Firetrace has launched its latest product, XD Tubing, a flexible fire detection tubing with enhanced chemical durability, to mitigate the risk of fire and total loss in offshore and near shore wind turbines.
XD Detection Tubing detects fires by sensing either heat or flame, and resists corrosion, creep and ozone exposure as found in both offshore and near-shore turbine environments.
With an estimated 205 GW of new offshore wind capacity to be added globally by 2030, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the demand for technologies that ensure operational stability and prioritize health & safety is growing concurrently. Moreover, the increased zest for clean electricity production from governments and investors worldwide is met with challenges to economic viability, construction and public support. Because of this, the risk of wind turbine fire, which has the potential to impact on all of those factors, is at the forefront of many wind developers’ safety initiatives.
Developers are highly motivated to ensure that their assets can continuously operate and return high energy yields and, therefore profits, and to prevent the reputational damage associated with turbine fires to both their companies and the global offshore wind sector.
As such, XD tubing improves the efficiency of identifying and suppressing wind turbine fires to prevent a catastrophic event and reputational crisis, while helping end-users save on maintenance costs by providing an automatic solution to combating turbine fires.
The product is launched following extensive accelerated environmental exposure testing which simulates the field service conditions on the polymeric fire detection tubing for corrosion, creep resistance and ozone exposure. The XD tubing performed ideally in the saltwater and zinc galvanic corrosion testing as well as elevated ozone exposure found in ocean environments.
The testing found that the XD tubing material provides enhanced resistance in applications that have historically proven to be challenging to standard detection tubing. Moreover, creep resistance testing indicated that the likelihood of creep rupture failure as a function of normal services is low and that ozone exposure testing indicated no damage after exposure that mimics 10 years or more of real-world concentrated ozone exposure.
Angela Krcmar, Global Sales Manager, Wind, Firetrace, commented: “This product was designed to ensure that near-shore and offshore turbines could have the most robust and cost-effective fire suppression solution available in wind turbines worldwide. Following an extensive testing period, we’re happy to announce the launch of XD Detection Tubing, so that we can continue our work with world-leading OEMs/developers dedicated to combating climate change and ensuring the safety of their staff and the industry.”
