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.

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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.

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 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. 

Allen Hall: Yeah. That, that, that gets expensive. Real quick, you're talking about a hundred thousand dollars blades for onshore. Forget about offshore for a minute. An offshore blade, multi times, is that three or four?

Uh, so the, the, the, the engineering is right. The protrusion is the right answer and carbon is the right answer for blades, but it's really comes down to getting. The peel ply and what, what do you wanna deal with that? 'cause the other part of the peel ply is you just create this waste cycle that peel ply gets just tossed into the garbage.

It's not a recyclable thing, it's one use and it's done. So the, in the carbon protrusion world, if we can remove that peel ply, that is huge, [00:04:00]gigantic. However, it is been really hard to do that because there hasn't been any technology to remove it, and we've been using it. Forever in aerospace and wind, and that's where Brad comes in.

And Brad's company has developed a way to eliminate the Peel ply, which is a huge cost savings and a labor savings and a, you know, a downstream savings. Brad, you wanna under describe the, what you're bringing to Tightline and, and how this technology works. 

Brad Schmidt: So we do protrusion within Aviant as well, and we've developed this over the last four or five years and have been using it internally.

For our own glass profiles, um, in, in various markets, including wind. Um, but essentially, yes, have eliminated the need for these glass protrusions to, uh, you know, require peel, ply or alternatively sanding or some sort of grinding process prior to, um, adhesion. So the, it is, it is actually in the chemistry of the [00:05:00] resin system.

It's not a surface treatment and it is throughout the part. Um, so if you cut the, you know, through apart that same adhesion, uh, you know, or bond strength will be realized throughout the, the Matrix. It's not just on the surface. Um, so again, we've been using this in-house for a number of years. We've known the Tightline team for some time, and we approach them.

Late last year, uh, about six months ago, let's say. And um, obviously there was a lot of interest in tightline. There was a lot of skepticism at first in that, uh, this would even work, but they were willing to give it a try. So we sent them a small batch of resin with this, call it an additive in it. They ran some trials and then we tested in our lab, uh, did the lap shear testing on a traditional, uh, carbon plank with peel ply.

And then a protruded plank without peel ply. With this new chemistry, we saw on average about an 8% [00:06:00] improved improvement in bond strength in the, with the chemistry versus the traditional peel ply, and a much tighter standard deviation in that bond strength. 

Joel Saxum: So let me, let me, let me get this straight. So you not only have removed waste, removed the cost of those, the procuring of the PO ply materials.

Increase the ability for manufacturing processes to be correct and at the same time have improved the strength of the bond. That's right. 

Brad Schmidt: Yeah. I mean, um, and seems too good to be true, right? And we're trying to find out where this doesn't work, but, but we haven't, yeah, we have not been able to poke holes in it yet.

Um, and then on the mechanical property side, uh, they've actually seen a slight improvement. Um, and in theory now without Peel ply, you can add a bit more carbon. Where the PO ply would've previously taken up space in the dye. Right. Um, and the additive is, is at a very low concentration, so it's had no detrimental effects on any of the mechanical.

Properties. 

Allen Hall: That is amazing. So [00:07:00] obviously the first question that any composite engineer is gonna ask is, well, it, it's a resin change, right? So I gotta requalify the material. But it's not really a resin change are you're still using the same resin system. Correct. So it is, it is it. Is it a magic powder or a chemical treatment to the existing resin system?

And I, you know, composite engineers are always weary of change, right? If they have something they, that they know, they tested, it's been through all the processes and all the approvals, and now you wanna make a change. So the, the always the answer is no, which is crazy because if, if you're improving it and you can show it and you have the data to back it up, and Ian's gonna do that.

You can use the same resin system, just add a little bit of technology to it to remove peel ply, and, and that's the approach. So it's not a, um, it's not a wholesale change in the resin system or the strength of the system. It is in the, the surface energy piece. That technology is pretty transferrable, right?

I mean, [00:08:00] pretty much anybody with an existing resin system can use this technology, right? 

Brad Schmidt: Yeah, absolutely. So we developed this originally in a vinyl Lester system. We've since proven it out in, um, developed it in polyester as well as epoxy, which is used in the, uh, the carbon poulation process for the planks.

Um. So it's absolutely transferrable. Like I said, it's at a very low concentration, so it is the same base resin system just with our, uh, you know, magic powder as you referred to. And I think 

Joel Saxum: I ask you a, a, a question that's a little bit. Um, so we were talking about carbon protrusions and other kind of protrusion, cla protrusions and different vinyl es the things that you've done in the pultrusion space.

This is fantastic. However, let me ask you another question. If this is mixed with a resin system, where else can it be used? Can it be used in repairs? Could it be used in, I know like one of the things that happens in wind right now, Alan and I talked too about it regularly, is these root bushing pullout things and there's a couple companies working on Gulf wind [00:09:00] technology.

We foresee there's some people working on fixes for these....

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.

And we have found a lot of help from. Manufacturers and suppliers in the industry to sponsor us because obviously it behooves them to have their materials in the hands of trainees. So we're also able to help companies come up with, uh, new solutions, try new products.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

Alfred Crabtree: New, uh, you know, what's the best practice.

For this, if you're up on Blade and you have a way of top coating and you get a new product and your way of top coating doesn't suit that product, well chuck it down. I'll never touch it again. Yeah. Because I did not perform well here we can, we can give you training. We have, of course, been trained by the suppliers about what's the best product to use, what's the best way to go about things, and then, and then we can disseminate it.

So that's the fundamental reason why the space is. Is [00:04:00] what it is.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. And I think that that's, that's a good segue to be honest with you, right here, right behind these doors you have a classroom. That's right. Right. So in this facility, all composed in one, we have a classroom here we have your additive and subtractive.

I liked how you said that to us when you're giving us the tour. Uh, but we've got a, a grinding booth basically over here and we've got, um, a layup area here where you can teach. 16 people at a time.

Alfred Crabtree: That's right. Yeah. That would be max

Joel Saxum: for sure.

Alfred Crabtree: Yeah.

Sheryl Weinstein: And in a vertical surface, so, 'cause all the stuff that you're doing in the field, right, is always in a vertical surface.

Mm-hmm. So there's a, there is a big difference between working where gravity is sort of against you, especially with larger laminations and things like that. So being able to do your training and simulate the same, a similar way that you would work in the field is pretty critical, I would think.

Allen Hall: And actually working on.

Actual repairs. Simulated repairs, yeah. Mm-hmm. Now, don't explain how you created them, because I know secret sauce. It's a secret sauce. Yes. But I did look at the blade [00:05:00] damage. It, it looks exactly like a lightly strike. Yeah. Which a predominant amount of repairs are about, unless there's, you know, serial defects, as Cheryl has pointed out numerous times, but.

Being able to repair something that's quasi real is critical because we've been to other places and the repairs are, well, I'll take a hammer and I'll hit this and, okay, sure you got a DA, you gotta repair that. But that's not real. And getting, getting the people to use the tools in the right way, vertically

Speaker 2: mm-hmm.

Allen Hall: Is the key. Because although the, the, the article, the test sample isn't moving around like you are up on a blade, it's still difficult. And unless you have the proper techniques and the approaches, yeah, it's gonna be dang near impossible. We explain some of the blade repairs that Joel and I have seen more recently is like.

It's a little rough and it shouldn't have to be so rough because it is a skill that you have to learn and acquire over time. But you have to know the fundamentals. That's what Blade Repair Academy is here to teach you those [00:06:00] fundamentals. Like, yes, it's gonna take time, but if you work it this way, at least you're gonna be successful.

Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. And if you're managing a team of employees who are doing this, it, it would be great to have the insight of what your teams. Strengths and weaknesses are, yeah, you can figure out how to deploy people, but also how to, you know, maybe fix some of those problems. Mm-hmm. Our panels that you brought up are standardized.

Everyone looks exactly the same. It's the exact same makeup, and we standardize the damage. So when somebody has to repair damage here, the core removal size is the same on everyone. That way when we're comparing the reports, you can actually have a apples to apples comparison of the, the trainees. Outcome.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

Alfred Crabtree: And now you, you know, in, in the model that you talked about where people will go to a, you know, their junkyard of blades and they'll find spots on blades to put their eight guys on. Those eight people are not gonna be doing the same repair. And even if they are collecting data, what are you [00:07:00] comparing?

It's not

Joel Saxum: apples to apples. Yeah. It's not.

Alfred Crabtree: So we really tried to start from the beginning, fresh with a whole new idea of how to approach this. Mm-hmm. By not being attached to an ISP, we don't have to deal with. Oh, here, use all our leftovers. Yeah. Yeah. That's your training budget. Yeah. Yeah. And oh yeah. We, you know, we're an, we're a owner operator, so yeah.

Go work on that blade in the grass. Mm-hmm. That those limit what precious time we have available to train. Yeah. So this thing from the ground up is about. Making as much advance in the skillset and understanding that technician in the, in the week that they're here.

Joel Saxum: I think that was a really cool thing we touched on as well.

Your, your team here as well, Cheryl. Thanks for traveling up to, to hang out with us. Offer some insights too. But you guys, because you've been in the people that have developed a curriculum yourself, Cheryl, your, some of your team sitting over here, uh, and, and people around the industry that have helped out with the place, you have the ability of like, okay, we have.

Eight brand new technicians. Let's make [00:08:00] sure we walk through how to measure from the trailing edge to the blade center up, mark this thing out, these kind of things all the way to some stuff that I didn't really think about that much. Like I've used an angle grinder before, right? But I've never looked at five different ones and decided which one would be the best for my hands.

Thinking about it up on the blade, how you'd handle it with your fingers, these kind of things like,...

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, but now I'm not gonna 

Rosemary Barnes: do. You know what though? I, it is actually incredibly challenging for me too because, um, Australians and probably every non-American, like I, my business insurance will not cover me in the us They just absolutely not.

There is not, it is not possible for me to get insurance. To do projects in the us Um, and it would only be possible if I actually started an American company. That would be the only way to do it. So, um, that is a big disincentive for me to expand into America. Um, just 'cause your legal system is very, very different to the rest of the world and um, yeah, insurance companies won't take that risk so.

That's why that, that's why I'm not expending to America. But you know, the rest of the world is a big place. So, 

Allen Hall: well, if you don't spend all your time on LinkedIn, then maybe you can then join us on the webinar. We have an up on Wednesday, May 28th at 11:00 AM East Coast, US and it's about lightning damage and lightning [00:04:00] strikes and it's one of another, one of the monthly Sky Specs webinars with uh, PES Wind and the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

We have some really interesting guests. In this one, Matthew Stead from eLog Ping and Matt Segal from EDF. So if you know Matt Segal, uh, he knows his way around blades and blade repair and he has a really solid approaches on how to deal with the damage, that's gonna be a great discussion. So if you have lightning damage and pretty much every operator that I've talked to has some lightning damage at the moment, uh, you're gonna want to attend that.

Webinars free. So it's Wednesday, May 28th, 11:00 AM. East Coast and you just sign up in the show notes below. Really simple 

Joel Saxum: as busy wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let's face it difficult. That's why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. I. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert [00:05:00] insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future.

Whether you're an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don't miss out. Visit PS wind.com today. 

Allen Hall: So the big news of the week, well there's actually a couple, uh, big news articles this week. Uh, GEV, wind Power, which is a large repair company. Based in the uk, but they have a lot of their business in the United States.

Uh, was acquired by a company called CEC and Joel just doing some research on cec. It looks like a holding company. That's what it seems like to me. It's owned by David Harrison, who is based in the uk and it just looks like they're gonna continue to, uh, try to grow GEV, but it also includes Wind Power Lab from Denmark and rig com.

Joel Saxum: From Australia. Yeah, they group their ctec. Um, I know that GEV Wind Power is, um, they, they have huge plans for growth, right? They've got the office in Dallas office in [00:06:00] Poland, the Wind Power Lab office in Copenhagen. Rig com office, I believe is in Melbourne, down in Australia, down by Rosemary. And then they have of course the big office for the UK and Hull and that's for offshore and onshore.

Uh, but they've also just not opened another office up in Canada. So big, big expansion plans for GE v windpower. This CEC capital injection, uh, is gonna help for sure, right? They've got a, they've got a existing our infrastructure, uh, for the GEV WINDPOWER group. Uh, and they're gonna keep 'em all in place and they're just gonna con continue to grow.

So, uh, look to see some more things coming out of the, uh, GEV group. Put this injection to cash. 

Allen Hall: Yeah, because GEV, when Power Lab and Rcom were part of the Bridges Fund, which was owned by Hojo 

Joel Saxum: Well Bridge, so Bridges was a technically a think minority shareholder in the GEV group. Uh, but that was Goldman Sachs money, uh, bridges was right.

So now, now we're going, CTEC is Macquarie money, so [00:07:00] Australian money. Being injected in. Well, 

Allen Hall: that does make a little bit of sense though. Australia is gonna be a huge renewable powerhouse. It already is. So it makes sense that a Australian money would be involved in this because, uh, yeah, there's gonna be a lot more wind turbines in solar activity in Australia.

It's gonna pick up pretty well, so might as well grab a company early while you can and, and continue to grow it. The other thing that that happened today was LM wind power. Selling a factory up in Poland to Vestus. Now, we've all talked internally about what is happening at LM Wind Power because they've had a a number of staff reductions over the last year or so, and then they had the blade problem up in Canada.

It does seem like a lot of the design activities are moving towards the United States from GEs point of view. [00:08:00] That leaves a lot of LM factories with that are making blades for somebody else. Rosemary, when you were there, uh, LM did make blades for almost everybody for quite a while. It looks like they still do, but now they're selling off the non GE factories.

Is that the plan? 

Rosemary Barnes: I, I don't know what the plan is. Uh, um, yeah, not inside anymore, so I don't have any insider info, but, uh, I did spend. Quite a lot of time actually at that factory in Glen. And it's definitely one of my favorite, favorite wind turbine blade manufacturing facilities that I ever visited. Um, they get a lot, they get a lot done there.

That is like what I could say. The team there is amazing. They, the amount of stuff they can get through in, you know, one shift is like. Double what it is in some other factories. So I think, you know, from, from that perspective, without knowing what best has paid for it, I think it's a, um, a good call if they get to keep the personnel.

Um, so yeah, [00:09:00] it, um, good for Besters. I was actually looking at some information recently, something unrelated, but I,...

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 conform to the existing erosion on the blade. So in terms of applying this to the blade surface, if you have existing cat one, two, or three erosion.

You don't need to repair that and bring it back up to the original design intent. Air Aerofoil. In fact, you just need to remove the loose or flaking material. Do a final clean with an with an IPA. Then you're ready to apply the adhesive into the target area. I. Draw the adhesive down with our custom tooth [00:04:00]spreader and then apply the shield straight on top.

So you're actually using the, the high performance MMA as a high build filler behind the shield itself, 

Joel Saxum: basically like, uh, like if you're setting tile. 

Will Howell: Yeah, very similar. Very similar. You scrape the mud down and it 

Joel Saxum: creates a couple paths 

Will Howell: and, exactly, exactly. The adhesive itself is very high performance, so the

MMA that we use has got a very high gap fill. Indeed. It can gap fill up to an inch if you had some severe holes on there without overheating. Um, but it can also be installed within. Any humidity, any dew point is indifferent to those conditions, as well as from freezing point right up to very high temperatures, kind of 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Um, and we've, we've seen those conditions we're installed across four different continents now, majority starting over in Europe, offshore, and now we're. Some North India. We've got some in Southern Australia, and now the states, the past couple of couple of seasons where Iowa, Wisconsin, [00:05:00]Michigan, up in the north are kind of colder climbs as well as the southern states, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico.

The polycarbonate is slippery. It is. Yeah. Yeah. So does it accumulate ice? We haven't had any specific testing on that, but we haven't had any negative reports either. We've been less, we've been, we've been, we've been out there in the field now for five years. We've never lost a shields due to de bonding, we've never had any damage to any shields reported to us.

It's a very resilient product, so we don't believe that I. Has a particular attraction to the material, no worse than a traditional top coat. Um, we've actually been speaking to the guys from phase break who, who you'll know with their nine ice products and they're happy that you can apply nine ice over the top of this if you wanted to kind of double up that protection.

Allen Hall: Yeah, because that, that does make a lot of sense. If, if we're talking North Sea and Iowa, those are two wildly in different environments. But the research I've done on your [00:06:00] material. I, I, I probably saw your early 2020 is when I first, I remember seeing Armor Edge and thinking, okay, these guys are onto something.

Knowing a little bit about leading edge rosn on aircraft and how we deal with it there. Mm-hmm. The technical details made sense to me. I hadn't seen it in a shell form. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this, this makes a lot more sense now. So then when you actually get on a blade offshore, which would be the probably the ideal case because the return on investment is like instantaneous on these bigger turbines that you're just, you're just doing very little prep at all.

Then you're just basically knocking off the little particles that are maybe hanging on applying MNA and then just. Starting where from the root working down, if we go from the tip up, we actually work 

Will Howell: from the, uh, tip. Yeah. So one of the facets of our system, compared to the traditional soft shells or the tapes, you don't have to manipulate and stretch the material over the nose of the, of the, uh, [00:07:00] blades.

The first shield is actually a, a section with a pressure suction side and a closed end. So it simply fits over the top of the tip. Like a suck gives you a very Exactly. It gives you a very. Solid boot to kind of start from, and then you work in series from, from there in sections around 850 mil long, working in the direction of the of, of the route.

Our customers have different lengths of application that they like to work to. We work in sections, but typically around 20% of the blade is, is kind of what we cover. Okay. Yeah. I, I 

Allen Hall: wonder how far they were gonna go inboard, because I've seen some where they go really far inboard, like six to 

Joel Saxum: eight meters.

Yeah. 

Allen Hall: Yeah. So you're, you're not going all that far. Yeah. Typically. 

Will Howell: You know, on the onshore machines here, some of the typical GE blades, the 56.962 point twos up at the 10, 12 meters or so. Okay. It's, it's just kind of a typical Okay. That 

Allen Hall: makes, that makes sense. Then, so the, the process goes clean the blade apply MMA, put these [00:08:00] sections on, do the interlock, and what do you do with the trailing edge?

Will Howell: Yeah, absolutely. So again, it's a. An issue that we've seen on other, on, on other systems of either one really long piece, which is almost impossible to handle with a pair, a pair of texts, or having many separate pieces with a complicated join that leaves it very exposed. Our sections are formed and then they're very accurately CNC cuts, and we have male and female features on either end that interlock with, um, on, on two sides of the, uh, of the leading edge cord.

And so the technicians can't get them the wrong way round. They made up completely butting against each other, leading to a very flush flash. Fit over that leading edge. Leading edge section. 

Joel Saxum: Yeah. 'cause I could, I could picture like if something like this wasn't here and they were just flat, like they're kind of like it walking off Yeah.

Kind of getting wonky on the late edge. But this is gonna keep 'em locked in. 

Will Howell: Exactly. This is alley. And so that just, you just working, working sections towards the, towards the roots, the adhesive that we use. Even though it's an MMA,...

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 displacement between the inner and outer ring.

And there's always gonna be some, right. Uh, but, but what we're looking for is. Is a change in the amount of, of movement between those two rings, which may indicate falling or, or other failure modes within the raceways. The challenges come along when you have failure modes that maybe, maybe don't show themselves right through that displacement because it's absolutely possible to, to completely lock [00:04:00] up a bearing while, while showing almost no displacement.

So there's, there's, there are challenges to come along with this, so, so. ecoPITCH is great for pitch bearings, but it really needs to be coupled with good visual inspections by the sites to make sure that that bearing's not spitting out cage material right. And something that, that maybe isn't being seen in the data.

Allen Hall: So those measurements are important.

Right? And it's very difficult to go up there every month or two and try to take those measurements. Are there signs on the outside that everybody should be watching for? I know when we were on site a number of times. If there's a pitch bearing problem, you typically see grease on the outside of the blade, near the root area.

Is that the, the main source of detection at the moment? 

Forrest French: Yeah. And, and you know, I think, I think every operator's gonna have a different way of looking for this stuff. It's, it's not there, there's not a, uh, a very uniform strategy, I would say. Um, but really what they're gonna be [00:05:00] looking for yeah. Is, is exactly that.

It's gonna be grease purging out of the seals. Um, it's gonna be the seals themselves blowing out. Right. Um, that's, uh, cage material. Coming out of the seals is a, is obviously gonna tell you that you've got some, some, uh, some balls inside your bearing that are getting locked up and pulling the cage to bits, right?

And that's what's gonna happen when that displacement I was talking about gets severe. So you get severe displacement. It jams up a ball, but you continue to pitch. So other balls continue to move and you kind of shred that cage and it starts spitting that material out, damaging the seal. Um, so it's, it's a whole process.

Yeah. 

Allen Hall: So if you see grease on the outside, the seal is blown. And more than likely, if you look on the ground, you're gonna see metal shards. 

Forrest French: Potentially, yeah. Depending on what kind of collars and stuff you have. Uh, but, but yeah, usually a lot of those, a lot of those shards and, and that, that metal material is gonna get captured in a lot of that grease.

Um, so really it's just gonna turn your [00:06:00] hub into a greasy metal mess. Right. It's, it's still fun to be in those, those hubs. For sure. Well, 

Allen Hall: let's talk blade uh, inserts or bushings. What do you typically see if you're walking around a farm? When a blade bushing is starting to fail, what's the indicator from the ground?

Forrest French: From the ground? It's difficult. Um, what, what we've seen typically is you're gonna see a, uh, and, and again, this, this depends on the turbine, uh, whether it's an electrically driven turbine or a hydraulically driven, uh, pitch bearing, sorry. Um, with the electrically driven pitch bearings, it's a little bit easier to spot these issues.

You've, you've got. Uh, when, when the bushing starts to fail, it will basically spit out some of this, they call it dust, like a metal dust basically. And that dust will kind of make its way out onto the outside of the blade usually. So. From the Nelle, for example, you might pop your head out the hatch, do a visual inspection of the outside of the root, [00:07:00] and you might see some of that dusting heading down, down the blade.

That's a good indicator that, that you've potentially got an issue. It's, it's not a, a, a, a sure thing at that point. Right. Um, because there's a lot of places where metal can can make its way into the system with the hydraulically driven turbines that. Indicator gets a lot more difficult. Um, if anybody, you know, and I'm sure a lot of the folks on the call have some of these turbines, they're a mess usually, right?

Um, if, if, if any bit of debris gets loose, it's gonna knock off a bunch of hydraulic lines and it's gonna make an absolute mess. And any material that's being spit out by those bushings, it's just gonna get. Caught up in all that hydraulic oil, and again, it's just gonna turn into a mess and you're not really gonna know one from the other at that point.

You're really just left with, with uh, uh, kind of your more rudimentary ways of looking for this and some of your [00:08:00] more labor intensive ways of looking for this 

Allen Hall: force. There's a lot of ways to inspect the blade root insert. Bushing issue as the blade moves around and I, I've seen some of these, uh, sites where they got a technician who climbs up in there and he is got a feeler gauge of some sort.

Is that really an effective way to, to even measure that problem? 

Forrest French: Yeah. The, the feeler gauge method is. Is better than nothing. Right? You're, you're doing something at that point. What, what we've found historically is that by the time you can really get a feeler gauge measurement, uh, it's probably too late.

At that point, you, you're seeing a significant enough gap that you can get material in there. It's, it's a, you've got a big problem on your hands. We also see paired with that, um. We see folks doing a dial indicator measurement, right? Where you're taking sta uh, dial indicators, you're placing them around the circumference of the blade, and that usually involves pitching the blade out, cantilever, and then you, you just rotate the blade, and that's in that [00:09:00]static position.

You're not actually rotating the hub. That is, is definitely better than something like a feeler gauge methodology. The, the, the,...

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, the federal government stepped into this whole thing because they.

Felt like the tribe wasn't being adequately represented basically, or if they were representing themselves or they had, attorneys representing them. The federal government stepped in because of the nature of the case and how the high profile would've been to, to say that yes, the tribe actually has these these mineral rights on what is effectively there.

They're a chunk [00:04:00] of the United States as you're saying, it's, they're physically located within the confines of Oklahoma, but they are their own little thing, so I. Yeah I, unfortunately I don't, and you're right, we probably need somebody smarter than any of us to figure out what is really going on with this other than obviously the state.

Whatever money the state gets from any kind of tax revenue, they don't want to ever see it go away. So it can be a nickel and they'll still chase after you for it. 

Joel Saxum: But here's the other thing and Alan, I wanna get your 2 cents on what my thought is here. This is my theory, my working theory. NL has a removal order on hold pending their appeals to the federal court.

I think that as soon as 10 years and one day from commissioning date comes up, this whole thing's gonna get dropped. And they're gonna, they're gonna take this wind farm down. 

Allen Hall: That's what I was wondering. Is it a repowering play that once they get to the end of the PPA life or the PTC life. Does this thing not matter [00:05:00] anymore and they're just trying to delay it and maybe the state of Oklahoma is helping anelle with that.

It is odd. When did this farm go in, Joel? It went in 20 16, 

Joel Saxum: 17. It started in 2013, but it wasn't. Commissioning until 2015. But that was the initial, that was the initial thing. So PTC does a start until commission day. So that's, it's it's this year, like it's 10 years is up this year sometime.

So what is the play here? It's push off until PTC revenues are pulled. And then once PTC revenues are pulled, dcom, you know what I, Joel, I like that theory. I'm gonna 

Phil Totaro: go with that. 

Joel Saxum: I think that's what it is. Because they're not gonna let 'em repower it. I can guarantee you that's not gonna happen. 

Phil Totaro: I think it's, it makes sense to me that they would just be trying to stretch it out because what else is the play here?

Because if, 'cause again, if the state's taking some kind of tax revenue, it's probably tax off the sale of the power, which probably goes to the utility, which has nothing to do with the Osage nation, which make would make even more sense. And then. Because of the production tax credit, [00:06:00] they get to take extra tax revenue off the power sales.

So that's probably a reason why the state would wanna step in and try to, stretch this thing out until the end of that PTC period. I gotta tell you, this is the, this is armchair 

Joel Saxum: math and I'm saying PTC credits are like 26 bucks. A megawatt hour, 26 bucks, a megawatt hour, 84 turbines at 1.79 megawatts, which is what these are.

Is 150.4 megawatts, I'm gonna give them a 40% capacity factor, which is being a little bit generous. That equates to $1.126 million per month in PTC credits. So you extend this thing for six months, that's 7 million, seven and a half million dollars in L'S pocket. If they can stretch this thing for seven months just of PTC credits, it'll help pay for the decommissioning.

Allen Hall: Because that's where it's headed. Yeah. And the federal court system is not [00:07:00] something to play around with, so you gotta tread lightly here because if the federal court feels like this is just being a delay tactic to increase revenue, that will come with penalties, typically, that $7 million will go right back.

You go right into the Osage nations. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting developing. Gotta keep track of it now because it's moved into a really unique phase beyond what I thought was possible. I didn't think the state of Oklahoma's gonna wade into this, but here we are Deutsche Wind Technique, which if you don't know Deutche wind technique, where have you been?

They have announced a strategic rebranding. To DWT, which is what everybody calls Deutsche Wind Technique in the states. It's DWT. We never used Deutsche Wind Technique and it's going to take effect in what, five different places? United States, Poland, which is odd, but, okay. France, I get United Kingdom obvious in Taiwan.[00:08:00]

And the company employs about 2,400 people at the minute, and they service about 8,000 wind turbines across 10 countries. So this is trying to address the whole pronunciation, spelling of Deutsche Wind. And, but at least in this states, because our spelling's atrocious, let's just admit it. But they're gonna keep the dornell wind technique the same and not changing it in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Which again makes sense. That's why Poland is in that weird offset one. Yeah. 

Joel Saxum: But why just do it, just change it to DWT across the board? Maybe. Yeah. You can leave Deutsche Wind Technique in their summer, but Brandon has DWT across the board. It'll be 

Allen Hall: easier. Oh, you think so? The swag is gonna be great.

The DWT swag is perfect, right? The three letter acronym that fits right on a hat. Come on, 

Joel Saxum: by the way. DWT if you guys are looking to send swag anywhere, we can give you all of our addresses. We will take it and wear it on the shelf. I got no problem with that, right? I think this is [00:09:00] great, right? Deutsche Wind Technique, technique.

Technique, doche, like wherever you go, right? You hear someone say it differently. Yeah, I think it's gonna be it's good for the brand. Even the, I hope they change their emails. Please, if someone's listening, change your email aliases to just DDWT instead of having to type that off. But yeah, good move.

...

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. Yes. And in fact, I've talked to [00:03:00] some smaller operators that can't get access to those people at all.

Nicholas Gaudern: No, no. We, we get told that a lot that, um, there's, there's customers calling OEMs and they, yeah.

They can't, they can't speak to anyone who really understands that the issues that they're facing. But free now we, we have contact with a lot of OEMs. I would say that we have more aerodynamicists and power curve than some OEMs have now. Oh, that's true. And that's quite, that's true. Surprising. You know.

Um, so it does mean that I think from a customer support perspective, it is harder for the OEMs to take on some of those really detailed or nuanced questions that an operator may have.

Allen Hall: Right. Operators are getting smarter.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.

Allen Hall: And asking more pointed questions, not generic questions anymore. Uh, we've had, uh, junker on the podcast and I, when I ran into her last summer, she was basically saying that like you, you're talking to operators now that are getting smarter about what they're doing.

Yes. They're asking more pointed questions. The OEMs can't respond. So now what do you do? Yeah, that's, that's the Global Blade Group.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly.

Allen Hall: [00:04:00] Perspective, right? Where everybody's starting to pool the resources together. I think that's an

Nicholas Gaudern: absolutely great initiative. I mean, it's something that's been going along in various forms for a few years now, but um, now big it has joined Stack rt.

It's kind of been relaunched in, in this new form that you were discussing with us. So, um, we are really excited to be part of that, I think kind of the way, uh. Our role sits within the group. We're still working on, on the details, but we're definitely gonna be part of that group in helping to, to share knowledge.

So the aim is that we will help, uh, educate basically to, to raise discussion points, to, to lead forums with operators about how they can understand their aerodynamics better, how they can ask more relevant questions of the OEM. So I think that's what a lot this is about, just asking the right questions.

I think sometimes operators can feel a little bit, uh, blind. Uh, as to the best way to navigate a problem, but by knowledge sharing within the Blades group with other forums, um, I think that's gonna make that a lot easier for everyone.

Allen Hall: And you've been tapped as [00:05:00] the lead of the aerodynamics group within the Global Blade

Nicholas Gaudern: Group?

Yes. Yep, yep, that's, that's correct. Um, we haven't had a, a kickoff yet as such, but that will hopefully happen in the next couple of months. But yeah, the idea is that power curve will kind of. Lead that knowledge sharing around the aerodynamic subject.

Allen Hall: Yes. So if you haven't joined the Global Blade Group, it's free.

Yep. If you work for an operator, you can just join it and you should. So get somebody on your staff to sign up to get ahold of Burger and get going with that, because then you can tap into all the resources that they have. Them being, uh, the most recent one is the leading edge protection campaign that was just summarized, uh, a couple of weeks ago.

So that data set is out there and you want to have access to that. Mm-hmm. But I think more importantly, as the group goes forward now and has been emboldened again, the aerodynamic piece is the missing link for most operators. Yeah, it is.

Nicholas Gaudern: And it's, it's often an area that is, um, hasn't had as much attention historically.

Uh, there's just not so many engineers out there with that background. You know, it's, um, [00:06:00] I wouldn't say it's any more or less hard than lots of other of the complex subjects within a wind turbine. There's just, there's fewer people, uh, who, who know the same, uh, level of, um, stuff.

Allen Hall: Yeah. And there're being, those resources are being, uh, taxed quite heavily at the minute, uh, with all the activity it happen in the OEMs.

Now, as operators, uh, start to receive newer blades and you see. OEMs obviously moving to bigger turbines and to specific models, so there's actually fewer varieties of blades than there were a couple years ago, but there's still quite a number of blades out there. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So you, you're going to get generally a more generic blade type at your specific wind site?

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, quite possibly.

Allen Hall: Yeah. I, I think especially ge renova is, is gonna be driving down to a, a limited set of blades and a limited set of turbines. So they're gonna be trying to apply that turbine. More globally than they have in the past, instead of tailoring a specific set of blades vest is, it's gonna do something very similar, I think.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and in that mode, [00:07:00] if you're an operator and you're receiving these blades, you don't really understand what's about to happen unless you do your homework ahead of time. And I think that's where the opportunity lies today to do something really inexpensive and smart up front. To understand what's likely to happen.

Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly. And I think that all starts with, um, as we talked about, gathering good data, whether that be a laser scan or detailed photographs or measurements or NDT, uh, putting some sensors in the blade, some CMS equipment. I think all of that stuff to help really build up that knowledge base early.

To help start planning for future o and m, uh, operations? Yeah,

Allen Hall: so the simple one as blades come on site is to do a laser scan.

Nicholas Gaudern: Mm. Yep. And that takes how long? A few hours. And, and it's much easier on the ground than it is a tower as well. And then you can use that full kinds of things. Yes. It's very useful to do aerodynamic studies on.

But then, uh, other stuff that might not seem so [00:08:00] exciting,...