This week: Interview with Wolfgang Weber, Global Industry Manager Renewable Energy, Pepperl + Fuchs GmbH

Hamburg, 22.09.2011.

Windfair: How big is your company and which kind of product are you offering?

Wolfgang Weber: Pepperl+Fuchs was founded 1945 and employs today around 5.000 people worldwide. We produce sensors for industrial applications. The product range is extremely wide and therefore, not to explain in a few words. But the applications can typically be found in the area of factory and process automation.


Windfair: What is he meaning of wind energy for your company?

Wolfgang Weber: It must be admitted that we realized the wind energy as an industrial branch fairly late. On the other hand we have delivered sensors to well known manufacturers since many years. Today we can say that 8 out of the 10 biggest windmill manufacturers in the world are our customers. Thus, these customers are becoming more and more important for us.


Windfair: What are the applications where your products could be applied?

Wolfgang Weber: Historically we are coming from the encoder business. Applications such as pitch and azimuth control, rpm supervision or detection of the rotor blade position are typical examples. We are offering all kinds of executions for these cases. A new approach we are taking with the accelerations sensors which are mostly used for condition monitoring. They are used to measure forces in the nacelle for early detection of possible damages.


Windfair: Are there new developments, for example to meet special requirements for offshore installation?

Wolfgang Weber: Indeed, we have ongoing discussions about this. There are considerations about wear and tear in case of moving mechanical part, such as bearings for example. Also the influence of the environmental conditions must be taken into account. Pepperl+Fuchs has used its 50 years old invention of inductive proximity switches to develop an inductive position measuring system. It was even enhanced as a position coding device by which an absolute position can be detected within 360 degrees. This sensor is “pure” electronics, i.e. without moving parts and completely sealed. This technology is available in many different executions and even customer designed versions could be provided.


Windfair: Are there other areas in the wind energy business for which you could offer products or services?

Wolfgang Weber: Our main business is factory automation. Therefore, we had a closer look at the manufacturing process of windmills. We see similar tendencies to adopt higher degrees of automation as we experienced it in the automotive industry.
One example is the introduction of robots in the production of rotor blades. We have installed vision based equipment for robot guidance which detects the contour of the blade by means of a three dimensional measuring systems and a software correlation with the CAD model. But we also have two decades of experience with RFID technology which serves to identify objects for track and trace purposes. Alternatively we have barcode reading equipment at hand which completes our portfolio of ident products.