Category: Blogs

Keeping the lights on

Hurricane Sandy was the most destructive tropical cyclone of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in US history, making landfall on October 29. The storm caused massive electrical grid damages in New Jersey, New York and many New England areas, causing power outages for businesses, industrial sites, medical centers, and countless homes.

It showed just how helpless we are when this kind of natural disaster happens in our own backyard. As a result, building management now aims to ensure that buildings do not lose electrical power during such a disaster because of a missing emergency power generation system.

The Switch - Risto Ahvo

Adding value to excel

As we move forward in these unpredictable times, we’ve been sharpening our strategy to offer our customers even more value so they can succeed at what they do best.

Having the world’s largest permanent magnet generator and full-power converter product range, we can offer customers predictable time-to-market with this latest, advanced technology. We’ve streamlined our processes to shorten the lead times in customer projects to give them the edge to come out with the bestsellers of the future.

The Switch - Jukka-Pekka Mäkinen

Value creation for all wind energy players

Between 2009 – 2011, we were spoiled by a “green race” that started as a sprint. There was an urgent need to bring Asian nations—especially China—into line with the rest of the world to use cleaner and more efficient energy sources.

Suddenly in 2012, it’s turned into something of a marathon, with companies and financial institutions involved in the market, which has been slowed by regulatory and political climates that have evolved in the face of new economic realities.

The Switch - Carlo Cecchi, Director, Business Development

Is IP54 a must in a wind turbine generator?

After many wild years in the wind power business, clearer targets are now being set. Most of the players have realized that instead of having the most sophisticated turbine, the more important goals are to reach a levelized cost of energy and higher amount of annual energy produced.

The industry standard has been to use totally enclosed (IP54) generators in the turbines, mainly to avoid the risk of corrosion in its different forms and also to improve the lifetime of the components. Offshore turbines face additional challenges from the sea environment in which the components in both offshore and near-shore turbines are exposed to salt water.

The Switch - Panu Kurronen, Product Manager, Generators

Outdoor utility-grade robustness for lifelong customer benefits

Back in 2008 when The Switch delivered its first inverter for a photovoltaic (PV) solar application, it was built like power converters have been for many decades. Variable speed drives for industrial applications, excitation systems – and more recently, power converters for renewable energy applications such as wind – have always had a logical indoor installation location.

The Switch - Benny Nyberg, Key Account Manager/Business Development

The Switch enters marine business

Permanent magnet (PM) technology has some clear benefits also for marine applications. Since fuel prices have gone up by 30% in only 2 years and freight rates have remained at about the same level for the past 10 years, energy savings has become hot topic in shipbuilding.

The Switch - Mika Koli, Key Account Manager

Finishing the year on a positive note

The snow has covered Finland again and there is very little daylight… Regardless, The Switchians are staying busy. Development projects are bustling – and deliveries are being shipped out. At the same time, our Key Account Managers are still bringing orders in… Just as Santa gets ready to do his rounds, our year-end commitments are keeping us focused on the work at hand.

The Switch - Jukka-Pekka Mäkinen

Signs of growth

Last month’s HUSUM WindEnergy exhibition gave us firm proof that the wind power business is moving ahead again. We’re seeing movement from all different directions and positive signs that the worst may now be over. Bigger and better turbines are currently being developed to respond to future market requirements.

The Switch - Jukka-Pekka Mäkinen

Five Rights to Freedom of The Switch give the ability to excel even during hard times

The wind power business has experienced difficulties over the years in different continents. In 2009, the financial crisis squeezed money from the European market. In 2010, the US market slowed down. And most recently, China cooled in 2011.

We have been able to navigate in this turbulent environment, even though The Switch, too, has experienced challenges. Many potential projects have not turned into the planned volume production. Many of our customers have experienced challenges to enter the market, changed ownership or have given up on the wind turbine business.

We have analyzed our success factors – and come to the conclusion that we embrace certain rights, giving The Switch the freedom and ability to excel even during hard times.

The Switch - 5 Rights to Freedom

Renewable energy and balancing local manufacturing with low-cost country manufacturing

All over the world, politicians see the opportunity for job growth in the renewable energy business. For example here in the US, the economy and job creation is one of the key themes in the ongoing primaries and the upcoming presidential election.

The wind and solar power industries offer opportunities to create more good-paying jobs for the local manufacturing industry, particularly as in the past these type of jobs have largely moved to low-cost countries with inexpensive labor, such as China, India, Vietnam and others. In many cases, the job creation opportunity is of higher political interest than concerns about global warming or even the western world’s heavy dependence on imported oil.

The Switch - Anders Troedson, VP Emerging Businesses

Managing wind power supply chain: 5 market trends

What counts is the total cost, not purchase cost. This was one of the main themes that was identified at the international IQPC Wind Turbine Supply Chain management conference in August in Germany. Speaking about The Switch agility to meet market demand fluctuations at the conference, Simon Hewitt, Global Sourcing Manager at The Switch, discussed demands for greater manufacturing flexibility, an effective risk management strategy and ways to adapt the wind turbine supply chain to demand fluctuations.

The Switch - Simon Hewitt

A change of perspective is needed to tackle the soaring rare earth prices

The growing global demand of rare earth metals combined with China’s ever-tightening grip on the material keep pushing up the magnet prices. While we at The Switch don’t think that the price trend can last for too long, we understand that the matter is of great concern for the wind power industry. To tackle with this alarming situation and to meet future needs, the industry needs to change its perspective to open up to new opportunities.

The Switch has done intense research and development to reduce the amount of magnets needed for the production of permanent magnet generators. Based on the successful testing of 20 different machine types, we are in a unique position to make third generation permanent magnet machines. By combining our extensive field experience with our state-of-the-art design methods, not only do we have the skills to produce classical machines but we can also bring new innovation to the permanent magnet generators field.

The Switch - Panu Kurronen