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Nearly eight million square meters are flled with wind turbines that use wind to genera-te electricity. Nemesio Silva Vidal, the head of the Cando windfarm tells us that this is one of the top category windfarms in Spain.

In addition to a supervisor, eight employees currently work at the windfarm, six in the morning and two in the afternoon shift. The ones who work the morning shift perform jobs at a high altitude, preventive and main-tenance work on the turbines, while the two who work in the afternoon shift are in charge of detecting failures and executing pending tasks.

During our visit, we had the opportunity of meeting Carlos Blanco, Pablo Barros, Ja-vier Novoa, Luis Rodríguez, and Rubén Rey who are in charge of ensuring that these windfarms function properly. All agree that

this is a very interesting job and the coope-ration among colleagues is essential so that everything functions well, “we have a very good work atmosphere”, he told us.

Constant training

They are not afraid of heights and everyday they climb up 55 meters, the height of the wind turbines. “It’s the same as working in a 23-foor building”, they told us, “ we do this very carefully and are also very well tra-ined for working at high altitudes, and know exactly what we have to do”.

Every six months, they check all of the

machines to ensure that they function per-fectly. One of the operations performed most frequently involves changing the wind gauge and vanes which usually deteriorate because of the climate in this region. The operator reaches them through a hatch si-tuated in the gondola using a harness with safety ropes. The blades are removed pe-riodically using a crane for polishing or for their replacement.

Nemesio told us that winter conditions are extreme, and that working conditons were very diffcult because of the very low tem-peratures, strong winds, sleet, and frost. Nevertheless, in the spring work was a pleasure thanks to the combination of tech-nology and the spectacular landscape.

A good atmosphere and comradeship was widespread among workers who periodi-cally take courses on safety, high-altitude work, rescue operations at the turbine and stairs. Since machines and equipment are constantly evolving, employees are conti-nuously recycling themselves and taking training courses.

Building a wind farm of these characteris-tics requires a preliminary study of the wind, installing wind gauge towers which during

A good atmosphere and comradeship is prevalent among the workers, all of whom atend safety courses on a regular basis