Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Cold Weather Safety Tips for Wind Turbine Technicians
Raise your hand if cold weather and frigid temperatures are your favorite working conditions.
Alex Fournier, Field Operations Manager with Borealis (now FabricAir), sat down with us recently to share his experience as a wind turbine tech and many practical safety tips about working in arctic-like temperatures. Whether you like it or not, if you work in freezing and below-freezing temperatures, this is an important article!
The winds blow all year, and in fact, in many parts of the world, winter is the best time to capture wind energy. To keep the wind turbines working, maintenance technicians also have to keep working – regardless of the temperatures.
How can mere mortals manage in super-cold temperatures, in remote locations, with shortened daylight hours? They have to be as prepared as possible to work as fast as possible (freezing fingers not withstanding), and also manage to keep their focus.
“Your body will become exhausted because it’s trying to warm up itself,” Fournier said. “And also it can affect you mentally, because while you’re doing the work, you just want to be done because you’re cold, so that can be an effect of working in cold weather – that it will also affect your job performance.”
How Wind Turbine Techs Can Stay Warm Working in Cold Weather: Clothing
The right clothing is key. Heated clothing can be a tremendous asset. Fournier mentions heated winter coveralls from Milwaukee Tool, among other manufactures. (The tool maker’s batteries that run their drills also heat their clothing. Smart design!)
When considering the ‘what to wear’ question, dressing in layers and wicking fabrics will help you avoid perspiring. Carefully planning on what to wear is an important aspect of safety.
“You don’t want to sweat while you climb, because then you’re screwed,” Fournier explained.
Having pieces that can easily be removed, tucked away to move with you to the next location, and then put back on when you’re in cold conditions is key.
Wearing the right boots is critical in any weather, but if you’re new to maintaining wind turbines in a cold environment, you might not realize that steel toe boots can be dangerous in freezing temperatures.
Are steel toe boots really a danger in cold weather? If you’re new to working in the cold, or new to the wind industry in general, check out the Blades Forum discussion from 2009.
Also of critical importance: you need a hat. Fournier specifically recommends a Toque, but you can also wear a beanie or knitted ski cap. Just stay warm!!
What’s a toque? We’ll let the Canadians explain:
Thousands Vote on Correct Spelling of Canadian Hat: Tuque, Touque, or Toque?
Cold Weather: Wind Chill Affects People, But Not Things
If you’re an experienced cold-weather wind turbine technician, you already know that wind child affects YOU but not your tools and the equipment you’re working on. But when the actual, ambient temperatures are low, plenty of materials will snap.
Like zip ties.
Cold Temperatures Do Affect Wind Turbine Equipment and Safety Gear
When it’s -30 degrees Fahrenheit, you’ll need wire ties to keep things in place. Extra batteries for everything also belong on the critical equipment list – especially for lights and communications equipment.
Staying warm is just the – ahem – tip of the iceberg. (We had to say it.) Staying hydrated and fueled up is just as important when you’re working on wind turbines in the worst of winter conditions. Fournier shared some very practical suggestions for heating up sandwiches (no kidding!) and other important advice – like having the right safety procedures in place to mitigate the risks of ice falls and other potential hazards in the 2024 interview here.
Listen now!
This is just one of the many interviews you’ll find on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, the most-listened-to podcast in the wind industry.
Resources
Why Wind Techs Should Avoid Steel Toe Boots in Cold Weather
Thermal insulation in boots and how cold boots can harm feet and trigger complications with diabetes and other health conditions
https://blog.v12footwear.com/what-to-look-for-in-safety-boots-to-avoid-cold-feet
Blades Forum discussion on steel toe boots
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/steel-toe-boots-and-the-winter-freeze.678741/
Heated Clothing for Wind Turbine Technicians
Milwaukee Tool heated work gear
https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/Work-Gear/Heated-Gear
Volt heat heated clothing
If I were asked to explain the huge correlation between poorly educated people and Trump supporters, I’d point to the quote from Helen Keller at left.
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
SunZia Switches On, Ørsted Weighs Chinese Turbines
Allen covers SunZia coming online as America’s largest wind farm, Ørsted’s stance on Chinese turbines, a record floating platform leaving China, Canada’s first offshore wind bidders, and a centuries-old North Sea shipwreck.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
Good Monday everyone.
America just switched on the biggest wind farm it has ever built. Out in New Mexico … a vast field of spinning turbines called SunZia. Enough power for more than a million homes across the Southwest. It is a landmark. It may be the last landmark for some time. After this year … forecasters expect annual onshore wind additions to fall … all the way to twenty thirty. The tax credits that powered the boom … expire this year. Add tariffs … supply troubles … local opposition … and a federal permitting freeze. One developer put it plainly. Capital investments … frozen. Solar is cheaper now. Batteries are faster. And the wind industry did not see the breadth of the campaign against it. So the biggest American wind farm ever … arrives just as the road ahead narrows.
Now … cross the Atlantic to Denmark. Ørsted … the offshore giant half-owned by the Danish state … is being asked a hard question. Will it buy Chinese wind turbines? Its chief executive will not say no. Right now … he says … it is not expected. But they are keeping an eye on it. Analysts call that a wake-up call. Because the Chinese builders offer lower cost … faster delivery … and bigger rotors. And if a European champion turns east for turbines … that is a signal Europe is losing its edge. Not everyone is buying it. Britain has banned Chinese turbines from its offshore projects. The competitiveness fight … is just beginning.
Now set to sail from southern China. The world’s largest tension-leg floating wind platform. Sixteen megawatts. More than three hundred meters tall … and nearly eight thousand tons. It left port headed for the deep sea. And its power will run straight to an offshore oil field … clean wind … feeding fossil-fuel production. China connected more than three-quarters of the world’s new offshore wind last year. As the shallow sites fill up … the industry moves into deeper water. And the deep water … is where floating wind grows up.
Across the Pacific … a brand-new frontier is opening. Canada cleared the first bidders for its very first offshore wind farms. Off the coast of Nova Scotia … seven qualified players … from nine countries. The province dreams big. A megaproject called Wind West … forty gigawatts … far more than the region could ever use itself. The first phase alone … an estimated sixty billion dollars. Enough surplus power to supply a quarter of all Canada’s demand. The formal call for bids comes later this year.
And finally … a story that comes up from the seabed. While surveying the site of a future wind farm in the North Sea … Ørsted found something far older than any turbine. Three lead ingots … resting beside the bones of a wooden shipwreck. Late sixteen-hundreds … maybe early seventeen-hundreds. A Dutch vessel … likely bound for home … lost on the run from England to the Netherlands. Seventy kilograms each … mined, it seems, in the very English hills they will now return to.
And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 28th of June 2026. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast tomorrow.
Here’s a very short video on the subject of metaphysics, the philosophy of being and reality.
It’s a great example of what I mean when I say that it has been a terrible last few centuries for philosophers.
In ancient times, if you wanted to know what the fundamental building blocks of the universe, you asked a philosopher, perhaps the ancient Athenian Democritus, who propounded the theory of the atom, which was, by definition, indivisible. Now we refer this question to the realm of particle physics.
Far more recently, those who struggled to know the ultimate nature of reality asked a metaphysician. Now, once again, we’ve put our trust in science.
I hope you’ll check out the video linked above.
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