wiredInUSA March 2019

Second furnace for fasteners

Europe offshore review

Giles Dickson WindEurope CEO

Statistics published by WindEurope show that Europe installed 2.6GW of new offshore wind energy capacity during 2018, bringing an 18 percent increase in offshore wind capacity, and 15 new offshore wind farms went into operation. The UK and Germany accounted for 85 percent of the new wind power capacity, with 1.3GW and 969MW respectively. Europe now has 105 offshore wind farms across 11 countries with a total capacity of 18.5GW. This is around 10 percent of total installed wind energy capacity in Europe, with 90 percent onshore. Dickson commented: “Offshore wind energy continues to grow strongly in Europe. Offshore wind power now represents 2 percent of all the electricity consumed in Europe and, with a big pipeline of projects under construction and development, this number will rise significantly. “The technology keeps developing. The turbines keep getting bigger and the costs keep falling. It’s now no more expensive to build offshore wind than it is to build coal or gas plants, and it’s a good deal cheaper than new nuclear.” WindEurope CEO Giles

Image: aichelin.at

Swedish fastener manufacturer Bulten has commissioned the Austrian heat treatment specialist Aichelin with the production of a cast link belt furnace for the refinement of high strength steel screws and nuts. At 80m in length, the furnace plant has a performance of 2 tons per hour. It is Aichelin’s second 2,000kg/h cast link belt industrial furnace plant for the Swedish Hallstahammar site. Aichelin is delivering the electrically heated high temperature hardening furnace, and the protective gas-tight tempering furnace, with oil or emulsion hardening baths. Measuring and switching systems are included, along with the process control system Focos 4.0 for the new plant (as well as an update of the data acquisition of the existing plant) and a protective gas generator. The customer provides the loading and unloading device and the component washing machines under its own direction.

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wiredInUSA - March 2019