Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Wind Turbine Manager

🎯 Role Definition

The Wind Turbine Manager leads onshore or offshore wind farm operations and maintenance (O&M) to maximize turbine availability, control lifecycle costs, manage safety and environmental compliance, and deliver reliable renewable energy production. This role combines technical leadership (electrical/mechanical/turbine systems), operational planning (preventive and corrective maintenance, outage management), asset and contract management (vendors, OEM warranties), and people leadership (technicians and subcontractors). Keywords: Wind Turbine Manager, wind farm operations, O&M, SCADA, asset performance, condition monitoring, HSE, renewable energy.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Wind Turbine Technician (Senior Technician)
O&M Supervisor / Shift Supervisor
Mechanical or Electrical Engineer with field experience

Advancement To:

Senior Wind Farm Manager / Regional Operations Manager
Head of O&M / Asset Manager
Director of Renewable Operations or Plant Manager

Lateral Moves:

Asset Performance Engineer / Condition Monitoring Lead
Project Manager – Repowering & Refurbishment

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop and execute the site O&M strategy to maximize turbine availability and energy yield, aligning plans with corporate asset management objectives and performance KPIs such as AEP, availability, and LTIF.
Lead and manage all day-to-day turbine operations, including remote SCADA monitoring, fault triage, escalation procedures, and resolution to minimize unplanned downtime and revenue loss.
Oversee preventive, corrective and predictive maintenance programs, ensuring work orders are planned, prioritized, resourced and closed in the CMMS (e.g., Maximo, SAP PM) with accurate history and spare parts usage.
Manage end-to-end contract administration for service providers and OEM agreements including SLA enforcement, performance reviews, invoice validation, and warranty claims to protect asset value.
Supervise, coach and develop multi-disciplinary teams of technicians and subcontractors, establishing clear performance objectives, training plans (GWO, safety certifications), and competency matrices.
Own site budgeting and cost control for O&M activities: prepare annual operating budgets, monitor spend vs. plan, approve purchase orders, and implement cost-saving initiatives without compromising safety or reliability.
Act as the primary point of contact for health, safety and environmental compliance; lead HSE campaigns, incident investigations (root cause analysis), near-miss reporting, and ensure regulatory permits and audits are current.
Direct outage planning and execution including major component replacements (gearbox, generator, blade repairs), crane coordination, logistics, and third-party contractors to deliver safe and timely outages.
Implement and optimize condition monitoring and predictive analytics programs (vibration analysis, oil debris, SCADA analytics) to convert data into actionable maintenance interventions and life-extension strategies.
Maintain asset performance dashboards and deliver regular performance reports to stakeholders and investors, including KPI trend analysis, loss root-cause breakdowns and corrective action plans.
Develop spare parts strategy and warehouse management practices—optimize inventory levels, critical spares provisioning, and lead-time risk mitigation for key turbine components.
Coordinate electrical balance-of-plant (BOP) and high-voltage systems activities: switchgear maintenance, transformer inspection, protection settings, and interface with grid operators and distribution network owners.
Manage vendor relationships and procurement cycles for large works, negotiating scope, price, delivery schedules and performance bonds while ensuring quality control and compliance with standards.
Drive continuous improvement initiatives across reliability, maintenance efficiency and cost base using root cause problem solving techniques (5 Whys, RCA, FMEA) and structured improvement programs.
Oversee technical documentation, procedures and maintenance manuals to ensure they reflect field learnings, OEM updates and regulatory changes; control document versioning and access.
Ensure effective spare parts and logistics planning for remote or offshore sites, including coordination of vessels/helicopters, sea fastening, customs clearance, and specialist lifting equipment certifications.
Lead emergency response planning and incident command during major failures or incidents; maintain on-call rotas, escalation matrices and rapid mobilization procedures.
Coordinate community and stakeholder engagement on site operations, planned outages, noise or visual impact mitigation, and local hiring initiatives to protect social license to operate.
Manage lifecycle planning and capital refurbishment decisions including repowering proposals, major component replacements, and end-of-life asset disposal strategies.
Ensure compliance with industry standards and quality systems (ISO 9001, ISO 45001), electrical codes, and OEM service specifications; host and respond to third-party audits and investor due diligence.
Drive talent acquisition and workforce planning for technical roles, including interviewing, hiring, and onboarding of technicians and supervisors with an emphasis on diversity and retention.
Collaborate with development and engineering teams on design change requests, retrofits and performance upgrades to improve AEP and reduce O&M cost per MWh.
Prepare and present executive-level briefings, board reports and investor updates summarizing site health, financials, risks and mitigation plans.

Secondary Functions

Support continuous improvement of maintenance data quality and integrity in CMMS and SCADA to enable better analytics and decision-making.
Contribute to corporate asset management strategy, providing site-level input on asset health, CAPEX vs OPEX trade-offs, and long-term performance forecasts.
Mentor junior engineers and technicians, facilitate cross-training programs and develop succession plans to maintain operational continuity.
Collaborate with the procurement team to refine vendor selection criteria and standardize service contracts across regions.
Participate in cross-functional incident reviews and lessons-learned sessions to standardize mitigations and prevent recurrence across the fleet.
Drive local initiatives for sustainability, wildlife protection and environmental monitoring to ensure compliance and community acceptance.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

In-depth knowledge of wind turbine systems (rotor, gearbox, generator, pitch, yaw, hydraulic and control systems) across multiple OEM platforms (e.g., Vestas, Siemens Gamesa, GE).
Strong experience with SCADA systems, remote monitoring, alarms management and SCADA data analytics for fault diagnosis and performance optimization.
Proficient in CMMS platforms (Maximo, SAP PM, IFS or equivalent) for work order management, asset history and inventory control.
Electrical and mechanical troubleshooting skills including medium/high voltage (MV/HV) experience, protection relays, transformers and switchgear.
Condition monitoring and predictive maintenance expertise (vibration analysis, thermography, oil analysis, blade inspection techniques).
Project and outage management capabilities including crane operations planning, lifting engineering and isolation procedures.
Contract and commercial management experience: SLA management, warranty negotiation, and contractor performance oversight.
Budgeting, financial acumen and familiarity with OPEX/CAPEX planning, cost control and margin improvement in asset operation contexts.
Proven competence in health, safety and environmental management systems, incident investigation and compliance frameworks (NEBOSH, IOSH, GWO advantageous).
Understanding of grid connection requirements, SCADA interlocks, power quality and curtailment management.
Experience with condition-based maintenance tools, data visualization (Power BI, Tableau) and basic scripting or analytics for asset performance trends.

Soft Skills

Strong leadership and people management skills with a track record of building high-performing technical teams.
Excellent verbal and written communication: able to present complex technical and financial information to executives, investors and non-technical stakeholders.
Analytical problem solving and decisive decision-making under operational pressure.
Stakeholder management and negotiation: effective at working with OEMs, contractors, regulators and community representatives.
Time and priorities management with the ability to balance short-term repairs and long-term reliability strategies.
Resilience, adaptability and a continuous improvement mindset in a dynamic field operations environment.
Coaching and mentoring orientation to develop field talent and improve competency across teams.
Attention to detail combined with strategic thinking for lifecycle planning and CAPEX allocation.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Renewable Energy, or a closely related technical discipline.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Engineering, Renewable Energy, Asset Management, or MBA with energy sector experience.
Professional certifications (NEBOSH, IOSH, GWO, Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional) are advantageous.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Mechanical Engineering
Electrical Engineering / Power Systems
Renewable Energy Engineering
Offshore Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 6–12 years of combined wind industry experience with at least 3–5 years in a supervisory or managerial role within wind farm O&M.

Preferred:

8+ years’ experience managing onshore or offshore wind operations with direct accountability for asset performance, budgets and HSE.
Demonstrated experience with multiple turbine OEMs, major component changeouts and outage leadership.
Proven track record of improving availability and reducing O&M cost per MWh, with quantifiable performance improvements.