Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Wind Turbine Coordinator
💰 $60,000 - $95,000
🎯 Role Definition
The Wind Turbine Coordinator is the central operational point for wind farm maintenance, commissioning and outage coordination. This role ensures safe, efficient and compliant execution of planned and corrective works on wind turbine generators (WTGs) by coordinating multi-discipline teams, managing logistics and parts, monitoring SCADA performance, tracking KPIs and enforcing HSE and regulatory requirements. The coordinator interfaces with internal operations, asset owners, OEMs (e.g., Vestas, Siemens Gamesa, GE), subcontractors, electrical contractors and third-party inspectors to minimize downtime and maximize energy production.
📈 Career Progression
Typical Career Path
Entry Point From:
- Wind Turbine Technician / Wind Turbine Technician Senior
- Site Supervisor / Field Service Technician
- Maintenance Planner / Junior O&M Coordinator
Advancement To:
- Senior Wind Farm Coordinator / Operations Lead
- O&M Manager / Site Manager
- Asset Manager / Regional Operations Manager
Lateral Moves:
- Commissioning Engineer
- HSE Specialist (Wind)
- Reliability Engineer
Core Responsibilities
Primary Functions
- Coordinate and schedule daily, weekly and monthly maintenance activities for wind turbines and balance-of-plant components, ensuring adherence to the approved maintenance plan, OEM instructions and company asset management policies.
- Act as the single point of contact for daily O&M operations at assigned sites: receive, triage and assign work orders through the CMMS (e.g., IBM Maximo, SAP PM), and monitor completion, quality and close-out documentation.
- Oversee and prioritize corrective maintenance and rapid response to SCADA alarms and fault notifications to minimize turbine downtime and lost generation, coordinating remote diagnostics with OEM support where required.
- Plan and manage logistics for parts procurement, spare parts inventory and special tooling, including parts requisition, cross-docking arrangements, and urgent spares delivery coordination with vendors.
- Coordinate and schedule contractors and subcontractors (mechanical, electrical, crane and rope access teams), including pre-mobilisation checks, contractor competence verification and scope definition to ensure safe and efficient execution.
- Lead pre- and post-work briefings and ensure appropriate work permits, lockout-tagout (LOTO), hot work permits and electrical isolation procedures are in place and documented for all turbine interventions.
- Manage crane and heavy lift operations liaison: coordinate crane hire, lift plans, risk assessments, ground conditions surveys and lifting engineers to support component replacement and major component movement.
- Monitor and review turbine performance KPIs (availability, reliability, mean time between failures) and produce regular operational and management reports to stakeholders, highlighting trends, root causes and recommended corrective actions.
- Drive root cause analysis for recurrent failures and oversee corrective and preventative actions with maintenance teams and OEMs, ensuring implementation and verification of long-term fixes.
- Support commissioning, major overhauls and warranty claim activities by coordinating resources, capturing acceptance documentation, and liaising with OEM field service teams and commissioning engineers.
- Ensure all site activity complies with statutory regulations, local permit conditions and environmental requirements, working closely with HSE advisors to implement site-specific risk controls and job safety analyses.
- Maintain accurate and auditable maintenance records, service reports, inspection logs and statutory documentation, ensuring compliance with internal policies and certifying bodies.
- Coordinate blade inspections, condition monitoring tasks (e.g., vibration analysis, thermography, oil analysis), and facilitate access for rope-access technicians and drone inspections, ensuring data capture and timely follow-up actions.
- Manage electrical isolations and HV/LV switching activities in coordination with electrical contractors and control room operators, ensuring safe systems of work for live electrical tasks.
- Interface with the control room/SCADA operators to coordinate curtailment, grid compliance activities and controlled shutdowns, and to support grid event investigations and reporting.
- Support budget tracking for O&M activities, submit requisitions and monitor contractor invoices and time sheets for accuracy against scope, while escalating cost variances to the operations manager.
- Maintain and improve site-specific procedures, checklists and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for turbine operations, maintenance, access and emergency response.
- Coordinate emergency response and major incident mobilisations, acting as the operational lead for site triage, emergency contractor mobilisation and post-incident reporting.
- Deliver and coordinate training and competence assessments for technicians and contractors on site-specific procedures, rescue plans, and safe access equipment.
- Conduct regular site inspections, asset walkdowns and condition assessments to validate work scope, identify deferred maintenance and recommend preventative maintenance strategies.
- Facilitate cross-functional communication between asset management, reliability engineering, procurement and commercial teams to align execution with long-term asset strategies and warranty positions.
- Maintain vendor and OEM relationships by managing field service requests, tracking warranty claims, and coordinating upgrades or software patches for turbine control systems.
Secondary Functions
- Support continuous improvement initiatives by capturing operational learning, proposing process improvements and participating in reliability improvement programs.
- Provide input to fleet-level maintenance strategies by collecting site-level data and contributing to lifecycle cost modelling and fleet optimization initiatives.
- Assist in preparing tender documents and scopes of work for maintenance and service contracts, evaluating contractor proposals and participating in vendor selection.
- Contribute to the development and execution of seasonal resourcing plans and outage windows to maximize productivity during favourable weather windows.
- Support asset digitization efforts by ensuring accurate tagging and metadata for assets in the CMMS and contributing to digital twin and performance analytics projects.
Required Skills & Competencies
Hard Skills (Technical)
- Wind turbine technical knowledge (mechanical, hydraulic and electrical systems) for common OEMs such as Vestas, Siemens Gamesa, GE and Nordex.
- Strong experience with SCADA systems and alarms management, including basic remote diagnostics and event log interpretation.
- Proficient in CMMS platforms (e.g., IBM Maximo, SAP PM, Infor EAM) for work order management, asset tracking and spare parts management.
- Experience with crane and heavy-lift coordination, lift-plan review and ground bearing capacity assessments.
- Knowledge of high-voltage (HV) switching, earthing procedures and electrical isolation protocols relevant to wind farm operations.
- Competence with condition monitoring techniques: vibration analysis, thermography, oil analysis and blade inspection technologies (drone and rope access).
- Familiarity with maintenance planning tools, MS Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP), and reporting/dashboard tools (Power BI, Tableau).
- Understanding of HSE management systems, permit-to-work processes, LOTO procedures and rescue planning for elevated work.
- Experience preparing and reviewing scope of work and tender documentation for maintenance and servicing contracts.
- Basic project coordination skills including scheduling, resource levelling and contractor interface management.
- Knowledge of warranty claim processes and OEM interface for field support and spare parts warranty handling.
- Ability to interpret technical manuals, schematic diagrams and turbine OEM service bulletins.
Soft Skills
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills — able to clearly coordinate across internal teams, contractors and external vendors.
- Problem-solving and analytical thinking for prioritising faults, managing complex outages and driving root cause investigations.
- Time management and organisational skills to manage simultaneous work orders across multiple turbines or sites.
- Leadership and team-working skills to lead briefings, coordinate crews and support a positive safety culture on site.
- Adaptability and resilience to manage field conditions, weather impacts and rapidly changing priorities.
- Attention to detail for compliance documentation, inspection reporting and permit control.
- Negotiation skills for managing contractor performance and resolving scope/cost discrepancies.
- Coaching and mentoring ability to support technician development and competence uplift.
Education & Experience
Educational Background
Minimum Education:
- High school diploma or equivalent with technical certification; vocational qualification in electrical or mechanical trades preferred.
Preferred Education:
- Associate degree, technical diploma or bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Renewable Energy Technology, or a related technical field.
Relevant Fields of Study:
- Electrical Engineering / Power Systems
- Mechanical Engineering / Industrial Maintenance
- Renewable Energy Technology / Wind Energy
- Occupational Health & Safety
Experience Requirements
Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of hands-on wind farm operations, turbine technician experience or field service coordination in the wind industry.
Preferred:
- 5+ years in wind turbine maintenance, site coordination or O&M roles, including demonstrated experience with SCADA, CMMS, and contractor management.
- Experience working with multiple turbine OEMs and familiarity with offshore or onshore site logistics is a plus.
- Professional certifications desirable: NEBOSH or equivalent HSE qualification, First Aid, Confined Space Rescue, Working at Height, and relevant electrical HV switching qualifications.