Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Wind Turbine Planner

🎯 Role Definition

The Wind Turbine Planner is responsible for developing, scheduling and controlling maintenance and outage activities across wind farm assets to maximize turbine availability, minimize downtime and manage cost. The role combines technical understanding of wind turbine components (nacelle, gearbox, blades, generator, electrical systems), proficiency with CMMS/OMS and planning tools, and the ability to coordinate multi-disciplinary teams, contractors and logistics. The Planner creates detailed workpacks, risk assessments, lift and access plans, spare parts forecasts and KPI reports while ensuring strict adherence to HSE and regulatory requirements.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Wind Turbine Technician / Field Service Technician
Maintenance Planner / Junior Planner (industrial or O&M)
Site/Field Engineer or Service Coordinator

Advancement To:

Senior Wind Turbine Planner / Lead Planner
O&M (Operations & Maintenance) Manager or Asset Manager
Outage Delivery Manager / Project Manager (Renewables)

Lateral Moves:

Reliability Engineer / Condition Monitoring Engineer
Logistics & Crane Coordinator
Contract & Vendor Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop, maintain and optimize preventative maintenance (PM) and corrective maintenance (CM) schedules for onshore and/or offshore wind turbines using the organization’s CMMS (e.g., SAP, IBM Maximo) and outage management systems; create recurring task calendars and ensure alignment with asset performance targets.
Produce detailed workpacks and safe job procedures for planned outages and corrective works, including step-by-step task descriptions, required tooling, parts lists, competency requirements, PPE and HSE controls to enable safe and efficient site execution.
Plan and coordinate turbine outages end-to-end: define scope, sequence tasks, allocate multi-discipline resources (technicians, riggers, crane operators), establish timelines, and integrate external contractors and vendors to meet availability and budget objectives.
Develop robust lift and heavy-lift plans in collaboration with crane providers and lifting engineers, including crane selection, lift studies, exclusion zones, tagging procedures and contingency measures for component lifts (nacelles, blades, gearboxes).
Forecast spare parts and consumables demand using reliability data, failure modes and historical consumption; manage spare parts provisioning, reorder points, and coordinated deliveries to minimize AOG (Aircraft on Ground-like emergency) costs and lead-time exposure.
Lead pre-outage planning workshops with operations, reliability, procurement and safety teams to validate scope, identify critical path activities, confirm permits, and pre-assign tools, spares and personnel to reduce on-site delays.
Coordinate logistics and transport planning for abnormal loads, oversize components and site access (road permits, port operations for offshore, laydown areas), ensuring timing, handling and storage minimize handling risk and demobilization time.
Review condition monitoring and SCADA analytics to prioritize reactive and preventive interventions; translate condition alerts, vibration trends and fault codes into planned interventions with clear acceptance criteria and inspection points.
Prepare and maintain high-quality business documentation: risk assessments, lift plans, method statements, isolation plans, permits-to-work, job hazard analyses and post-outage reports for auditability and continuous learning.
Manage contractor selection, tender evaluation and scope-of-work documentation for specialist services (crane hire, heavy transport, rope access, blade repairs), and administer contractor performance reviews and SLAs.
Implement and track KPIs related to availability, mean time to repair (MTTR), planned maintenance compliance, backlog, spare-parts turnover and outage delivery cost variance; produce weekly/monthly dashboard reports for asset managers and stakeholders.
Conduct technical feasibility and risk assessments for component replacements and major repairs; advise asset managers on make-vs-buy, life-extension opportunities, and upgrade planning based on warranty, obsolescence and budget constraints.
Create and manage detailed resource plans and shift patterns, ensuring certified technicians, riggers, and safety personnel are assigned, and that competency matrices and certifications are up to date for planned tasks.
Coordinate on-site commissioning and handover activities after major repairs or installations, ensuring functional testing, SCADA integration, electrical checks, and paperwork completion meet acceptance criteria and warranty requirements.
Maintain close liaison with operations control room/SCADA teams to plan outages with minimal production impact, agreeing shutdown windows, warm-up/cool-down procedures, and remote monitoring strategies during interventions.
Ensure all planned activities comply with HSE legislation, local environmental permits and wind farm-specific safety management systems; lead pre-job toolbox talks and ensure permit-to-work systems are adhered to.
Lead root-cause analysis and post-fault reviews for recurrent failures; propose corrective maintenance plans, design changes, supplier quality actions or updated maintenance tasks to improve reliability and reduce repeat interventions.
Support budgeting and forecasting by providing cost estimates for planned work, outage contingency, spares procurement and contractor fees; track actual vs. budgeted outage spend and recommend corrective action.
Integrate digital planning tools and continuous improvement initiatives: roll out workpack templates, best-practice checklists, CMMS optimization and automation to reduce administrative overhead and human error.
Liaise with regulatory bodies, landowners, ports and local authorities for permits, access agreements and community impact mitigation during major lifts and transport operations.
Maintain up-to-date technical knowledge of major turbine OEM products (e.g., gearless vs geared drivetrains, pitch systems, generators) to create accurate maintenance strategies and ensure tasks align to manufacturer recommendations and warranty conditions.
Drive cross-functional collaboration to align planning with reliability engineering, procurement, training and inventory teams; act as the single point of contact for outage coordination during execution windows.
Prepare contingency and escalation plans for adverse weather, equipment unavailability or safety incidents; ensure clear communication protocols and standby resource arrangements are in place.
Oversee documentation control and as-built records after maintenance activities, ensuring CMMS entries reflect actual work performed, spare parts usage is logged, and lessons learned are captured for future planning.
Support training needs analysis and technical upskilling programs for field technicians by identifying knowledge gaps observed during outages and initiating training or competency refresh programs.
Continually review and refine planning processes, incorporating lessons learned from post-outage reviews, vendor feedback and asset performance data to improve delivery certainty and reduce unplanned downtime.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist procurement and stores teams during emergency spares sourcing and expedited shipping coordination.
Provide input for technical proposals, tender responses and RFPs related to maintenance and outage services.
Support cross-site standardization projects to harmonize workpack structures, risk assessments and performance reporting.
Mentor junior planners and technicians on planning methodology, CMMS best practice and safety culture.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Wind turbine maintenance planning and outage management (onshore/offshore) — proven experience creating and executing workpacks and outage schedules.
Proficient with CMMS and OMS platforms (e.g., SAP PM, IBM Maximo, Infor EAM) for work order creation, backlog management and spares tracking.
Experience with SCADA and condition monitoring data interpretation (vibration analysis, oil analytics, alarm management) to prioritize interventions.
Strong knowledge of crane/heavy-lift planning, including performing lift studies, selecting crane types and coordinating with lifting engineers and providers.
Familiarity with electrical and mechanical systems of wind turbines (gearboxes, pitch/yaw systems, generators, power electronics).
Competence with scheduling and project planning tools (MS Project, Primavera P6, or equivalent) and the ability to develop critical path schedules.
Experience with logistics planning for abnormal transport, port operations (for offshore) and site access management.
Knowledge of HSE standards, permit-to-work systems, and industry-specific regulations (LOLER, local lifting regulations, environmental permits).
Spare parts forecasting and inventory management proficiency, including BOMs, lead-time analysis and reorder optimization.
Vendor/contractor management: tendering, scope definition, SLA management and performance monitoring.
Strong technical writing and documentation skills—preparation of method statements, risk assessments, lift plans and post-job reports.
Familiarity with GIS and site layout planning tools for access, crane pads and component laydown planning.
Experience with root-cause analysis methods (e.g., 5 Whys, RCA, FMEA) and continuous improvement frameworks.

Soft Skills

Excellent stakeholder communication and interpersonal skills — ability to coordinate across operations, vendors and senior management.
Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple concurrent outages and competing priorities.
Analytical mindset, data-driven decision-making and attention to detail.
Problem-solving under pressure with calm escalation and contingency planning.
Leadership and team collaboration — ability to lead pre-outage workshops and direct cross-functional teams.
Negotiation skills for contractor terms, transport timings and cost control.
Adaptability to changing conditions (weather, regulatory constraints, emergent faults).
Time management and planning acumen to meet tight maintenance windows.
Coaching and mentoring capability to develop junior planners and field technicians.
Cultural awareness and ability to work with international vendors and offshore stakeholders.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Renewable Energy, Industrial Engineering, or comparable technical discipline; OR equivalent vocational qualification with substantial wind/O&M experience.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s with additional certifications (e.g., Lifting Supervisor, NEBOSH, NACE, IRATA for rope access exposure) or a Master’s in Renewable Energy/Asset Management.
Professional certifications in project management (PMP, Prince2) or reliability (e.g., Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional — CMRP) are advantageous.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Mechanical Engineering
Electrical/Electronic Engineering
Renewable Energy / Wind Energy Technology
Industrial Engineering / Operations Management
Asset Management / Project Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of maintenance planning or field operations experience in wind turbine O&M, utility-scale renewables, or heavy industrial maintenance environments.

Preferred: 5+ years of direct wind turbine planning or outage coordination experience, with demonstrable track record managing multi-turbine outages, heavy lifts and contractor-led execution across onshore or offshore wind farms.