Afleveringen
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South Korea's Jeonnam 1 Wind Farm enters commercial operation, Norway launches its first floating wind tender, Denmark announces 3 GW of offshore wind possibility, and The Netherlands delays tendering for two wind sites.
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!
Allen Hall: Leading off the week, Norway has launched the first part of its long awaited, inaugural floating wind tender, offering subsidies to the winners. Bidders will be awarded rights to develop commercial projects of up to 500 megawatts in capacity at the Utsira Nord site off the country's southwest coast. The winners will have two years to mature the projects before competing in an auction for subsidies in 2028 to 2029 to be provided as a direct grant. Norway's Energy Minister said Utsira Nord is an important first step in the development of commercial floating offshore wind development on the Norwegian continental shelf. Norway has agreed to cap subsidies for Utsira Nord at 35 billion Norwegian crowns equal to about [00:01:00] $3.7 billion.
Over in Denmark, Denmark has announced the launch of offshore wind tenders with a capacity of three gigawatts, enough to power approximately 3 million homes. According to the Danish Energy Ministry, the tenders set to open in autumn of this year, we'll cover two areas in the North Sea. One in the water separating Denmark and Sweden.
The initiative comes with the potential subsidy of up to 55.2 billion Danish crowns equal to about $8.32 billion over a span of 20 years. Last year, Denmark halted its ongoing offshore wind tenders to reevaluate its subsidy model after failing to attract any bids and what was supposed to be its largest offshore wind auction.
The Danish Energy Ministry clarified that bid prices and electricity price developments will dictate whether further subsidies are necessary or if the state might even generate revenue from the projects. And in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has [00:02:00] delayed tendering for two offshore wind sites.
Uh, companies were scheduled to compete for three permits in October this year for construction and operation of new wind farms in the North Sea. However, two of the sites will now be tendered later, just one site. Nederwiek 1-A has been designated for the next offshore wind tunnel with the capacity of about one gigawatt.
For the Nederwiek 1 Wind Farm, the tender criteria have been adjusted to improve the business case for offshore wind. The Ministry of Climate and Green Growth said it is taking these measures to make the upcoming tender round more attractive and to allow the construction of offshore wind farms to proceed at a realistic pace.
The Nederwiek 1-A wind farm will supply about three and a 5% of Dutch electricity consumption once completed. And in South Korea, south Korea's, Jeonnam 1 Wind Farm has officially entered commercial operation. The 96 megawatt project is owned by a joint venture between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and SK Innovations [00:03:00] ENS, the installation of 10 Siemens ga MEA 10 megawatt Direct Drive turbines was completed in December of last year. Commissioning followed earlier this year. Copenhagen Offshore Partners, the exclusive offshore wind development partner to CIP Co-LED project development activities for Jeonnam 1 on behalf of the project owners. This project Mercks the first large scale offshore wind project in Korea led by the private sector.
That's this week's top. News stories. Stay tuned for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast tomorrow. -
Avient and Tight Line Composites have developed a carbon pultrusion technology without the need for peel ply. This method improves bond strength by 8%, cuts waste, reduces labor costs, and simplifies manufacturing.
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!
Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.
Allen Hall: Andrew and Brad, welcome to the show. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Well, we're gonna start off by talking about carbon protrusions, because that's the focus of your technology, title IX composites, and there's been some recent advancements that are really fascinating, but I, I kind of wanna go back a minute because carbon pull protrusions are the future, even though we're still making some fiberglass blades that'll have a limited lifespan.
We're gonna be moving to carbon protrusions because the strength and the weight. And the cost, simplicity of it, uh, just makes carbon protrusions the future. And Tightline Composites has been key in that mold of making these, uh, carbon planks and getting 'em out to industry. I. But one of the big problems with any sort of carbon plank product is it [00:01:00] usually has a peel ply.
And Andrew, you wanna talk about what that peel ply does and why it's used and why we need it.
Andrew Davis: You really need that surface energy created by removing the peel ply to, to get an effective bond as you're building your spark cap. And so for years, this has just been considered a necessary evil. Uh, in terms of creating, creating that effective bond.
And, and that's, that's the world we've lived in for the last 10 years.
Allen Hall: And a peel ply for those who are not deep into the composite industry. Peel, ply is a removable. Ply a fabric that's that's applied over the carbon on the outside and it's kind of thicker and it has, uh, this kind of rough and surface.
So when you build the protrusion, you got these two layers of this peel ply on either side, and it travels with the product. So as, uh, tight line sends out product, these, these peel plys go with it. [00:02:00] And ideally when they get to the factory, the, the people on the floor. Pull this peel play off and it's not fun to peel off one and two, it's kind of invisible.
So you can forget that it's there and install it in ablaze. And Joel, you have seen that in the field. You've seen protrusions where they have the ply still attached.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, it's, it's like, um, Alan, we saw one of the other day too, where it was like there was still a coating on a down conductor, right? So like, if you.
If you try to embed this product, the, the idea behind peel and the peel ply is you peel the peel ply, and now you have a prepped surface that can be chemically and mechanically bonded to easier or in, in, in, in a much better way, as designed. So if you forget to pull that off, now you have a structural element inside the PLA or inside of whatever you may be building in composites.
That doesn't have the ability to bond properly to that protrusion, to that carbon plank or to that glass plank. Uh, and if that's the case, you lose, I can't [00:03:00] put a number to it. Right. But you lose an immense
Andrew Davis: amount of structural strength. And Joel, just to underline your point, we've heard from customers who will remain nameless that it is, it, it happens that, that this will get caught on scan.
Uh, when the blade is completely done, and then the entire blade has to be scrapped. There's no, there's no fixing it. -
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Blade Repair Academy in Tennessee offers comprehensive blade repair training programs for technicians. Alfred Crabtree, Founder and CEO, and Sheryl Weinstein from SkySpecs highlight the importance of technician competency, hands-on experience, and standardization in the wind industry.
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!
Allen Hall: Alfred and Sheryl, welcome to the program.
Sheryl Weinstein: Thanks.
Allen Hall: So we're in Dunlap, Tennessee, not too far from Nashville, uh, and also close to. Chattanooga Chattanooga, and we're in the Smoky Mountains ish region.
We're
Alfred Crabtree: no, we're, we're, you could consider it Appalachia for sure. Sure. Okay. Uh, we're on the, in the valley called the Seche Valley, uh, which splits the Cumberland Plateau. So we're, we're in a valley and we have hills a thousand feet above us here. Yeah. Either way. It's beautiful.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. It's a great drive in here.
Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. It's a unique place. Yeah.
Allen Hall: And we're at Blade Repair Academy, which, uh, if you're not familiar with Blade Repair Academy, you should be. Uh, because a lot of the good training that happens in the United States actually happens to play repair, repair Care blade, repair academy. Uh, yeah, it's been a long week at uh, OMS this week and we got the introduction today.
This is the first time we've been on site. That's right. And, uh, we wanted to see all the cool things that are happening [00:01:00] here. And it really comes down to technician training competency. Working with blades, working with tools, knowing what you're doing up tower when you're on the blade, which is hard to train.
It's really hard to train, and both you and Cheryl have a ton of experience being up on blades and repairing blades and scarfing and doing all the critical features that have to happen to make blades work today. It's a tough training regimen. There's a lot to it and a lot of subtleties that don't always get transferred over from teachers to students unless you have.
Done it for a number of years. You wanna kind of just walk through the philosophy of Blade Repair Academy?
Alfred Crabtree: Yes. The, uh, you've, you've outlined quite well some of the issues. The environment where we work is very hard to take a ti the time to put somebody through a training regimen. We're so constrained by weather windows and then.
You know, even if the weather's nice, lightning can come, wind [00:02:00] speeds can cut off your workday. So production, production, production is what's important. And Cheryl and I both come from the rope access method. And in the rope access method, 95% of the time you're up there alone. And if you're up there and you're producing, you've got your blinders on.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Alfred Crabtree: And you're not ready to share with somebody else what to do.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Alfred Crabtree: With the basket or platform, you can have two even three people up on Blade, but it still has all these constraints of get the job done, get the job done. There's a lot of stress up there. And having the bandwidth to take on new information or to challenge some preconceived notions or try, that's not the place to do it.
So knowing that. Blade Repair Academy is built so that we have an environment that simulates all of the up tower stuff without being up tower. And you're gonna have the time you need to invest in your learning without consequences. Right. So it's a very much a [00:03:00] about creating the right environment to uptake the new information. -
This week we discuss uncertainty surrounding the IRA bill, GEV Wind Power's acquisition by Certek, and the sale of an LM Wind Power factory to Vestas. Plus Blackstone is in talks to acquire TXNM Energy, pointing to increase data center demand. Register for the next SkySpecs webinar!
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!
You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
Allen Hall: Well, welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, Joel and Rosemary.
It's been an exciting week. A lot going on in a, in America in regards to what's gonna happen with the IRA bill. Nobody knows the, it's like, uh, as tense, as tense can be. You, you don't even really see a lot of articles about it at the moment. Everybody's just in, in kind of hold mode, like, hold your breath and hope something bad doesn't happen.
Joel Saxum: I think the interesting thing there is when something like this pops up, you would tend to see a lot of LinkedIn opinions and you're not. I think a lot of, a lot of people are kind of moved. They're kind of, [00:01:00] nobody's really saying too much. We're kind of waiting to see,
Allen Hall: yeah, waiting for that spicy take.
Usually from Rosemary, but she hasn't written that article yet. It must be coming. Rosemary.
Rosemary Barnes: Well, I haven't been writing a lot of anything on LinkedIn recently. Um, yeah, a bit, I'm bit busy. I got, I got really sick of, uh, LinkedIn as well when I, I over posted for a few months and. I got over it. Started, started to hate it when people would, would write a comment on my post.
Yeah. And I'm like, just stop talking to me. Go away. And I'm like, yeah, you were the one who made this post. So you That was my, that was my sign to, um, yeah, to, to move away for a little while. Yeah. But it's also, uh, I mean, you know, like I, it's not a topic that I am an expert in. 'cause obviously I'm, you know, I don't live there, so I'm not, yeah.
I have. I have heard a few podcasts talking about it. Um, there's that one. Um, uh, do you guys listen to that podcast? That's, it's like [00:02:00] the original Energy gang crew, but none of them are on the Energy Gang anymore. Now they've got their own new podcast. It's like Dig Ashore. And, um, the other two, sorry, I don't, I don't remember their, their names.
Joel Saxum: They just started
Allen Hall: that one.
Rosemary Barnes: It's called, maybe it's called Open Circuit.
Allen Hall: Oh, maybe I have, yes, I know what you're talking about.
Rosemary Barnes: It, it's really good. It's very, uh, it's too American Central for me to listen to every episode, but for, you know, Americans then, I'm sure that that's, uh, that's good. Um, they, they speculate a fair bit about it.
Um, and also the, um, podcast that has Jesse Jenkins on it, which is called Shift Key, um, they talk about it a bit as well. So I have, I have heard a fair few takes on it, but, um. Yeah, I don't know. I'm, I'm waiting to see, to, to be honest, as a non-American, I've just written off American Wind Power for the next few years and, uh, you know, just like, wait, wait, wait a little while to like, uh, get started again.
But it, you know, it doesn't affect me so much. I don't, I, I don't have [00:03:00]projects in America. Um, so I. Not affected day to day,
Joel Saxum: a and a half a dozen part load leads that I was in a hand, -
This week Allen discusses the European Investment Bank's major wind farm investment in Romania, the financial performance of German energy giant RWE, and the potential cancellation of Equinor's Empire Wind Project due to regulatory challenges.
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!
Welcome to Uptime News. Flash Industry News Lightning fast. Your host, Allen Hall, shares the renewable industry news you may have missed.
Allen Hall: Okay, starting off the week over in Romania, the European investment bank is investing 30 million euros in a major wind farm project in Romania. The poster two project located near the Black Sea, will have a capacity of up to 400 megawatts.
That's enough to supply over 1.4 million Romanian households for an entire year. The EIB is partnering with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners on the project with the total investment expected to be in excess of 500 million Euros.
Construction is due to start later this year and it will bolster the European Union's push for climate neutrality by mid-century.
German energy Giant RWE, reported an adjusted EBITDA of 1.3 billion euros [00:01:00] for the first three months of 2025. Adjusted net income amounted to 0.5 billion euros as expected earnings were below the level of the same quarter last year.
This decline was primarily attributable to normalization of income in the flexible generation segment and a weaker start to the year in the trading business. The commissioning of new offshore wind farms, solar plants, and battery storage facilities had a positive impact on the company's performance.
RWE commissioned 600 megawatts of new generation capacity in the first quarter alone. The company, currently has new plants with a combined capacity of 11.2 gigawatts under construction. Michael Mueller, chief financial officer of RWE, stated that they were reaffirming their full year earnings forecast after a solid start to the year.
He noted, that the company is making great progress in expanding its portfolio in a value accretive manner. Construction projects remain on schedule [00:02:00] and on budget.
Over in Norway, Equinor is warning it may cancel its Empire Wind Project off New York's coast.
Following a Trump administration stop work order, the company is spending $50 million weekly to keep the project afloat while awaiting resolution. Molly Morris, president of Equinor's US renewable energy arm, describe the situation as unsustainable. The Interior Department led by Secretary Doug Bergham ordered Equinor to halt construction
on April 17th. The order cited information suggesting the Biden administration may have approved the project without a thorough environmental analysis. The stop work order stemmed from a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
However, Equinor says it has not seen the report and is not aware of the specific concerns raised. The project represents a significant investment for Equinor. The company has already invested $2.7 billion in the [00:03:00] Empire Wind Facility.
Currently, 11 vessels with 100 workers remain on board, sitting on the water, waiting for an order to resume work. That's this week's top. New stories. Stay tuned tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. -
Will Howell discusses Armor Edge's thermoformed polycarbonate leading edge protection for wind turbine blades. Their solution helps to mitigate erosion, enhance aerodynamic performance, and extend blade life.
Allen Hall: Will welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. So Joel and I have heard about Armor Edge for a couple, couple of years. Yeah. You're based in Scotland. Yeah. And we haven't seen you much in the United States and I haven't physically touched it.
And of course we're sort of tangible. We gotta play with the the product. So this is the first time now we're here. Gotten to see the product. Yeah. Yeah. You wanna describe really what this product is for a leading edge protection?
Will Howell: Yeah, absolutely. So we are different to other LEPs out there on the market.
And really that was the whole point of our design evolution, was to try to overcome some of the traditional downfalls of some of the other LEDs that have been prevalent on blades. So. Um, yeah, we've been around since, um, well about eight, eight years now. And we've been out in the market installed since 2020.
So we're, as you mentioned, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland is a kind of a base. So our first installs were all offshore, north North Sea, so offshore, Denmark, offshore [00:01:00] Germany. Very harsh, harsh environments. But we wanted to, to design an an LEP that was, um, really. Overcoming some of the traditional pitfalls.
So for us, that is the ease of installation, the longevity of the material, and also the a EP benefits that we, that we see. Um, as you see for the sample we have in front of us here today, it's uh, only a small piece that we take to show just to, to, to show our clients and customers. Um, but typically the shields are 850 mil mil long.
Uh, they're made of a, a custom thermoformed, um, polycarbonate, a SA blend. We get the material formed into sheets, and then we drape that sheet over custom design molds that are tailored for the specific blade types. And that's how we get this perfect fit on every different blade that we're, that we're, um, that we have out, out there.
So let's talk about the installation. Yeah.
Joel Saxum: Because that's [00:02:00] a, that's a really important one for me because on the podcast we always wanna talk about what problems we're, what problems we're solving. Sure. What problems you guys are helping the industry with. And one of the biggest ones with LAP, and it doesn't matter what the product really is, if it's tapes, if it's coatings, if if it's installed wrong, it's not gonna last.
Yep. Yep. That's, that's the thing. So what have you guys done with this to help the technicians in the field to make it easier to make it. Last I want you to put on the line.
Will Howell: Yeah. I mean, I guess there's a lot of technology in terms of the performance of the, of the product. Um, both the adhesive and the material itself.
But predominantly this was designed for rope access in the North Sea, so it had to be a product that the guys were. Able to handle up on, up on rope. Um, it wasn't gonna be affected by climatic conditions as much, um, and would really lead to a faster, but also therefore, a higher quality installation because of the way that it's put on, it's not so much of a artisanal process that some of these other LEPs seem to [00:03:00] suffer from.
We want to. Train our technicians to deliver a high quality installation, but really you don't have to be a master LEP installer to get our, to get our kit on, our kit on Blade. And that's the feedback we've been getting from the technicians is that they find it, uh, easy to handle, easy to apply process, uh, in the field.
Joel Saxum: What does Blade Prep look like before you put it on?
Will Howell: Well, another unique. Facet of the system is because the shields themselves are custom formed from a a semi-rigid material. The leading edge of the shields themselves doesn't confor... -
ONYX Insight's ecoPITCH system prevents catastrophic wind turbine blade failures caused by pitch bearing issues. Forrest French and Martin McLarnon reveal how continuous monitoring and early detection can save wind farms millions.
Contact Martin McLarnon: [email protected]
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!
Allen Hall: ONYX Insight's ecoPITCH monitoring system has become crucial for wind farm operators facing blade root insert failures. These failures start invisibly but can end catastrophically with blades detaching completely. This week we speak with Forrest French Senior Project Engineer, and Martin McLarnon, sales Director for North America at ONYX Insight.
Their ecoPITCH system detects dangerous movements before visible signs appear as Forest notes in the interview. By the time you can get a feeler gauge measurement, it's probably too late. So join us to discover how data-driven monitoring is helping operators make smarter maintenance decisions preventing million dollar disasters and keeping turbines spinning safely.
Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.
Allen Hall: Martin and Forest. Welcome to the [00:01:00] show. Hello. How's it going? Thanks for letting us. Yeah, we're really interested to, to talk to you today just because there's so many blade root issues from pitch bearings and blade bushings or inserts as they're called sometimes, and a number of other issues. And when we talk to operators, what they tell us is, oh, we, you use ecoPITCH.
And they love that system. But I want to, I wanna back up first and talk about what are some of the operators experiencing out there in the field And ecoPITCH system was originally developed to look at pitch bearing problems and forests. What are some of those pitch bearing problems you're seeing out in the field today?
Forrest French: Yeah, so it, it, it's a funny story. It was originally developed for pitch bearing, uh, applications. Um, the industry as a whole started experiencing this root insert issue, so we were able to, we were kind of in a perfect position, right? It was, it was a, it was a [00:02:00] really serendipitous thing that we, we had just developed this product and we could easily pivot.
To measure both the pitch bearing and this root insert issue. Uh, the, the pitch bearing issues are admittedly the, the more difficult, uh, issue, right? To measure. Um, there's, there's some, some great opportunities for value and there's also some really good challenges to come along with that. Um, pitch bearings, uh, they, they don't rotate quickly.
Right. Uh, when, when we talk about typical CMS typical vibration monitoring, you're looking at a very, very fast rotating, uh, shaft or bearing, et cetera, and you're able to pick up on those frequencies as they revolve. You don't get that with a pitch bearing. It's a very slow moving, uh, slewing bearing. Um, so picking up.
Noise through vibration can be very difficult, uh, because again, you don't get that frequency of that [00:03:00] rotation, so you're left with nothing but uh, a bunch of noise. Right. And you're hoping that that noise floor is low enough that you might capture a bit of crunching of cage material or anything like that?
Right. The alternative in what, in what we use ecoPITCH for is it's very simple. We, we point a an inductive displacement sensor right at the pitch bearing itself. Typically the inner ring, depending on the type of turbine. And what we're looking for is any kind of slop or displace... -
Legal battles in Oklahoma continue between the Osage Nation and Enel. Equinor faces offshore wind project hurdles amidst U.S. offshore wind regulatory issues. Plus a rebranding announcement from Deutsche Windtechnik to DWT and a new study painting wind blades red to prevent bird strikes.
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!
You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
Allen Hall: There's more news out of Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma has.
Entered the legal ballot between the wind developer in EL and the Osage nation. It, we all recall on the podcast probably a year ago where the Osage Nation had won a lawsuit with the help of the federal government to take down a big wind farm in north central Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma has filed an amicus brief opposing the immediate removal of the 84 turbines in Osage County.
Now, this is a big deal [00:01:00] because pretty much the last I saw, which is a while ago, the order was that they needed to take down all the turbines and reclaim the land, basically put it back to where it was before the turbines were placed in it. Now the state of Oklahoma is stepping into the mix and they're citing a couple of things.
They're saying that the state of Oklahoma has an interest in property laws and protecting tax revenue. However, Osage doesn't fit into Oklahoma laws. It's not their territory. And meanwhile, the Osage tribe is saying, Hey, this is over and we have mineral rights, and these turbines need to come down.
So this is a kind of a weird spot because Anelle's in the middle of this, now that the state's gotten involved against the federal government, is there a missing link here? Is, this is certain more to this story because it does seem like some wheels are turning at the moment. I think,
Joel Saxum: Phil Allen.[00:02:00]
You guys are very smart, right? But I think we need someone smarter than us to decode this whole thing as far as like maybe a lawyer that can get in there, because Alan, you hit it on the head, Osage tribe and Osage tribe lands do not actually fall under Oklahoma law. They have their own sets of laws, so you have a federal ruling saying that something must happen within, of course, the outlines of the state of Oklahoma, but within the greater outlines of the United States.
But now the state wants to be able to go against the federal ruling to have their own rights recounted for while this, the Oage tribe is saying no, like we've already passed and I think the total bill that NL is gonna was supposed to get stamped, it was like $300 million, which is crazy 'cause it doesn't cost $300 million to remediate 84 turbines.
However. This isn't necessarily a wind turbine take down exercise. This is a mining reclamation exercise after you take the wind turbines down. That's why it costs so much. [00:03:00] So there's a lot of money on the table for nl and now you have the Oklahoma Solicitor General Jerry Gary Gaskins stepping in and saying Hey, we're also getting some kind of tax revenues to the state and things like that from the wind farm.
But I wouldn't think that would go to the state in this case. I would think it would go to the Osage tribe. So I don't understand the state's. The state's position in this.
Phil Totaro: But Phil, do you have any insights on that? Unfortunately, I do not. But what's interesting about it is that you had, -
This episode covers India's ambitious plans to double its wind energy capacity by 2030, the UK's expansion of offshore wind farms, and the US states' legal challenge against President Trump's executive order halting wind energy development.
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!
Allen Hall: Starting the week off in India, India's wind energy sector is investing heavily in capacity and workforce development to double its current 50 gigawatt capacity by 2030. The Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association says they're focusing on technology innovations while advancing the Make in India mission to achieve this ambitious target.
The country already has 18 gigawatts of annual manufacturing capacity for turbines and components. Companies like LAN and zf Windpower produce critical parts locally. Positioning India as a potential global export hub. Renewable sector hiring is expected to grow by 19% this year in India with most workers being young [00:01:00] Indians between 26 and 35 years old.
Over in the uk the UK's Crown estate has approved expansion of high density wind farms on existing seabed leases to support the country's energy transition. Seven projects will increase capacity by 4.7 gigawatts helping Britain towards its target of 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.
Up from the current 15 gigawatts projects include RWE's Ramon two and SSE's and Equinor's Dogger Bank D. The Crown Estate's Marine director Gus Jasper says, this capacity increase program will provide up to 4 million homes with clean energy and decrease the UK's reliance on internationally sourced fossil fuels.
Britain is already the world's second largest offshore wind market after China, though inflation and supply chain issues have challenged the sector recently.
Over in the United States, a coalition of 17 states and Washington [00:02:00]DC has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump's executive order halting wind energy development. The order signed on his first day in office, pauses, approvals, permits, and loans for all wind projects, both offshore and onshore.
New York Attorney General Letitia James leading the coalition argues the directive threatens thousands of good paying jobs and billions in investment while delaying the transition away from fossil fuels. The administration recently ordered Norwegian company Ecuador to halt construction on Empire Wind, one near Long Island, despite the project being 30% complete after a seven year permitting process.
Wind currently provides about 10% of US electricity, making it the nation's largest renewable energy source. The states argued Trump's order contradicts years of bipartisan support for wind energy and his own declaration of quote, a national energy emergency unquote calling for expanded domestic energy production.[00:03:00]
The administration has also suspended funding for floating offshore wind research in Maine and revoked permits for a project in New Jersey. Internationally, other nations are accelerating wind investments with the UK and Canada's Nova Scotia recently announcing major offshore expansion plans. That's this week's top News stories. Tune in tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. -
Nicholas Gaudern, CTO at PowerCurve, discusses the growing focus on data-driven insights in wind turbine operations, emphasizing the importance of laser scans, digital twins, and aerodynamic add-ons for enhancing efficiency and performance.
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!
Allen Hall: Nicholas, welcome back to the podcast. Hi. Thanks Allen. Good to see you again. There's a lot going on in wind right now. Obviously the elections that happy the United States are changing the way that a lot of US based operators are thinking about their turbines and, and particularly their blades.
I've noticed over the last, even just couple of weeks that. Operators and the engineers are paying more attention to what they're actually getting on site.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.
Allen Hall: Instead of, uh, the sort of the full service agreement where, hey, they're under warranty for two years, I don't really need to do anything for a little while approach.
That's changing into, I want to know what arrives on site, what am I getting and what problems are there with these particular blades that I may not know about because they're new to me. Even though these blades, there may be thousands of these blades out in service. Mm-hmm. Me, my company doesn't know.
Yep. How they operate. How they perform, particularly at this, this new site, I'm Repowering or, [00:01:00] or building new. That is a complete shift. From where it was a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. Yeah. And I think the biggest performance piece that people are looking at is aerodynamics, and I'm trying to understand how these blades perform, how they move.
Yes. What kind of loads there are, what kind I expect over the next year or two. And I think they're just becoming now aware of maybe I need to have a game plan.
Nicholas Gaudern: Mm-hmm.
Allen Hall: And I, and that's where power curve comes in, is like in the sense of have a king plan. Understand what these plates are all about. Yeah, yeah.
And try to characterize 'em early rather than later.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly. I think there's been an increased focus on, on data and for operators, as you say, to understand more what they're getting and not necessarily relying on just what they're told. So, uh, I think a nice case study of that is last year we were helping a customer to build a, a digital twin.
Uh, of one of their turbine models that they, that they purchased. So what that involved [00:02:00] is, uh, going to site, doing a laser scan of a blade, understanding geometry, helping them to build up some aerodynamic and structural models of that blade. So then that customer was going to build an AEL model themselves of that turbine so that they could run load calculations.
They could look at, uh, site specific, uh, changes that could be relevant to that turbine's configuration or how they operated it. And this isn't really something that you saw a lot of, uh, a few years ago, but I think it's great that operators, particularly when they have a larger engineering capacity, are starting to get into that game.
Uh, and it's tough because it's a lot of what the OEMs do, it's their kind of specialist knowledge, but there's a lot of smart people out there. Uh, there's a lot of companies you can work with to help gather that data and build these products up.
Allen Hall: The OEMs right now are. Lowering the number of engineers.
Nicholas Gaudern: Mm-hmm.
Allen Hall: Staff reductions. Yeah. Uh, so getting a hold of somebody on the engineering staff, particularly with aerodynamics, can be quite hard. -
In this insightful episode of Uptime Spotlight, Allen Hall and Joel Saxum welcome back Armando Costa Rego, CEO of ArthWind, to discuss their groundbreaking new software platform, ArthNex. This data-driven solution transforms wind turbine blade management by connecting field technicians directly with engineers in real-time, dramatically reducing downtime and optimizing repairs.
Visit ArthWind at https://arthwind.com.br
Connect with Armando on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/armandocostarego/
Allen Hall: Alright, Armando, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you guys. It's a pleasure to be here again. Yeah. It's been a couple of months since we've last had you on the podcast. But a lot has happened since then. Earth, wind, obviously huge Brazilian presence. You guys are working with most of the operators or much of most of the installed base in Brazil, and you're expanding out into the United States and other places.
But the product offerings you have created over that short time span since we last talked are quite amazing and you want to announce this new software product. It's called what? ArthNex.
Armando Costa Rego: Art Next, yeah. Yes. Yeah. This predator came from the idea to, to go deep in the value chain of the hippers, you know, everybody in the march, I think since 2017, the industry has experienced, uh, a fast improvement in the drone solution, the rover that we started like four years ago, and everybody's talking about how long it takes an inspection and how long pressure to produce in minutes.
So we are talk 30, 20, 25. For me, what matters if we, we create data to hipper, so the, the discussion of the architect is, okay, we jump into this phase of, to discuss how fast an inspection we are now, uh, uh, using this data to provide it to the owners in operators, OEME, whatever, in the player in the market would be interested to use our.
Maybe he pair knowledge capabilities to go direct to actions that can prioritize what to do, how to do, and sometimes why to do. Yeah, that's the question. Nobody do this question why to do that. Yeah. Those make sense or not? So the data will tell you what makes sense or those not make sense.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. So what, like when we look at most platforms out there, asset management blade inspection platforms, it's here's your inspections, here's the findings from them.
Here's a
Allen Hall: spreadsheet.
Joel Saxum: [00:02:00] Stop. Yeah, that's it, right? There's that. There's no just looking at the earth Next platform. When Alan and I were peeking at it yesterday, it was like. Here's a dashboard that shows you where your leading edge erosion status is on, on all your whole fleet. And this like, oh, that's great.
Like, oh, your overall risk score is this, oh, this turbine has a risk score of that. Like, oh, what's going on here? These are the ones that you need to stop now. Look at in two weeks, look at in 12 weeks, like. There was actionable data and that's before we even get into the operational part of repairs, but actionable data that you can look at dashboard.
Now I know what decisions I need to make today.
Armando Costa Rego: Yeah, that's right. That's right. So it is a clean data, it's clear data. We can interact with the image. We are not focused in show, like the entire blade in the platform because that consumes a lot of dev time of development, you know, so, and we note that only 4% of the emails have something to tell you.
Yeah, right. So some point of internet. So we work exclusively. And that information that's really useful to the operator.
Allen Hall: Yeah, and I think that's the problem, right? Is that when we get drone images or internal inspections, there's a lot of data. Yeah. That then as we've talked to operators in the United States, we have engineers, usually junior engineers, going through all that data, trying to pick out what's important and what's not important so that they can develop a plan themselves... -
This week we discuss a $5 million investment in a wind worker training center in Australia, challenges faced by RWE's US offshore wind projects due to recent policy changes, and the recent power blackout in Spain. Plus an article from PES Wind Magazine about cybersecurity in wind energy.
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!
You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
Allen Hall: Down in Victoria, Australia. They're investing about 5 million Australian dollars to establish a wind worker training center, which is focused on developing technical skills for both onshore and offshore wind energy roles.
And the initiative is looking to create a skill workforce pipeline for all the wind projects that are happening down in Australia. This is a really unique. Program, uh, Rosemary, just because Victoria is looking to have about 67,000 workers in energy by 2040 and they think they need about 4,000, [00:01:00] uh, people to work construction for onshore wind at about 2,500 data for offshore wind.
That's a sizable number of people, but Victoria is headed towards 95% renewable generation by 2035. So you're gonna need to build a workforce pretty quickly. $5 million for a training center is a good first start. Is it enough though?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I mean, they need to have a first step I guess. I mean, not that it's the first step, there's already a lot of, a lot of workers in the state.
Um, but I mean, for sure Victorian needs more, needs more service technicians and yeah, a bunch of other, other workers. I mean there's also still a lot of new wind farms being built, so there's that as well. It's also not just Victoria, you know, all around. Um, there was quite a lot of going on in Queensland, although the future plans have, I think been, um.
Uh, toned down a lot because the government changed. Um, south Australia also has, uh, still got, oh, it's got a lot of wind, already got a lot of plans to build [00:02:00] more. Um, and yeah, there's new renewable energy zones that are, you know, hopefully coming on, maybe even offshore wind starting in the next five years or so.
So yeah, if you want to, you know, suddenly expand your industry, then you do need to think a few years ahead. Um, otherwise you're gonna end up. With a big, a big crunch. Everyone wanting to build a project at the same time. And also, you know, a lot of wind farms. Uh. Getting past that first, you know, like the first few years where not too much maintenance is needed.
Um, there's a lot more things that can go wrong in the, you know, middle to end of a wind farm's life. And we're seeing a lot of that, especially in Victoria where they had most of the early wind farms in Australia. So I definitely think it's timely and uh, hopefully this one's successful. And, uh, yeah, we've got an election coming up.
Probably will have already happened by the time this episode's released. We've got a federal election. There has not been a whole lot of talk about renewable energy actually. Um, and especially the jobs that are created by Renewal Energy, especially wind, you know, like it's a, it's a [00:03:00] downside of the technology that it needs maintenance, but it's a real upside in terms of that, you know, a lot of maintenance means a lot of maintenance jobs, and these are good jobs.
I hope that, yeah, by the time we have our next election, -
RWE successfully installs the first monopile for the 1.1 GW Thor offshore wind farm in Denmark, China investigates a fishing vessel collision with a wind turbine, Texas House approves bills for recycling renewable energy equipment, and Enel launches an international wind turbine design competition.
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!
Allen Hall: RWE has reached a milestone in constructing the 1.1 gigawatt tho offshore wind farm in the Danish North Sea, with a successful installation of its first mono pile foundation. The project will eventually include 72 such foundations, the massive mono piles measuring about 100 meters of length and weighing up to 1500 metric tons each.
Which is equivalent to about a thousand small cars. Were shipped from the Netherlands to the construction site, approximately 22 kilometers off jut Ludens West coast. The vessel La Aliza is handling installation with each shipment carrying five monopiles. The CEO of RDB offshore wind called this quote, A highly [00:01:00] symbolic moment and a great achievement, unquote, following years of planning. The Thor Wind Project features several sustainability innovations, including reused hard covers to protect the mono piles. CO2 reduced steel towers for 36 turbines. Recyclable rotor blades for 40 turbines. When fully operational In 2027, the wind farm will generate enough green electricity to power more than 1 million Danish households and create 50 to 60 local jobs.
Over in China, a fishing vessel that sank after colliding with a wind turbo in China's yellow sea failed to maintain proper lookout according to report from the China Maritime Safety Administration. The collision occurred around 12:25 AM local time on August 24th last year when the ZDUU vessel struck the southeast side of the Ong H one dash 40 wind turbine while returning from fishing operations, the accident sent [00:02:00] all 10 crew members overboard.
Eight were rescued, but one died and another was never recovered. The collision caused severe flooding and eventual sinking of the vessel while the turbine sustained only minor damage. Investigators determine the primary cause with the vessels, quote, failure to maintain proper lookout and negligent navigation practices. High intensity work, lights, impeded visibility, and the crew didn't properly utilize radar equipment. A secondary factor was inadequate public notification of the wind farms precise layout, unquote, by the operating company, which led to navigational oversight.
Moving over to Texas. The Texas House recently passed two bills aimed at improving recycling of retired renewable energy equipment. Currently, most wind turbines and solar panels end up in landfills when decommissioned, despite Texas law requiring complete removal of the infrastructure and land restoration. House House Bill 32 28 requires renewable energy companies to recycle all components. [00:03:00] Practicably capable of being reused or recycled and properly disposed of non-recyclable parts. A complimentary bill House Bill 32 29 establishes reporting and financial assurance requirements for recycling facility owners to prevent situations like the one in Sweetwater, Texas where GE allegedly paid millions of dollars to a company that shut down.
Without recycling the turbine blades.
And energy leader Enel has launched wind design, a international competition seeking innovative wind turbine designs that better integrate with landscapes while maintaining functionality. The contest. Offers substantial prices, including 250,000 Euros for first place, -
Nick Martocci, founder of Tower Training Academy, discusses their nationally recognized apprenticeship programs for wind turbine technicians and battery energy storage specialists. The company focuses on creating partnerships and initiatives that support career development and veterans' transition into the renewable energy sector.
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!
Allen Hall: As renewable energy technology gets more complex and specialized every day, the industry needs skilled professionals ready to climb those towers and maintain critical systems. This week we speak with Nick Martocci founder of Tower Training Academy in Las Vegas. Tower Training Academy offers nationally recognized apprenticeship programs for both wind turbine technicians and battery energy storage specialists, helping everyone from recent high school graduates to career changers develop essential skills and certifications, while providing lifelong career support.
Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind Energy's brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow.
So we were just talking, it's been a year since we've spoken to you and I follow your Tower Training Academy YouTube page, LinkedIn page. I think you're on Instagram also.
Nick Martocci: Yep. Instagram. We got [00:01:00] Facebook. A lot of social media. Uh, a lot has happened in the last time since we've chatted. Uh, been able to send a few more apprentices through the wind turbine program.
Uh, I've been able to help out a lot of veterans. We had one veteran actually come through my program, uh, work with us vets to help veterans, uh, transition, uh, into the renewable sector, if you will, and help them out also with transferring them out of a bad situation. Uh, the veteran, he just. Fell onto some harm times and, uh, no, no lie before he was with my program, was actually living in his car and so he got with us vets and uh, was able to get a little assistance from them.
Also got with Salvation Army, got some assistance from them and the US vets actually pointed him towards my program. We were able to get him a sponsorship and to this day it's changed his life and he's still, even right now out in the field. Doing torque contention work. [00:02:00] That's awesome.
Allen Hall: That's a great story.
And I, on your LinkedIn page, I've noticed a couple of ribbing ribbon cutting ceremonies with local dignitaries.
Nick Martocci: Yeah, we had a congresswoman Susie Lee, her office was very, very helpful with getting, uh, some other help that we needed. Uh, moved along with, uh, a few other pieces, but she was out there to help us, uh, announce that we actually did become a, the first.
Approved apprenticeship for the Department of Labor that's active for our battery energy storage apprenticeship program. And so now we have both programs since last year. Uh, that was something that we had to kind of keep hidden behind the green curtain, if you will. And so I was working on that and now that's already up and running.
Uh, we had one apprenticeship approved before us a few years ago and they haven't sent anybody through it and. At the end of this month. Right now we're in March, so at the end of this month [00:03:00] we'll have 10 coming through my program already.
Joel Saxum: I think that's super important for the industry right now where that, that the renewables industry, because battery storage growing.
Right? I, I mean, I live in Austin, right? So it's just batteries after batteries going into the Ercot market and there's a lack of people, lack of technicians, -
Larry Ketchersid, CEO of Media Sourcery discusses their partnership with Everpoint Services to improve the recycling process for blades and solar panels, proving the circular economy. Their method uses innovative blockchain technology to create verifiable proof of proper recycling. By implementing this tracking method, asset owners can be certain their blades have been properly disposed of.
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!
The recycling crisis for wind turbine blades and solar panels demands better solutions as these materials pile up without proper processing and documentation.
This week we speak with Larry Ketchersid, CEO of Media Sorcery, who's partnered with Everpoint Services to tackle renewable waste recycling. Their innovative blockchain technology creates verifiable proof that your decommissioned assets actually reach proper recycling facilities, not abandoned in fields or landfills.
Stay tuned.
Allen Hall: Alright, Larry, welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me.
So we met yesterday with Everpoint Services who is doing a quite a bit of business at the minute doing solar panel recycling and wind turbine blade recycling.
Correct. And we've talked about it on the podcast more recently about the efforts. To make sure that what leaves the facility is actually [00:01:00] recycled. There is a industry problem where blades leave a site and they get stacked up in some farm somewhere or some disposal site and never get chewed up or ground up and, and recycled properly.
And it's a black eye on the industry, right?
Joel Saxum: Yeah. You get, uh, I mean, we. The wind industry has detractors. We already know this. Right? And then when you have something that's like that, especially wind turbine blades, 'cause they're big, uh, and it's very visible, the problem then exacerbates itself. Right? I mean it, like you said, black eye on the industry.
But even with that happening, we still haven't gotten all the way to solving that problem that's, that's existing there. But you guys are working on it.
Larry Ketchersid: We are. We are. We, we have a solution that we cut our teeth on with, uh, tracking things like COVID-19 test kits. Okay. Right. So we, we started proof of authenticity when, uh, we were in the healthcare business.
And during Covid we had a partner that became an importer of, uh, COVID kits from Korea. And what [00:02:00] people didn't realize is if you leave the Covid kits out of the freezer, the efficacy goes down. So we had a automated workflow system that we turned into a proof of authenticity for. Tracking Covid kits from the manufacturer.
So we put little, I mean this was four or five years ago during the pandemic, we had these chemical barcodes that were temperature sensitive, and we put 'em on the, on the covid kits. So, and, and you had to scan 'em. So they weren't really interactive sensors, but from point A to point B, you could scan 'em.
Did the, the temperature go above a certain amount for a certain period of time, which made 'em bad, yes or no? And then we just track 'em all the way through. So it, it's very. Similar to what we're trying to do with tracking, recycling. I mean, we use this solution to track, uh, all sorts of things, but recycling is a really obvious use case for it.
So what we try to do is we, we, we take an asset. So an asset can be a solar panel, it can be a pallet of solar panels, it can [00:03:00] be a blade, it can be a tractor trailer, full of blades, whatever the customer wants. And we take as much of the evidence about an event and the life of that ... -
In this episode, we discuss an offshore vessel collision in the North Sea, highlight Louisiana's offshore wind ambitions, the latest developments in South Australia's renewable energy expansion. Plus we highlight an article from Buoyant Works in PES Wind Magazine. Register for the upcoming SkySpecs' webinar on turbine repair challenges!
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!
Allen Hall: On Wednesday, April 30th at 11:00 AM Eastern, get that on your calendar. SkySpecs, Uptime and PES Wind are hosting our next session of a 10 part series of wind related items on their webinar. So this time it's gonna be about the the biggest challenges facing turbine repair teams today. And we're gonna have four experts besides Joel and me.
I guess we don't count as experts, Joel. So we're gonna be talking to real experts. Sheryl Weinstein from Sky Specs, Alice Lyon from Lyon Technical Access. Craig Guthrie, who I've known forever from Takkion, and Jose Mejia Rodriguez from RNWBL. We'll be there to, uh, explain how you should be planning for this repair season.
What are some of the approaches that the operators use and what works and what doesn't work? Things that if you're in the repair business or if you work. For a large, uh, operator or even a small operator you want to hear and participate in, there'll be a q and a session. So get all your questions ready, but [00:01:00] you first have to register and you can register in the link and the show notes below.
Do not miss this event. April 30th, 11:00 AM Eastern. You won't wanna miss it.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here's your hosts, Alan Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
Allen Hall: Up in the Netherlands, three crew members were injured when an offshore support vessel struck a windman foundation. In the North Sea and the Royal Dutch Sea Rescue Society had to evacuate two of the injured crew members from the privately owned vessel. And a third uh, crew member went to get medical attention once they got back to port.
Now, this occurred about 15 miles from the Netherlands shores, and the Dutch have opened an [00:02:00] investigation, and my first responses to reading this news was. How are we driving ships into foundations still? And Joel, can you explain all the technology that is there to prevent you from doing this?
Joel Saxum: Well, every one of these vessels that operates in that environment is going to have a, a helm display, right?
That's gonna have all of the things called stent and aids to navigation. So it's gonna have all the buoys, everything in the water that you could possibly run into. Some of 'em even have detailed stuff like pipeline data and stuff so you don't drop your anchors in certain places. But either way, they're gonna ha they're gonna have knowledge of this besides the fact that you can look out the window and see the tur, see a turbine that's 500 feet tall in front of you.
That's a different story maybe. Um, but a lot of these vessels too, of this size. So this is a, um, a support vessel offshore. So there's all kinds of different classes of boats, things they do. But this thing may work in a wind farm. It may work for oil, uh, platforms, it may work for the fishing industries.
Like it can do a lot of different stuff. But as a, as a [00:03:00] emergency response. Uh, vehicle. They also should be DP one. And when I say DP one, that's dynamic positioning. -
The first Vestas V236 15 MW turbine has been installed offshore, GE Vernova makes significant improvements in wind for Q1, and Siemens Energy has an upgraded outlook following strong performance from Siemens Gamesa.
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!
Welcome to Uptime News. Flash Industry News. Lightning fast. Your host Allen Hall, shares the renewable industry news You may have missed.
Allen Hall: The first of 64 Vestas V 2 36 15 megawatt wind turbines has been installed at EnBW's He Dreiht project off the coast of Germany. This March the first time Vestas' flagship turbine has been installed at an offshore wind farm. Uh, the installation is being carried out by Cadeler’s Vessel Wind Orca, which recently completed similar work at Scotland's Moray West Wind Farm.
According to ENBW with a total output of 960 megawatts, HDR is Germany's largest offshore wind farm, currently under construction, and will produce enough electricity to supply an equivalent of 1.1 million households. The project is expected to start operation in late 2025. [00:01:00] GE Vernova reported significant improvements in its win segment for the first quarter of 2025.
While wind orders decrease 43% organically to 640 million driven by lower onshore wind equipment in the US, revenues increase 13% to $1.85 billion driven by higher onshore wind equipment deliveries, and improved pricing. The company invested more than $100 million to improve performance in its approximately 57,000 wind turbine installed base, and terminated. Its last remaining offshore wind supply agreement. Is proceeding towards completion on both Vineyard, wind and Dogger Bank for its 2025 Outlook.
GE Vernova expects wind organic revenue to be down mid single digits with segment EBITDA losses between 200 and 400 million. Siemens energy, ags win business. Siemens Gamesa continues to outperform expectations with its lost before special items [00:02:00] narrowing to 249 million euros in the second quarter of fiscal year 2025.
This marked an improvement fund, 446 million Euros a year ago and outperformed analysts consensus estimates of 342 million euros. Revenue grew 16.2% on a comparable basis to 2.71 billion euros, beating forecasts of 2.38 billion euros while orders declined marginally year over year to 875 million euros.
They still exceeded consensus expectations. Siemens Energy is working to turn Siemens Gamesa around aiming to reach break even in fiscal year 2026.
Now, following these better than expected results, Siemens Energy has upgraded its full year outlook now forecasting comparable revenue growth of 13 to 15% for the overall company with Siemens ESA expected to record revenue growth of zero to 2%, improve from the previous forecast [00:03:00] of negative growth. And that's gonna do it for this week's news flash.
Stay tuned for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast tomorrow. -
You may have missed this fantastic with Loren Walton from NSK, so we're sharing it again. He discusses the challenges of main shaft bearing failures in wind turbines and NSK's Super-TF bearing technology as a durable solution. Loren also covers the limitations of previous diamond-like carbon coatings and how NSK's advanced heat-treated steel can improve turbine longevity.
Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug!
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!
Allen Hall: With modern wind turbines growing larger and main shaft bearings failing prematurely. The industry needs innovative solutions rather than relying on yesterday's technology. This week we speak with Loren Walton, manager of corporate accounts at NSK. NSK has developed super tough bearing technology, a special heat treated steel that creates a significantly harder surface without coatings delivering long lifespans and eliminating catastrophic failures in today's larger wind turbines.
Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.
Allen Hall: Loren, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Appreciate your time today. Loren, we brought you in the program because you're an expert in bearings. You're with NSK, A lot of knowledge, a lot of history there. First, I want to ask a real simple question because we've run into operators all across the United States and the world.
Generally speaking, we just got back from Australia who are having problems with main shaft bearings. And maybe the first thing to do here is to describe what some of the problems are that operators are facing with the traditional main shaft bearings. Yeah. So
Loren Walton: traditionally what we were saying was a whole lot of, I guess I'll say combined loading, right? So it's a, radio load that is, up and down and some axial thrust that's coming in from the wind shear, right? So combining the weight of the main shaft, which is you're taking up from that radio load with that wind shear. So then you end up having some combined loading where.
The downed wind row is seeing a little bit more of load share than the upwind row. That's getting through the lubricant regime, which is then creating some micro welding and shearing, any amount of metal, any steel. When it's created, it's going to have some disparities. I use my fingers as the disparities, right?
So your roller, your raceway, or your raceway, your roller. There's gonna be some welding and shearing that happens when that is under high pressure. And so your lubricant is supposed to create a little bit of a gap between those. When you don't have that gap you end up with the welding and shearing, you end up with what we call peeling damage, and then that peeling basically goes over and over again, and you start having high levels of debris.
Inside of the system. And then once that debris starts going all bets are off, right? 'cause you can't really even model debris very linearly. It just goes into additional sping and then you end up, if you keep letting it run, you end up with a through crack inside of one of your components, which is typically your inner ring.
'cause it's press fit on the shaft.
Joel Saxum: And a important concept here as well is because main bearings are basically a sealed lubricant system. There isn't filters on these, right? So like when you start to get debris moving around in the system, it stays there. It just, it's not oh, let's go change oil on this thing.
And we remove the debris, we put a new filter on it, -
Mark Hoppe, VP of Public Affairs & Business Development at SkySails Power, discusses their containerized airborne wind energy system. The innovative technology captures high-altitude winds with kite-based systems, producing up to 50% more yield than traditional turbines. Mark delves into the operational mechanics, deployment in remote and island nations, and future market expansion.
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!
Allen Hall: With traditional wind turbines, limited by location and high material costs, the industry needs innovative solutions for clean energy in remote areas. This week we speak with Mark Hoppe at SkySails Power. SkySails has developed a containerized airborne wind energy system that captures high altitude winds with unique kite technology producing up to 50% more yield than conventional turbines while being deployable nearly anywhere on the planet.
Stay tuned.
Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow.
Allen Hall: Mark, welcome to the podcast.
Mark Hoppe: Yeah, thanks, man. Nice to be here.
Allen Hall: I've been looking to talk to you for. Ooh, going on at least two years because I saw SkySails in Hamburg at the Hamburg Wind Energy Show, and I thought, wow, this is really cool. And then, and the display was [00:01:00] good and the information was good.
I just didn't know how much effort had gone into it at that point. And, and we're two years further along, obviously. The SkySails technology and the problem you're solving is really fascinating because there's a lot of places on the planet that could use wind energy, but a standard horizontal axis wind turbine is probably the not the right approach, and diesel ends up being the winner on a lot of these places.
Mark Hoppe: That's a problem. Definitely, definitely. So yeah, our technology solves a lot of these problems, but of course our technology is not just meant for these kind of places. So this is the entry point where we go in as, these places, they've faced a lot of issues when it comes to logistics, prices of the diesel because of the transport costs.
That also includes in, in the diesel prices, which then makes the diesel even, even pricier. So, and due to, they have to spend a lot, a lot of money on the diesel. Then they have the issue that they don't have [00:02:00] the money for social development, for example. 'Cause they have to subsidize their power prices and all this comes along.
So what we have as a solution for that problem is that we have a containerized wind power system. It's so-called airborne wind energy system which uses the high altitude wind, which is more powerful. So we fly in heights between two and 400 meters, sometimes even higher. It depends on the width direction and everything.
And due to that we can use the higher wind and then produce 50% more yield than the typical wind turbine at the same size. So that's crazy.
Allen Hall: Yes, that's, that's really good. I think the technology and the approach is innovative. So the, the solution to get rid of all the dependence on diesel and some of these electric grids that are very unreliable is to put in basically electric [00:03:00] generation through a, a kite in the sense the technology seems.
Relatively simple, but I've looked at this up close. There's actually a lot of technology here because the system itself is really containerized. It's like dropping a diesel generator on site somewhere, but except it's a kite. Instead, you wanna explain basically how the system operates and w... -
In this episode, we discuss Ørsted's new report proposing a 30% reduction in offshore wind energy costs by 2040, and explore the potential role of automation in wind energy manufacturing. Plus a reminder to register for the next SkySpecs webinar, focused on turbine repair trends and best practices. And the La Joya Wind Farm in New Mexico is our wind farm of the week!
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!
Speaker: [00:00:00] You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now, here's your host. Allen Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
Allen Hall: Well, you won't want to miss the next SkySpecs webinar, which is on April 30th at 11:00 AM Eastern Time us Which Joel, that's like, uh, it's like 5:00 PM Denmark time, right?
Roughly.
Joel Saxum: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Allen Hall: Yeah. And this is the second webinar in the joint series with Uptime and PES Wind. This edition features industry leading repair vendors and discusses the latest trends, challenges, and innovations, shaping the turbine repair landscape. Now this is who schedule to appear. Sheryl Weinstein, principal blade engineer with SkySpecs and.
If anybody knows Sheryl she knows Blades. This is [00:01:00] somebody you want to pay attention to. Alice Lyon, owner and CEO of Lyon technical access. Uh. Really knowledgeable about Blades. Craig Guthrie, who I've known for a long time now, director of Blade Service at Takkion and Jose Israel Mejia Rodriguez, who's director of engineering at RNWBL.
And if you've worked with renewable, uh, they do a terrific job keeping turbines up and running. So this discussion will be, uh, talking about best practices for operators and owners and repair teams. But so just, there's a lot of confusion at times on, on how to. Keep your organization running smoothly.
Well, these experts are gonna be giving you a, a lot of good advice and how to source repair vendors and, and how to evaluate vendors and get certifications and safety records, which are getting more and more critical as the season goes on. So you won't wanna miss this. April 30th, 11:00 AM Eastern us.
Click the link in the show notes [00:02:00] below to to register for that event and tell a friend, because this is gonna be a, a great webinar. Ørsted has released a significant new report titled Offshore Wind at a Crossroads, and you can go on Google and download this document. It's, it's a pretty thick white paper and it examines the current state of the European offshore wind industry.
And Rosemary and I were just over in Copenhagen. We saw. A lot of the offshore wind industry at the Wind Europe event. Now the report focuses on the urgent need to revitalize Europe's offshore wind industry, and it outlines the policies and industry action required to unlock investment and stabilize some of the costs and accelerate the deployment of offshore wind at.
There are a number of highlights in this. The one of them or two of them, let's go with the big ones, which is, um, Ørsted proposed a joint commitment between the governments and industry to auction at least 10 gigawatts of CFD capacity over the next 10 years. So [00:03:00] 10 gigawatts per year over the next 10 years, which would be a hundred gigawatts plus another five that would be for c corporate offtake.
So like a PPA, uh, sort of situation. And for doing this, with that commitment, the, the industry would then mobilize investment to try to lower the levelized cost of energy by 30% ... - Laat meer zien
