1. Winds of change
How an Irish service firm partnered with a Turkish coil manufacturer
to repair a Swiss-manufactured wind turbine in Scotland
By Kevin Jones, EA Senior Editor
Ireland, in the minds of many, is a
place of green rolling hills and wind-
ing country roads dotted with quaint
thatch-roofed cottages occupied by
people fond of music and Guinness
stout.
That’s the fantasy. The reality is that
Ireland is home to forward-looking in-
dustries and a highly trained workforce
that’s stepping confidently into a future
dominated by high technology and al-
ternative energy.
Like much of the rest of the world,
Ireland is a place for which borders and
distances have been virtually erased by
modern communication and transpor-
tation, making the whole world a po-
tential market and foreign companies
potential suppliers.
One company that epitomizes this
embrace of internationalism and alter-
native energy is Avonmore Electrical,
in the town of Mallow, in County Cork,
where the countryside is still rolling
and green but is now home to several
high-tech enterprises that exist along-
side the traditional dairy operations
people have relied on for generations.
Over the past year, Avonmore Elec-
trical has partnered with a Turkish coil
manufacturer to refurbish a wind gen-
erator made by a Swiss manufacturer
for an installation in northern Scotland.
How’s that for international? It’s a
project that has challenged old notions
of the limits of nationalism while en-
abling Avonmore to stake out ground in
the emerging wind energy market.
The project that brought the two
firms together involves a small wind
farm consisting of six wind turbines on
the northern coast of Scotland between
the towns of Thurso and Dounreay, in
Scotland’s misty highlands.
Please turn to next page
Avonmore Electrical’s plant in County Cork, Ireland, where the countryside evokes a former time but in recent years has become home to a
number of high-tech enterprises. —Avonmore Electrical photo
About 130 people from 57 companies toured Avonmore Electrical’s plant during an Open
Day last month. —Avonmore Electrical photo
ELECTRICAL APPARATUS / OCTOBER 2016 21

2. Called the Forss Wind Farm, the in-
stallation is “practically as far north in
Scotland as you can get,” says Derry
Sheehan, Avonmore’s managing direc-
tor. The farm is operated by Renewable
Energy Services, known familiarly as
RES, an energy company with a global
presence.
“There are a lot of these [wind gen-
erators] on the market, and they are ap-
proaching ten years old,” Sheehan ex-
plains. “The one we were working on
had failed after eight years of service.
We’re expecting to see a lot of these in
the next four or five years.”
Sheehan hopes to set up Avonmore’s
process so that servicing similar wind
turbines in the future will work like a
production line.
“On these wind generators, because
they’re all the same size, you can ac-
tually tool yourself up and put a pro-
cess together that will lower your labor
costs significantly compared with a
one-off job,” he explains.
The association connection
How did Avonmore find itself in a
position to make such a commitment to
entering this market?
Prior to 2015, Avonmore had already
been involved in servicing smaller
wind generators. “The common sizes
of wind generators we were repairing
were 660 kW and 850 kW,” Sheehan
says. “In 2014 we began seeing larger
generators 1,300 kW in size.” He saw
wind power as an emerging market and
wanted his company to be a part of it.
“AtAvonmore,weareconnectedwith
ABB, so we sourced a complete spare
stator from ABB—core and winding
complete,” Sheehan says. “Because the
price from ABB was very competitive,
we knew that our traditional suppliers
could never compete. The replacement
price from ABB for the whole winding
and core, complete, was probably 80%
of the cost of new from U.K. suppliers,
and that was without labor. That was
only the coils.” A working relationship
with ABB was thus established.
Meanwhile, through his member-
ship in the European chapter of the
Electrical Apparatus Service Associa-
tion, Sheehan had come into contact
with Johan De Coster, chairman of
Coil Partners, a Turkish coil manu-
facturer that originated in Belgium,
where De Coster still lives. As chance
would have it, Coil Partners, in a pre-
vious corporate incarnation, had been
a part of ABB Group and still retained
contacts with the Swiss manufacturing
conglomerate.
“I’m a member of the board of EASA
International, and Derry Sheehan is an
old-time member of EASA,” explains
De Coster. “We met during one of the
events of EASA. We started to talk. I
was chairman—not a very active chair-
man—until last summer [2015], so I
decided to focus on this company, be-
cause it’s a very well-organized com-
pany. I approached Derry at one of
these events. I visited him in Ireland,
and we decided to cooperate.”
Derry Sheehan picks up the story:
“Essentially, being on the European
side, Johan was involved at the officer
level with EASA, so I was familiar with
him,” he says. “I was going to EASA
when he was representing EASA at the
officer level. Not personally. I knew
him as an officer previous to getting to
know him through business.”
One discussion led to another, and in
the fall of 2015, “we discussed commer-The rewound stator has been placed back in the stator frame for the job destined for the
Forss Wind Farm. —Avonmore Electrical photo
WINDS continued from previous page
At Avonmore Electrical, coils manufactured by Coil Partners of Istanbul, Turkey, are inserted
in the stator of a generator bound for a wind farm in northern Scotland.
—Avonmore Electrical photo
22 ELECTRICAL APPARATUS / OCTOBER 2016

3. cial terms,” says Sheehan, and a part-
nership was born. Avonmore bought the
coils for the Forss project in early 2016.
“This was experimental,” says Sheehan.
“This was the first rewind we’ve done
on this type of machine.”
The Turkish connection
How a Turkish company came to
be a trusted supplier of coils for ABB
wind generators is a story in itself.
Coil Partners traces its origins to
1973, when a Belgian service com-
pany called ETAMO began producing
coils. “ETAMO was a market leader
in the repair of electric motors,” says
De Coster. “This company was ac-
quired by ASEA [the forerunner of
ABB] in 1987.” Like many indepen-
dent repair shops, ETAMO had its
own coil manufacturing, and “when
the company was incorporated into
ABB group, they made the coil shop
a center of excellence.
“In 2001, I did the management buy-
out of the ABB rotating service activ-
ity,” De Coster continues. “We created
a new company that we called Main-
tenance Partners. Basically we were in
Belgium and the Netherlands.”
In time, however, De Coster con-
cluded that salary costs in Belgium
were too high, and he began looking
for “a lower-cost solution,” he says. “In
this search, I came into contact with
a Turkish company,” a wire and coil
manufacturer called Sarcam. “I went to
visit them in Istanbul, and I was very
impressed with them. They were sup-
plying coils to big Turkish companies.”
Seeing the quality of work being
done by Sarcam, with Turkish labor,
“We decided finally that we would cre-
ate a company in Turkey and we would
relocate coil manufacturing activities
in Turkey,” De Coster says. “In 2009, I
sold Maintenance Partners to Mitsubi-
shi Heavy Industries.”
Business for the firm continued to
expand. “In the meantime, between the
creation of our company, we doubled
the size of the company, and we had
locations in other countries,” including
the Middle East, De Coster says.
In 2013, Maintenance Partners’
Japanese shareholders decided to sell
the company, and Sarcam and Main-
tenance Partners created a joint ven-
ture called Coil Partners. Today it’s
an independent entity that’s commit-
ted solely to coil manufacturing. “We
don’t do any repair activity,” says De
Coster. “Our aim is not to be in compe-
tition with our customers.” Coil Part-
ners’ only manufacturing operations
are in Istanbul.
The appeal of relocating to Turkey
lay in two factors, De Coster says: the
cost of labor, and the labor’s quality.
“It’s difficult in Western Europe to find
qualified labor,” he says. Among West-
ern European youth, he says, there’s lit-
tle interest in blue-collar occupations,
and Turkey offers a much larger pool
of people trained in technical skills.
(Coil Partner’s operations are pictured
on this month’s cover.)
A working partnership
Coil Partners and Avonmore Elec-
trical turned out to be a good match.
“Technically we are very qualified for
wind generation,” says De Coster. “We
have good contacts with the manufac-
turers.” He views his company’s role
as that of a partner, not merely a sup-
plier—hence the name Coil Partners.
“It’s not our aim to work with every
possible company in the world, but
Umit Bulut tapes coils at Coil Partners in Istanbul, Turkey, where coils for the wind turbine in northern Scotland serviced by Avonmore
Electrical were produced. —Coil Partners photo
Please turn to next page
ELECTRICAL APPARATUS / OCTOBER 2016 23

4. when we have a good customer—a
reliable customer with a good reputa-
tion—we like to build up a partner-
ship,” De Coster says. “And that can
change from customer to customer.”
The partnership between Avonmore
and Coil Partners did not solidify over-
night. Logistics needed to be worked
out, the staffs of the two companies
needed to get to know each other, and
certain cultural concerns had to be ad-
dressed.
“It was a slow process because of the
potential risk,” says Sheehan. “A very
slow process.”
First, a product test was in order. “We
asked Johan to provide us with sample
coils first,” says Sheehan, “so he sup-
plied us with three coils or something
like that to try with the generator. We
did our own inspection of the coils be-
fore committing to buying the full set.”
The shipment of coils from Istanbul
to Ireland—by way of Rotterdam—
went smoothly. “It took less than a
week to get the coils,” Sheehan recalls.
“Coming from America, it would have
taken more than two weeks. The logis-
tics were not a problem at all.” Turkey
is “not that far, to be fair,” he points out.
“It’s within Europe. The fact that it’s in
Europe means it’s not that big of a deal.”
The shipping went smoothly from
De Coster’s point of view as well.
“Shipment is okay, especially between
Europe and Turkey,” he says. “There
are customs arrangements between
both regions, so that’s no problem.”
Communication between the staffs
of Avonmore and Coil Partners went
smoothly as well. “Technically, they’re
proficient,” Sheehan says of Coil Part-
ners’ personnel. “Any technical ques-
tions that the guys on the floor here
asked of Coil Partners—they were
answered by e-mail to our complete
satisfaction. There was no deficit of
knowledge.”
Getting to know one another was part
of the process, and “that always takes
a little bit of time,” acknowledges De
Coster. “Our challenge is to have good
contact with our technical people. That
isn’t always easy, because they are al-
ways busy.”
Once logistics and communication
had been worked out, there remained
only one, much more subjective consid-
eration: trust. According to De Coster,
potential overseas customers some-
times think that the lower cost of Turk-
ish labor might mean lower quality.
“That’s one of the prejudices we
have to fight against,” De Coster says.
“Turkey, on the other hand, is a country
known for manufacturing. The reason
is that you find qualified labor, and the
salary costs in Turkey are very com-
petitive.”
He usually addresses concerns about
quality by inviting customers to visit
Coil Partners in Istanbul in person.
“How we convince companies is, we
invite potential customers to come and
visit our coil operation in Turkey,” he
says. “Our biggest challenge is to con-
vince people that the quality is top, and
the only way we can do this is by work-
ing with companies.”
For Derry Sheehan, Coil Partners’
past membership in the ABB family
helped alleviate any concerns he may
have had about quality. “Having that
heritage in Coil Partners gave me the
confidence that the coils were going to
be of a good standard,” he says.
“Basically, if you’re going to a
cheaper alternative, which we were,
normally for me that would be a warn-
ing,” Sheehan continues. “Usually it’s
too risky, and you wouldn’t take the
chance. To get beyond the logic that I
had, knowing that Johan [had formally
been with ABB] and had the technical
expertise—that faith put that concern
to rest.”
Having established the partnership
with Avonmore Electrical, De Coster
hopes to expand his overseas cus-
tomer base. He plans to participate in
this month’s Coil Winding, Insulation,
and Electrical Manufacturing Exhibi-
tion and Conference in Rosemont, Ill.,
and “we have participated at the EASA
convention the last two years,” he says.
“We will have, probably in the next few
weeks, our first American order.”
Still, he’s taking things slowly. “We
do this step-wise because you have to
manage the growth,” he says.
The positive experience with Coil
Partners has left Derry Sheehan open
to making more business arrangements
with overseas partners. “We will always
be open to opportunity, but opportunity
without taking risk,” he says. “Basi-
cally we’re in a very technical industry,
and if you get something wrong, it can
be very expensive. If a generator of this
size fails, we’re also talking about the
cost of moving it and the cost of lost
production.”
Quality and trust, therefore, are key.
“You need a guy like Johan, and you
need the technical guys who can pro-
duce, who Johan is promising,” says
Sheehan. “It’s the combination of those
two that make it work.”
Such partnerships could be a signifi-
cant part of pursuing customers in re-
newable energy. “If we went back ten
years ago, there was no wind repair be-
ing done, but now it’s a very important
to us,” Sheehan observes. “Having Coil
Partners is helping us stay competitive
in that sector. It’s a very important part
of sustaining us as company.
“Business changes,” Sheehan ob-
serves, “and you have to grab the op-
portunity that the market presents to
you.” EA
WINDS continued from previous page
An overview of the production shop at Coil Partners in Istanbul, Turkey. —Coil Partners photo
24 ELECTRICAL APPARATUS / OCTOBER 2016