Work Safety
Work Safety
Hands-on Training for
Real World Safety
The new, state-of-the-art Wind Service Training Center in
­Orlando, Florida, prepares customers as well as Siemens wind
service technicians for safe and efficient maintenance and
­service of wind turbines. Living Energy went on a training day.
Text: Sameh Fahmy Photos: Thomas Winter
A
Training towers allow wind turbine
technicians to practice rescue
­techniques using the same equipment
they use in the field.
70 Living Energy · No. 10 | May 2014
man hangs limp on a ladder
while just a few yards away an­
other is being pulled from a
narrow enclosure under a generator,
his back strapped to a board and his
neck in a brace. Such scenes are com­
monplace at the new Siemens Wind
Service Training Center in Orlando,
Florida, where wind turbine techni­
cians come from throughout the
Americas for rigorous and realistic
safety and technical training. “Even
though you work with the equipment
every day in the field, you don’t use
it in a rescue scenario every day,” says
Alex Freund, a technician based in
Marshalltown, Iowa. “So it’s nice to be
refreshed on how to properly use it
and to make sure you understand ev­
ery nuance.” Freund and his fellow
trainees were practicing rescue tech­
niques for working at heights while
nearby another group was standing
within the cramped confines of a wind
turbine nacelle, where they had just
pulled a colleague with a simulated in­
jury from the hub several feet ­below.
The Best Possible Learning
Environment
The Wind Service Training Center is
a state-of-the-art, 40,000-square-foot
facility that opened in September 2013.
Earl Walker, head of training and de­
velopment for Siemens Wind Service
Americas, says every aspect of the fa­
cility was designed to create the best
possible learning environment, from
the layout of the classrooms to the
audiovisual equipment, lighting, and
comfort of the chairs. The center
combines classroom instruction with
hands-on training to ensure that
technicians have the skills and expe­
rience to work safely and efficiently.
“Our goal is for them to do exactly
what they would do in the field and
to prove that they’re doing it right,”
Walker says.
In addition to the 2.3 megawatt wind
turbine nacelle that Freund was
training in, the center also houses a
3.0 megawatt direct drive wind tur­
bine nacelle and three, 30-foot rescue
The Siemens Wind Service Training Center in Orlando houses two
wind turbine nacelles that enable realistic training in operations,
maintenance and advanced rescue techniques.
training towers, all of which are lo­
cated indoors allowing technicians
to train without disruption from rain,
thunderstorms, and extreme heat.
The facility itself is strategically lo­
cated just a few miles from the inter­
national airport in a city that is a
­major tourist destination and is per­
haps best known as the home of Walt
Disney World. Orlando also is home
to the headquarters of Siemens Ener­
gy and near the geographic midpoint
of North and South America. To make
accessing the center as convenient as
possible, the trainees are shuttled
from the airport to the hotel and to
the training center, where lunches
are catered. While the subjects of the
classes vary, they all emphasize the
same theme: safety. As Walker puts
it, the tech­nicians work in what es­
sentially amounts to “a small power
plant on a stick.” In addition to work­
ing at heights of roughly 300 feet,
they contend with hazards such as
rotating machinery and electrical
and ­hydraulic components.
First Responders
Environmental, health and safety
training manager Russell Cook notes
that the remote location of many
wind farms makes the training that
Siemens offers even more critical.
“Often the guys go out in teams of
two to work and are a long way from
help, so we are the first ­responders,”
he says. “Every single person has to
be able to save the person they’re
with.”
In addition to courses that address
working at heights and rescues from
confined spaces such as hubs and
blades, the center also offers technical
trainings on turbine operation, main­
tenance and troubleshooting. As with
the other classes at the center, these
courses blend classroom instruction
with practical, hands-on experience
with equipment. Perhaps not surpris­
ingly, they also have an overriding
­emphasis on safety. “The more you
know about a piece of equipment, the
more you can recognize the potential
dangers that lie within,” says technical
training manager Kevin McCarty.
New classes are constantly under de­
velopment, many of which are based
on customer feedback. Like the other
Siemens Wind Service Training
­ enmark, and the
­Centers in Germany, D
United Kingdom, the Orlando facility
is certified by the Global Wind Organi­
zation (GWO). Siemens goes well be­
yond the minimum legal and regula­
tory requirements, however, to
emphasize that safety is foremost in
everything the organization does.
“I want safety to be so ingrained in
our culture that we don’t even think
of it as separate from anything we do,”
Walker says. “I want it to be like
breathing.”
Such a focus is clear to industry veter­
ans such as Bronson Ellis, energy
training coordinator at High Plains
Technology Center in Woodward,
Oklahoma. “I have seen a lot of
­t rainings,” he says, “and Siemens
is head and shoulders ahead of every­
one else.” p
Sameh Fahmy, MS, is an award-winning freelance business and ­technology journalist based
in Athens, Georgia.
More pictures are featured in the
Siemens Publications App for iPad or
Android tablets at
siemens.com/publications-app/en/
Living Energy at
Living Energy · No. 10 | May 2014 71