of the things we did to maintain our sanity was to go out together, without kids, every Saturday …without exception. In order to do that, we needed a (VERY!) reliable babysitter. We were incredibly fortunate to have a small string of sitters who carried us through more than a decade of craziness. Our last sitter, Renee, came to us when she was a college student, and she worked for us through her undergraduate and master’s degrees. When she got married, each of our kids had a role in her wedding, and we remain in touch.

When our oldest graduated from high school, Renee and her husband came to the graduation party, and they pulled me aside to share the news that they were expecting their first child. I was so excited for them and also very touched that they had chosen to share the news with me in a private moment. They continued to tell me how much they had learned about raising children from me, and how they wanted to parent their kids the way my husband and I had parented ours. I was shocked. All the years I had spent being so grateful to Renee for the wonderful impact she was having on my marriage and family, yet I had never given much thought to the impact we were having on her – and her fiancé! It was more substantial than I would have ever guessed.

On the professional side, I had many a young auditor pass through my office over the years. One in particular was very young, sharp, and respectful to everyone in my office, and he had a great work ethic. After a few years, he took a job as a controller for a client, and he stayed with them for decades, working his way up the ladder.

I saw on LinkedIn recently that he is now the CEO of that business, and I reached out to congratulate him. We exchanged updates on the decades that had passed and commiserated on the challenges the economy had presented to our industries over the years. He then made it a point to tell me how much he had learned from me about leading a business through a time of intense crisis. And he joked how unfortunate it was that he had needed to use everything he had learned in his own business as it navigated its own crises. His comment was touching and completely unexpected. Never in a million years would I have thought that my leadership style was being noted by a young auditor who spent only a few weeks a year in my office.

I consider being a wife, a parent, and a leader, through chaos and crisis, to have been the most important roles I’ve had in my life. To know that I had such an influence on the people around me – not the ones I was TRYING to influence (kids and employees), but the more peripheral ones – remains incredibly meaningful to me. It has made me realize that we are always being observed, and we are always affecting those around us, whether we are trying to or not. The “tone at the top” isn’t just a catchphrase, and it isn’t just applicable in hierarchical organizations. You don’t have to have the title “influencer” to influence. Even without intent, we impact others in our lives. People are paying attention. Always be worth watching.

Anne Bain is the Head of Accounting at One Energy.

Learn more about Anne and the One Energy team.

April 28, 2021 – Wind Views | Heavy Machinery

Building a utility-scale wind turbine requires a lot of heavy machinery. Today’s Wind View shows off some of the equipment we use when lifting a rotor (hub + three blades, shown on the ground in this photo) to attach it to the generator during Wind for Industry project construction!

Lifting the rotor, like many of our critical lifts, is a “tandem pick,” which means this step requires two cranes, adding engineering and operational complexities.

Pictured below, you can see:

  • A Manitowoc 16000 crane, referred to as the “main crane,” which does the heavy lifting (it’s the red crane in this photo, with the yellow rigging attached around the blades)
  • A Link Belt 1100 crane, referred to as the “tail crane,” which is smaller and used for guidance and maneuverability during the lift (the white and black crane shown here with rigging closer to the tip of a blade)
  • An articulating manlift, used to lift technicians (in this photo, it’s the green machine lifting an intern and a field engineer to facilitate removal of rigging from the tail blade, when the main crane takes control of the load)
  • A John Deere dozer, used for a number of activities on site (that’s the yellow machine by the blade tip in this photo). In this instance, the dozer will hold a tagline, which is a strong rope that keeps the rotor from shifting during the lift.

While these machines have industrial strength, they couldn’t get the job done without the expertise of our in-house operators, technicians, and engineers!

April 26, 2021 – Wind Study | Question 17

Welcome to another week of Wind Study!

This series of sample homework questions focuses on concepts of force and torque – what do these have to do with wind turbines? Read on to find out.

Wind turbines are designed to last a very long time and to withstand large amounts of force. This means the parts used to construct the turbines must be incredibly sturdy – from the large tower sections to each of the individual bolts.

Torque is applied when tightening the bolts during turbine construction (as shown in the graphic below). In this week’s Wind Study, we need your help determining torque output, as well as settings needed on our pneumatic torque wrench (the tool used to torque bolts).

Download the questions here, check back on Friday for the answers, and be sure to share this educational series on Facebook and Twitter!

 

 

 

 

April 23, 2021 – Wind Study | Answer 16

On Monday, we asked you to help us size crane mats to safely support our cranes while they lift heavy wind turbine components during Wind for Industry project construction!

🔗 Check your work by downloading today’s homework answers!

 

 

Do you remember being warned not to poke electrical outlets as a kid?

Good thing! There are 120 volts of power that run through the average household electrical outlet.

Here at One Energy, we’re dealing with even greater electricity; our turbines generate power at 620 volts! And the equipment that electricity runs through is located in the basement of our wind turbines.

To protect our technicians, we created the stairs pictured here, which lead to a platform called the base deck. This way, we isolate our technicians from the electrical hazard, so they can safely access the turbine without entering the basement.

April 19, 2021 – Wind Study | Question 16

For this week’s homework questions, we want your help figuring out how to properly support our cranes!

When erecting wind turbines, One Energy considers more factors than just the weight a crane can lift. It is also necessary to consider the pressure the ground beneath the crane can support! This is called the ground bearing capacity, and we use something called a crane mat to avoid exceeding it.

Download today’s homework questions to help us determine what size crane mats we need for our projects! Then come back Friday for the answers.

 

 

They say that variety is “the spice of life” – and as Project Engineer Ben Mallernee can attest, there’s plenty of variety when you work at One Energy!

In today’s Climb to the Top, learn about what it’s like to be an intern, a Field Engineer, and a Project Engineer at a rapidly evolving renewable energy company. The episode also explores why Ben chose to enter private industry rather than pursue a PhD, and what he loves most about his role at OE!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the climb!

This series can also be found on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

 

April 16, 2021 – Science Shorts | Atoms

Let’s get back to basics… the basic building blocks of all things, that is! Today’s Science Short is all about atoms!

In this episode, Spencer will explain how everything in the universe is made up of tiny particles called atoms ⚛️

He’ll take us through what atoms are made of, how those “subatomic particles” behave, and why this all relates to electricity generation.

Watch below and remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more science content!