The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

Nicholas Gaudern, CTO of Denmark-based Power Curve, discusses how advanced blade scanning, aerodynamic upgrades, and the AeroVista tool are transforming wind turbine performance analysis. PowerCurve helps operators use real data to maximize AEP and make smarter decisions about blade maintenance and upgrades. 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,

The crew discusses the Trump administration's stoppage of Revolution Wind and US Wind, despite billions already invested. They analyze the Commerce Department's Section 232 national security investigation into wind energy and new tariffs on steel and aluminum. State governors are responding differently to federal pressure, with Connecticut negotiating while Maryland pushes back against the coordinated assault on offshore wind projects. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! 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. Alan Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Well, welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Rosemary Barnes is in Australia. Joel Saxo is in the great north of America of land we call Wisconsin. And Phil Totaro is in lovely California, and as we've been talking off air before the show started. There's a lot of news this week. We are not going to get to all of it in this episode. There is no chance of that. But I wanted to start off first with what's happening off the coast of Connecticut with Revolution Wind and Ted and the stoppage there, and also the more recent news about US Wind, which is a project off the coast of, of [00:01:00]Maryland and uh, the administration. A couple of days ago decided that, uh, they're gonna pull the permits from US Wind. And, and that has created quite a, a firestorm within the states because if you think about revolution wind, that was gonna power like 350,000 homes up in Connecticut and Rhode Island and US Wind, which was nearly as far down the line, was also gonna power a great number of homes off the coast of Maryland. Now both of those have stopped. Uh, and as I pointed out in a recent Substack article and on and also on LinkedIn, and I think everybody has seen this, that pay attention to what the governors had done. 'cause this is the same thing that happened to Empire Wind and Ecuador a couple of months ago. Where, uh, empire Wind got shut down. The governor of New York went to the administration and said, Hey, what's, what gives they negotiated an out, which is that New York was gonna allow more gas capacity and gas lines [00:02:00] into the state. That same thing is, I think is happening in Connecticut and the governor of Connecticut is, uh, has vowed to work with the administration to. Get revolution back up and running. In fact, there was a interview today, we're recording on a Wednesday where he was on television basically saying that, that there's, uh, the art of the deal still exists. You can't cancel a deal after the art of the deal has been signed. Which that's a good point. Right. Uh. Connecticut is trying to negotiate this, and they have been talking to the state of New York, Maryland has taken a different approach and Maryland's governors, Westmore is saying, quote, canceling a project set to bring in $1 billion in investment, create thousands of good paying jobs in manufacturing and generate more Maryland made electrical supply is utterly shortsighted. All right, so Maryland's taking a different approach and is, is sort of punching back hard instead of going to the negotiation table. [00:03:00] Is there more to this than what we can see outwardly? Or is there a lot more, uh, to it in terms of what the administration is trying to do? Or is this all about expanding the role of gas in Democrat LED states? I  Joel Saxum: think you're on it there, Alan.

The Trump Administration begins a Section 232 investigation to block foreign-owned wind in the US. Meanwhile, China continues to pull ahead. 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 2025: You know what's happening to offshore wind in America? Ørsted stock down 87%. Revolution wind halted at 80% completion, $679 million in funding canceled across trial projects. But here's what the industry press isn't telling you. On August 13th, while everyone was watching Ørsted Stock collapsed, the Commerce Department quietly launched something else. A Section 2 32, national Security Investigation of Wind Turbine Imports Section 2 32. The same Trade law President Trump used to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum in his first term. The investigation list, 12 criteria for protecting America's wind turbine supply. [00:01:00] Domestic production capacity in port, concentration risks, foreign government subsidies, supply chain security, reading those criteria. You think Washington finally gets it? You think they're building a fortress around American wind manufacturing. But the opposite is true. Chinese wind turbine manufacturers now hold the top four global spots. Goldwind Envision Min Yang Windy, they control 60% of the global market prices 20% lower than Western competitors. Yet in America, these Chinese turbines have virtually zero market share zero. The Section 2 32 investigation isn't aimed. At China, it's aimed at Europe. Siemens ESA dominates US offshore wind Vestas leads onshore in the quote unquote foreign threat. The Commerce Department is investigating it's Danish and German companies building American wind farms. Meanwhile, 7,000 miles away. China [00:02:00] installed 86 gigawatts of wind in 2024 more than the entire US has built in the last decade combined. Germany just canceled their Skara project's. Chinese turbine order after national security warnings. But those same ING Yang turbines, they're spinning right now off the coast of Italy, the only Chinese offshore wind farm in all of Europe. Irony runs deeper while Trump halts European built wind farms citing national security China. Races they had with their everything everywhere, all at once. Energy strategy, building new before discarding the old, as president Xi puts it, China's new energy law prioritizes renewable development while keeping coal as a backup. America's new policy, discard the new, go back to the old. European manufacturers are hemorrhaging money. Siemens GAA posted massive losses. Investors practicing quote unquote commercial [00:03:00] discipline. Industry. Speak for, we can't compete with Chinese prices Today. Orid faces a $9.4 billion rights issue, half funded by Danish taxpayers . But here's what makes this story remarkable. The section 2 32 investigation could actually help Chinese manufacturers. If tariffs hit European turbines, Chinese companies already 20% cheaper, become the only viable alternative, except Trump won't let them in the United States either. So what's the real strategy? Simple. It's kill offshore wind entirely. Make it so expensive, so uncertain that investors flee. The national Security investigation isn't about protecting American wind manufacturing. It's about protecting American fossil fuels. Transportation, secretary Duffy called Wind Projects Fantasy while redirecting funds to real infrastructure translation ports for oil and gas, not [00:04:00] wind turbines.

Howard Penrose, President of Motordoc LLC, returns to discuss the complexities of modern electrical grids. The conversation covers the inaccuracies surrounding the Iberian Peninsula blackout, the intricate functions of voltage and frequency control, and systemic issues in grid management. Penrose explains how renewable energy sources like wind and solar, alongside energy storage, play crucial roles in stabilizing the grid. 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. Howard, welcome back to the show. How are you doing? It's been a bit, a lot has happened since we last spoke. I, I wanna speak about the Iberian Peninsula problem and the blackout that happened in April. Because there's been a number of inaccuracies about that situation, and you're actively involved in the groups that look into these situations and try to understand what the root cause was. That the, the, the Iberian situation is a little complicated. The CNN knowledge, the Fox News knowledge is that solar was the cause of a problem. Yeah, that is far from the truth. You wanna explain kind of [00:01:00] what this, how it progressed over time? It started around noontime Spain and they had a couple of wobbles there. You want to kick it off?  Howard Penrose: Yeah. First, first my comment is, I like how journalists become experts in, in literally everything, um, from 30 seconds to 30 seconds, right. Basically. The problem had been going on for a little while and, and the grided there had been operating much like it had been for a little while. And, uh, you know, for years actually, uh, even with the application of alternative energy, we'll, we'll call it alternative energy for this, um, you know, so that we don't bring in that political end of calling it one thing or the other. Alternative energy is what we called it in the 1990s. So, um, in any case. Uh, they had a number of issues with voltage control, meaning large loads would suddenly drop off and then the voltage would float up [00:02:00] and then, uh, and then they would have to do something to bring it under control. They're at 50 hertz, so their voltage is 400 kv. That's their primary grid voltage. They have an alarm trip voltage, meaning an emergency trip voltage, where they strip the line at 435 kv. So, um, what happened now, the final event happened in 27 seconds, but leading up to that, they had an event where they had voltage float up. And they were bringing that under control. And then down in the southern part of Spain, and we don't have anything set up like this here in the states, luckily they had all, uh, a whole group of, um, solar uh, plants as well as a gas turbine plant feeding a single distribution transformer. And the, uh, auto taps on that failed on the low voltage side on step up. So it basically dropped out. So, uh, something like, I, I'm trying to remember off the top of my, my head, [00:03:00] but it was either 300 or 800 megawatts just offline now. It was a lightly loaded day in Spain 'cause it was a beautiful day outside. Uh, so that makes matters worse. It makes it unstable and really easy for voltage to flow up where people start to think that that, uh, alternative energy was a fault was because we were at 40%. Of the power supply was solar as the morning progressed, so it had climbed up to about that there was a good percentage of wind. Um, but they had a nuclear power power plant online and several others providing synchronous protection for any type of in...

The crew discusses the Federal Department of Transportation's concerns over wind turbines interfering with railroads, the USDA's stance on renewable energy projects on farmland, new treasury rules for wind and solar projects, and highlight the Sunflower Wind Farm in Kansas for its community impact and operational success. 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 Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Hold on tight. I told my producer before we started, this is gonna be a. Bumpy rise. So for all our listeners, hold on. Uh, it's a lot of news in the wind and solar world at the minute. Phil Tarro is in California. Joel Saxon is back from Australia in Austin, Texas, and first up is the Federal Department of Transportation. Complaining about how close wind turbines could be to railroads and create an interference, and it'd be a safety crisis. Uh, federal transportation officials and a new scientific research report, [00:01:00] Joel, are sounding an urgent alarm about wind turbines being. Too close to railroad tracks and a comprehensive study from California's Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm confirms, quote unquote confirms that wind farms can severely interfere with critical radio communications used by trains. Now, uh, what they don't want you to do is to read the report. That's what they don't want you to do. And, uh, as a group of engineers, we're going to read the report and see what it says. And what it says is that they have a safety system on trains because they used to run into each other quite often. And what they've done is they have a overriding system that's run by radio communication that if a train goes too fast and some of these more frequented train tracks or in. High density population bases like Chicago or Baltimore, one of these places that they can actually slow the train down or stop the train in some cases, what it sounds like if they're [00:02:00] on a collision course, and that becomes important on commuter rails. And, um, if they have toxic chemicals on trains, that they don't want them to have accidents. So they put the system in. And the system is based on Joel. The world's oldest communication form.  Joel Saxum: It's VHF radio, right? So to those of you that don't know what VHF radio is, it's basically like, uh, close to the frequencies you'd use as a walkie-talkie as a kid. Um hmm. Right. Uh, or a CB radio. Right. We're, we're quite a ways past that now. Uh, so wifi, cell modems, satellite communications are all regular things within basically any other industry. Uh, of course, but this one, yeah, we're still using VHF technology that we used. I, that's been around for a long time for radio communication back from World War ii. Or before that? Oh yeah.  Allen Hall: Right around World War ii. How far do those, uh, walkie-talkie radios typically  Joel Saxum: work? Well, it depends if you, I guess if it depends if you buy 'em from Walmart or if you buy 'em a, [00:03:00] a, a professional one. But, uh, depending on what watt radio is in 'em, I mean mile two miles maybe.  Allen Hall: Exactly. And that's how this train system works. So every. Couple of miles, they have a repeater to transmit the signal up and down the train tracks. Well, it became really important because, you know,

Allen discusses the halting of Revolution Wind by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The order comes as part of a larger political motion to stop renewable energy in the US. 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 2025: There's a man from North Dakota who knows something about pipelines. His name is Doug Bergham, and last Friday, August 22nd, as Secretary of the Interior, he pulled the plug on another big energy project. Bergham ordered a halt to revolution wind. That's an offshore wind farm being built by Osted. 80% complete. 45 wind turbines already spinning in the ocean off the coast of Rhode Island Friday, they stop spinning. Revolution Wind was set to power 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. But Ham's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said the project needed more Review. [00:01:00] Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee had called Revolution Wind Quote, essential to advancing the state's 100% renewable energy standard by 2033. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said The project was quote, a key part of our clean energy strategy to provide families, quote, clean, reliable, and affordable power unquote. Both governors celebrated when revolution wind got federal approval. Now their project sits frozen in the water. Earlier this month, Bergham also canceled a massive wind project in Idaho. His interior department has vowed a comprehensive review of all wind projects. A review that could halt wind development on all federal land. Now here's what you need to know about Doug Bergham when President Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline back in 2021. Bergham. Was furious. [00:02:00] He said revoking the permit was wrong for the country. Said it would have chilling effect on private sector investment in much needed infrastructure projects, unquote. Bergen said, when the federal government stops projects under construction, it hurts working families and discourages future investments. Bergham has always been clear about protecting investors. At a political conference speech in 2023, he laid out his principle quote, if you put capital into a project that's related to fossil fuels, or a project related to critical minerals and mining, if somebody comes along in the future, administration with an executive order, if they want to wipe out what you've invested in. They've got to write you a check to pay for your lost capital. That was Bergen's rule. If government stops your fossil fuel project, well, government pays you back. That Keystone XL Pipeline would've carried [00:03:00] 830,000 barrels of oil daily through Bergen's home. And Bergham is not alone in his disdain for Wind Energy. Energy Secretary Chris Wright calls wind and solar, unreliable and worthless commerce. Secretary Howard Lunik launched a national security investigation into wind turbine imports Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Once Wind turbines kept at least 1.2 miles from highways. EPA administrator Lee Den is weakening regulations that support renewables. It's a coordinated government assault on one of America's cheapest forms of electricity. Earlier this year, Bergham also stopped Empire Wind off New York's Coast, $5 billion worth of construction, 30% complete. At the time. He said the Biden administration rushed the approval. But here's the curious part. [00:04:00] Bergham let Empire Wind restart after New York. Governor Kath Hoel made a deal. She agreed to allow new natural gas pipelines ...

Allen, Phil, and Rosemary continue the discussion from Tuesday's episode, diving into renewables opposition and TPI's financial situation. 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: So what we're talking to energy, everything is difficult, so we wind and solar can be difficult to make money in. But some of the discussion about moving back to coal or, or moving back to older sources of electricity generation, their money losers too.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, probably even more efficient money losers. And on a larger scale, you know, at least wind and solar, you could lose, lose money a little bit at a time and you don't lose money on the operation. Um, you know, it's, it's all in the, the, the capital cost. Whereas coal can lose money ev every single, every single day that the plane operates. So I [00:01:00]guess that that's, uh, yeah, that's true. It's not as, not as bad as that.  Allen Hall: So is there a industry fix or is there a hope for the future? Right now, I don't see it. Rosemary Barnes: I was reading this book for a little while and I stopped reading 'cause I, um, it had some good ideas, but it wasn't like totally rigorous in its, um, exploration of all the ideas. I think it's called The Price is Wrong, or something like that. And it's about how like, it's not possible to have a renewables industry that isn't subsidized by the government. And, um, there's some, I I, I think that there's some truth to that, but I would replace. That there's, it's impossible to have a renewables industry if that's not subsidized. Rather say it's impossible to have an electricity system that's not subsidized in some way by the government. Um, and yeah, I mean, just rec recognize that and maybe we don't need to to fight that, but, um, it, it is always turns like so tribal that everyone's arguing over who's got the more subsidies or who's. More dependent on subsidies. Um, yeah, it'd be easier [00:02:00] if we could all, you know, get on the same page about climate change and just acknowledge what we needed to do. But, you know, if, if wind and solar power never came along and we didn't care about climate change, then we'd still be subsidizing, uh, yeah, like coal and, and gas and, uh, all the transmission and, uh, I don't know, infrastructure. You need to transport those fossil fuels around. Like, you know, we'd, we'd still be subsidizing because people still need electricity and still get upset if it's, um, you know. So expensive that you are stuck, you know, choosing whether you want to eat this week or heat your home this week. So,  Allen Hall: well, is it because electricity was late to the game? The railroads sort of blew through the United States and everywhere else in the world because it was easy.  It missed Australia, but yeah, would would've been nice.  Allen Hall: But here, here in America, the railroads pretty much owned most of America very quickly. Uh, and got it done before there was any real. Feedback like they would be today, as soon as you wanna put a transmission tower in somebody's farm field.[00:03:00] Huge, huge uproar. States are involved, senators are involved. The government's all over it. There's committee meetings. Everything gets really slowed down versus 1860s. It just happened.  Rosemary Barnes: But I think the difference as well, like it's not like transmission didn't have these obstacles the first time around, right?

The crew discusses TPI Composites' chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and Ørsted's $9 billion fundraising amid financial challenges. Joel gives an update about the 2026 Melbourne Wind O&M Conference. 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, Alan Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Welcome back to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, Joel Saxon. Is in Australia. You want to tell everybody where you're at at the moment?  Joel Saxum: Yeah, we're down in Melbourne. I'm here with Matthew Stead from Ping as well. Uh, Rosemary was supposed to join us, but uh, of course she's under the weather. Uh, but we are down here doing basically a, a tour to Melbourne, uh, I guess you could say, of the wind industry. So if you don't know in Australia, a lot of the wind operators, uh, and ISPs, uh, and OEMs, to be honest with you. Are located here in Melbourne, uh, and we are talking to them all about the conference that we're gonna put on this February. Uh, it is a, the, the new and improved version of the, [00:01:00] uh, successful one we did last year. So we're taking the feedback that we got right after the event last year, uh, connecting with these, uh, all the stakeholders down here and seeing what do they, what do they want to hear for the next one? What did we do well? What could be better? Uh, we're looking at venues, we're doing kind of all the above to get this, uh. Conference up and running, and I know, uh, Matthew and I, I think we've had four to five meetings a day, every day. Um, thank you to the people that we've met with, if you're listening, because it's been really good for us, uh, very engaging, lots of feedback. So I think we've got a, we've got a good list of speakers lined up and then also, um, content for next year. That's great. So what we're looking at right now as well, uh, if you're inking this on your calendar. For the, uh, wind energy o and m 2026 conference here in Melbourne is February 17th and 18th. This year we're gonna do two full days of, uh, panel discussions, round tables, and all kinds of information sharing. [00:02:00] Uh, the goal, of course, just like last year, gather up some of the smartest people in wind and share strategies that you can take back, uh, for operations and maintenance and, and action within your company.  Allen Hall: And Phil Tarro of Intel stores out in California. And Phil, this has to be one of the. Busiest weeks in wind on the investor side. So much happening. Osted, uh, is going to issue a $9 billion emergency fundraising round. And I want you to frame this a little bit. I, I, I've heard so much on the news and been reading a lot about this, but there's several undertones, several things happening at the same time and there really hasn't been a clear path as to why. Osted has decided to go forward on this fundraising round?  Phil Totaro: Well, effectively it stems from two big things. One is obviously they had shown some financial losses, uh, recently, and this is going back a couple of [00:03:00] years now that had necessitated. You know, companies like EOR coming in and taking a 10% stake, um, just to bolster them again, we, we talked on the show before about the fact that they're not necessarily wanting to take over, although now there's some people in, you know, Denmark, that are kind of pushing the Danish government to sell off their chunk. ...

Energy Secretary Chris Wright visits Iowa to announce plans to end wind energy subsidies, despite Iowa generating 60% of its electricity from wind power that has become cheaper than fossil fuels. While the Trump administration pushes to revive coal and reduce renewable research funding, market forces continue driving utilities toward wind and solar. 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! This week's news flash is about power and politics. And the two collided in Iowa of all places. Iowa is farm state in the middle of America's heartland crucial for presidential hopefuls. It's the first major contest where candidates rise or fall. Smart politicians know: upset Iowa voters at your own peril. But here's what makes this interesting. Iowa generates more electricity from wind than any other state. Sixty percent of their power comes from those spinning turbines. Wind energy has become Iowa's economic engine. The irony? US Energy Secretary Chris Wright just visited Ames National Laboratory in Iowa. He praised the lab as a premier scientific institution. Then he dropped a bombshell: it's time to end government support for wind energy. Wright says wind power has been subsidized for thirty-three years. Time to compete without training wheels. But here's what he didn't mention: wind energy is now one of the cheapest sources of electricity in America. Even without subsidies, renewables cost less than oil, gas, and coal. Energy costs are everything in America. What we pay for electricity determines what we pay for everything else. Manufacturing, artificial intelligence, keeping the lights on at home. Energy Secretary Wright talks about reindustrializing America. He wants to win the race on artificial intelligence. Stop upward pressure on electricity prices. Those are noble goals. But here's the twist: the cheapest electricity in America comes from wind and solar power. Not oil. Not gas. Not coal. The Lazard LCOE analysis proves it year after year. Renewable energy costs have plummeted while fossil fuel prices remain volatile. Iowa figured this out years ago. They didn't choose wind power because they love polar bears. They chose it because it's cheap, reliable, and keeps electricity bills low. Wright's DOE budget would slash renewable energy research by more than fifty percent. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory would lose half its funding. But markets don't care about politics. They care about profits. And the lowest-cost energy wins every time. Here's where the story gets complicated. Wright is absolutely right about one thing: America depends too heavily on China for critical minerals. Sixty percent of rare earth elements. Ninety percent of processing. These materials power our phones, electric cars, and military equipment. China's grip on this supply chain threatens national security. The Energy Department will invest one billion dollars to bring mining and processing home. Smart move. But here's the irony: many of these critical minerals are essential for wind turbines and solar panels. The very technologies Wright wants to defund. Alaska holds forty-nine critical minerals. Refining them increases their value by six hundred fifty percent. So which is it? Do we want energy independence through domestic mining? Or do we want to slow the industries that need those materials most? Wind turbines do need rare earth magnets. Solar panels need refined silicon. Energy storage needs lithium and cobalt. You can't have domestic energy security without domestic renewable energy.

Alex Øbell Nielsen, CEO of Danish Wind Power Academy, discusses their customized, on-site, hands-on training programs for wind turbine technicians. The academy's comprehensive approach improves wind farm efficiency and technician retention through targeted assessments and real-world problem-solving. 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: Alex, welcome to the show.  Alex Øbell Nielsen: Thank you. Good to be on the show.  Allen Hall: You've been in wind about 20 years, and, uh, when we had talked a couple of weeks ago now, uh, you were highlighting some of the challenges that exist in wind energy, especially on the training side. What are those challenges? What do you see as, uh, Danish Wind Power Academy as challenges out in the world  Alex Øbell Nielsen: from a training provider perspective? Uh, of course, uh, the. The, the great demand for technicians, not only now, but also in the future, and not having a formal training, if you like, for wind turbine technicians. Um, we see that as a challenge. Uh, but of course it's also an opportunity for us as a training provider. [00:01:00] Um, but, um, I mean, as you mentioned, Danish Wind Power Academy has delivered training for more than 20 years. Uh, we do so globally, um, headquartered in Denmark, but, um. Before I, you know, deep dive into all our, our trainings, uh, as an example, we deliver troubleshooting training. Uh, a lot of customers are asking for that, but we quickly learned that many of the participants didn't have the skillset to enter or join a troubleshooting training. So what we begun doing two and a half years ago is to assess, uh, technicians before they actually go on one of our trainings to make sure that they have the right skillset. From that, then we've learned, uh, assessing more than I think 1500, maybe two, uh, yeah, more than 1500 technicians. Now that we see two or or more challenges. One is hydraulics. They always score low on hydraulics and the others and controls where they also score low. So those are some of the challenges we see and we do [00:02:00] these assessments globally  Joel Saxum: and I think that's an important point there globally, right? Because Danish Wind Power Academy of course, like when you think wind, you think the Danes, right? The Danes know what they're doing, right? Uh, we're, we're over here on uh, wind sites in the US all the time and they're like, yeah, some Danish guy was here last week fixing this. Like that happens all the time. But I, I, I wanna focus on that a little bit, saying like, we talk about, okay. The, the, the, the podcast here, of course, we're based in the states. You can hear it by our voices, but we cover things globally, right? So we cover from the eu what's going on offshore, onshore, India, Australia, apac, down in Brazil, Mexico, you name it. We're, we're covering it. We're talking to people. The, the tech, the global technician problem in wind. Is not localized. It is everywhere. It doesn't matter what locale you're in, where there's wind turbines, there is a shortage of qualified, trained, and good people. And I think, um, kudos to you guys for, you know, exporting your knowledge around the world. But that's something to focus on here, is that this [00:03:00] is a global issue and you guys are working to solve that. Alex Øbell Nielsen: We try to at least, but, but as you said, it is global and we have done these assessments, uh, globally in 2024.

Allen, Joel and Phil discuss Germany's failed offshore wind auction, India's new regulations for domestic wind turbine components, and the need for renewable energy in the US to meet AI data center demands. They also highlight Ohio's efforts to plug abandoned oil and gas wells and feature Quebec's Rivière-du-Moulin as the 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! 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 Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Well, welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm Allen Hall from the Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina. Joel Saxum is down in Texas, and Phil Totaro of IntelStor is in Cali. Phil, you had a tsunami alert just recently. Did you see any waves in your neighborhood?  Phil Totaro: No 'cause it didn't actually amount to anything. And that's good, right?  Phil Totaro: It it, have you had tsunami warnings like that in the past? Y yes. And actually more serious ones from earthquakes that are smaller than the 8.8 that was in Russia that caused this one. [00:01:00] Um, but we've had earthquakes off the coast of. California where, you know, they're like four point something or five something, and that actually triggers a tsunami warning that's potentially more serious because of the close proximity. Uh, so we actually developed, uh, in California an early detection and warning system that is triggered, um, you know, mobile phone, uh, alerts and updates based on the, the detection of the P waves from an earthquake.  Allen Hall: What's a P wave? Joel Saxum: P Wave is down, ShearWave is left and right. So sheer wave would be moving this way. P wave would be moving up and down.  Phil Totaro: The P waves, um, are the first indication on, you know, like for the US geological survey, they've got those things that, you know, monitor the, the, um, vibration of the earth or whatever it is that they're monitoring. Um, a P wave will be the first thing triggered when there's an actual earthquake. [00:02:00] That's the thing that happens fast, like super fast, and they can detect it. Anyway, so we've de we've developed an early warning system when, when we have issues and inclusive of, uh, you know, tsunami warnings. But I'm, I'm kind of, you know, 300 feet up, so I have less to worry about.  Allen Hall: It's a good place to be. Well, there's some offshore warnings off the coast of Germany because, uh, they held their latest offshore wind auction. And it was for about two and a half gigawatts of capacity in about 180 square kilometers of water. And they didn't have any bidders at all. Zero bidders and the industry from wind Europe to the, uh, German Offshore Wind Association or, or saying like, yeah, no one's gonna bid on these things because there's too much risk and there's negative bidding, quote unquote negative bidding, which means that you have to. Pay money for the rights [00:03:00] to build out the wind farm and everybody in at least Germany. And when Europe is saying that CFD contract for difference is, is the way to go. And until Germany switches over to a CFD model, you're gonna continue to have no bidders. Now Phil, this is a big problem because Germany is planning to develop a, a. Significant amount of offshore wind gigawatts worth many gigawatts worth by 2030. Is there gonna be a change into the German auction system? Will they move to A

Allen discusses Australia's 'Marinus Link' power grid connection, a $990 million wind and battery project by Acciona, and the Bank of Ireland's major green investment in East Anglia Three. Plus Ørsted's strategic changes and Germany's initiative to reduce dependency on Chinese permanent magnets. 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! Good day, this is your friend with a look at the winds of change sweeping across our world. From the waters around Australia to the boardrooms of Europe, the clean energy revolution is picking up speed. These aren't just stories about wind turbines and power cables. They're stories about nations and companies making billion dollar bets on a cleaner tomorrow. There's good news from Down Under today. Australia and Tasmania are officially connecting their power grids with a massive underwater cable project called the Marinus Link. The project just got final approval from shareholders including the Commonwealth of Australia, the State of Tasmania, and the State of Victoria. Construction begins in twenty twenty six, with completion set for twenty thirty. This isn't just any cable. When finished, it will help deliver clean renewable energy from Tasmania to millions of homes on the mainland. The project promises to reduce electricity prices for consumers across the region. Stephanie McGregor, the project's chief executive, says this will change the course of a nation. She's right. When you connect clean energy sources across vast distances, everyone wins. The Marinus Link will cement Australia's position as a leader in the global energy transition. But this is just the beginning of our story from the land Down Under. Here's a story about big money backing clean energy. Spanish renewable developer Acciona is moving forward with a nine hundred ninety million dollar wind and battery project in central Victoria, Australia. The Tall Tree project will include fifty three wind turbines and a massive battery storage system. Construction starts in twenty twenty seven, with operations beginning in twenty twenty nine. But here's what makes this special. The project has been carefully designed to protect local wildlife. Acciona surveyed eighty two threatened plant species and fifty six animal species near the site. They've already reduced the project footprint by more than twenty four square kilometers to protect high value vegetation areas. This massive investment will create construction jobs and long term maintenance positions in the region. It will also provide clean electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes while reducing reliance on fossil fuels. When companies invest nearly a billion dollars in clean energy, they're betting on a cleaner future. And Australia isn't the only place where that smart money is flowing. The Bank of Ireland is making headlines today with its largest green investment ever. The bank has committed eighty million pounds to East Anglia Three, an offshore wind farm that will become the world's second largest when it begins operating next year. Located seventy miles off England's east coast, East Anglia Three will generate enough clean electricity to power more than one point three million homes. John Feeney, chief executive of the bank's corporate division, calls this exactly the kind of transformative investment that drives innovation and accelerates the energy transition. This follows the bank's earlier ninety eight million pound commitment to Inch Cape wind farm off Scotland's coast. The Bank of Ireland has set a target of thirty billion euros in sustai...

Allen Hall and Joel Saxum visit Gulf Wind Technology in New Orleans, where they sit down with CEO James Martin and CTO David King to explore the company's innovative work in wind turbine technology. The conversation delves into Gulf Wind's unique facility, their approach to solving industry challenges, and their role in developing wind energy solutions for the Gulf of Mexico. 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: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my cohost, Joel Saxum. And we are in New Orleans, Louisiana, of all places, at Gulf Wind Technology. And we have James Martin, who is the CEO of Gulf Wind Technology, and David King, the Chief Technical Officer at Gulf Wind Technology. And first of all, welcome to the podcast, guys. Great to be here. Yeah, thanks for coming to visit us. We've had a wonderful time here today going through the Gulf Wind Technology. offices and workspace. It is impressive. It's not something I knew we even had in the United States, honestly. And you guys have been working for a couple years on a variety of different projects and technologies. And we had a meeting this morning, just full disclosure, about all the things that Gulfwind has been involved with. I'm like, whoa, all right, I didn't know that. Some of it is top secret still, some of it not top secret. James, let's just start with you. I think people in the U. S. don't have a lot of experience, haven't met you before, haven't worked with Gulfwind. Can you just give us a brief background on what Gulfwind Technology is as a business? James Martin: Certainly, yeah. Gulfwind Technology, we are all first principles, blades engineers essentially, first. OEM industry for a number of years. We've seen some of the challenges that the industry is up against today, and we like to think that we can predict maybe some of the challenges for tomorrow. So with that team, we've been able to build assets, equipment get ourselves out there as problem solvers and offering technology solutions to basically problems that can reduce the cost of energy over time. It gets talked about a lot. We're going to talk about some of the assets we've invested in, but yeah, we've got reliability products that get involved with today. The problems of today's market. We're really passionate about the products of tomorrow. So more performance projects for the future. And we love running projects. So we like, we specifically, we've been working in our region to open up or demystify, remove roadblocks for the Gulf of Mexico market. Which have got some great technology problem statements in there Allen Hall: Because that's where we first heard of gulfwind was with the work with shell gulfwind, right? Yeah, that's It's a double edged sword and we had you on the podcast in a sense because we were talking about the first wind turbine being Installed in louisiana and gulfwind is involved with that. James Martin: Yeah, I mean we really thought Because a lot of our challenges about how to get technology to products how can we demonstrate that we can take it off a desktop study in terms of a solution or an idea, and how can we show it works? How can we de risk that for our customers? So the first thing we thought is that we really want to invest put our money where our mouth is, make sure that we can design, make sure we can test on a sub component level, make sure we can actually spin anything we're talking about. And yeah, demystify some of that technology, essentially. One of the things

The crew discusses Vattenfall's ad featuring Samuel L. Jackson and explore NextEra Energy's strategies amid regulatory changes. They also highlight the importance of inspections and CMS and Rosemary's takeaway from an Australian wind conference. 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 hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxu,, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast from the Queen City, Charlotte. North Carolina. I have Phil Totaro in California, Joel Saxum's back in Texas, and Rosemary Barnes is here from the great country of Australia where Joel and Rosemary, along with Matthew Stead, will be rolling along the countryside visiting with. Wind turbine operators here soon, right Speaker 3: Yeah, so the, the 11th through the 14th, uh, we're gonna be jumping down to Melbourne because of course that's, that's wind central for operators and, uh, ISPs in Australia. And we're gonna be talking about all kinds of stuff with, uh, anybody that listen to us talk. So if you're listening here, uh, and you're in [00:01:00] Australia, connect up, uh, joel.saxo at uh, wg lightning.com. Uh, we'll get some meetings set 'cause we want to, we want to hear what issues are happening down there, right? What can we help with? What can we solve? Of course, Alan and I on the lightning side here, Rosemary is an independent expert engineer for you name it, in turbines. Uh, and our friend Matthew Stat over at iLogic Ping in the CMS space. And amongst the three of us, we also have a huge network, right? So if we're, if we're, if we getting into conversation, getting a chance to chat, tell us what. You got for problems and we'll help you solve 'em. So we'll be down there the 11th or the 14th of August. Uh, reach out.  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a lot happening in Australia at the minute. It's starting to come out a winter, getting into blade repair season that is, uh, about to fire up in Australia. A lot going on around the world. And today is Wednesday when we're recording. And this is the day where Vattenfall released their Samuel L. Jackson. Add, it's about a minute long [00:02:00] and you see Samuel L out on the shoreline with a bag of what? Seaweed chips. Joel, is that what they are? Or crackers of some sort?  Speaker 3: Yeah, a hundred percent. I gotta be, I'll be a little bit, little honest with you. I had some of those, not the same ones, not the Vattenfall ones, but I had some the other day just to try 'em out. They're not my flavor. I'm gonna be honest with you. Don't they just taste like sea salt? They taste like seaweed.  Speaker 2: That's what it is.  Speaker 3: I know, but they're, they're not that awesome.  Speaker 2: But these, uh, crackers were the output of the seaweed and all the things growing around the offshore wind turbines. I, I assume it's just seaweed, right, Joel? It's not anything else but seaweed. There's no fish involved in that. It's kelp. But see, like kelp, so  Speaker 3: like offshore kelp farming is a complete industry. Right. It's just like offshore fish farming. They put these lines out, it grows on the lines, and then they pull it in and they harvest it. This is a regular thing, however, having infrastructure out in the water, IE turbine foundations helps with all of these things. It's structure there that protects 'em from, um,

Allen discusses Trump's offshore wind cancellations, Dominion Energy's tariff troubles in Virginia, and India's new wind manufacturing rules helping Suzlon Energy. He also mentions Scotland's massive Berwick Bank approval and Colorado company Radia's ambitious Wind Runner cargo plane project. 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! I'm about to tell you about the biggest airplane you've never heard of. A Colorado company called Radia is building what could be the world's largest aircraft. They call it the Wind Runner. And if it is completed it's going to change everything about clean energy. Mark Lundstrom, an aerospace engineer from Boulder, has a simple problem to solve. Wind turbines keep getting bigger and more powerful, but we can't get them where they need to go. Here's why. Offshore wind farms can use turbine blades longer than 105m. But land-based turbines? They're stuck at about 80m. Not because of engineering limits - because of bridges, tunnels, and highway curves. The turbines are simply too big to get under bridges, through tunnels, or around curves, Lundstrom explains. So he's building a monster. The Wind Runner will be three hundred sixty-five feet long with a two hundred sixty-one foot wingspan. That's bigger than a Boeing 747. Much bigger. The payload volume? Twelve times greater than that famous jumbo jet. It'll run on sustainable aviation fuel and land on dirt strips right inside wind farms. Radia aims to complete the first Wind Runner in 2028. By doing this, Lundstrom says, we'll create the path to the cheapest energy in the world. Keep that plane in mind. Because everything else I'm about to tell you connects to that story. Now, let me tell you what's really happening with wind power. It's a story of global momentum meeting American resistance. President Trump just canceled plans to develop new offshore wind projects in federal waters. More than 3.5 million acres had been designated as wind energy areas. Gone. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is rescinding all designated wind energy areas. They're ending what they call speculative wind development. Offshore wind projects planned for Texas, Louisiana, Maine, New York, California, and Oregon? Canceled. The Biden administration's five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts? History. But here's the twist. While America pulls back, the rest of the world doubles down. Just days after Trump called wind turbines a con job during his visit to Scotland, the Scottish Government approved the world's biggest offshore wind farm project. The Berwick Bank project will power six million homes when finished. Trump said those turbines were some of the ugliest you've ever seen. Scotland said, "We'll take six million homes' worth of ugly, thank you very much." The message from Scotland? We're moving forward with wind power, regardless of what President Trump thinks. Now here's where policy meets your pocketbook. Dominion Energy's offshore wind project in Virginia just got over a $500 million price increase. The culprit? Trump's new tariffs on imported goods. The project features 176 giant wind turbines, 27 miles off Virginia Beach. It will power 660,000 homes next year. But those European Union tariffs, possible additional Mexican duties, and current taxes on Canadian and Mexican goods? They're adding up to $640 million to the project cost. Here's the kicker: Virginia customers will pay between $253 million and $320 million to cover those import taxes. Company chairman Bob Blue says the project is still the most affor...

Jeremy Heinks, owner of CICNDT, joins the show to discuss the benefits of non-destructive testing (NDT). The conversation covers the impact of storage conditions, transportation damages, and emphasizes the importance of proactive inspection practice for ensuring blade quality. 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: Jeremy, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. Well, the recent changes in the IRA bill are. Pushing a lot of projects forward very quickly at the moment, and as we're learning, there's a number of safe harbor blades sitting in yards and a rush to manufacture blades to get them up and meet the, uh, treasury department's criteria for, for being started, whatever that means. At the moment, I think we're gonna see a big question about the quality of the blades, and it seems to me. The cheapest time to quickly [00:01:00] look at your blaze before you start to hang them is while they're still on the ground. And to get some n DT experience out there to make sure that what you're hanging is appropriate. Are you starting to see that push quite yet? No, not not at  Jeremy Heinks: the level we'd like to see it. Um, as far as getting the inspections in, yeah, we have been seeing the push to get the, get these blades out. Uh, but, uh, the, the, the few that we have been able to get our eyes on aren't looking good. The quality definitely down. And we've just had a customer site come back with some, some findings that were surprising for a brand new blade that hasn't been the up tower yet and in use. So, um, it is much easier for us to get the, uh, technology and the personnel to a blade that's on the ground. It's cheaper, it's quicker. We can go through many, many more blades, uh, with inspections. Uh, it's just access is just easier. Always comes down to access.  Joel Saxum: That customer that you had there, like what was their [00:02:00]driver? Right? Did they feel the pain at some point in time? Did they, did they have suspicions of something not right? New factory? Like, I don't know. Why would some, why is someone picking that over someone? Not because like you said, overwhelmingly. The industry doesn't really do this. You know, even just getting visual inspections of blades on the ground before they get hung is tough sometimes with construction schedules and all these different things, moving parts. So you had someone that actually said, Hey, we want to NDT these blades. What was their driver behind that?  Jeremy Heinks: So we, uh, we had done a previous, uh, route of inspections on some older ative of theirs that were,  Speaker 5: um,  Jeremy Heinks: getting. Kinda along in the tooth, if you will. Uh, so they've added some experience. They saw what we could bring to the table as far as results and, and, and information and data on those blades. Uh, and it all turned out to be, um, pretty reliable. So, um, you know, we educated them on, you know, if you have new blades coming in or even use the blades coming in for replacement, that it's not a bad idea to get at least a, a sample it. And, uh, [00:03:00] basically that's what they call us in to do. They had some brand new blades come in. For some new turbines they're putting up. And, uh, they wanted the sampling. We did a sampling and the sample showed that, uh, they have an issue of these, these brand new blades.  Joel Saxum: So, okay, so what happens then? Right?

The Uptime hosts review GE Vernova's Q2 financials, noting strong gas turbine orders and delays in onshore wind. They discuss PTC impacts on future turbine orders and Iberdrola's €5 billion share sale for power grid expansions. An update on Vineyard Wind highlights ongoing blade issues and legal complexities. The wind farm of the week is the Nobles Two Wind Farm in Minnesota. 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 host. Alan Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Ro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Welcome back to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm Alan Hall from the Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina, and I got Phil Totaro in Santa Barbara, Cali, and Joel is back in the Lone Star state of Texas near Austin. And. Uh, Q2 results came out from GE Renova. In fact, they had a little webinar this morning to discuss it. Uh, a lot of different aspects to ge. Renova, as we all know, nuclear sort of high voltage, little tiny bit transmission, but, uh, wind of course gas turbines. So they are definitely setting the course for [00:01:00] a gas turbine world. And Phil, how, how far out are orders for their gas turbine products?  Phil Totaro: The last I heard talking to somebody from GE who said it was 2031 at this point, um, although things can be accelerated depending on if you're willing to pay a bit of a premium, they can, uh, you know, move you up in the queue, so to speak. Um, but it's, uh, you know, it's a pretty, uh, far off thing. Um, and unfortunately. You know, it looks like GE hasn't announced a lot of new orders for onshore wind, but nobody has in the United States. Everybody was waiting in Q1 and Q2 to see what the outcome of the production tax credit, uh, changes were gonna be. Now that we have definitive, you know, legislation on that. Um, it's going to actually trigger a lot of safe harbor orders, uh, assuming that companies can actually deliver turbines. [00:02:00] Um, because in order to safe harbor, you actually have to physically receive and store, um, something equivalent to 5% of the CapEx cost of the project. So that has to happen now before. Uh, July, 2026. And because of that, uh, I think you're actually gonna see a lot of companies that had been holding off on placing their turbine supply orders. Uh, all of those are gonna start getting announced in Q3 and Q4, so it's gonna be like a monster quarter. Uh, that's gonna more than make up for any shortcomings from, uh, from this past quarter. Joel Saxum: This is a, I'm, I'm dreaming here. Uh, could you see that this thing is, this legislation, the way it sits right now, all of a sudden all these orders come in and people are buying turbines to safe harbor them. And it's just making that, that renewable industry economy just churn for a year. And then it comes down to it. And like that is taking notice of by the administration, taking notice of like, Hey, actually there is demand for this renewable [00:03:00] energy. There is a ton of jobs happening here. There's all kinds of people trucking, there's all kinds of people delivering. And then like, maybe we should relax and change these things because this, they're still moving forward. Could you see that changing?  Phil Totaro: That is unlikely. But they're definitely, I mean, we know how politics works, and this isn't exclusive to any, you know,

Allen discusses NextEra Energy's growth potential amid the new tax bill, Equinor's financial setback in US offshore wind projects, and Statkraft's strategic shift due to falling electricity prices. Additional highlights include Wisconsin's approval of its first long-duration energy storage project, Jupiter Bach's facility expansion in Florida, and record electricity prices in the US power auction. 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! US Renewable Energy Leader NextEra Energy says Trump's new tax bill will help the company grow despite concerns about renewable energy credits. The Florida energy giant told investors it can protect most of its wind and solar projects from losing tax credits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. NextEra President John Ketchum says the company is already building so many projects that it can lock in tax benefits through twenty twenty nine. Ketchum believes smaller energy companies will struggle to meet the new deadline of July fourth twenty twenty six. That will likely mean less competition and more business for NextEra. Of course, Wall Street analysts are skeptical. Analysts from Jefferies wrote there is a clear long-term challenge ahead for the company. NextEra has signed contracts for three point two gigawatts of new projects since April. And the company is also exploring nuclear energy and small modular reactors. Norwegian energy company Equinor is taking a nearly one billion dollar loss on its US offshore wind projects. The company reported a nine hundred fifty five million dollar impairment in the second quarter. Most of that money is linked to the Empire Wind project off New York and a marine terminal in Brooklyn. Equinor says regulatory changes in the United States have reduced future profits and increased costs for offshore wind projects. Despite the financial hit, Equinor says it is moving forward with Empire Wind One. The company also completed financing for two offshore wind projects in Poland. The company says it remains committed to growing its renewable energy business. Wisconsin regulators have approved the first long-duration energy storage project of its kind in the United States. Alliant Energy will build the Columbia Energy Storage Project using a new carbon dioxide battery system designed by Energy Dome. The project will provide enough electricity to power eighteen thousand Wisconsin homes for ten hours on a single charge. Raja Sundararajan from Alliant Energy says the project will strengthen the power grid and help meet growing energy needs. The Energy Dome system works by converting carbon dioxide gas into compressed liquid for storage. When electricity is needed, the liquid turns back to gas and powers a turbine. Currently Energy Dome has a system running in Italy. Construction in Wisconsin will begin in twenty twenty six and the project should be completed by the end of twenty twenty seven. The storage system is part of Alliant Energy's long-term plan to expand power generation with a balanced mix of energy sources. Norwegian energy company Statkraft took a three billion dollar hit on its wind power projects due to falling electricity prices. The company reported strong power generation in the second quarter but said lower prices in northern Norway and Sweden hurt profits. Statkraft President Birgitte Ringstad Vartdal says the company is refocusing its strategy after a period of high energy prices following the Russian war in Ukraine. The company is streamlining operations and focusing on fewer technologies and markets.

Allen and Joel give the latest update on lightning blade damage. They discuss the results of a lightning damage assessment on 900+ GE Vernova turbines. Read the LM Wind Power Lightning Diverter Rain Erosion test results. Learn more about StrikeTape. 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! [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Welcome to the special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I have Joel Saxum along with me. And I'm Allen Hall, and we work for Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and we have not talked about the lightning issues that are happening across the United States at the moment. Also, a good bit of Europe is seeing a number of really catastrophic lightning strikes, and even in South America. So everywhere you look right now, you see a lot of lightning damage, right?  Joel Saxum: Yeah, Allen, I would say this, this spring, early summer, as opposed to years past, we've been getting more and more and more calls, and I think it's a combination of things. I think it's a, it's a combination of, I mean, we've had some extreme weather, right? There's a pretty, it was a [00:01:00] pretty, been a pretty wicked lightning season here in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and the center of the United States. But we're also hearing that same thing from India from. Mexico from Brazil, from the Mediterranean, we're hearing it all over the place. So that's happening. But then there's also some awareness, right? There's people that are, you know, in the wind industry as a whole, a lot of, a lot of operators have sat back and relied on their FSAs to handle things. And, and as these costs escalate and they're looking at lightning damages, oh, this is carved out of your FSA or, uh, some insurance companies backing away from insuring them lightning. You're starting to see more and more operators and financial asset operators coming to the table saying, Hey, we have a lighting problem. What can we do to solve it? And that's why our phone's ringing.  Allen Hall: Yeah, it's been nonstop for the last couple of months and, and I would say that some of the damage I've even seen on LinkedIn is shocking. Uh, even today, looking at images from Japan, a blade trailing [00:02:00] edges is split wide open. It's expensive. And the operators you talk to when you. Talk to a large operator who says it has a couple hundred turbines. They're spending millions of dollars a year just to keep those turbines running from all the lightning damage and the engineering staffs and all the crane work and everything else managing the ISPs. It is a huge, massive burden on the  Joel Saxum: industry. I'd like to go back to what you said about seeing it on LinkedIn. So, uh, I, I just, this is a shout out to all the amazing wind turbine blade technicians out there and engineers that are supporting them and getting these things done in the field, because we have seen some crazy damages on LinkedIn and it seems to be the ones that, uh, technicians are really proud of fixing, right? Like, look at this 10 layer repair, three meters this way, this kind of crack, these kind of things because they're all difficult to repair and they're very expensive. Repair some of these things. Uh. Teams of 2, 3, 4 people are on them [00:03:00]for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. Right. And the cost of all those things starts to add up. And we're, when we're talking about repairs, of course you have the repair team, you have the repair materials and the downtime associat...

The Uptime hosts examine Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's federal oversight mandate, the administration's plan to replace Idaho's cancelled Lava Ridge Wind Farm with six nuclear reactors, and critique a recent wind conference in Australia. The discussion also covers French utility EDF's plan to sell 50% of its North American wind portfolio to raise 2 billion euros for nuclear upgrades in France. Sign up for the next SkySpecs webinar! Register for  UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight 2025! 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: [00:00:00] Mark your calendars December 11th at the Royal Highland Center in Edinburgh, because you'll want to be at the UK offshore wind supply chain Spotlight 2025. This isn't just another conference. It's where the UK's offshore wind supply chain comes together. Co-hosted by ORE Catapult and the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership. Spotlight 2025 is where developers connect with suppliers and where the next breakthrough in offshore wind technology gets its moment to shine. So whether you're looking to forge new partnerships, secure critical investments, or simply stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly evolving sector, you'll need to register for this event. Remember December 11th in Edinburg for Spotlight 2025. Just Google. Edinburgh Supply Chain Spotlight 2025. You can register today. You're listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by bill turbines.com. Learn train and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. [00:01:00] Visit build turbines.com today. Now here's your hosts, Alan Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Tartaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Well, greetings from Charlotte, North Carolina to the Queen City. I'm Alan Hall and I'm here with Phil Tartaro from the Golden State of California. And Joel Saxon is at an undisclosed location in a secure bunker, so that's not gonna leak out where he is. And Rosemary is enjoying the winter months in beautiful Australia. And we have some interesting topics this week, but I wanna lead off with Rosemary. Went to another WIN conference, WIN plus conference in Australia. Rosemary.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, actually I, I feel petty, um, dissing this conference now because this is the one that Alan, you and I did a whole episode on how bad this conference was last year and, um. That's what caused us to feel like we needed to organize our own wind energy conference. Uh, that covered some technical topics, but you're walking around the conference, like, why is there so much hydrogen stuff at a wind energy conference? And I'm like, okay, well maybe that's like what they perceive that, you know, most of the [00:02:00] new projects in Australia, all the big ones say that they're associated with hydrogen. So maybe that's it. And then I started seeing a lot of, um, carbon capture things and, you know, like eels and all sorts of, all sorts of things related to. CO2. Um, so that confused me. Um, and then I saw that it was also a carbon capture conference too. So yeah, the exhibition was, was not, not too bad. I had definitely had lots of good conversations with people. Um, some interesting things like, um, the drone, uh, yeah, drone inspections, a few new capabilities coming up. There were a couple of people with good drones, um, that can. Test the resistance of an LPS and say that they can do a whole turbine in an hour and a half. So, um, that's, that's pretty good. There was also some cool NDT, uh, non-destructive testing stuff and a really small portable ultrasound machine, and they wouldn't give me a price,