Lene Hellstern, director of engineering at PEAK Wind, discusses the critical importance of thorough technical, commercial, and financial due diligence before investing in wind farm projects. She shares insights from her 24 years of experience on how developers can avoid common pitfalls, manage risks, and build better relationships with turbine manufacturers to ensure more accurate power production estimates.

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Allen Hall: Wind farm developers often face a challenging reality. Projected power output doesn't match actual performance. This gap can mean millions in lost revenue and unexpected challenges. This week we speak with Lene Hellstern director of engineering at PEAK Wind. With over 24 years of experience analyzing wind projects worldwide, Lene brings crucial insights about what developers need to know before investing millions in wind farm development.

This is a great interview. Stay tuned.

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress Powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Lene, welcome to the program.

Lene Hellstern: Good to be here.

Allen Hall: We've been wanting to talk to you for a long time. So I'm glad you're on the podcast because your interaction with developers is remarkable and the process that you go through I think is eye-opening. 'cause I don't see that process happening at all wind sites and in Europe I think it happens more commonly.

But in the United States not so much. Why or when developers not consulting experts like you before, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars. What is the problem with that?

Lene Hellstern: It actually, it does happen, but yeah, sometimes it don't. And yeah, I might not be the right one of asking to ask this question.

Maybe you should ask them as well why don't you do it? But I, so for some it's it's budget constraints, right? Because you're a consultant and then they don't immediately see, how this money that I'm paying the consultant, how does that convert into a gain? Profit. It could be seen as some loose and money just because they're asking a lot of questions on technical stuff.

It could also be that they are unaware, many are more into the financial part of it. And they have this perception that it's not needed, the the technical due diligence or the commercial due diligence as the financial, because it's like buying a car. It is really not like buying a car.

So maybe that is, that's the reason. And that they think, the wind always blows, so it's gotta go the turbine. But that's just not how this world.

Joel Saxum: Would it be fair to say that some of your customers have felt the pain or they've gotten burned and that's why they're there?

Lene Hellstern: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you also, we can ask a lot of questions in the process before you buy the turbines. And then we can cover a lot of risks and you can mitigate before everything falls apart. Right. And that gives them a really good advantage, right? They can cover their themself and take all kind of scenarios into consideration, right?

And you get a much, if you ask kindly to the OE em, you do get some answers and you get a better collaboration with the OEM. If you conduct these technical due diligence, if you yell and scream at them, it's not gonna go well. No. Kill with kindness. That's much better than threats.

And I want this, and demand that and just ask, right?

Allen Hall: So what are they missing? Generally,