The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

This episode covers three major wind power milestones: Germany hitting 51 GW of wind output with negative electricity prices, France launching its first floating offshore wind farm without subsidies, and Australia's Goyder South becoming South Australia's largest wind farm at 412 MW. 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, Alan Hall, shares the renewable industry news you may have missed. Allen Hall 2025: There is news today from three continents about wind power in Germany. Last Friday, the wind began to blow storm Benjamins swed across the northern regions. Wind turbines spun faster and faster. By mid-morning wind output hit 51 gigawatts. That's right. 51 gigawatts the highest. Since early last year, wind and solar together met nearly all of Germany's electricity needs, and then something happened that would have seemed impossible. 20 years ago, the price of electricity went negative. Minus seven euros and 15 cents per megawatt hour. Too much wind, too much power, not enough demand. Meanwhile, off the coast of Southern [00:01:00] France, dignitaries gathered for a celebration. The Provenance Grand Large floating offshore wind farm. 25 megawatts. Three Siemens Gamesa turbines mounted on floating platforms. France's first floating offshore wind project. a real milestone, but here is what caught everyone's attention. No government subsidies. EDF, Enbridge and CPP investments. Finance the entire project themselves. Self-finance, offshore wind in France. Halfway around the world in South Australia, Neoen inaugurated Goyder South. 412 megawatts, 75 turbines, the largest wind farm in the state, the largest in Neoen portfolio. It will generate 1.5 TERAWATT hours annually. That's a 20% increase in South Australia's total wind generation.[00:02:00] The state is racing towards 100% net renewables by 2027. Goyder South created 400 construction jobs, 12 permanent positions, over 100 million Australian dollars in local economic impact. Three different stories, three different continents, Europe, Asia Pacific, all celebrating wind power. But there is something else connecting these projects. Something the general public does not see something only industry professionals understand. 20 years ago, wind energy was expensive, subsidized, and uncertain . Critics called it a fantasy that would never compete with coal or natural gas. Today, Germany has so much wind power that prices go negative. France builds offshore wind farms without government money. Australia bets its entire energy future on renewables, and here is the number that tells the real [00:03:00] story. In 2005, global wind power capacity was 59 gigawatts. Today it exceeds 1000 gigawatts the cost per megawatt hour. It has dropped about 85%. Wind power went from the most expensive electricity source to one of the cheapest in about two decades faster than pretty much anyone had predicted, cheaper than anyone had really forecasted. the critics said it could not be done, and the skeptics said it would never compete. The doubters said it was decades away, and they were pretty much all wrong. Today France celebrates its first commercial scale floating offshore wind farm. And Germany's grid operator manages negative prices as routine Australia plans to run an entire state on renewable energy. Within about two years, the impossible became inevitable, and you, the wind energy professionals listening to this, you [00:04:00] made it happen. Engineers, technicians, project managers, turbine designers,

Eric van Genuchten, COO and Co-founder of Sensing360, explains how fiber optic technology is changing gearbox monitoring by catching failures that standard vibration sensors miss. The company's system uses light-based sensors mounted directly onto planetary gearboxes to measure tiny steel deformations and load changes, providing early warning for the 10% of catastrophic failures current monitoring can't detect. 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 I am here with Eric van Genuchten. Uh, so Eric is the COO and Co-founder of Sensing 360. Um, and they are bringing optics, um, to monitoring for gearbox, other rotational equipment. Uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about what that means for the wind industry today, implementation retrofits, uh, from the factory, all kinds of good stuff. So, Eric, can you give us a little bit of a, of your background? What's, what makes you an expert in the space?  Eric van Genuchten: Uh, that's a good question. So basically my background is. Uh, I studied physics when I was much younger than I'm now, so, uh, I'm not gonna disclose when, but, uh, I've been working since roughly 20 years and I have a background in SKF in the [00:01:00] bearing, uh, uh, manufacturing space. And basically I've been working within SKF as condition monitoring, uh, solution developer. So I've been in condition monitoring for almost 15 years now. And from SKF, where we developed, uh, condition monitoring systems for all kind of applications, but also wind of course, we went towards, um, load sensing of barrens to be very specific to help our large customers. And for that we used, uh, fiber sensing. And, uh, eight years ago, seven and a half years ago, uh, I started with two colleagues. I started sensing 360. Which is the 360 is of course the rotation, but we are using five optical sand or optics, uh, for rotating equipment, mainly bearings, large bearings, gear boxes. And uh, we have been focusing a lot on wind, uh, the last five years, uh, mainly on the planetary gearbox because that's a challenging part from the rotating, uh, [00:02:00] system to monitor. So that's where we, uh, think we can add some value.  Joel Saxum: So I know like, uh, I, I wanna share this with the users too. Our listeners here too, because I came across your technology man, three, four or five years ago or something, uh, over in Europe. I, I think it was, we were in Copenhagen, wind, Europe and Copenhagen. Um, and I remember seeing you guys in like the startup space and I walked over and you had like, basically what looked to be, um, a stainless steel bearing race on the, on the table. With your sensor package on it and a live readout. And I looked at it and I went to pick it up and I was like, this is interesting. And when I picked it up, just my hand on it, I looked at the screen and I could see all the deflections happening on the screen from just me grabbing this. And I mean, it was, I mean, you remember what the product thing there was? It was probably four millimeters thick of stainless steel. Like that's not, I'm not squishing that thing with my hand, but you could see it. Eric van Genuchten: Yeah, no, a lot of people checked if we had a camera around it to see if they were mimicking the move. But basically, [00:03:00] if you ring about it, it's, it's this, this product still, we still have it, it's still operational. And this is the, the, the type of bearing a small, relatively small one for,

Register for the next SkySpecs Webinar! Allen, Joel, Rosemary, joined by Yolanda Padron, discuss RWE's pilot project using drones to transport equipment uptower. Plus Mingyang has announced plans to invest $2B into a UK offshore wind manufacturing center. And Renvo' article in PES Wind Magazine highlights the needs for a convenient spare parts marketplace in the wind industry. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! 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. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Alan Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. And I. Have everybody else on the podcast is in the same state. Rosemary is in Texas, in Houston, Texas. Joel's in Austin, Texas, and our newest employee, Yolanda Barone, is in Austin, Texas. Yolanda, welcome to the podcast. You're, uh, just joined us a couple of days ago and we're super excited to have you. There's been a lot going on in the wind business. Uh, Rosemary's actually over here for a conference and Joel's been helping [00:01:00] out at that conference. Just so everybody knows, Yolanda's gonna be our blade expert at Weather Guard helping us with a, a number of issues that operators have around the world, uh, for things that Rosie can't take care of. Call in Yolanda. So leading off this week, an interesting story from RWE and a big press release about it. Joel, uh, RDB has achieved a breakthrough in offshore wind logistics. By successfully testing cargo drones at its German wind farms, and, uh, the first time in German offshore airspace. Both long range autonomous drones and short distant cargo drones have been used in daily wind farm operations. Uh, the pilot project demonstrated how different drone types can deliver spare parts, tools, and supplies to turbines. Uh, they were able to move up. About 10 kilograms, which is like roughly 25 pounds over about 40 kilometers. [00:02:00] That's a pretty good rate. Uh, this is unique though to Europe because I think in the United States we're not even allowed to do this, right? Um, you can, it just depends on getting special permits. So it's called a bv, LOS or BV loss, uh, beyond visual line of sight. Uh, so you can get, if you have specific, uh, software packages and you're not over a major city and certain things, you can get those kind of, um, certificates from the FAA, but they're not easy. Uh, the, the cool thing about this is, I mean, let's just put our technician hat on for a second. Even an onshore wind farm. I'm up tower and I go, oh, Alan and Rosemary and Yolanda and I are up tower and, and I go, who brought up the 10 millimeter socket? And none of us did. Now we have to draw short straws to see you, has to climb all the way down and get the 10 millimeter and come all the way back up. Whereas with a drone, you could just fly up, land on the nelle and you have your tool, but it also means that you don't have to [00:03:00] bring everything that you might conceivably need with you up there. So like when you are climbing towers every day, you've, you're taking so much junk with you every time you go up, every time you go down and. Like it sounds easy. Oh, they've got elevators in there. And that's true. You don't have to like put it in a backpack and climb up a ladder with it. Um, in towers that have a lift, but it's still, once you get to the top of the lift,

Solar and wind power are outpacing coal for the first time globally. However, the US faces challenges in meeting clean energy goals due to material shortages, a lack of skilled workers, and political roadblocks. 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! Something remarkable happened this year. For the first time in history, renewable energy generated more power than coal worldwide. Solar grew thirty-one percent in just six months. Wind and solar together outpaced electricity demand. China built more clean energy in half a year than the rest of the world combined. India's renewable growth beat demand. Their fossil fuel use dropped. Why? Simple economics. Wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of electricity. But here in America, we have a problem. Johns Hopkins researchers just discovered we'll fall thirty-four percent short of our clean energy goals by twenty fifty. Not because renewables cost too much. Because we don't have the materials to build them. Nickel. Silicon. Rare earth elements with names like neodymium and dysprosium. China controls ninety percent of the processing. And last week, they announced export controls. Meanwhile, in Britain... They're creating four hundred thousand clean energy jobs by twenty thirty. Plumbers. Electricians. Welders. Building wind farms. Installing solar panels. Running smart grids. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband put it simply: "Where are the good jobs of the future going to come from? This is the answer." The Sizewell C nuclear plant alone needs ten thousand workers. But here's the rub - they need to triple their welders, double their plumbers. The workers don't exist yet. Down in North Carolina... Duke Energy just announced a new plan. They're delaying wind projects. Extending coal plants. Not because coal is cheaper - it isn't. But because artificial intelligence and data centers are driving electricity demand eight times faster than expected. Glen Snider from Duke says they need reliability while demand surges. The irony? Duke's moving away from the cheapest new sources of power - wind and solar - just when they need the most electricity. They're choosing to extend expensive coal plants that cost more to run. Australia sees opportunity... Treasurer Jim Chalmers is in New York meeting with Blackstone and Wall Street. Australia has lithium, manganese, rare earths. They claim they can deliver the world's lowest-cost renewable electricity by twenty fifty. "Australia has exactly what the world needs, when the world needs it," Chalmers says. Think about this... The technology works. Solar and wind are cheaper than coal. Batteries can store the power. Countries using these technologies are seeing their energy costs drop. But America faces three bottlenecks: First, we don't control the materials. Second, we don't have the skilled workers. Third, states like North Carolina are choosing reliability over cost savings. President Trump calls renewables "a joke." But JP Morgan says something different. They say America will have to use renewable energy whether we like it or not. Nuclear takes too long to build. Fossil fuels cost too much. The numbers tell the story... Britain: Four hundred thousand new jobs. America: Seven hundred thirty gigawatts short of materials. North Carolina: Eight times the demand growth. Global renewables: Cheaper than coal for the first time. We're watching the free market work. The cheapest energy is winning worldwide. Except in places where politics and supply chains get in the way.

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.

Mona Doss from Wildlife Acoustics discusses how wind operators can address bat conservation and regulatory risks with their SMART System. Their technology uses acoustically triggered curtailment to protect bats while maximizing wind energy production. 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: let's get started with the challenge facing Wind operators today. the Tricolored bat is in serious trouble and it's creating regulatory risks for the wind industry. Can you walk us through what's happening and why this matters for wind operators?  Mona Doss: It matters because last fall, the US Fish and Wildlife introduced some, voluntary wooded guidelines for the tri-colored bat. this, particular bat species population has, declined and is, primarily being affected by two factors. one being, something called, white nose that's affecting many back. Species across, north America. But the other is for some reason the tricolor bats. And [00:01:00] we're still looking at a lot of bat researchers, and I'll leave that to the bat biologist to address more specifically. but they are, being affected very much by, wood turbine mortality. So it's gonna be a balance between trying to address back conservation as well as the needs for energy production, which we all want from a, wind farm.  Allen Hall: And the white nose fungus is a really deadly disease for the tricolor bats. I, I've seen numbers upwards of 90%, mortality rate, when that fungus, affects them. And that fungus is pretty much exists where they live. it's something hard to, stop.  Mona Doss: Yeah, there's been a lot of great research by, various universities and VE Conservation International here in North America, trying to understand the nature of the fungus. And, how there might be possibilities to, treat, bats that are exposed to that fungus. All of that at this point is still very experimental. but that fungus has wa out many, [00:02:00] bat ber macular of various species. You might have had bat ber macular that had tens of thousands of bats that are literally just down to a few dozen. Joel Saxum: That's extreme. That's, that's like wiping out entire populations, entire ecosystems.  Mona Doss: It's very extreme. so there's been a lot of monitoring for the progress of this fungus. It was first founded in New York a few years ago. It's been slowly migrating, towards the west. so you've got the fungus affecting the bats and you've got, the demand for more clean energy, with wind farms that are also contributing to bat mortality. And these poor bat species are suffering from both sides at the moment.  Allen Hall: It's very serious. Mona, what are the consequences for wind operators who don't proactively address this sort of dual threat to the. White nose syndrome, wind turbines, and fungus. obviously they're gonna be asking wind turbine operators to do something. What does that look like?  Mona Doss: Yeah. right now, [00:03:00] when the, wind farm operators are going in front of environmental regulators to, get their permitting all approved, there's a negotiation that's occurring between balancing the bat species protect protection based on maybe pre-construction, present servings for bats. And the need for energy production. But as more and more bat species get listed as their populations are declining and they become species of concern, you're gonna have an increase in, what's called blanket curtailment.

Allen and Joel discuss the aggressive actions by the Trump administration against offshore wind projects. They also consider the broader implications for the wind industry, exploring onshore impacts, geopolitical maneuvers, and strategies for companies to adapt and prepare for future challenges. Register for the next SkySpecs webinar! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: 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. Joel, you've had some really cold weather up there the last couple of days. It's still September. Doesn't really make sense, Alan. I dunno. It's, it's  Joel Saxum: September, well, beginning of September and this morning when I let the dog out at 5:20 AM whatever time she decided to wake me up, it was 36 degrees here. That's way too cold. Um, I knew, I, I, I went up here to escape a little bit of heat from in Texas, but I did not look to Frost advisories and like sweatshirts and vests and boots. Um, but that's what's happening. Yeah. Even, uh. Even a [00:01:00] few red leaves floating around on the lawn up here. So, uh, yeah, winter or fall is coming. That means, you know what fall coming means is blade season for repairs in the northern hemispheres slowing down or shutting down shortly. So we're gonna get to hear what happened. Maybe a postmortem, hopefully on the, the blade repair season in North America.  Allen Hall: Yeah, it's been busy from what I could tell. And plus there's a lot of construction going on. New insights. There's, uh, all kinds of turbines being planted right now. We're gonna be working through the end of the year easily, if the weather will support it. Very active time at the moment. And speaking of active time, this is our second take of this podcast, uh, just because so much has happened since we recorded last evening. Uh, Joel and I thought we ought to take another try or attempt at this. Try to give you the, the most updated information. Not to say it's not gonna change over the next couple of hours after we finish this podcast, but, uh, the Trump administration [00:02:00] has launched its most aggressive attack on America's offshore wind industry. Uh, the federal government is now working to withdraw permits for New England Wind one and two off the coast of Massachusetts. These projects are valued at roughly $14.6 billion by Bloomberg, NEF, and we power more than 900,000 homes. Uh, but the, the issue really is why are they being shut down? Nobody really knows. Uh, and there's a lot of conjecture about it. And Joel, you and I were just talking before we recorded here. It may have something to do with Denmark.  Joel Saxum: Yeah, I think you wanna believe that. Smoother minds will prevail that, uh, logic and pragmatism is a part of government. But what it really seems is there's, there's favoritism and there's egos and there's feelings driving some of these, these decisions. Right? Today we just heard or [00:03:00] just read that the, the Danish government is in California signing a policy agreement for collaboration with Gavin Newsom and the, the administration out there. We've, and, and this is like on, this is on top of, uh, Trump's rhetoric around, or the Trump administration's rhetoric around we would like Greenland. ...

Arkansas is set to welcome $12 billion in new data centers that will require significant electricity, while recent legislation has made it nearly impossible to develop new wind farms. The state will have to rely on importing power and building natural gas plants, leading to higher costs 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! Allen Hall: Let me tell you a little story about wind energy in the state of Arkansas. But first, let me pick you a picture of the natural state. Arkansas sits right in the heart of America. This is the land that gave us President Bill Clinton and the retail giant Walmart. It's the home to the rugged Ozark mountains and the fertile Mississippi River Delta, where folks still wave from the front porches. And Sunday dinner means the whole family surround the table. Arkansas has always been a place where old traditions meet new opportunities. Rice fields stretch across the eastern flatlands. Timber companies harvest the dense forest. The Buffalo River runs wild and free. And now. Wind energy companies are eyeing those wide open spaces and [00:01:00] mountain ridges. But here's where our story gets interesting. The natural state is about to welcome $12 billion in new data centers. That's Google building a $10 billion facility in West Memphis, just across the river from where Elvis lived. Two more billion dollars centers go up in Little Rock and Conway near the center of the state. These data centers will demand massive amounts of electricity. How much Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation says they've got requests for 4,000 megawatts of new load. That's more power than the entire system has built in 80 years. And the data center companies want it in just three or four years. And here's an interesting turn of events. Arkansas just made it nearly impossible to build wind farms that could power these data centers cheaply. And cleanly. Senate Bill 4 37 passed by just one vote in the Arkansas [00:02:00] Senate 18 4 14 against, they called it the Arkansas Wind Energy Development Act, but don't let the name fool you. This 20 page regulatory monster is designed to kill wind development. The bail requires wind turbines to be set back three and a half times their height from property lines. That's up to a quarter mile it. Bans turbines within one mile of schools, hospitals, churches, and city limits. It demands extensive environmental studies and public hearings. Wind companies warned this would kill future development. Wire, Hauser the Timber Giant with 1.2 million acres in Arkansas said the rule would limit their ability to host wind projects to zero acres. Zero. Representative Jack Leman, a Republican from Jonesboro, Arkansas, summed it up on the house floor, quote, if wind is a bad idea, it will fail on its own. It's not our job to kill an [00:03:00] industry, unquote, but they killed it anyway. Six Arkansas counties have already banned wind development. Carroll County, Boone, Madison, Newton Crawford, and Criton Counties have all said no to commercial wind projects. The current projects get a pass. The Crossover Wind Project in Cross County and the Nimbus Project in Carroll County. Were already under development by April 9th of this year, so they're exempt from the new rules. Crossover wind will be Arkansas's first operational wind farm, 135 megawatts, 32 turbines enough to power 50,000 homes. It's going online next summer in the flat farmland of Eastern Arkansas. Nimbus is more controversial. 180 megawatts. Plan for the Ozark Mountains in Carroll County near the state line with Missouri...

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,

Alan Hall discusses Jupiter Bach's halted expansion, New York's offshore wind project delays, BP's exit from the US wind market, Maryland's permit defense, and a major clean energy deal in the UK and Germany. 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! A major wind turbine supplier in Pensacola, Florida is scaling back expansion plans. Jupiter Bach, a Denmark-based company, is pausing hiring after passage of President Trump's energy bill. The company makes nacelle covers and other components for wind turbines. Plant manager Sean Guidry says the company had planned to grow its local workforce from two hundred forty to more than three hundred twenty employees next year. Now he says they see a more flat year. The policy shift comes after President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law earlier this month. The legislation significantly shortens the eligibility window for wind and solar tax credits. Projects must now break ground by twenty twenty-six and enter service by twenty twenty-seven to receive full tax benefits. Previously, those credits were locked in through twenty thirty-two. Guidry says his company had planned an additional one point two million dollars of investments in their Pensacola plant this year. Now those investments are in question. The company supplies components directly to GE Vernova, whose nearby plant assembles complete nacelles for wind energy projects across the country. Guidry urges policymakers to view wind energy as key to U.S. manufacturing and energy independence. He warns that without reliable federal support, the United States could lose ground to China in fast-growing industries that depend on abundant, low-cost electricity. New York State has put the brakes on a major offshore wind project. The New York State Public Service Commission terminated its offshore wind transmission planning process. The commission cited stalled federal permitting as the reason. This halts plans to deliver up to eight gigawatts of offshore wind power into New York City by twenty thirty-three. Commission Chair Rory M. Christian says the uncertainty coming out of Washington forced the state to act. He says quote, "This is not the end. We'll move forward once the federal government resumes permitting." The commission cited recent federal actions halting new offshore wind leasing and permitting. Officials say those actions make short-term project execution unfeasible. Existing projects like South Fork Wind, Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind are unaffected and continue to move forward. The commission says it will apply lessons from this process to future planning. It's focusing on affordability, reliability and risk reduction. British oil giant BP is getting out of the wind business in America. The company announced Friday it's selling its entire U.S. onshore wind operation to LS Power. The sale includes wind farms spread across seven states with a combined capacity of one point seven gigawatts. BP did not disclose the sale price. But previous estimates valued the wind business at as much as two billion dollars. The sale is part of BP's twenty billion dollar divestment program announced in February. The company is streamlining its business and pivoting back toward fossil fuels to boost returns to shareholders. William Lin, BP's executive vice-president for gas and low-carbon energy, says green energy still has a role to play in the company's portfolio. But he says BP is no longer the best owner to take the wind business forward. The move comes as BP seeks to refocus on its core oil ...

Mads Arild Vedøy and Anders Nash explore the Utsira Nord project and Norway's bid to lead in floating offshore wind technology. They discuss the strategic transition from oil and gas, the unique tender process, and the global implications of a successful execution. Learn more about the Utsira Nord bidding process! 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 2025: Mads and Anders, welcome to the program.  Anders Nash: Thank you. Thanks Allen, for having us. And, uh, it's a show we listen to a lot. So a pleasure to be with you today.  Allen Hall 2025: Well, we, we have a really interesting subject here, and I want to pick. Both your brains a about the, some of the complexities of floating wind in Norway. And, uh, we know that the floating offshore wind industry is still relatively new and it's actually at a critical juncture. And even though we have proven that technology works at scale, it's, we, we don't have large development yet. And that is where Norway is stepping in and changing that equation quite radically. Uh. Let's just back up a minute. The project's called OSU Nord, and [00:01:00] if you haven't been paying attention, you've been missing a lot because, uh, floating wind is gonna be the way of the future. But ultimately, what is the fundamental problem that OSU Nord is trying to solve?  Mads Arild Vedøy: So, of course, uh, node has been kind of on the verge. I, I would say, since the, the, since, at least since 2020, but also even before that with, uh, EOR, uh, launching their, uh, high wind, uh, demo turbine, right? The first world's first floating wind turbine. And Norway really kind of saw itself as a front runner in, in floating wind. Um, fast forward to 2020. The then government opened these areas for offshore wind in Norway with, um, with uja, nor as one of the bigger floating one, right, one and a half gigawatt of floating wind. And what Norway kind of wants to do is to take a position within this market.[00:02:00] It and, and more kind of this industrial perspective rather than for the energy production. Right? Because Norway has, uh, we are self-sufficient for now at least. Uh, but with the electrification going on. We will soon run enough that as well. But, but for now, and the predictions going on to, to 2030, we are Okay. Looking a bit further. It should be, well, the, the surplus is gonna diminish or, or at least be far less than we have. So, yeah. That, that's the, I guess the problem we are trying to solve is, is more the transition from being an. Oil and gas community to, um, also secure the industry for the next phase of energy production, right? And not only only gas, but also electricity. With Norway, then being this maritime nation and, and seeing ourselves as, as, uh, one of the leaders in, in, [00:03:00] in offshore installations, we, we see that we can take a position as a leading developer of, uh, of floating wind as well.  Joel Saxum: I think it's very interesting, right? That we, you, we come along this, this train, right? Because like you said, Norway is, you're rife with renewable energies. You guys have a lot of hydro, you're, you're, you're good there. And the PPA prices for that reason are fairly low. Um, comparatively so you, but you have this industrial, marine, industrial complex that a lot of places don't have. Allen and I have talked about on the podcast many times in the US we have a lot of coastline.

Register for the SkySpecs webinar! The crew discusses the resignation of Wind Europe CEO Giles Dickson and his impact on the organization. They examine a new executive order from the White House targeting 'unreliable' wind and solar energy sources, analyzing its potential effects on tax credits and the renewable energy market. 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 Winner d podcast. I'm Alan Hall in the Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina. I got filter the tower out in California and Joel Saxon is in wet Austin, Texas. It rained again today. The storm waters have been severe, like a hundred year flood Situations in Texas have been very dangerous and a lot of people have been injured down there. yeah, our condolences go out to everybody affected down in Texas and there's supposed to be some more severe. Rainstorms in the East coast of the United States. So hold on tight. there's a lot of news going on [00:01:00] this week around the world. the one that sticks out first and I wanna bring this to the attention of everybody that, if you haven't heard yet, is, wind Europe. CEO Giles Dixon has announced he's stepping down after 10 years as leading WIN Europe. And I was stunned when this happened. And obviously, I. Don't have any influence in when Europe being an American. I just watch from the outside and I, from what I've seen and attended the conferences over in Europe, everything from what I've seen under his tutelage has been great. And the promotional materials and all the information that when Europe provides, has been outstanding. so Giles is going to go back to teaching. He's gonna go back into the schoolhouse. but it, seems like it's a shock to everybody at, Wind Europe, at least that's the outward appearance. Board chair Henrik Anderson, who is the head of Vestus Praise Dixon's, tremendous contribution, noting [00:02:00] that he will leave Wind Europe stronger than he when he arrived. And that's clearly the case. Phil, do you have any insight as to what's going on behind the scenes over in Wind Europe and with Giles?  Phil Totaro: I do not, but I can also speak from personal experience, having met him, I wanna say back in 2018 or probably 2017. and I can certainly attest to the, the work that they've done. As you might be able to see, I've got two, things sitting here behind me that are awards from, the Wind Europe and, predecessor to, that, we've, done a lot of work over in Europe and it's been facilitated by, the Wind Europe, events that they do as well as the publications that they've put out. certainly my thanks go out to, to him and, [00:03:00] wish him well on his, future endeavors.  Joel Saxum: I would say from an American standpoint, been to wind Europe now, man, I don't know how many times, half a dozen times or something like that. They do a really good job over there. And this is from, the leadership comes from the top of just circling the wagons, right? Bringing everybody out to the show, getting more voices involved, giving, getting executive leaders from a lot of these large operators, giving them the space to talk and putting them, in an area where their voices are listened to. So like when, the last time I was at Wind Europe, I think it was in, bill Bao. so I went, walked into Bill Bau,

Allen discusses the strain on America's largest power grid due to data center demand, Taiwan's $3 billion wind farm project, the potential sale of Allete and new data center regulations in Ohio. 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! America's largest power grid is under serious strain. Data centers and AI chatbots are using electricity faster than new power plants can be built. PJM Interconnection covers thirteen states from Illinois to Tennessee and Virginia to New Jersey. The company serves sixty seven million customers. This summer, electricity bills could jump more than twenty percent in some areas. The region has the most data centers in the world. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is threatening to pull his state out of the grid entirely. Recently, PJM's CEO has announced he's leaving and PJM Board members have been voted out. PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields says the problem is simple economics. "Prices will remain high as long as demand growth is outstripping supply. Right now, we need every megawatt we can get." The grid lost more than five point six gigawatts in the last decade. Old power plants shut down faster than new ones come online. Meanwhile, data center demand keeps growing. By twenty thirty, PJM expects thirty two gigawatts of increased demand. Almost all of that will come from data centers. Ørsted has secured three billion dollars in financing for a major wind farm project in Taiwan. The Greater Changhua Two project will supply clean energy to over one million households once it's fully operational. The wind farm sits thirty to thirty seven miles off Taiwan's coast. Taiwan wants twenty percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources by twenty twenty five. This project is a critical step toward that goal. Ørsted plans to sell part of its ownership stake after the project is completed. This strategy lets the company recycle money into new projects while keeping operational control. Allete is one step closer to being sold. The Minnesota Department of Commerce has withdrawn its opposition to the six point two billion dollar deal. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Global Infrastructure Partners want to buy the company. Allete runs Minnesota Power and Superior Water, Light and Power of Wisconsin. The sale still needs approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. That's the last hurdle before the deal can close. The new owners have agreed to several customer protections. They'll freeze rates for one year and reduce the company's allowed profit margin. They've also promised fifty million dollars in additional clean energy investments. AEP Ohio has won approval for new rules that protect customers from data center costs. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved the plan on July ninth. Large data centers will now have to pay for at least eighty five percent of the electricity they sign up for, even if they use less. AEP Ohio President Marc Reitter says the rules align data center demand with infrastructure costs. "This infrastructure will support Ohio's growing tech sector and help secure America's data storage facilities here in the U.S." The requirements will last twelve years, including a four year ramp up period. Data center owners must also prove they're financially able to meet their obligations. RWE has extended CEO Markus Krebber's contract until twenty thirty one. The early extension adds another five years to his current agreement. Krebber has led the German energy company since twenty twenty one.

Jon Zalar, founder of IWTG Consulting, discusses the challenges of wind turbine maintenance, emphasizing the rise in turbine failures and the importance of root cause analysis (RCA). Proactive maintenance, proper documentation, and expert consultation will help to mitigate issues and ensure turbine efficiency. 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 2025: Jon, welcome to the program.  Jonathan Zalar: Thanks for having me,  Allen Hall 2025: Jon. Let's start with the reality facing wind farmer operators today. What's the core problem when it comes to turbine failures?  Jonathan Zalar: There's been a larger number than they probably experienced like five years ago. I think, um, you know, the volume of turbines out there and some of the bigger issues that, you know, people are seeing in the last two to three years has made owning a wind farm a little more challenging than before. Um, you know, between blade issues, bolted joint issues, shoes, and. Overall, like o operations, right? It's been tougher to keep these turbines up and running, you know, manpower's an issue, getting people out there to go fix stuff. It's, [00:01:00] it's been tough for a lot of people I've talked to.  Joel Saxum: Do you think this is a, a partial result of like, um, okay, so what we're, you know, on the podcast in the last few years, we've always been talking about, oh, there's all kinds of models coming out and there's this, this manufacturer can put out this many different variations and all these things, and now. Now we're getting to the age where that family, that group of turbines that, I guess it's kind, I'm looking at it like a class, right? That class of, that, those years of turbines are now getting to the stage where they're out of warranty and they're coming into, some people are taking, you know, ISPs taking, um, maintenance of them or an owner operator taking maintenance over from the OEM. And all of a sudden now there's these issues popping up and different things that we're, we're kind of in this. Um, like a swamp of problems with a lot of different models. So, uh, yeah, like you said, we've we're, we talked a little bit off air here about RCAs and how to fix things and looking at serial defects and stuff, but it's just like, it seems like every other week [00:02:00] someone calls Alan Ryan's like, Hey, have you heard about this thing with this model? And it's like, man,  Jonathan Zalar: another one. I think it's a combination of two things. One. Like I talked about the last time we had podcasts, there was a, you know, a pretty big push to increase rotor size, come out with new models for, for every, for all the os, right? They're competing against each other. Coming out with a new model every 18 months. And you can ask Phil, but I believe mostly the OEMs are sold out. If you go back five, six years, where. A huge expansion in the amount of wind turbines that have been placed. Right. So I think you combine those cheap factors and now, yeah, the owners have a lot on their plate, a lot more than they're  Allen Hall 2025: probably used to. And my question all is this, the complexity of the turbines. So every new model that comes out, what I'm seeing is more instrumentation, more sensors, more stuff, more variability, even in where the components originate from.  Jonathan Zalar: Right? Yeah. [00:03:00] I mean, to increase, to be able to meet that increased demand the OEMs had to get,

This week we discuss the Danish government's permit extensions for two offshore wind farms, the U.S. Senate's new renewable energy bill, the Belgian government's halted wind farm tender, and the complexities of laying seabed cables for wind farms. 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 2025: Well welcome back to Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I have Rosemary Barnes down in Canberra Australia. Phil's in California, and evidently he lives next door to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and I, I had no idea, Phil, like you're that close to royalty.  Phil Totaro: I'm not. You're  Allen Hall 2025: making that up. Joel's up in Wisconsin somewhere in the northern wilds of Wisconsin. Next to a cheese factory, and here I sit in Charlotte, North Carolina. If we've been paying attention or if you've been paying attention to the news over the last, uh, 48 hours in America has been complete chaos as we are recording this and the US Senate has [00:01:00] passed a bill regarding renewable energy and it's back to the house. Supposedly this is all gonna get signed off by the 4th of July. So we're recording it. Today is July 2nd. Um. So by the time you hear this, something may or may not have happened, and we're trying to keep abreast of the latest, but I think there's some other news going on around the world. And, uh, one of the stories we found interesting was the Danish Offshore, uh, agency Energy Agency has approved permit extensions for two of Denmark's oldest offshore wind farms, which marks a major milestone for. Wind energy longevity. The middle Gruden and Newstead offshore wind farms have received permission to operate for an additional 25 years and 10 years respectively. That is massive extension. Uh, the middle Gruden facility, which is built in 2001, has about 20 turbines and about 40 megawatts of capacity, and it's owned by a community cooperative. [00:02:00] And the Danes being on top of all these things, uh, allowed the extension after doing an engineering analysis showing that the infrastructure has more life. This is unusual. Is this just a artifact of early designs being overly conservative? And these wind farms can practically live forever? I think so. I, uh,  Joel Saxum: I like it. Alright. I wish that all these wind turbines are built this way because it's then you can get more longevity of, I think now of course when everybody has a repower now or tries to extend life, they're trying to really do it. So they're trying to, if we're gonna put money, we'll try to, you know, up the kilowatt, we'll try to up the capacity, well then the foundations don't hold and these kind of things. So it's kind of like if you look at, um. I'm up here in northern Wisconsin, not too far from my house. There's a bridge that was built by the CCC, uh, the civilian Conservation Corps in like the, um, at the Great Depression. So like in the 1930s, late, [00:03:00] late 1920s. And that bridge is fine. Like it's golden. It's still good, right? But it was overbuilt, super built to be heavy duty construction. And there's another bridge just down the road from that same one over the same river that was done in the seventies that needs a complete replacement. Because it was done, it was done with like, you know, di different design functions, not as robust. And,

Nordex USA has reopened its wind turbine plant in Iowa, while Alliant Energy plans to add up to one gigawatt of wind generation in the state. GE Vernova's 18 megawatt turbine has been approved for testing and the UK has greenlit the 1.5 gigawatt Mona Offshore Wind Farm. 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 news for Iowa's clean energy sector. Nordex USA celebrated the reopening of its wind turbine plant in West Branch, Iowa on Tuesday. The plant now employs more than one hundred workers. They're producing the company's first U.S.-made turbines. Manav Sharma is Nordex's North American C.E.O. He says the company is committed to Iowa for the long term. The plant had been closed since twenty thirteen. Nordex bought the facility in twenty sixteen and spent months retrofitting it. The plant will produce parts for five-megawatt turbines. Production capacity is planned to exceed two point five gigawatts annually. The reopening comes despite federal debates about renewable energy tax credits. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds noted that sixty six percent of Iowa's power comes from renewable energy. That's the highest percentage in the US. Alliant Energy also has big plans for wind power in Iowa. The company filed a plan with the Iowa Utilities Commission to add up to one gigwatt of wind generation. Mayuri Farlinger is president of Alliant's Iowa energy company. She says expanding wind energy will help them deliver reliable and cost-effective power to customers. Alliant plans to own and operate the new wind projects. The company expects the projects to create construction jobs and provide payments to landowners. They'll also generate new tax revenue for counties where the turbines are built. The Iowa Utilities Commission is expected to make a decision in the first quarter of twenty twenty six. Norway is testing the one of world's biggest wind turbine. Norwegian regulator N.V.E. approved GE Vernova subsidiary Georgine Wind plans for an eighteen-megawatt turbine in the municipality of Gulen. NVE says this is the largest wind turbine ever approved in Norway. It's also the first to be licensed inside an existing industrial area. The turbine will have a rotor diameter of up to two hundred fifty meters. The maximum tip height will be two hundred seventy five meters. The turbine will undergo testing for five years before switching to standard commercial operation for another twenty five years. The United Kingdom has approved its largest Irish Sea wind farm. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband granted planning consent for the Mona offshore wind farm. The project is owned by B.P. and EnBW. It will feature ninety six turbines off northwest England. The one point five gigawatt project could power more than one million homes with clean energy. It's expected to begin production between twenty twenty eight and twenty twenty nine. Miliband says this shows the government is backing builders, not blockers. B.P. and EnBW are also waiting for approval of a neighboring wind farm called Morgan. That decision is due by September tenth. The developers have been paying option fees of one hundred fifty four thousand pounds per megawatt per year since January twenty twenty three. Richard Sandford is B.P.'s Vice President of Offshore Wind. He says this approval brings them closer to delivering large-scale, low-carbon energy critical to the U.K.'s net zero goals. That's this week's top news story. Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Jason Moody from GreenSpur discusses their innovative axial flux generator technology, which promises to reduce weight and complexity in wind turbines, offering greater efficiency and lower maintenance costs. 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! Today we're excited to have Jason Moody, chairman of GreenSpur, joining us to discuss a generator technology that could fundamentally alter the path of wind energy. While the wind industry has been scaling up turbine sizes, we've hit a critical challenge. Generators are becoming massively heavy, complex, and expensive to maintain. GreenSpur is taking a different approach entirely. They perfected axial flux generator technology that can dramatically reduce weight, eliminate cooling systems. And use any type of magnet from simple faite to rare earth materials. This isn't just another incremental improvement. It's a completely different way of generating power that could solve some of offshore wind's biggest headaches. Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow. Jason, welcome to the program. Thank [00:01:00] you. Thanks a. Hi Joel. Well, let's start off with the elephant in the room for offshore wind turbines manufacturing. Uh, there's some fundamental challenges that are facing them as we approach sort of the 20 megawatt stage and getting further offshore. Weight becomes a big problem. Jason Moody: Yeah, it does. For, for years they've been getting bigger and bigger, and you can see that the industry just wants to push for that next size. But with that, the generators are getting very, very heavy. So the last direct drive generator that we evaluated was in excess of 150 tons. Now, that's not a, not a small machine anymore, but what what we're trying to do is introduce a new technology. That can hopefully address that problem and some others as well.  Allen Hall (2): So when you put a very heavy generator on top of a tower, that increases everything underneath of it, right?  Jason Moody: Yeah. The foundations grow exponentially. The [00:02:00]steelwork and the structure has to grow. Then the cell itself, just based on size, lot more composite parts. Everything's bigger.  Joel Saxum: So we're talking like here, kind of traditional offshore wind fixed bottom right. That's an issue. The foundations have to grow, uh, exponentially to get these, to hold up this weight. But when another thing that's happening globally, right? The big push for floating offshore wind. So if now you're talking about putting more and more and more weight on something that's actually dynamic, right? So that kind of, uh, what does that do to the, the whole system.  Jason Moody: That's a, it's a different, um, engineering challenge, but it's mainly in the steel structure and the ballast in, in those, uh, in those systems. So the street, the steel pylon becomes very thick, becomes very heavy, uh, to hold that weight on top. But most of the time what you found in these newer next gen floating systems is they've gone to geared systems, which is a big move in the whole industry for both onshore, offshore, and, and everything in between. Everyone's moving to hybrid [00:03:00] and geared systems,  Allen Hall (2): and hybrid and geared systems get even more complicated, which is the problem, right? Is that we're, we're trying to lower the cost of energy, but as we go bigger in scale, we sort of lose those efficiencies. It, it doesn't scale up with the efficiencies. It actually,

We discuss Statkraft's withdrawal from floating wind projects in Norway, Valero's $23 million Series A funding, and the varying quality of blade repairs in the field. The Babbitt Ranch wind farm is this week's 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 Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Welcome back to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I have Phil Totaro from California and Joel Saxum down in Austin, Texas. And Rosemary Barnes will join us shortly from the Southern Hemisphere. Uh, a number of news articles this week that we want to talk about Stack Craft. Let's lead off there, up in Norway. So Norwegian energy giant Stack Craft has announced it will withdraw from the upcoming floating wind tenor for the U Sierra North area as part of a broader cost cutting strategy. Uh, the company, which is Europe's largest renewable energy operator, we're also halt new offshore wind project [00:01:00] development to focus on what CEO, uh, Bergit Ringsted AL calls near term profitable. Strategies unquote. Like solar? No. Come on, solar, wind. There we go. And batteries In fewer markets the decision follows. Stack craft's early announcement and may stop New green Hydrogen developments signaling a strategic shift toward more immediately profitable renewable energy investments fill. Does this slow down some of the offshore wind work, particularly up in Norway, and it does seem like. Floating will be the future here, but if Stack craft's not gonna be involved and it's right in their backyard, uh, what does this say to the industry? Phil Totaro: It doesn't send the best signal, but it's also coming in a time when, you know, as we record this, the, the Norwegians just released, uh, four new, uh, wind lease areas with potentially up to 20 different, uh, project [00:02:00] sites. So. It seems like there's a lot of enthusiasm and obviously they've got the wind resource up there to be able to do a lot of floating offshore wind. If they can work out with their military, you know, the radar interference and all that, uh, there's no reason they shouldn't want this capacity because it's, you know, power that they can use to balance their hydro and power that they can offload to, you know, other Scandinavian countries because there's plenty of transmission already and they're, they're already. Planning on building more. So, um, it's just whether or not they have the appetite to put the market mechanisms in place to, to actually support these, uh, you know, these, these tenders.  Joel Saxum: I think appetite's the right term here, Phil, when you say that because, uh, you know, and as the CEO is saying in this, in this article we're getting, we're gonna focus more on near term profitable technologies. So doing things that they know make money, that are proven to make money. You know, we all love the idea of floating [00:03:00] wind, which is, you know, what they're, they're pulling out of this project, your floating wind project. However, nothing's really so sussed out yet. Nothing's really sorted. There's not a specific foundation that works best. There's not, uh, a, you know, an interconnect that works best. There's not a turbine model that's out there that this is the one, this is what we run with. You don't have support from major OEMs like, you know, oh,