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Uptime Podcast – Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Hosted by Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Yolanda Padron & Matthew Stead · EN
The Wind Turbine LPS Retrofit
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TPI Sale Delayed By $100M Claims, WindEurope Calls for Unity
Mar 300:30:25Tap to summarizeWeather Guard Lightning Tech TPI Sale Delayed By $100M Claims, WindEurope Calls for Unity Allen, Rosemary, Yolanda, and Matthew discuss highlights from Blades USA including the carbon blade debate. Plus TPI Composites’ bankruptcy sale hits major obstacles as partners dispute over $100M in claims. And Europe’s offshore and onshore wind developers clash over state aid, with WindEurope’s new CEO urging unity. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! [00:00:00] The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by Strike Tape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strike tape.com. And now your hosts. Allen Hall 2025: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host Alan Hall, and I’m here with Yolanda Padron, Rosemary Barnes and Matthew Stead. Yolanda and Matthew have just wrapped up a couple of days at the Blade USA forum in Austin, Texas. Maybe we should start there. Thoughts on the forum this year? Things that were highlights? Matthew Stead: Yeah. Lightning Root de bond. One positive was that, um, there are a couple of startups there, so, you know, kudos to them for, you know, making the investment. There was a. There was a startup around, you know, data analytics and, you know, bringing machine learning in. And then there was also another startup looking at recycling. [00:01:00] Um, really trying to get that, that food chain through of, um, you know, grinding and then turning into some sort of valuable product. Um, yeah. However, I think someone also from EPRI said that, you know, at the moment, you know, the recycling path is, you know, eight times more expensive than the, um, the landfill path. There was a lot of carbon discussion actually. So, and, um, yeah, a lot of discussion about repairs, a lot of discussion about testing, uh, a lot of discussion about, you know, how maybe a carbon blade can last 40 years. Um, so a lot of discussion about lifetime extensions around carbon. Um, but, but, but, but, you know, really, really hard to repair. Allen Hall 2025: That goes back to the comments Rosemary and Morton Hanberg made about carbon blades. Should we be making. Carbon blades are not. And I think Morton’s opinion, and maybe Rosemary’s, I don’t wanna speak for her, was carbon blades are okay, but they are really difficult to repair. Almost impossible to repair. And is it [00:02:00] worth even building them? Rosemary Barnes: I think if you consider the blade in isolation, then it probably is adding more headaches than it’s worth. But carbon fiber is a bit of an enabler for improvements across the whole system of a, a wind turbine. ’cause when you take, like you can take a lot of weight out of a blade by using carbon fiber. I mean, it’s never been cheaper to make a blade with carbon fiber than an equivalent blade with glass. You do, you buy the more expensive carbon fiber blade because it’s lighter, a like, a lot lighter, and then you can take, um, weight. It, it reduces the requirements for basically every other component in the wind turbine, but especially stuff like the pitch bearings. Um, so you solve a lot of other problems, but you create blade problems. So. I think if you ask some of the only works on maintaining blades, then you’re gonna be like, why would you make a carbon fiber blade? It is so much headache. Um, but that’s not the reason why they were ever made in the first place. [00:03:00] So you’d need to talk to, you know, somebody on, uh, I dunno, front end engineering. Someone from the sales team about why it is that they are going with a more expensive carbon fiber blade. Even acknowledging that they probably underestimate how many problems there are with o and m with, uh, carbon fiber blades. But even so, like they’re already aware that there are trade offs. Um, and yeah, there’s non blade reasons for, for taking, taking that pain. Allen Hall 2025: Are there other fibers that could be substituted besides carbon? There, I, I know fiberglass. A, a good, relatively strong fiber and carbon obviously is much stronger. But are there things in the middle that could be substituted that are non-conductive? Rosemary Barnes: Uh, y yeah, there are, but carbon fibers, it’s not just strong. It’s really stiff. And that’s what its benefit is. Um, like there’s Kevlar but it’s not very stiff. So you would, we would make a really heavy blade if you used Kevlar. It would be probably bulletproof though. So I guess that would be a plus. I, I haven’t looked into it recently, but nothing is [00:04:00] at the, um, like got the performance specs and the cost specs that you would need to, um, make it replace carbon fiber. Matthew Stead: So one thing that I picked up I thought was pretty, uh, interesting was that by having a stronger, you know, carbon protrusion, you know, the, you know, the backbone of the blade, um, it took a little bit of pressure off the skin. And so therefore, um, you know, the life, life of the blade, um, and the ability to keep running it ’cause the skin is not so critical. Those seem to be a real, a real plus as well. Rosemary Barnes: I don’t know, people talk about this in like absolutes, but everything is just a con continuum, right? Like you can make an all glass blade that would last a thousand years if you really wanted to. You just, you know, you just have to make it very, very strong. ’cause it’s, you know, it’s all based on fatigue lifetime. And the smaller that your, um, strain on every component in the blade is, then the less, um, the less fatigue damage is gonna accumulate. Making it a little bit stiffer will actually increase the lifetime by [00:05:00] a a lot. I think the main benefit to protrusions is just that you avoid all of the um, or you avoid a lot of the possibilities for manufacturing defects. It’s easy to control the manufacture ’cause carbon fiber, like much more so than glass fiber. It’s so, um, it’s so dependent on the fibers being perfectly straight. If you have a little wrinkle, like a little wrinkle is bad in glass fiber, but it’s like really bad in carbon fiber. So protrusions mean that you won’t get wrinkles. Uh, and you can, you know, control the manufacturing process a lot better, but they are barely repairable, right? So that’s the trade off. You can do some small repairs, but you’re not gonna be just. Um, if you’ve got a, a, a full thickness crack or something, it’s, you know, it’s gonna be game over. You’re not gonna be building that up again. Allen Hall 2025: Delamination and bottomline failures and blades are difficult problems to [00:06:00] detect early. These hidden issues can cost you millions in repairs and lost energy production. C-I-C-N-D-T are specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become expensive burdens. Their non-destructive test technology penetrates deep to blade materials to find voids and cracks. Traditional inspections, completely. Miss C-I-C-N-D-T Maps. Every critical defect delivers actionable reports and provides support to get your blades. Back in service, so visit cic ndt.com because catching blade problems early Yolanda Padron: will save you millions. Allen Hall 2025: Well keep going on the, the subject of blades. Imagine if you were selling your house and you told the bank you owe nothing on it. Then the bank shows up with a bill for over a hundred million dollars. That is essentially what’s happening right now in the TPI composites bankruptcy. Uh, the wind blade manufacturer canceled its [00:07:00] February 17th asset auction after only one bidder came forward. A firm called ECP five LLC, which is, uh, part of Energy Capital Partners, which is based in New Jersey. <p...
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Nova Scotia’s Wind West Plan, Rivian Tries Wind
Mar 200:02:34Tap to summarizeWeather Guard Lightning Tech Nova Scotia’s Wind West Plan, Rivian Tries Wind Allen covers Nova Scotia’s ambitious 60 GW Wind West offshore plan and the standoff between Ottawa and developers over who invests first. Plus a scaled-back English onshore project faces local opposition, Blue Elephant Energy triples its German wind portfolio, Adani prepares to build India’s longest onshore blade, and Rivian signs a wind PPA to power its Illinois factory. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! There is something happening in the wind business right now. Something big … and something small. Let us start with big. In Nova Scotia … Premier Tim Houston has a dream. He calls it Wind West. Sixty gigawatts of offshore wind turbines. A transmission line to move that power across Canada and into the United States. The price tag … sixty billion dollars. Forty billion for the turbines. Twenty billion for the cables. But Ottawa says … not so fast. Federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told reporters the Major Projects Office needs to see private industry commit first. No private partners … no national interest designation. And here is the catch. The developers want to see transmission infrastructure before they invest. Ottawa wants to see developers before it invests. Everybody is waiting for everybody else. Still … Houston is not worried. He says the response from developers has been … through the roof. French firm Q Energy has already applied to pre-qualify. And Natural Resources Canada just put up nearly five million dollars for a feasibility study. Houston says the wind is there. It blows … a lot. The only question is where the power goes. Now … across the Atlantic. In England … a developer is learning that sometimes bigger is not better. Calderdale Energy Park wanted to build sixty-five turbines on Walshaw Moor near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. That would have made it the largest onshore wind farm in England. Last April they cut it to forty-one. Now … thirty-four. That would match the current largest site at Keadby in Lincolnshire. Campaigners say it will still damage the peat bogs and threaten ground-nesting birds. A local parish council survey found ninety-three percent of residents opposed. The developer says it could power a quarter million homes. That application goes to the Planning Inspectorate in November. Meanwhile … in Hamburg, Germany … Blue Elephant Energy is doing some shopping. The company just acquired a three hundred eighty-one megawatt wind portfolio from Wind-Projekt. That is thirty-seven operating wind farms in northern Germany. Two hundred sixty megawatts already feeding the grid. Another forty-six megawatts under construction … coming online this year. And seventy-five more megawatts in the pipeline for twenty twenty-seven. This deal will triple their German wind capacity … from one hundred seventy-three to five hundred thirty-three megawatts. It still needs approval from the German Federal Cartel Office. Now … to India. The Adani Group is about to build the longest onshore wind turbine blade in the country. Ninety-one-point-two meters. That is the length of a football field. Those blades will create a rotor diameter of one hundred eighty-five meters. Each rotation sweeps an area larger than three football fields combined. The factory is at Mundra in the state of Gujarat. Current capacity … two-point-two-five gigawatts per year. They plan to double that to five … and eventually reach ten. India added six-point-three gigawatts of wind last year alone. That was an eighty-five percent jump over the year before. And finally … back home in the American heartland. Rivian … the electric vehicle maker … just signed a power purchase agreement with Apex Clean Energy. Fifty megawatts from the proposed Goose Creek wind farm in Piatt County, Illinois. That wind farm sits within an hour of Rivian’s flagship plant in Normal, Illinois. With this deal … Rivian could power up to seventy-five percent of its factory with carbon-free energy. An electric truck company … powered by wind. So let us step back. Nova Scotia dreams of sixty gigawatts off its coast. An English moor fights over thirty-four turbines. A German company triples its wind portfolio overnight. India builds blades as long as football fields. And an American truck maker turns to the prairie wind to build its future. From the North Atlantic to the plains of Illinois … from the moors of Yorkshire to the coast of Gujarat … the wind keeps blowing. And people … keep building. And that is the state of the wind industry for the first of March twenty twenty-six. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast tomorrow.
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BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics
Feb 2600:16:55Tap to summarizeWeather Guard Lightning Tech BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics Chris Cieslak, CEO of BladeBug, joins the show to discuss how their walking robot is making ultrasonic blade inspections faster and more accessible. They cover new horizontal scanning capabilities for lay down yards, blade root inspections for bushing defects, and plans to expand into North America in 2026. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Chris, welcome back to the show. Chris Cieslak: It’s great to be back. Thank you very much for having me on again. Allen Hall: It’s great to see you in person, and a lot has been happening at Blade Bugs since the last time I saw Blade Bug in person. Yeah, the robot. It looks a lot different and it has really new capabilities. Chris Cieslak: So we’ve continued to develop our ultrasonic, non-destructive testing capabilities of the blade bug robot. Um, but what we’ve now added to its capabilities is to do horizontal blade scans as well. So we’re able to do blades that are in lay down yards or blades that have come down for inspections as well as up tower. So we can do up tower, down tower inspections. We’re trying to capture. I guess the opportunity to inspect blades after transportation when they get delivered to site, to look [00:01:00] for any transport damage or anything that might have been missed in the factory inspections. And then we can do subsequent installation inspections as well to make sure there’s no mishandling damage on those blades. So yeah, we’ve been just refining what we can do with the NDT side of things and improving its capabilities Joel Saxum: was that need driven from like market response and people say, Hey, we need, we need. We like the blade blood product. We like what you’re doing, but we need it here. Or do you guys just say like, Hey, this is the next, this is the next thing we can do. Why not? Chris Cieslak: It was very much market response. We had a lot of inquiries this year from, um, OEMs, blade manufacturers across the board with issues within their blades that need to be inspected on the ground, up the tap, any which way they can. There there was no, um, rhyme or reason, which was better, but the fact that he wanted to improve the ability of it horizontally has led the. Sort of modifications that you’ve seen and now we’re doing like down tower, right? Blade scans. Yeah. A really fast breed. So Joel Saxum: I think the, the important thing there is too is that because of the way the robot is built [00:02:00] now, when you see NDT in a factory, it’s this robot rolls along this perfectly flat concrete floor and it does this and it does that. But the way the robot is built, if a blade is sitting in a chair trailing edge up, or if it’s flap wise, any which way the robot can adapt to, right? And the idea is. We, we looked at it today and kind of the new cage and the new things you have around it with all the different encoders and for the heads and everything is you can collect data however is needed. If it’s rasterized, if there’s a vector, if there’s a line, if we go down a bond line, if we need to scan a two foot wide path down the middle of the top of the spa cap, we can do all those different things and all kinds of orientations. That’s a fantastic capability. Chris Cieslak: Yeah, absolutely. And it, that’s again for the market needs. So we are able to scan maybe a meter wide in one sort of cord wise. Pass of that probe whilst walking in the span-wise direction. So we’re able to do that raster scan at various spacing. So if you’ve got a defect that you wanna find that maximum 20 mil, we’ll just have a 20 mil step [00:03:00] size between each scan. If you’ve got a bigger tolerance, we can have 50 mil, a hundred mil it, it’s so tuneable and it removes any of the variability that you get from a human to human operator doing that scanning. And this is all about. Repeatable, consistent high quality data that you can then use to make real informed decisions about the state of those blades and act upon it. So this is not about, um, an alternative to humans. It’s just a better, it’s just an evolution of how humans do it. We can just do it really quick and it’s probably, we, we say it’s like six times faster than a human, but actually we’re 10 times faster. We don’t need to do any of the mapping out of the blade, but it’s all encoded all that data. We know where the robot is as we walk. That’s all captured. And then you end up with really. Consistent data. It doesn’t matter who’s operating a robot, the robot will have those settings preset and you just walk down the blade, get that data, and then our subject matter experts, they’re offline, you know, they are in their offices, warm, cozy offices, reviewing data from multiple sources of robots. And it’s about, you know, improving that [00:04:00] efficiency of getting that report out to the customer and letting ’em know what’s wrong with their blades, actually, Allen Hall: because that’s always been the drawback of, with NDT. Is that I think the engineers have always wanted to go do it. There’s been crush core transportation damage, which is sometimes hard to see. You can maybe see a little bit of a wobble on the blade service, but you’re not sure what’s underneath. Bond line’s always an issue for engineering, but the cost to take a person, fly them out to look at a spot on a blade is really expensive, especially someone who is qualified. Yeah, so the, the difference now with play bug is you can have the technology to do the scan. Much faster and do a lot of blades, which is what the de market demand is right now to do a lot of blades simultaneously and get the same level of data by the review, by the same expert just sitting somewhere else. Chris Cieslak: Absolutely. Joel Saxum: I think that the quality of data is a, it’s something to touch on here because when you send someone out to the field, it’s like if, if, if I go, if I go to the wall here and you go to the wall here and we both take a paintbrush, we paint a little bit [00:05:00] different, you’re probably gonna be better. You’re gonna be able to reach higher spots than I can. Allen Hall: This is true. Joel Saxum: That’s true. It’s the same thing with like an NDT process. Now you’re taking the variability of the technician out of it as well. So the data quality collection at the source, that’s what played bug ducts. Allen Hall: Yeah, Joel Saxum: that’s the robotic processes. That is making sure that if I scan this, whatever it may be, LM 48.7 and I do another one and another one and another one, I’m gonna get a consistent set of quality data and then it’s goes to analysis. We can make real decisions off. Allen Hall: Well, I, I think in today’s world now, especially with transportation damage and warranties, that they’re trying to pick up a lot of things at two years in that they could have picked up free installation. Yeah. Or lifting of the blades. That world is changing very rapidly. I think a lot of operators are getting smarter about this, but they haven’t thought about where do we go find the tool. Speaker: Yeah. Allen Hall: And, and I know Joel knows that, Hey, it, it’s Chri...
Transcribe →Wind Industry Quality Crisis, US Election Impact on Renewables
Nov 19, 202400:39:48Tap to summarizeThis episode covers Vestas’s manufacturing growth in Italy and Siemens Gamesa’s quarterly results showing both gains and ongoing challenges. The hosts explore how the U.S. election results could reshape renewable energy markets, with discussions ranging from grid infrastructure to natural gas expansion. And an in-depth look at quality control concerns at GE Vernova’s LM Wind Power blade manufacturing facility in Canada, where allegations of falsified quality control data have emerged. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.comWind Energy O&M Australia Conference – https://www.windaustralia.com Allen Hall: An endangered sea turtle that was found about a year ago, some 5, 000 miles from its native waters, has been released back into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Houston Zoo. The sea turtle was found off the coast of, guess where? The Netherlands, after becoming entangled in the net of a commercial fishing boat. The zoo said the turtle apparently was carried by currents until it was found, and the U. S. National Fish and Wildlife Service secured the turtle’s return. Guys, there’s a really interesting bit. Some fishermen somewhere realized that this turtle didn’t belong off the coast of the Netherlands and decided to return it. Of all things. They took it to the Rotterdam Zoo the Rotterdam Zoo where it was nursed back the health. And then had a, must have a first class flight back to Houston where it was put back in the Gulf of Mexico. But this little turtle went a long ways. 5, 000 miles is quite a ride, right? Joel Saxum: I can’t imagine it was doing very well in the cold water up there either. Cause right now, even now the Gulf of Mexico is 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah, he, the Allen Hall: turtle at some point had to know it wasn’t in the Bahamas anymore, right? It’s not gonna swim back from there. Rosemary Barnes: I saw a story recently about a king penguin that that swam from Antarctica to Australia to Perth. It was it’s not that far, I think it was like 3, 000 kilometers or maybe a little bit more, but similar thing of yeah. Animal just, just the kind of point in the direction and then just keep going until they reach land. It’s some decent persistence. Allen Hall: Isn’t it crazy when you think about how animals have moved around the planet? And then you, that’s impossible. And then Rosemary says there’s a penguin that’s got about 1, 500 miles, just taking a light swim. Joel Saxum: That’s crazy. There’s a book about this called Super Navigators, and it’s really fascinating, actually, to be honest with you. Allen Hall: This turtle is back home in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which is a great story, right? Gulf of Mexico for the winter. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’ll be joined by my Uptime co host after these news headlines. Thanks A major expansion of wind turbine manufacturing is underway in Toronto, Italy as Vestas begins production of its V236 15MW offshore wind blades. The facility will produce 115. 5 meter blades capable of powering 20, 000 European households each year. The expansion, supported by EU recovery funds, will create 1, 300 new jobs in the region. The Port of Toronto has granted Vestas a nine year concession to use its logistics platform, establishing the port as a strategic hub for wind energy component manufacturing and distribution. This development marks a significant step in expanding Europe’s wind energy supply chain. Siemens Gamesa reported a mixed fourth quarter performance with revenue growing significantly to 3. 1 billion. billion euros, up 19 percent compared to the same period last year, driven largely by increased offshore wind business activity. However, the division continued to face challenges, posting a negative profit of 472 million euros for the quarter. While this represents an improvement from last year’s 670 million euro loss, the results still reflect ongoing project margin pressures due to quality issues and increased product costs. Orders were moderately down to 4. 1 billion euros compared to 4. 2 billion euros in the previous year. The company’s order backlog increased to 38 billion euros, supported by a major North Sea order worth 2. 9 billion euros. Looking ahead to fiscal 2025, Siemens Comansa expects revenue growth to decline between 5 and 9 percent as it continues working towards achieving break even performance by fiscal year 2026. Scottish Power Renewables has finalized a 1 billion pound agreement with SMOs CESA to supply 64 wind turbines for its East Anglia two offshore wind farm. The project located off England’s East Coast has a capacity of nearly one gigawatt and will use SG 14 SG 36 DD turbines with a 236 meter rotor diameter. The 115 meter blaze will be produced at Siemens GI Mesa’s whole facility. which has grown to employ 1, 300 people following the addition of 600 new staff in the past year. The 4 billion pound wind farm is expected to generate enough clean energy to power nearly 1 million homes. GE Vernova, the world’s third largest wind turbine manufacturer, will continue its pause on seeking new offshore wind turbine orders while awaiting improved market conditions. The company currently has a 3 billion backlog that will take two years to complete. CEO Scott Straszak cited supply chain strains and rising interest rates as key challenges. The company’s offshore wind turbine unit has not added to its order backlog for almost three years, instead focusing on executing existing projects. GE plans to standardize its turbines to improve quality and reduce costs, though it announced potential cuts of 900 jobs in its offshore wind unit this September. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has completed its final environmental impact statement for the proposed 2. 4 gigawatt south coast wind project. The development includes 147 wind turbines and five offshore substations with eight offshore export cables, potentially making landfall in Brighton Point or Falmouth, Massachusetts. The lease area covers 127,000 acres, situated 26 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, and 20 nautical miles south of Nantucket. That’s this week’s top. News stories. After the break, I’ll be joined by my co-host, the Chief Commercial Officer of Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Joel Saxum the founder and CEO of Pardalote Consulting, Rosie Barnes. And the founder and CEO of InterStor, Phil Totaro. Unlock your wind farm’s best performance at Wind Energy O& M Australia, February 11th to 12th in sunny Melbourne. Join industry leaders as they share practical solutions for maintenance, OEM relations, and asset management. Discover strategies to cut costs, keep your assets running smoothly, and drive long term success in today’s competitive market. Register today and explore sponsorships at www. windaustralia. com. All Allen Hall: So preparations are underway for Wind Energy O& M Australia in Melbourne on February 11th if you haven’t visited windaustralia. com, you’re missing out because the registrations are active. A lot of people have registered already and the sponsors are rolling in. Joel Saxum: So as we’ve been putting this together, we’ve had a lot of reach outs. We’ve been reaching out on LinkedIn. We’ve been reaching out an email to people down in Australia and around the globe. And we’ve had quite a few people reach back out to us saying they want to be involved. So we’ve got a couple of panelists line or some great panelists lined up. We’ve got a few that we’re in the pipeline right now to be sponsors, and they’re going to bring some crazy, innovative ideas, some things that are happening around the wind world where they’re actually, they’re helping operators in a big way. But we can’t say who they are quite yet, but stay tuned...
Transcribe →Vattenfall Invests in Germany, Octopus $2B in Offshore
Nov 18, 202400:07:22Tap to summarizeThis week on News Flash, Vattenfall invests 5 billion euros in Germany through 2028, Octopus Energy has surpassed two billion dollars in offshore wind investments, and the Asian Development Bank has secured groundbreaking sovereign guarantees for climate finance. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.comWind Energy O&M Australia Conference – https://www.windaustralia.com Welcome to Uptime News Flash. Industry news lightning fast. Your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, and Phil Totaro discuss the latest deals, mergers, and alliances that will shape the future of wind power. News Flash is brought to you by IntelStor. For market intelligence that generates revenue, visit www. intelstor com. Allen Hall: First up, Swedish utility Vattenfall is investing 5 billion euros in Germany through 2028, showing major commitment after selling their Berlin heating business. The company plans to build 500 megawatts of solar parks and 300 megawatts of large batteries annually. Two major offshore wind parks, the Nordelake 1 and 2, will add 1. 6 gigawatts of wind capacity. And they’re also investing 500 million euros in EV charging infrastructure. Wow, Phil, Vattenfall’s going a little crazy in Germany at the moment. This is a big investment. Philip Totaro: Well, and it’s coming at a kind of an interesting time because, there’s been some, uh, hard to say whether it’s mild or moderate disarray in the German government at this point particularly in terms of the level of support that is, is gonna be provided long term to, to renewables. But Vattenfall at least understands and appreciates the fact that, they’ve got a pipeline that, that’s pretty big besides the Nordlicht 1 and 2 projects. I think they’ve got an additional 1. 5 gigawatts of onshore wind and or solar and, and battery pipeline That they have in, in Germany. So, they’re, they’re really swinging for the fences here and committing a rather large amount of capital at 5 billion Euro. So that’s it, it’s, again, it, it could be challenging short term timeframe, but long term they’re positioning themselves to be, as big of a player in, in Germany as they, they are in some of the other markets outside of, of Sweden. Where they operate. Joel Saxum: I think a big part of this five billion euros as well as that Nordlicht one and two for 1. 6 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, because that’s just a lot of money to build that big of wind farms offshore. But when you look onshore in Germany, it’s a bit harder to develop wind. You have permitting issues and those kind of things, but the tracks of land, it’s not like we’re here in the United States where we can put 100, 150 turbines out. The tracks of land are smaller, The setback limits are a lot bigger. They have different rules, right? It’s a little operations and maintenance is a bit more difficult, more expensive because you have, it’s like you have to test your lightning protection systems every two years. You, you have to have multiple ice detection systems. If you’re within a certain setback of a road, there’s, there’s all kinds of little nuances in Germany there. But Vattenfall clearly sees the the advantages of doing some business there. And I know that Germany as a whole. Like you said, Phil, they’re in a little bit of a turmoil right now, but they need it. So good on them. Allen Hall: In our second story, Octopus Energy has surpassed two billion dollars in offshore wind investments in just two years. They now hold stakes in six offshore wind farms across three European countries. The portfolio includes Hornsea One, one of the world’s largest wind farms, plus projects in the Netherlands and Germany. And the company has launched an innovative fan club tariff, giving locals discounted rates when it’s windy outside. So Octopus is a really unique company, Phil. They’re doing innovative things, but they’re also investing heavily in offshore wind. Philip Totaro: Yeah, and, and this is actually kind of fantastic because they’re doing this, I mean, as a, an investment group parent company to this, octopus energy utility that they, they run. But they’re, I’ll refrain from using the tentacles joke because I think I’ve already talked about how their tentacles are everywhere. So, they, the, The reality, though, is that with this business model where they’re inviting in kind of smaller investors or offering this, quote unquote fan club tariff they’re, they’re working on a lot of unique ways in which they can get community engagement where the community can clearly see the benefit that they get out of the investments that that are going into this, or if the tariffs are fixed or are being raised, at least the community sees what they’re getting out of it. And I think that’s become increasingly important throughout Europe, the UK especially, but the rest of Europe as well, where octopus energy is, is predominantly investing in, in offshore wind. So, again, good on them for, for what they’re doing. And we, we hope to be able to see more of it. Joel Saxum: I’d like to talk about something that is completely related to octopus energy and what they’re doing just for a second, but it’s not wind related. What octopus energy has Has done in the last few years is since jumping onto the market. This company is not old. They’re fairly new, only a couple of years old and the amount of capital that they’ve attracted and what they’ve done is a brand to bring people along for the journey of renewable energies. For, like the fan club and kind of all, if you go on their websites, you see, it’s just a bit more friendly of an energy company. It seems like it’s easier to get on board with. I think they’ve done a fantastic job of branding themselves and bringing that forth for renewable energy generation. And I’d like to see more companies do this because they don’t seem like this staunch kind of hard up energy company. It seems like something that you’re just dealing with your friends and you’re, you’re getting on board with the energy transition. So I really like what they’ve done. Allen Hall: And we need more of that in the, in the States at the moment. And over in Asia, the Asian Development Bank has secured groundbreaking sovereign guarantees for climate finance. The U. S. will guarantee 1 billion in Japan, 600 million of existing loans. That’s great. Creative structure will increase ADB’s climate lending to 7. 2 billion. Their first project uses 90 million to create sustainable aviation fuel in Pakistan, converting cooking oil to jet fuel. Wow. The Asian Development Bank is pretty busy, Phil. This is one of the things that sort of Europe is doing, but you’re starting to see it in other places. Philip Totaro: Yeah. And for those that aren’t familiar, the Asian Development Bank has made rather substantial investments already in wind, solar, and battery storage projects in Southeast Asia basically covering almost the entire Asia Pacific region outside of China. So they’re developing things in the Philippines, in Thailand all over the place, even, even, frankly, investing a little bit in some of the projects in Australia as well. So they’re, they’re making important strides here with the investments they’ve already made and the fact that they’ve been able to raise this much additional capital and get these kind of sovereign wealth commitments. To, to offer an additional 7. 2 billion. That’s, that’s extremely important and impressive. Joel Saxum: I’m super happy to see these projects moving forward. Sustainable aviation fuel. We know the aviation industry uses a lot of, hydrocarbons in what they do. And these kind of things with this capital being deployed. However, I’m not a huge fan of the U. S. underwri...
Transcribe →Corio Generation’s Impact on Global Offshore Wind
Nov 14, 202400:32:37Tap to summarizeAllen and Joel sit down with Jonathan Cole, CEO of Corio Generation and Chairman of the Global Wind Energy Council, for an illuminating discussion on the future of offshore wind energy. Cole shares invaluable insights on navigating regulatory challenges across multiple markets, building sustainable supply chains, and securing project financing. He also emphasizes the critical role of community engagement through what he calls “social license” in developing successful offshore wind projects. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.comWind Energy O&M Australia Conference – https://www.windaustralia.com Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, joined by my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, we’re honored to have with us Jonathan Cole, a visionary leader in the global offshore wind industry. and a key figure driving the transition to sustainable energy. Jonathan is the CEO of Corio Generation, a global offshore wind powerhouse, launched in April of 2022. As a portfolio manager of Macquarie Asset Management operating independently, Corio has quickly established itself as a major player in the renewable energy sector. Under Jonathan’s leadership, Corio has amassed one of the world’s largest offshore wind development portfolios, boasting over 30 gigawatts of projects in various stages of development across Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Americas. Jonathan’s influence extends far beyond his role at Corio. He currently serves as the chairman of the Global Wind Energy Council, GWEC. and his industry expertise has been recognized through numerous leadership positions. These include chairing the Global Offshore Wind Health and Safety Organization, the UK’s Offshore Wind Program Board, and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapults Industry Advisory Group. He has also been a board member of Renewable UK and a member of the UK’s Offshore Wind Industry Council. Before joining Corio, Jonathan played a pivotal role in shaping the offshore wind landscape at eBird DLA from 2010 to 2021, he spearheaded the creation and growth of Ebert Della’s offshore wind business, transforming it into a market leader with approximately 14 billion Euros invested a project pipeline exceeding 30 gigawatts, and a team of 800 professionals spanning four continents and 11 countries. Jonathan’s a very busy person and we appreciate his time. Jonathan, welcome to the program. Great to be here with you. You’ve been a busy person. I’ve been watching your LinkedIn account in all the countries and continents you’ve been on over the last couple of months. You’re busy in offshore wind and you were just in New York for the climate week. What was some of the outcome from those sessions that you attended? Jonathan Cole: Yeah, it’s a busy time for offshore wind and busy time for me, particularly. And I was in New York last week really with two hats on. One was with my Corio CEO hat on because we’ve got a big project out there in New York Attentive Energy. So I was spending some time with the team out there and hearing all the great work they’re doing. But also I’m the chair of the Global Wind Energy Council, so I was out there with that hat on, helping on the advocacy piece more generally. So it was a really interesting week. I think New York Climate Week is a really important date in the calendar, the climate calendar, because it serves as a bit of a precursor for the COP events later in the year and quite often is quite important in setting the agenda for that. So we were out there with the G Wake and the Global Renewables Alliance talking about some of the big topics. That need to be tackled if we’re going to convert into reality the tripling up of renewables that was a part of the last COP 28 treaty, talking about some of the things that need to be done to make that happen. So that was a really interesting and positive week, I have to say. Joel Saxum: Jonathan, if I was to ask what are the top two, maybe, just to keep it simple, the top two things that as the GWF chairman, of course, and at Climate Week, what are the top two challenges that are facing offshore wind at a global scale right now? Jonathan Cole: If you don’t mind, Joel, I’m going to give you a top three, right? Yeah, perfect. There’s three big things that are necessary to happen in order to get the tripling up of renewables on track. So one is on the regulatory side, and that is about putting in place some regulatory enablers. Principally around speeding up the permitting process. So all these great projects that, that, developers like Corio and others want to build can get through that process as quickly as possible, but also on the regulatory side, speeding up the build out of the transmission system, the grid system, so that when the projects are ready. The system is ready to take the power. So that’s the first part of it. The second part of it is around supply chain and trade. And I think we all recognize that there is a huge challenge in tripling up because there’s a huge amount of capacity needing to be built in the supply chain, but also that’s a huge opportunity. One of the most exciting opportunities, actually, that we face is the ability to breathe life and economic activity back into these coastal communities and post industrial towns where offshore wind farms are located, but that doesn’t happen by accident. It needs coordinated action. It needs industrial planning, and it needs a sensible approach to things like trade policy. And the third thing is finance. This Now, finance in the more mature markets and the OECD markets is probably less of an issue, although the cost of capital going up has really had an impact and we need to do what we can to de risk and try to take that cost of capital back down. But when you think of finance in the non OECD countries and the emerging, markets, developing economies, Finance is one of the single biggest barriers to the energy transition, because access to capital at reasonable terms and reasonable rates is hugely significant. Those developing markets could be paying 4, 5, 6 percent more for capital than in the developed markets, and that makes the energy transition so much more expensive for them. So the three big things, getting the regulations right, and I think there’s a political will to do that. We know who to do that. Getting the supply chain built up. There’s definitely a political will to create the jobs, but we just need to get the right mechanisms in place to do it. And the finance, getting the finance in place, and in particular thinking about de risking for the mature markets. and getting concessional finance and, other finance in place for the emerging markets. Allen Hall: Can I touch upon the regulatory aspect for a minute? Because I think you have such a difficult problem ahead of you. You have projects in the US, UK, South Korea, Ireland, Australia, Taiwan, Brazil. Each one of those...
Transcribe →
GE Cypress Blade Tip Swap-out, Vestas Load Probability Control Method
Nov 13, 202400:12:21Tap to summarizeThis week on Uptime Power-Up, a method from Vestas for modifying control of a wind turbine using load probability, a blade tip swap-out for Cypress turbines from GE, and a wind turbine tower with solar panels installed. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.comWind Energy O&M Australia Conference – https://www.windaustralia.com Allen Hall: Welcome to Power Up, the Uptime podcast focused on the new, hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow along with me, Alan Hall, and idasaur’s Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future. Well, our first idea is from Vestas, and it is an idea where they’re monitoring the Turbine tower loads for natural vibration frequency, and you say, well, why would you want to do that? Well, of course, as things change on a wind turbine, maybe something goes wrong. Those frequencies of vibration are going to change, and the system will detect those and say, hey, something is wrong. Here’s probably what it is, which is a smart way of detecting failure modes in the turbine fill. But the other thing it could do, is push the turbine harder if it’s not being driven hard enough and creating enough power. Philip Totaro: Yeah, and this is actually really fascinating because, again, this might not sound like the world’s most revolutionary, innovation, but it’s a practical solution to a challenge that is faced out there in the field when you’re operating a wind farm. And specifically, in addition to just monitoring the, the tower loads and vibration over time, they have the option to monitor the max extreme load in relation to the original design load limit and readjust that max extreme load value over time as there’s an evolution of the, the. Mechanical performance of, of the turbine. And that to me is, is really clever way of approaching this challenge of having additional safety factor. Or as we see in the United States where turbines get run a lot harder. Than they were potentially designed for. Sometimes because companies are trying to maximize their production tax, credit revenue. This is a way for a company like Vestus to keep an eye on whether or not they’re exceeding a. Safety criteria, or by how much are you exceeding a safety criteria of, the design load limit versus the max extreme load limit, which will necessarily change over time. As components wear and, and as the tower sees certain load cases on it. So I, I like this one a lot. I think, again, this is a really practical and clever thing. It might not be, or sound like the world’s most revolutionary. Invention ever, but I, I like stuff like this. This is a really great one. Joel Saxum: I think it’s a functional way of ensuring the safety and operation of the turbine. Right. The, the ability to adjust and to understand what kind of loads are being sensed and of course, When we talk about load changes in turbines, it’s every component is completely different, right? The loads in the blades and fatigue loads over time and what can be and can’t be exerted on them. To, to look, like a 20 year old blade is a lot different than a one year old blade and a 20 year old piece of drivetrain is a lot different than a 20, a one year old piece of drivetrain. So adjusting those load limits by calculation and understanding as the turbine ages and operations change. It’s something that should actually absolutely be done. So I’m, I’m with Phil. I think this is a good one. Allen Hall: Our next idea is from G. E. in Spain. And G. E. is noted for their two piece blades. Well, the, the issue with the two piece blade is you want to replace the tip, you have to physically bend it. Get a crane up there and remove the tip. Well, this patent allows the blade tip to be lifted and just, and drop with a cable running through the center of the blade. So it’s sort of a unique way of dropping in a damaged blade tip and putting a new blade tip on. It has a sort of a coupling mechanism to carry the loads. But Phil, this is a really slick idea. If you’re going to do a two piece blade, the reason you do that, so you can swap out the tip. You need a way to do without involving a crane. Philip Totaro: Yeah, and, and look, single blade swap outs, an idea that’s been around for like 12 or 13 years or so and has been commercially tested and is commercially used by a few service companies and, and even EPC contractors when they’re doing an initial blade install, they, if they don’t happen to have a crane, they might be able to do the installation of a third blade by using uh, either a turbine based crane or a ground based crane with a winch system that allows you to hook up this harness that’ll, that’ll suck the blade up into the onto the hub. Now, this invention is for swapping out the tip, which is kind of an interesting use case on a GE Cypress blade, wherein if they happen to have either, let’s say, lightning damage, or some other kind of tip related issue they can literally debolt the I don’t know that they successfully explained how that happens, by the way. How you get down into the blade deep enough to be able to, unbind the, the joint in there to be able to, to get the tip off. But once you’ve, once you’ve unbinded Unbolted this this tip, doing a quote unquote, single blade swap out with just the tip portion is is certainly a unique approach. So, assuming that they can resolve some of these other operational challenges and like how you actually, implement this and from a practical standpoint, I think this is, this is interesting. But like we’ve talked about on, Power Up and the Uptime Winnergy podcast before, not everybody’s using a two piece blade and not everybody’s going to use a two piece blade. So whether or not this patented innovation gets used, universally, we’ll, we’ll have to see. Joel Saxum: I like anything that can be done without a crane in the wind industry. Without a traditional crane, right? You have the lift draw, the lift works, those guys doing certain things, but something that can be done maintenance wise that traditionally would have taken a crane that you can’t, or that you don’t have to? Fantastic idea, right? The two piece blades are built for a couple reasons. The main one being logistics and transportation. But the second one is, is that idea that Phil has talked, that talked a little bit about, about the idea behind operations and maintenance of, hey, tip’s got bad leading edge erosion or a bad lightning damage or something, boom, just swap the tip out. It makes sense from a practical standpoint, however, have we seen it actually happen in the field? Not yet, to my knowledge if anybody has done these things. Please get a hold of us so we can learn a little bit more about it. But yeah, there’s some challenges there because you’re gonna have to probably either use a lift truck to get people up to the joint to remove the they put a seal around it and some other things and, but once, once you get past that, the ability to swap that tip out without a crane is, could be, co...
Transcribe →Suzlon’s Record Quarter, Wind O&M Australia, Critical Minerals in US
Nov 12, 202400:39:50Tap to summarizeThis week, Allen Hall and Joel Saxum explore Suzlon Energy’s record-breaking quarter, featuring a 5.1 GW order book and 96% earnings increase. They detail plans for the Wind Energy O&M Australia conference in Melbourne, aimed at sharing global technical expertise. Allen and Joel discuss the game-changing discovery of America’s largest lithium deposit in Arkansas, and spotlight Michigan’s Isabella Wind Farm project, which powers major automotive companies while generating substantial community benefits. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.comWind Energy O&M Australia Conference – https://www.windaustralia.com Allen Hall: Well, Joel, we just don’t seem to have the luck of some people, I’m telling you. Because a gentleman down in North Carolina found a 20 bill laying on the ground outside of a gas station and used it to buy, of all things, a scratch off lottery ticket. And that ticket was worth one million dollars. Joel Saxum: You know, Allen, sometimes they say, you gotta play to win. And if someone, if some, by some luck of chance, you get 20 and it’s not, you’re playing with the house’s money, then. I think that, uh, maybe we need to just keep our heads on the ground a little bit more. Allen Hall: He had the opportunity to buy all kinds of lottery tickets. I don’t know if you go into a gas station in North Carolina, there’s several kinds there. He couldn’t find the one that he wanted. So he ended up buying just one that seemed okay. And that was the winning one. So if he had chosen the ticket that they had, the ticket that he wanted, he wouldn’t be a million dollars richer. Now, the real funny thing about this is they asked this gentleman, well, what are you going to do with all that money? And it says, we are going to head straight to Golden Corral and eat everything they’ve got. So he’s gonna spend like 40 bucks worth of it? It’s hard to spend a million dollars at Golden Corral. But, however, I, it did force me to take a look at the dessert menu. Cause that’s one thing about Golden Corral is that they have a lot of desserts. It’s like, it’s a big dessert bar thing. And If you, I will read some of these to you and go, wow, okay, this is not bad, right? Chocolate dip marshmallow skewers. Come on. I’m out on that. No way. So they have cakes and pies. They always have cakes and pies. All right. All right. Right? Pumpkin pie, peanut butter pie. The Sweet Home Carolina cake, which is popular. Uh, carrot cake. Are you a carrot cake fan? I am, but it has to have good frosting. It’s gotta be a cream cheese frosting. Otherwise, I’m out. Carrot cake is an acquired taste. I think it’s an American taste, weirdly enough. Now, do you want it with walnuts? No walnuts. No nuts. I want it clean and clear. And I have had one with a little bit of ginger in it that was Joel Saxum: really good. Allen Hall: Oh, the ginger is terrific in carrot cake. I have to admit, I’m a recent convert on that one because I thought, there’s no reason to put ginger into a cake. What are we doing? But it is quite good. So this, this gentleman is going to be a golden corral quite a while. I wonder what the calorie intake is going to be in his life for the next couple of years. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Halladay, and I’ll be joined by my Uptime co hosts after these news headlines. Vattenfall has expanded its landfill ban to include more wind turbine components beyond blades. The Swedish developer will now prohibit landfilling of permanent magnets, nacelle canopies, and nose cones from its wind farms. The company aims to achieve 100 percent recycling of these components by 2030, with a particular focus on recovering the rare earth elements from permanent magnets. This latest initiative builds upon Vattenfall’s 2021 blade recycling commitment and is already being integrated into current wind farm decommissioning contracts. The strategy underscores the company’s dedication to reducing dependency on newly mined materials while decreasing environmental and social impacts associated with Rare Earth Mining. In Texas, RWE’s Champion Wind Farm will power Rivian’s DC fast charging Adventure network through a new 15 year purchase power agreement. The 127 megawatt facility is undergoing repowering with 41 upgraded Siemens Gamesa turbines and six new 3. 1 megawatt units. Once completed by mid 2025, the wind farm will generate enough electricity to power nearly one billion miles of renewable driving annually. The project demonstrates innovative circular economy practices with decommissioned turbine blades being repurposed through regen fiber for use in construction materials. These recycled fibers will be incorporated into concrete To enhance strength and durability, extending infrastructure lifespan. Belgium is advancing the world’s first artificial energy island with a 650 million euro green loan from the European Investment Bank. The Princess Elizabeth Island, to be constructed 45 kilometers offshore, will channel 3. 5 gigawatts of wind power, enough for over 3 million households. The project scheduled for completion between 2024 and 2027 will feature both high voltage DC and AC infrastructure. Foundation caissons are already under construction in the Netherlands. Additional funding includes 100 million euros through the European Recovery and Resilience Facility. GE Vernova has launched an online store for wind turbine components in Latin America, featuring over 30, 000 items. The digital marketplace aims to reduce turbine downtime during maintenance and repairs across the region, where GE currently operates more than 3, 400 onshore wind turbines. The platform follows successful implementation in the United States and Europe, allowing wind farm owners to purchase spare parts and essential items in a single transaction. And Fred Olsen of 1848’s Floating Wind Foundation, Brunel, has received DNV Basic Design certification. The semi submersible steel foundation features a modular design with two forward leaning towers, and a single point mooring system. The design is specifically engineered for the North Sea conditions and aims to utilize existing global fabrication capacity. The Foundation’s weather veining function enables a passive ballast system that continuously optimizes its position relative to wind thrust force. The certification validates comprehensive design methodologies for primary steel design, secondary steel mooring, manufacturing, assembly. Integration, logistics, transportation, and installation protocols. That’s this week’s top news stories. After the break, I’ll be joined by my co host, the chief commercial officer of WeatherGuard Lightning Tech, Joel Saxom. Lightning is an act of God, but lightning damage is not. Actually, it’s very predictable and very preventable. Strike Tape is a lightning protection system upgrade for wind turbines made by WeatherGuard. It dramatically improves the effectiveness of the factory LPS, so you can stop worrying about lightning damage. Visit weatherguardwind. com to learn more, read a case study, and schedule a call today. Allen Hall: Well, Joel, we have been to a number of conferences, including SkySpecs annual forum. And there’s so much O& M activity at the moment, all over the world, it’s insane. Yeah, Joel Saxum: and you know, the problem is, is getting the right people in the right room to talk about it. Like you said, the Sky Specs Forum, to be honest with you, okay, it’s a private event, it’s like invite only, right? But that’s one of the best events I’ve been to, uh, from a knowledge sharing standpoint, in the wind industry ever. And to me, the reason being is, is you have all the people that are dealing with the same problems that have their own solutio...
Transcribe →DOF Acquires Maersk, Brookfield Invests in UK Offshore
Nov 11, 202400:08:14Tap to summarizeThis week on News Flash, Allen, Joel and Phil discuss DOF Group’s acquisition of Maersk Supply Service, TotalEnergies’ growth in the renewables market, and Brookfield’s acquisition of minority stake in four offshore wind farms owned by Ørsted. Welcome to Uptime News Flash. Industry news lightning fast. Your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, and Phil Totaro discuss the latest deals, mergers, and alliances that will shape the future of wind power. News Flash is brought to you by IntelStor. For market intelligence that generates revenue, visit www.intelstor.com. Allen Hall: Joel, Norwegian offshore supply vessel company Dof Group has completed the acquisition of Denmark based Maersk Supply Service, which will be renamed Dof Denmark. The deal expands Dof’s fleet to 78 modern offshore and subsea vessels, including 65 owned vessels, with the addition of Maersk Supply Service’s 22 vessels. The combined company now has a workforce of more than 5, 000 employees and will continue offering integrated offshore services for both oil and gas and the growing offshore wind market. So you’re seeing big players here, Joel, in offshore wind support. This is one of them. Joel Saxum: Yeah. From my past in offshore oil and gas, DOF is, they’re in on every contract, right? They’re a big company. They do things well and they do it right. Norwegians in the offshore world, you’re always, you always look at them like the cream of the crop. Whenever they show up on site, they’re expensive. And there’s some specialists sometimes. But they are, they’re always getting things done correctly. That’s why people value them no matter where you are in the world. And DoF is a country, or a company, that values them. Full of all Norwegians. So, them grabbing Maersk, of course. The Norway Denmark connection of cousins or depending on which side you’re talking to. Little brother, big brother. It’s a, it’s an easy tie up. Maersk, of course. A fantastic company with a lot of assets running all over the world. But also looking to you never know what they’re going to do with this capital. Diversify a little bit try some other things. So Dof grabbing Maersk makes absolute sense to me. And if it was one company that would be buying some big chunks of Maersk assets as in Maersk supply service, Dof would be the one. Allen Hall: Total Energies has reported significant growth in its renewable energy operations for Q3 of 2024 with total power production reaching 29. 7 terawatt hours. Up 17 percent year over year. The company’s renewable power production increased by 45 percent to 19. 6 terawatt hours with net power generation capacity up 36 percent to 21. 6 gigawatts. Total energies reached a gross renewable capacity of 24. 2 gigawatts with solar dominating at 15. 6 gigawatts followed by onshore wind. At 5. 9 gigawatts. Phil, Total Energy is just becoming a huge player in renewables and the growth in the Q3 is amazing. Philip Totaro: Yeah, and what’s really fascinating is that with all the other oil and gas companies pulling away and pulling back from Investments in renewables totals remained committed to it and has always been one of the bigger, oil and gas and utility companies in Europe besides maybe, stack craft event fall to, well, you could say Orsted maybe but, they, they’ve remained committed to a renewables portfolio and have, based on their presence in the utility business around the world even in, as far foreign places as, as some of the Asia Pacific islands they’ve, they’ve had and own and operate renewable assets for, for more than a decade, going on, 15, almost 20 years at this point. So it’s, it’s good to see that they’re. Not only committed, but they’re actually seeing results because one of the reasons why a lot of these other oil and gas companies pulled out is because they were rationalizing that, hey, we can get better financial returns through oil and gas investments. Totaro’s making a go of it with renewables and actually turning a profit on renewables, so that’s great. Joel Saxum: I think Total did a really smart move when they started the Total E Ren group a few years back. And it was like, we’re going to go into renewables, we’re going to do it with, or in a portion, we’re going to do it with this Total E Ren group. And what you saw develop was, of course, they watched it, they played with it, and they made sure they got it right. And then Total Energies went back and just grabbed the whole thing, absorbed it as part of Total Energies back in, I think it was mid 2023 ish. So over, a year ago, year and a half ago. So, kind of a good strategy there that I’d like to see some more people play out with you’re able to manage risk that way, throw some capital over here, take a look at how it goes, see if it works, and then if it works well, as they did execute on Total E Ren, well, boom, grab it absorb it as part of the the parent company, and move forward, so now you see the, they’re yielding those fruits from that little farming experiment. Allen Hall: Brookfield has signed an agreement to acquire 12. 5 percent minority stake in four UK offshore wind farms owned by Orsted, marking their first investment in UK offshore wind. The transaction, valued at 1. 7 1, Hornsea 2, Walney Extension and Burbo Bank Extension projects, with a combined capacity of 3. 5 gigawatts. Orsted will retain a 37 percent ownership interest and continue to oversee maintenance and operation of the wind power plants. Now, Phil, Orsted has been making a number of transactions lately. It looks like this one is there to improve their performance. Their pocketbook a little bit. Philip Totaro: Yeah, certainly, because they, given some of the pullback from markets like the U. S. and some of the losses that they took and impairments they took from those projects, I think raising a bit of capital was necessary. Obviously, they got. An equity stake in the company from Econore a few weeks back. And with this investment by Brookfield, it’s, it’s interesting because these four assets, you would normally have attracted any kind of Typical kind of financial investor through an asset rotation, so it’s, it’s not uncommon to, to sell off a minority stake in, in these assets, but the timing of it is, is noteworthy, so as we just talked about, capital raise and, and cash in the pocket, that’s good, but the fact that it’s Brookfield who has made a concerted effort to entrenched themselves in the UK onshore wind market and a little bit in, in the solar world. That’s sending a strong signal that they are prepared to start opening their pocketbook as well for stakes in other projects potentially in the UK or elsewhere throughout throughout Europe where they haven’t actually had a presence yet. So Brookfield’s not done, a ton of investments in, German or Dutch or, or Belgian or Danish offshore wind at this point. So this could be, the beginning of that process. Joel Saxum: When you think about Brookfield, the, over the last five to 10 years, they haven’t quietly become a player. They’ve very loudly become a large player. And I think it’s great to see that amount of capital being placed into the market and used for good, right? They did the Deriva big acquisition the other year among others. And when you look at the, kind of the flag flying here, Horn C1, Bank, those are big time wind farms over in the North Atlantic on Oersted’s portfolio. So. Brookfield making some moves. Great to see that happening and the capital being reinvested. And it’ll help Orsted, right? Orsted needs a little bit of that black ink on the, on the sheet. So, kudos to the deal and I’d like to see more of it.
Transcribe →R&D Test Systems Builds Massive 25 MW Main Bearing Test Facility
Nov 7, 202400:21:04Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Peter Winther, Key Account Manager at R&D Test Systems, discusses the construction of the world’s most powerful main bearing test facility at the Lindø Offshore Renewable Center in Denmark. Winther provides fascinating insights into the engineering challenges and scale of this groundbreaking 25-megawatt facility, including details about its massive concrete foundation and the specialized testing capabilities designed to simulate decades of wear in just months. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.comWind Energy O&M Australia Conference – https://www.windaustralia.com Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Today we’re joined by Peter Winther, Key Account Manager at R& D Test Systems, a company that’s revolutionizing how we test wind turbine components. R& D Test Systems is currently building the world’s most powerful main bearing test facility at the Lindo Offshore Renewable Center in Denmark. They have already delivered the largest halt test bench for nacelle testing at the same location and now these facilities are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in wind turbine testing with capabilities up to 25 megawatts. Peter brings extensive experience in large scale test system development and has been instrumental in multiple groundbreaking projects at LORC. Peter, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. All right, so you’re building a 25 megawatt main bearing test system. Facility. That’s big. That’s very big. So just give it a sense of scale. How big is a 25 megawatt bearing? Peter Winther: The bearing itself, I would guess the inside diameter is more than four meters in a typical bearing constellation. The test bench on the other high, on the other side is also relatively big to be able to break that bearing or bearings, depending on what you’re testing. The test bench itself pretty big. First of all, features a pretty decent size concrete block or foundation at the bottom, which is roundabout 35 meters long. It took 30 hours to cast the whole thing. It was a one continuous process. We had 280 trucks coming in and they were coming in every six minutes. And so we basically took all, I think, concrete production from Fyn, which is the island where Ålensø or the test bench is being realized. And then we had back off plants in case the plant went down because if you start casting, you can’t stop, you need to go ahead. You can’t have a cold joint. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s the foundation itself. An essential thing when you make a foundation like this is also to make sure it cools in the right manner. You can’t just cast it and then go away and then come back in an hour or a week and then all is fine because then you risk not having. The right material properties throughout the foundation. So we had a more than one megawatt cooling system, making sure that the cross-sectional temperatures throughout different cross sec cross-sections and the foundation was right and not too much of a difference, so we didn’t get cracks and creeping and unwanted properties at the end because you, you can’t really get rid of it. Allen Hall: When you take this project on, how many engineering challenges are there? Obviously building the. Concrete Foundation by itself is a massive undertaking. How many, how do you break this down and how many big hurdles are there? We’re Peter Winther: in the lucky position that it’s not, you can say, the first time we’re building a big test rig. It’s the first time we’re building one that should break a 25 megawatt wind turbine main bearing arrangement. So that’s a first. We have some conceptual building blocks, which we of course relied upon, but it’s, the biggest we’ve ever made. So there’s always challenges. And it’s especially challenging when we need to break something very fast that is at the limit of what is possible to manufacture at this point in time. There’s a reason why they’re challenged with making 15 or 25 megawatt turbines or whatever they’re saying they can manufacture now. It’s because the, you need also the technology to make bearings sufficiently big enough machining. that you can machine the whole thing. And we need To break something that is intended for 20, 25 years of operation, we need to try to break that in 6 to 12 months. So it’s a bit of an engineering undertaking to figure out, okay, how do we make our test bench capable of doing that 24 7, also for 20 years. Allen Hall: I’m curious because you’ve already built a 25 megawatt HALT, Highly Accelerated Lifecycle Testing. At the LORC. And that’s there. So what was the need for a separate facility for the main bearing? What about main bearings makes the requirements a little bit different? Peter Winther: You can say in some areas the the 25 megawatt halt, It’s used for validation testing, so that is actually for testing the entire drivetrain, meaning the DUT is an abbreviation we use, device under testing in this case it’s the nacelle. And for the 25 megawatt HALT test bench, we have already commissioned and there’s an operation over there. It’s also Test the gearbox and the generator which mean we need to be able to apply a pretty significant amount of torque. Also, you wanna stress test the gearbox. Ergo you want to have a lot of torque for the main bearing for the main bearing test bench. That is not the case. You only have to overcome the friction in the bearings because they don’t see the torque. The torque goes through the main shaft to the gearbox at the back end, in case of a geared solution, and if not, then it’s directly to the generator, but that’s where, why the bearings are there. So it is actually, It’s overdoing it to test main bearings on the 25 megawatt Holt, because then you pay for a huge direct drive motor in this case, which you don’t need Allen Hall: in the test. That makes total sense. Okay. And the issues that the industry is having with main bearings is pretty evident and onshore right now there’s a lot of issues in the United States at the moment. But when we get offshore, that becomes even more critical as 25 megawatt turbines going to repair that gets increasingly difficult. So this is a really key piece of equipment. For offshore wind, isn’t this probably the linchpin to success out on the ocean? It’s at Peter Winther: least very difficult to change if something goes wrong. Let’s put it like, everything is difficult to change offshore, but the main bearing arrangement, everything is attached to that in some way, more or less. It’s the connection between the rotating part and the tower. To some extent, so you need to take off a lot of stuff if you are to change the main bearing arrangement or the main bearings. So yeah, there’s a lot of challenges th...
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