The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

Allen and Joel speak with SkySpec's Chief Revenue Officer, Josh Goryl, at the SkySpecs Customer Forum. With record attendance, the forum emphasized industry collaboration, data amalgamation, and the application of AI for optimizing wind and solar renewable energy assets. SkySpecs announced their expansion into the solar industry, leveraging their established wind solutions to streamline data management and operational strategies across renewable energy sectors. 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] I'm Alan Hall, host of the Uptime Winner Energy podcast, and I'm here with Joel Saxon and Josh Gar, chief Revenue Officer with Sky Spec, and Josh brought us out this week to participate in the Skys Pick Customer Forum 2025, which as it turns out, has been the largest attendance this year. Joel Saxum: Yeah,  Allen Hall: it's grown every single year. Yeah. It's a room full of people, all experts in blades all here to learn about the next generation of skys specs, blades and  Joel Saxum: CMS predict CMS predict analysis and that's why it's growing so much. Right. How, what kind of percentage of the capacity in the states do you think is represented here? Allen Hall: We, we should have ran the number, I should have came prepared for this, but, um, I mean, I would say. 75%. Yeah. 80%. Okay. Yeah, that's, you're talking all the, all the big operators are, are here. Yep. I think, uh, 21 total organizations represented over 40 experts, blades, drivetrain, few senior management as well, and asset management [00:01:00] engineering. So it's an awesome, awesome group. We keep, uh, ev It's tough though. Every year we have to step it up a bit, so we're kind of, I think we're outgrowing the space that we're at here and excited for. Yeah, we're bursting at the seams. Uh, last year Joel and I were invited to come and it's the first time that we had been here and I thought, wow, this is a pretty full room. And this year, like, okay, she's back. We're we're, we are sitting next to the door right now because everybody is trying to learn what Sky Specs offers, what. Power do I have on my desktop right now, but also what is coming and there's a lot of new product releases happening that were announced just this morning. Yeah, and I think the cool thing too, that's it's not often you're able to get this many experts from operators together in one room, and even more so ones that cut across drive, train, CMS, all main components and. It can be tough to kind of keep everyone engaged 'cause everyone's a domain expert in different, different areas. But the conversations have been been incredible and I think even within [00:02:00] organizations as, as, as well. And so we're trying to learn how do we help our customers come together more and, and collaborate across. And even just having these discussions that want to discuss pulled out of is fantastic. Just some of that collaboration between even people that are, that are at the same company, they don't see each other as much. Joel Saxum: There, there's some cultural things playing out here that are funny to me because if you're in wind and you've bounced around, if you're an ISP or you're at an operator, you know, some of the players and kind of how they act, how they keep their, their, their poker hands close to their chest and stuff. So you see some people sitting at a table and you see, and I noticed this yesterday, like the psychological look of things sails, right? Mm-hmm. So I'm kind of looking at people listening and stuff and, and the,

Allen and Rosemary discuss the upcoming Wind O&M Australia 2026 conference, Ørsted's major restructuring announcement, and the BirdVision bird collision avoidance system. They also explore Nordex's new cold-climate turbine for Canada and the ongoing challenges of blade icing protection systems. 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 to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Alan Hall from the Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina. And Rosemary Barnes is here from Australia. And Rosemary, Joel and I just got back from the Sky Specs customer Form 2025 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and we had a really good time, man. Most of the install base in America. For Wind was up at Sky Specs and interesting discussions. Just a lot going on. Obviously, we're all talking about the changes in legislation we're talking about. Uh, all the moving [00:01:00] targets everybody's trying to reorganize. There's been a number of, uh, shifts from wind into solar that's happening right now in the United States. And lowering operational costs, that's the big one. Getting blades under control, uh, getting gear boxes under control, understanding where some of the risks are. It was a very good. Conference, uh, they do it once a year. It was a full room, uh, and really good people, people we, we don't see all year. You maybe see once a year, maybe see at another trade show. It was nice to spend a couple of days, uh, talking wind turbine o and m. Very similar, much to what we're gonna do in Australia in February. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I wish I could have been there, uh, maybe next year.  Allen Hall: Well, we, we met with Matthew Stead. He was there. He had traveled all the way from Australia. And one of the things we did tell everybody were at the SKYSPACE conference was come to Australia February 16th and 17th in Melbourne, and you need to start [00:02:00] registering now. You can go to Woma. 2020 six.com. WMA 2020 six.com and register for that event. Or if you want to, uh, present, you need to put your information into the website and get that rolling. Uh, it, it's gonna, it's getting close to being sold out, so you need to do that now before you lose your spot. We've increased the size of the conference from, it was about 170 odd people last year, and it's gonna be up to 250, but even. By increasing the, the amount of seats we're still gonna be full.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. It's a hard, it's a hard cutoff this time as well. Last time we kind of expanded as, uh, we got more registrations in, but we don't have that option this year, and yet that, uh, agenda is definitely starting to get worked out. So now is the time to get in touch. If you, one, want to speak or two, have a, a topic that you think that we should talk about, like one of the big things that we wanna achieve with this event. Is matching people with [00:03:00] problems to people who have solutions and especially, you know, people who are developing solutions. So, you know, it might be that there is no solution available yet, but we still wanna hear about the problems 'cause there's a lot of smart people that know all about developing wind, wind turbine technologies. So that's the place to. Get those sorts of, um, yeah. That kind of information sharing, flowing and get people thinking creatively.

While European wind giants like Maersk and Ørsted face cancellations and layoffs, America's offshore wind projects in Virginia and Massachusetts are surging ahead, proving that genuine energy demand trumps political headwinds when the physics and economics align. 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! It's an interesting time to be in wind energy....In a shipyard in Singapore, there's a vessel worth four hundred and seventy-five million dollars. It's ninety-eight percent complete, built specifically to install wind turbines off the coast of New York. And it's just floating there... abandoned. Maersk Offshore Wind walked away from the contract last week. Just cancelled it. Left Seatrium, the shipbuilder, holding a near-finished vessel with nowhere to go. The ship was supposed to build Empire Wind, but now lawyers are circling and nobody knows what happens next. This is happening at the same time Orsted, the company that pioneered offshore wind energy, announces it's cutting two thousand jobs. That's a quarter of their entire workforce. In Germany, Eno Energy just filed for bankruptcy, leaving two hundred and eighty workers unemployed and the state government holding thirteen million euros in loan guarantees. You might think the wind industry is collapsing. But, you'd be wrong. Very wrong. Thirty miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, workers just accomplished something remarkable. They hammered one hundred and seventy-six massive foundations into the Atlantic seabed, finishing the job in just five months... ahead of schedule... in what everyone agrees was perfect weather. And the weather along the East Cost of the US has been splendid this year. This is Dominion Energy's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, and when it starts generating power next March, it will be America's largest offshore wind farm. Two-point-six gigawatts of power, enough for half a million homes. But here's what makes this story truly odd in today's US political environment.... Republican Congresswoman Jen Kiggans from Virginia Beach stood up on the House floor last month to defend this wind farm. Not attack it... defend it. She explained that this project provides a five hundred million dollar power grid upgrade to Naval Air Station Oceana. She called it a matter of national security. House Speaker Mike Johnson from Louisiana, oil country, personally told reporters he delivered Kiggans' message directly to the President. "We want to do right by Virginians," he said. Think about that for a moment. In this political climate, a Republican Speaker is defending wind power. Why? Because Virginia desperately needs electricity. Data centers are consuming power at unprecedented rates, the military requires reliable energy, and this project has already created two thousand American jobs while pumping two billion dollars into the economy. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, something interesting is also developing. Chinese manufacturer Ming Yang Smart Energy just announced they're investing two billion dollars to build a turbine factory in Scotland. They're promising fifteen hundred jobs for Scottish workers, with production starting in twenty twenty-eight. The job creations and investment amount sounds great, but there are still many hurdles to overcome. The reliability and insurability of Ming Yang turbines is still a hot topic amongst wind energy engineers. And security concerns with Chinese turbines will surely raise eyebrows of the UK, EU and US governments. Only time will tell.... Remember that ship floating in Singapore?

Emily Rees and Magnus Willett from ORE Catapult discuss the upcoming UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight in Edinburgh. The event brings together innovative companies that are establishing the UK as a global leader in offshore wind energy, from small startups to major manufacturers. 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! Emily and Magnus, welcome to the show. Hi, it's great to be here. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having us. You, you're both preparing for the UK offshore wind supply chain Spotlight 2025, in which Joel and I are looking forward to attending up in Edinburgh on December 11th. Uh, and it's an event that showcases where the UK stands in Global Offshore Wind Development. Uh, but Emily, I, I know there's some challenges in the UK at the moment and, uh, the UK is working through those. Want to talk to some of the. Those challenges and how the spotlight is gonna help work through those. Yeah, uh, of course. So, um, I think that, you know, we as the uk like have identified quite a while ago that offshore wind was a really massive opportunity for us. You know, we've got a really amazing offshore wind resource, [00:01:00] um, and. So we really wanted to take advantage of it and, you know, push forward with a, with that industry. Um, the things that we've come up against is that, um, ability to then provide homegrown, um, supply chain, you know, actually have, uh, businesses in the uk being that, that main supply, um. In the first port of call, you know, there was the, uh, a lot of the, um, sort of components that we, we sort of have to, to build the fixed bottom offshore wind was all coming from abroad, so it's like, right, well, how do we reap the benefits internally of this really amazing industry that we can build? And so, um, having, uh, supply chain spotlight events where we can really shine a light on the different companies internally in the UK that are actually providing services and providing, um, the supply chain for offshore wind, um, is, is super critical. And the, the catapult, um, the offshore renewable energy catapult, uh, where Magnus and I both from, um, is, you know, [00:02:00] really key into making that happen. I know when you look online at the re catapult and you see like the people that you partner with, the organizations, the, I mean OEMs, um, all of the innovative technical technology companies that are coming out there, it it, it's, it's so great to see. Right. And then this is me sitting in my, my American chair a and I talked about this. We talked a little bit about it off air, about the fact that wind energy in general, when you're, when you're talking offshore wind, onshore wind, it is a huge. Industrial and economic opportunity for all the countries that are involved in it. And simply because things like this don't come along that often, right? Like you have the, you know, the automo, I look at it like that, like the automobile was a thing, right? Like, oh, we went from horses to this. This is a huge opportunity. It made a lot of people, a lot of money, put a lot of people to work. Wind is the same thing in my perspective, and maybe not at that grand of scale, the automobile, of course, but. You are seeing with your organization, the involvement with people like we have the, the Siemens facility in [00:03:00]Hull, and I know you guys do a little bit of work with them, uh, bringing that manufacturing onshore into the uk. But not only is it bringing manufacturing what you're doing here with the UK offshore wind supply chain spotlight is taking. The small companies, the, the,

The hosts cover some recent turbine failures, Onyx Insight's new CEO and strategic acquisitions, research about wind turbine farmland contracts, and an article about hybrid brakes by Dellner. 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. I'm your host, Alan Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. Rosemary Barnes in Australia and Joel Saxon in the great state of Texas. Just before we hopped online to record this podcast, Rosemary was telling us about a number of turbine problems on LinkedIn and. Rosemary wanted to comment on them. These are some of the larger turbines. Rosemary are newer turbines. Uh, some of them onshore, some of 'em offshore  Rosemary Barnes: for the, yeah, for the most part. Um, yeah, both onshore and offshore. Some a little bit older, but the common thread is, um, [00:01:00] just like spectacular fail failures of multiple blades of one across multiple turbines of one, the one I saw most recently. Had blades smashed to pieces. It had towers that had just like fallen apart. Like it was, um, like they weren't bolted together. Like it was just blocks stacked on top of each other and they had, you know, just an angry baby had just topped them over. That's what it looked like. And um, I think what's really interesting is reading the comments in those and it just, without fail every single time, the first few comments are gonna be. Um, justifying how that is just cool and normal, like either by the company itself or the turbine manufacturer itself saying, oh, you know, oh, this was just a prototype. So, you know, it doesn't matter that it fell apart, like. Forgetting about the fact that, okay, it's just a prototype, but it's still an operational turbine that people would've been inside it to install it. They're inside it to maintain it. You know, people are inside those things. They're not supposed to be able to just fall apart by the time that it gets to that point.  Joel Saxum: I, I, I think I've seen some of these same posts, Rosemary, and one of the ones that I saw recently [00:02:00] was not even, it wasn't new, it wasn't prototypes. It was, it was like, there's a picture, there's three turbines with, or four turbines and there of the, of the dozen blades in the picture, nine of them are gone. It's just a nelle hub with like little stubs on three turbines, and those are only like 850 kilowatt, one megawatt, 1.5 megawatt machines. They're, they're old. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Yeah. And so I think a typhoon went through in that particular case and I made a comment, you know, like it's either poor turbine design or it's really poor site assessment. In either case, it's a failure, right? Like you don't put wind turbines that can't withstand a typhoon in a place that gets typhoons. Um, but you always, you always say people saying how this is actually great engineering. And I just thought this is just the classic example of that, um, that was written under this latest post, and I'll just read it out. The pictures point to the designers of these turbines. Having done that, designing to a certain wind speed, having done that to a high degree of consistency, I note three failure types [00:03:00] in the pictures, blade snap, tower, buckling and bolt failure, pointing to all parts,

OEG celebrates 500 offshore turbine toilet installations while BlackRock acquires AES for $38 billion, signaling continued investment despite global wind auction slowdowns and European wind droughts. 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 good news today from the wind energy sector, and it starts of all places with toilets. OEG and Aberdeen Headquartered company just reached a milestone. They've installed their 500th in turbine welfare unit across the UK's offshore wind sector. If you've ever worked on an offshore wind turbine, you know why this matters. These aren't just convenience facilities. Their dignity and their safety. The other difference between a dangerous transfer to a standby vessel and staying on the job. The units operate in the harshest offshore conditions with no external power or water. Nine offshore wind farms now have these facilities and they're making offshore work accessible for [00:01:00] women helping retain a more diverse workforce. And while OEG celebrates 500 installations, something much larger is happening in the American Midwest. Gulf Pacific Power. Just completed a major transaction with NL Green Power North America. Gulf Pacific acquired all of E L's interest in five operating wind facilities, totaling over 800 megawatts of capacity. The portfolio includes Prairie Rose in Minnesota, Goodwill and Origin, and Rocky Ridge in Oklahoma, and a facility in North Dakota. Projects with long-term power purchase agreements and high credit counterparties. And then there's BlackRock. The world's largest asset manager is placing a $38 billion bet on American clean energy. They're close to acquiring power Giant a ES, which have give BlackRock ownership of nearly eight gigawatts of wind power capacity. A [00:02:00] ES leads in sign deals with data center customers with artificial intelligence driving unprecedented electricity demand. That positioning matters. The weather numbers tell their own story about wind's challenging year. Most of Europe recorded wind speeds four to 8% below normal in the first half of this year. The wind drought curtailed generation in Germany, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom. But the Northeastern United States saw winds seven to 10% above average in parts of Norway, Sweden, and Northern China also benefited. And in storm, Amy, which is passing through the uk, it drove wholesale electricity prices negative for 17 hours. 20 gigawatts of wind power flooded the grid and the grid paid users to consume electricity. Too much wind, not enough demand. The offshore wind industry faces real headwinds. Global awards fell more than 70% in the first nine months of this year. Of about 20 gigawatts of expected auctions, [00:03:00] only 2.2 gigawatts have been awarded. Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark are preparing new frameworks to restore investor confidence and Japan designated two promising offshore zones, but confidence there is still shaken when Mitsubishi pulled out of its first auction due to some sorry costs. So here's what we have. An Aberdeen company celebrating 500 toilet installations that transform working conditions. A Midwestern power company expanding its wind portfolio by 800 megawatts and the world's largest asset manager, betting $38 billion on American energy infrastructure. All while offshore auctions stall globally, all while Europe experiences a wind drought and the UK experiences at times too m...

Kyle Mason (Associate Planner) and Robert Freudenberg (VP, Energy & Environment Program) from the Regional Plan Association break down why New Jersey electricity rates spiked 17-20% in June 2024. They explore how outdated grid infrastructure, AI-driven energy demand, and stalled renewable projects are creating a perfect storm for ratepayers. 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: Kyle and Rob, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having us.  Robert Freudenberg: Yeah, thanks. Great to be here.  Allen Hall: Uh, so I was doing a lot of homework online a couple of days ago and looking into, uh, some statements with an administration about the electricity rates in New Jersey, and I thought, well, I need, I need to do my homework because some of this is new to me and throughout all my research and spent several hours on it. Your organization is the only one that had any real data. So I'm glad you're joining us today. So, Kyle, I would like to start with you first, and, and. There's a fundamental challenge that's happening, uh, in New Jersey. Can you just paint a picture of what around New Jersey rate payers are facing with their electricity bills? Kyle Mason: Yeah, absolutely. So starting [00:01:00] June of this year, uh, electricity rates in New Jersey went up between 17 to 20%, depending on your utility company. Uh, that is a cause of a larger problem with the regional grid operator. PJM. Uh, PJM is the grid operator for New Jersey and 12 other states. It covers over 60 million people in a wide geographic area. Uh, they run a annual capacity auction, which secures power for when the grid is at peak load or when most power is being used on the grid. And that capacity market saw record high prices, which trickled down to. Increased electricity rates for New Jersey rate payers.  Allen Hall: Rob, from a policy perspective, how did we get here? Robert Freudenberg: Yeah, I mean, there are, there are so many ways we got here and that's part of the issue. Um, you know, I think what we've seen in, in the aftermath [00:02:00] of these rate hikes is everybody trying to point to one thing. Uh, and there is no one thing here. This is, this is a series of changes over time. Um, you know, we're. We're, we're looking at, um, the way we bring energy onto a system on an old grid. We have a very old grid. And we're trying to update it in real time. And the process to put things on the grid is, uh, taking a lot longer than it used to. And we're putting new and more, uh, various types of, of energy sources onto the grid. So, um, as we're, it's like trying to, to build the plane while you're flying it, and we're trying to update our grid. As we need the energy and as demand is increasing. So, um, you know, as we add these new and various sources, uh, to the grid, they're going through a process that used to take a few years, and now it takes many years. And we're also in a, in a phase where we're adding a lot of renewables, which are, you know, not big behemoth like power plants. Um, you know, they're [00:03:00] smaller, more distributed. So the process that's set up to bring new energy, new infrastructure online is outdated. And, um, you know, I think what we're, what we're finding is as we go and more energy is demanded that the system is not keeping up, uh, with the demand. And so we're falling behind and projects are getting stuck in the queue. And the, the federal government,

The crew discusses the Chinese S1500 airborne wind turbine, how NLMK DanSteel manufactures steel for offshore wind, and results from ORE Catapult showing extended blade lifetimes. 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: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall in the Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm here with Rosemary Barnes and. Australia Phil Totaro's in California and Joel Saxum's back home in Texas. We've all decided that we're not gonna talk about anything negative this week. That's good. Phil did have his pre-recorded rant. That's always good. So there, there is some dirt going on out there in wind, but I don't think we're gonna talk about it this week 'cause we just need a little bit of a break. The top of the order is, uh, this Chinese flying wind turbine that looks like a Zeppelin, and [00:01:00] they have supposedly tested over in China, the world's largest airborne wind turbine, and it's called the S 1500. It's developed by Beijing's Saws Energy Technology, and it made us made in flight recently in Hames. The, it looks like a Zeppelin and, and Rosemary, there has been a previous version of this that was around, but I don't think it went to anywhere, but it looks like it's what? It's about 40 meters tall, about 40 meters wide and about 60 meters long. So it's sort of this long tube. And inside of this tube they have 1200 kilowatt generators. So they're creating power up at altitude, and they have a cable that bring down all the power. Down to earth. It's kind of like a heliostat and some of these, uh, other tethered systems. My question is, why are we trying that now? And especially in China where they have huge, massive wind turbine is [00:02:00]being built. Why this?  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Uh, I don't know. I often question why China makes certain decisions with investments they make. 'cause they have, um, yeah, invested in a whole bunch of. Out there technologies as well as dominating most of the mainstream ones. And, uh, what I usually come up with is that they've gotta try everything. Strategy, very, very similar concept came out of MITI think that they developed it originally as a power generating thing, you know, basically just based on the idea that, um, wind speeds are way higher the further up you go. So they wanna. Get, get up into those really high, um, wind speeds that, you know, way higher than what a tower can reach for a traditional wind turbine. And yeah, this, these original concept that I saw out of MIT, that originally they were planning to use it for power generation, then I think that they pivoted to telecommunications. Um, and then I believe that they pivoted to not doing that anymore. Um, so I haven't looked at it recently. Could, could be that [00:03:00]I'm a little bit outta date on that. But it is interesting to see a concept picked up that. Like, I don't think anybody would really say that that was the most promising of all the different kinds of airborne wind. Um, yeah. So it's interesting to see that that's the one that's been picked up. I think it's got some promise in that it's, it's true that the wind resource is much better at, um, at high wind speed, but there are a whole lot of challenges that need to be overcome. Um,

This episode covers how the wind industry is adapting to political and regulatory challenges, from Ørsted's legal battle to restart Revolution Wind to a wind executive preparing to row across the Atlantic for ocean conservation. 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! There's something fascinating happening in the world of wind power right now. Something that tells us less about the technology itself, and more about human determination. You know the story - Danish energy giant Ørsted the world's largest offshore wind developer - spent five billion dollars building the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island. Eighty percent complete. Three hundred and fifty thousand homes depending on the electricity. Then, one August morning, the phone rings - The new administration says: "Stop. Everything. Now." Just like that, Orsted is losing a reported two million dollars every single day the turbines sit idle. Last Monday, federal judge Royce Lamberth looked at the government's reasoning and said - and I quote - "There is no question in my mind of irreparable harm." He ordered work to resume immediately. Ørsted's stock jumped. The workers went back to their jobs. The turbines will spin again. Meanwhile, President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" has triggered something nobody saw coming: the great wind energy consolidation. Clean energy deals jumped from seven billion dollars to thirty-four billion dollars in just six months. Companies like Agilitas Energy are swooping in, buying up distressed assets from companies that may struggle with the new reality. As Barrett Bilotta from Agilitas put it: "We are on the buy side." Across the Atlantic, let's talk about France. Now, you might think the French would be leading the offshore wind revolution. After all, they've got coastline, they've got technology, they've got TotalEnergies. But you'd be wrong. Patrick Pouyanne, TotalEnergies' chief executive, put it bluntly this week: "It's hell to invest in France for regulatory reasons." Get this - it takes two and a half to three years just to bid on offshore wind projects in France. In Germany, Pouyanne can get permits twice as fast. "I don't understand," Pouyanne said, "why we're able to renovate Notre Dame Cathedral in five years and unable to build solar or wind plants at the same pace." And yet - here's the kicker - even as he criticized his home country, TotalEnergies just won the contract for France's largest offshore wind farm ever. One and a half gigawatts off the coast of Normandy. But here's where the story gets interesting. While France stumbles with red tape, parts of North America is waking up. Up in Nova Scotia, Minister Sean Fraser announced this week that Canada is moving full steam ahead with offshore wind development. They're calling it part of a sixty billion dollar opportunity. The Canadians are doing something smart: they're learning from everyone else's mistakes. Streamlined processes. Clear timelines. So what does all this tell us? It tells us that wind energy isn't just about technology anymore. It's about adaptation. It's about resilience. It's about knowing when to fight and when to pivot. Ørsted fought in court - and won. TotalEnergies called out France's bureaucracy - while quietly building their biggest offshore wind farm ever. Canada saw opportunity in others' uncertainty. And the smart money? It's buying up assets while they're cheap, knowing that the wind is a long-term investment. Speaking of people who understand resilience,

Jewel Williams, an engineering manager at Ørsted, shares insights about managing a diverse renewables portfolio and the distinct challenges of offshore and onshore wind. Leading operations of over 27 sites, containing wind, solar, and battery storage, Jewel showcases the skillset needed to successfully work in wind. 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: Hey, Jewel, welcome to the program.  Jewel Williams: Hey, nice to be here.  Allen Hall: Well, we have a lot to talk to you about. You're an engineering manager. In wind and uh, we know all the pressure that's involved there just from the outside. Um, we're not working in it day to day. Of course. I am really curious with all the recent changes of things that are happening on the ground, what is your day to day like right now? Jewel Williams: Yeah. Uh, well, you know, it kind of depends on the day, of course. Uh, so, you know, in addition to wind, both in the onshore and offshore, we have, um, best solar and, uh, crane support on my team. So. Kind of depends on what's, what today's challenges are, what are the impending deadlines. [00:01:00] Um, so, you know, it could be compliance, it could be dealing with legal, it could be disputing an RCA or building an RCA it, it really just depends on the day. Joel Saxum: I think we breezed over that one almost too quick when we were talking about wind engineering manager and we kind of said engineering manager, and then you went wind solar. Battery storage and then this wild card cranes, you know, when, when we speak with people in the industry, everybody's busy. That's, that's the constant email you see back and forth. Oh, sorry, I was a little bit late there. Thanks for your patience with this. We're busy with this, we're busy with that. I don't think we've talked to anybody, Alan, that has like a complete renewables portfolio as an engineering manager. And then also cranes. We're just gonna throw that in there. Um, so, so I have a net specialty. I is, is it a lot of firefighting?  Jewel Williams: It, it can be. It can be. Ideally we are shifting towards the kind of reactive to the proactive, but you're in operations and so a lot of times when work is hitting your desk, the first thing that [00:02:00] happens is a problem where failure and then the work comes to you. So in that case, like there's certainly quite a bit of, uh, firefighting and you mentioned the cranes is a bit of a wild card. I think that was one that. They weren't quite sure where to put. And we had a good team and a decent people leader, and so they were said Jewel, hey, here's a job description. We need you to hire a crane guy. And that was an interesting experience because I did not have the background to make the hire in the first place. But it's worked out really well. I've got an awesome guy to support.  Allen Hall: So how many people are on your staff At the minute?  Jewel Williams: Right now we have nine engineers.  Allen Hall: Okay. So you're doing wind, best, solar, and cranes with nine people. How many wind farms, solar farms and best sites do you have altogether?  Jewel Williams: Altogether? 24. Allen Hall: Wow.  Jewel Williams: So we have two onshore bests, uh, four solar, and the rest is winds. Uh, and then, uh, three of those are offshore wind sites.  Allen Hall: And how far scattered [00:03:00] about the country are they?  Jewel Williams: Well, they're a little bit of everywhere,

Allen and Joel discuss the best conferences in the wind industry in the upcoming months. Across the world, the wind industry is coming together to better the industry and share knowledge. 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. I'm your host Allen Hall, and I'm. Here with Joel Saxum, who's up in Wisconsin, and Joel and I have been talking back and forth about all the conferences that we need to attend, and it's going to be that time of year. We need to be planning for the end of your conferences in 25. And then getting, uh, your registrations in for conferences in 2026. It's coming up fast, Joel.  Joel Saxum: Yeah, I know. This is the time of year where like blade season is over. A lot of the heavy repair season is over. MCE work starts to get a little bit touch and go depending on where you are. We're getting into September, October. It starts to snow here soon in some places in the northern, uh, [00:01:00] latitudes. So it's also coinciding with that is the time when companies starts. Spooling up their budgets for 26. And those budgets are operations and maintenance budgets. They also include for, you know, depending on the team, you're on, engineering asset management. It, it is conference budgets and it's, uh, you know, these things aren't cheap. Uh, so that's one of the complaints that we have globally about a lot of these conferences is, uh, you know, some of 'em are getting up to, it used to be a couple hundred dollars to get in. Now they're 1500. 2000. I even heard of one to 2,500 to get in the door, which is. A bit extreme. So if I could say anything to the, uh, conference organizers, please stop raising the prices. But like Allen said, it's that time of year to start planning these things. 'cause it's conference, the fall conference season starts kicking back off, uh, at a global way. So, uh, we're gonna walk through some of those conferences and, uh. Can I share with you our thoughts and the knowledge that we have around some of 'em and where we'll be? Allen Hall: Yeah. And the, the first one on the list is one that it's just gonna pass by the time this podcast comes out, which is hu Some [00:02:00] and Hu Some's the big energy conference in Germany. And uh, it is. Just massively popular. It has been the, uh, counterpart to, uh, Hamburg every year. So the alternate year to year. So everybody that goes to Hamburg tends to go to Husam, and whoever goes to Husam tends to go to Hamburg. It's a great place. There's a ton of technology there, and anybody that's of interest in wind needs to go there at least once in their lifetime and see it.  Joel Saxum: Yeah, it's like a, it's a wind mecca. Conference. So when we talk Huso, usually it's more focused on onshore. Hamburg is more focused on offshore, uh, which is really cool to see. Of course, most companies that are playing in these spaces are dabbling in a little bit of both, whether you're an ISP or you're an operator or a financier, whatever it may be. But this is one of those conferences that Allen and I regularly tell people specifically from the North American market, if you haven't been over to the European conferences, the big European [00:03:00]conferences. You should go, um, just to see what kind of technology, what they're doing,

ONYX Insight has acquired UK-based ELEVEN-I, a company that specializes in advanced blade monitoring technology. The acquisition shows the wind industry's move towards supporting companies that can prevent expensive turbine breakdowns. 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! Twenty twenty-five has been a record-breaker for energy deals - over four hundred billion dollars in acquisitions, the highest in three years. But buried in all those massive oil and gas mergers is a quieter revolution happening in the wind fields of the world. It started in March last year when Macquarie Capital, the Australian investment giant, made a move that sent ripples through the wind industry. They acquired Onyx Insight, a British company that had been quietly revolutionizing how wind turbines are monitored. Onyx wasn't just another tech startup - they were monitoring seventeen thousand turbines across thirty countries, serving seven of the world's top ten wind operators. Macquarie knew what they were buying. This wasn't just about the technology - it was about the data. In the wind business, data is the new oil, and Onyx had been collecting it from turbines spinning from Texas to Tasmania. But Macquarie wasn't finished. A few days ago, Onyx announced they had acquired Eleven-i, a smaller British firm run by Bill Slatter. While Onyx could monitor most parts of a wind turbine, they had a critical blind spot: the blades themselves. Slatter had spent six years perfecting sensors that could detect blade problems weeks before they became catastrophes. His technology had successfully spotted a crack smaller than one meter, three weeks before the most sophisticated drones could see it. In an industry where a single blade failure can cost millions and shut down entire wind farms, that's pure gold. Here's what they don't tell you about the wind industry: it's not just about building bigger turbines anymore. As these giants grow longer than football fields and taller than skyscrapers, they're failing in ways nobody anticipated. Blade detachment, tower collapse, catastrophic gearbox failures - the list goes on. The smart money - and we're talking about some of the biggest infrastructure funds in the world - has figured out that the real value isn't in building more turbines. It's in keeping the ones already spinning from falling apart. The math is simple: artificial intelligence and data centers are driving electricity demand through the roof. The U.S. could see data centers consuming twelve percent of all electricity by twenty twenty-eight. That's staggering demand that can't wait for new power plants to be built. So investors are swarming companies that can squeeze more power out of existing infrastructure. Onyx, with its Macquarie backing, can now offer wind farm operators something they've never had: a complete picture of their turbine's health from the foundation to the blade tips. The Eleven-i acquisition fits perfectly into Macquarie's broader energy strategy. They've been on a buying spree - solar developers, waste management companies, renewable energy platforms. In Australia alone, they've completed sixty-five acquisitions across the energy sector. But here's the bigger picture: the wind industry is consolidating at breakneck speed. Just like oil and gas, where the top fifty companies have been whittled down to forty through mega-mergers, renewable energy is heading the same direction. The survivors won't be the companies that build the most turbines. They'll be the ones that can keep them spinning reliably for twenty, thirty,

Edo Kuipers from We4Ce and Søren Kellenberger from CNC Onsite discuss their Re-FIT blade root repair solution, which has been successfully implemented at a wind farm in Southeast Asia. The solution allows operators to keep blades onsite while repairing critical blade root bushing failures. 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: Ed0o and Soren, welcome to the program.  Edo Kuipers: Thank you very much. Thank you both. Allen Hall: We have some really exciting news from you, from the field, but first I, I want to start with the problem, which. A lot of operators have right now, which is this blade root, bushing it in or insert issue, which is really critical to blades and you're the creator of the device that's gonna save a lot of blades. You want to talk about what happens? When these blade root bushings fail?  Edo Kuipers: Uh, yeah. What we have seen is that it especially concerns, um, uh, polyester type of blades. And what we see is that, um, bushings and, and, and composites, they are not attached to each other anymore. And after a [00:01:00] while, blades are simply flying off. That's the, that's the whole, that's the whole problem. Of course. And now going back to the root cause, the root cause here is we are working with, with foes and. The fact is that if you're working with polyesters, they already have, um, at the, uh, uh, during the process, the curing process, they have already curing shrinkages. So we have already curing shrinkages, which means we have already initial micro flagging going on, on the interface between the bushing and, and, and, and the limited around it. And that reduces, that reduces the um, surface. Carrying area. And by doing so, because we have less area, surface area that can transfer the loads from the hub, um, from the blades to the hub, eh, we have limited amount of, of years on running. So we are reducing, uh, the, the amount of years [00:02:00] that the blades are on the, on the, on the turbine safely.  Joel Saxum: This problem is compounding right now simply because there's a lot of the global wind turbine fleet that's starting to age. Right. Like we, we, we went through a big push in, you know, the early two thousands, 2000 tens, 2000 twenties to now where, you know, if you look at the country of Spain, we hear that regularly, Alan is, Hey, we're getting to the end of life. We're close to the end of life. Then there's people saying, what is the remaining useful life? Where are we at? Um, and this is one of those issues where. It can develop rapidly, right? So if there's an issue, you can, if you catch it in time, great. You're good. But it can develop rapidly and that can lead to catastrophic losses. But I guess my, one of the questions I want to ask you, and you guys of course have done some commercial here. Uh, how many turbines do you think are affected by this globally affected by this root bushing issues?  Edo Kuipers: Oh, that's a good one. If I, if I talk a number of blades at the moment, we are more or less at a ball point figure about 30, [00:03:00] 40,000. Blades. Wow. Worldwide. So we see many us, we see many in South America and we see also in Southeast Asia, like India. And those blades are running, let's say from 10 years, 12 years, and some of them also after six years,  Allen Hall: and a lot of manufacturing. Uh, blades happens in multiple sites, right? So if you have a particular OEM wind turbine,

The crew discusses Husum Wind, Arthwind's blade consulting work featured in PES Wind, and a major cable damage incident at Taiwan's Greater Changhua offshore wind project. They also cover Japan's plans for a national floating wind test center, Australia's offshore wind development struggles, and feature Scotland's Moray West wind farm 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! 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 Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, and I'm here with Joel Saxum up in the great state of Wisconsin. Phil Totaro is in California, and Rosemary Barnes is here, but she's in a vehicle in Australia somewhere. But there has been a tremendous amount of news over the last couple of days, and I think we should talk about some of them. Uh, I guess it's, it's a where the group would like to go. This week, guys, you know, we've been talking about the administration for the last several weeks and about administration out, uh, the latest is with, uh, the administration in [00:01:00]court about Empire Wind. Do you want to even talk about that stuff this week or do you wanna move on to some things? A little happier? Let's do happier. Alan. I think we should, we need some different news. I feel the same way, Joel, you know, uh, when this podcast comes out, everybody's, everybody's gonna be in Husam, Germany having a great time, uh, talking wind energy, particularly in Europe. And it sounds like that event is gonna be bonkers from what I can tell on LinkedIn.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. The, I mean, HU is only second to Hamburg right in, in Germany there. Everybody that I go, they enjoy it. Husam is like the, the. Correct me if I'm wrong, Phil, but I think it was like the first place they had onshore wind in a big way in Germany. Phil Totaro: Yes. So it's vestus, um, put up a factory there, uh, and was selling wind turbines to farmers. It's also where they used to do, the reason that it's there is they used to do an agriculture. Um, event and then they used to invite some of the wind guys. This is going back to like the, you know, late eighties, early nineties. [00:02:00] They used to invite the wind guys, or the wind guys used to show up to try and sell turbines at this agriculture event. The amount of people interested in wind got to such an extent that they started doing a separate wind event. Um, and it got. Before they started the separation with the, the Wind Energy Hamburg, um, event, they, uh, that got to a point, I mean, I remember being there in what, 2015 or 2016 when it had to have been. 30,000 people in a field in Huso. You know, I, my best memory of it, I think was when, uh, well it was eon at the time, but, uh, they had a guy running around, passing out hot dogs. And I had a eon hotdog.  Joel Saxum: Phil, I wanted to share with you. This was a Deutsche Wind Technique show, San Antonio a CP. They had margaritas with the Deutsche Wind Technique logo in the margarita, like foam, the foam on top of the margarita once, and they were passing those out at an event. I thought that was spot on.  Phil Totaro: The hot dogs [00:03:00] are not branded in any way, although that would've been a good idea to like, you know, stamp the button or something.  Joel Saxum: What,

An offshore wind farm near the island of Bornholm, Denmark shows how international energy sharing creates global energy progress. 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! There's a little Danish island in the Baltic Sea that's about to make history. And it all started with a handshake worth seven billion euros. Bornholm. Population: forty thousand souls. About the size of Tulsa, Oklahoma. For eight hundred years, this island has watched the tides of war and peace wash over Northern Europe. But last week, Bornholm became the center of the most ambitious energy project in human history. Here's what just happened. The European Commission signed the largest energy grant in EU history. Six hundred forty five million euros. Seven hundred fifty six million dollars. All for one little island. But that's just the beginning. Siemens Energy just won the contract to build four massive converter stations. Two on Bornholm. One on Zealand. One in Germany. The job? Converting three gigawatts of offshore wind power into electricity that can flow between countries. Think about that. Three gigawatts. That's enough power for four and a half million homes. And the cables to carry all that electricity? NKT, a Danish company, just signed a six hundred fifty million euro contract. They'll lay two hundred kilometers of underwater cable. That's one hundred twenty four miles of electrical cord running beneath the Baltic Sea. But here's where this story gets remarkable. The cable won't be laid by just any ship. It'll be installed by the NKT Eleonora. A cable laying vessel currently under construction. When it launches in twenty twenty seven, it'll be one of the most advanced ships in the world. Powered by renewable energy. Built specifically for this project. They're not just connecting countries. They're connecting the future. Thomas Egebo, the Danish project leader, says this is about more than electricity. Quote: We are taking a big step towards a future where offshore wind from the Baltic Sea will supply electricity to millions of consumers. End quote. But let me tell you what makes this story truly extraordinary. This isn't about one country getting richer. This is about sharing power. Literally. When Denmark has too much wind, Germany gets the surplus. When Germany needs more electricity, Denmark shares theirs. Two gigawatts flow to Germany. One point two gigawatts stay in Denmark. It's like having the perfect neighbor. The kind who loans you sugar when you're out, except the sugar is enough electricity to power Berlin. The construction timeline reads like something from science fiction. Construction begins in twenty twenty eight. The island goes operational in twenty thirty. By then, Bornholm will be the electrical heart of Northern Europe. But here's the part that will give you goosebumps. This project started during the pandemic. June twenty twenty. When the world was falling apart, when nations were closing borders, one hundred seventy one out of one hundred seventy nine Danish parliamentarians voted yes. Democrats and conservatives. Liberals and traditionalists. They all agreed on one thing: the future belongs to cooperation. Stefan Kapferer, the German project leader, calls this efficient offshore cross linking between all countries bordering the North and Baltic Seas. Translation: It's the birth of a European electrical network. One that shares power, shares security, and shares prosperity. The wind turbines will be built fifteen kilometers offshore. That's about nine miles from Bornholm's coast.