Podcasts about wind energy

In the month of April, China installed more solar power than Australia ever has. China is also now home to half of the world's wind power and half of the world's electric cars.Despite this, China remains the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.So, is it a climate hero or villain and how has the Chinese Communist Party managed to roll out green energy tech so quickly?Today, climate reporter Jo Lauder on why China is becoming the world's first ‘electrostate'. First published 18 August, 2025Featured: Jo Lauder, ABC climate reporter

Allen, Joel, and Rosemary break down the Trump administration’s sudden halt of five major offshore wind projects, including Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind and parts of Vineyard Wind, over national security claims the hosts find questionable. They also cover the FCC’s ban on new DJI drone imports and what operators should do now, plus Fraunhofer’s latest wind research featured in PES Wind Magazine. 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! The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by Strike Tape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strike tape.com. And now your hosts, Alan Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Joel Saxon, and Yolanda Padron. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Allen Hall: Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall, and I’m here with. Rosemary Barnes in Australia and Joel Saxon is down in Austin, Texas. Yolanda Padron is on holiday, and well, there’s been a lot happening in the past 24 hours as we’re recording this today. If you thought the battle over offshore wind was over based on some recent court cases, well think again. The Trump administration just dropped the hammer on five major offshore wind projects. Exciting. National security concerns. The Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergham announced. The immediate pause affecting projects from Ted Eor, CIP and Dominion Energy. So Coastal [00:01:00] Virginia, offshore wind down in Virginia, right? Which is the one we thought was never gonna be touched. Uh, the Department of War claims classified reports show these giant turbines create radar interference that could blind America’s defenses. Half of vineyard winds, turbines are already up and running, producing power, by the way. Uh, and. I guess they, it sounds like from what I can see in more recent news articles that they turn the power off. They just shut the turbines off even though those turbines are fully functioning and delivering power to shore. Uh, so now the question is what happens? Where does this go? And I know Osted is royally upset about it, and Eor obviously along with them, why not? But the whole Denmark us, uh, relationship is going nuclear right now. Joel Saxum: I think here’s a, here’s a technical thing that a lot of people might not know. If you’re in the wind industry in the United States, you may know this. There’s a a few sites in the northern corner of Colorado that are right next to Nebraska, [00:02:00] and that is where there is a strategic military installations of subsurface, basically rocket launches and. And in that entire area, there is heavy radar presence to be able to make sure that we’re watching over these things and there are turbines hundreds of meters away from these launch sites at like, I’ve driven past them. Right? So that is a te to me, the, the radar argument is a technical mute point. Um, Alan, you and I have been kind of back and forth in Slack. Uh, you and I and the team here, Rosemary’s been in it too, like just kind of talking through. Of course none of us were happy. Right. But talking through some of the points of, of some of these things and it’s just like basically you can debunk almost every one of them and you get down to the level where it is a, what is the real reasoning here? It’s a tit for tat. Like someone doesn’t like offshore wind turbines. Is it a political, uh, move towards being able to strengthen other interests and energy or what? I don’t know. ’cause I can’t, I’m not sitting in the Oval Office, but. [00:03:00] At the end of the day, we need these electrons. And what you’re doing is, is, is you’re hindering national security or because national security is energy security is national security, my opinion, and a lot of people’s opinions, you’re hindering that going forward. Allen Hall: Well, let’s look at the defense argument at the minute, which is it’s, it’s somehow deterring, reducing the effectiveness of ground radars, protecting the shoreline. That is a bogus argument. There’s all kinds of objects out on the water right now. There’s a ton of ships out there. They’re constantly moving around. To know where a fixed object is out in the water is easy, easy, and it has been talked about for more than 15 years. If you go back and pull the information that exists on the internet today from the Department of Defense at the time, plus Department of Interior and everybody else, they’ve been looking at this forever. The only way these turbines get placed where they are is with approval from the Department of Defense. So it isn’t like it didn’t go through a review. It totally did. They’ve known about this for a long, long time. So now to bring up this [00:04:00] specious argument, like, well, all of a sudden the radar is a problem. No, no. It’s not anybody’s telling you it’s a classified. Piece of information that is also gonna be a bogus argument because what is going along with that are these arguments as well, the Defense Department or Department of War says it’s gonna cause interference or, or some degradation of some sort of national defense. Then the words used after it have nothing to do with that. It is, the turbines are ugly, the turbines are too tall. It may interfere, interfere with the whales, it may interfere with fishing, and I don’t like it. Or a, a gas pipeline could produce more power than the turbines can. That that has nothing to do with the core argument. If the core argument is, is some sort of defense related. Security issue, then say it because it, it can’t be that complicated. Now, if you, if you knew anything about the defense department and how it operates, and also the defenses around the United States, of which I know a little bit about, [00:05:00] having been in aerospace for 30 freaking years, I can tell you that there are all kinds of ways to detect all kinds of threats that are approaching our shoreline. Putting a wind turbine out there is not Joel Saxum: gonna stop it. So the, at the end of the day, there is a bunch, there’s like, there’s single, I call them metric and intrinsic, right? Metric being like, I can put data to this. There’s a point here, there’s numbers, whatever it may be. And intrinsic being, I don’t like them, they don’t look that good. A pipeline can supply more energy. Those things are not necessarily set in stone. They’re not black and white. They’re, they’re getting this gray emotional area instead of practical. Right. So, okay. What, what’s the outcome here? You do this, you say that we have radar issues. Do we do, does, does the offshore substation have a radar station on it for the military or, or what does that, what does that look like? Allen Hall: Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but if the threat is what I think it is, none of this matters. None of this matters. It’s already been discussed a hundred times with the defense [00:06:00] department and everybody else is knowledgeable in this, in this space. There is no way that they started planted turbines and approve them two, three years ago. If it was a national security risk, there is no chance that that happened. So it really is frustrating when you, when you know some of the things that go on behind the scenes and you know what, the technical rationales could be about a problem. And that’s not what’s being talked about right now that I don’t like being lied to. Like, if you want to have a, a political argument, have a political argument, and the, if the political argument is America wants Greenland from Denmark, then just freaking say it. Just say it. Don’t tie Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, new J, all, all these states up until this nonsense, Virginia, what are we doing? What are we doing? Because all those states approved all those projects knowing full well what the costs were, knowing how tall the turbines were, knowing how long it was gonna take to get it done, and they all approved them. This [00:07:00] is not done in a vacuum. These states approve these projects and these states are going to buy that power. Let them, you wanna put in a a, a big gas pipeline. Great. How many years is that gonna take, Doug? How many years is that gonna take? Doug Bergham? Does anybody know? He, he doesn’t know anything about that. Joel Saxum: You’re not getting a gas pipeline into the east coast anytime soon whatsoever. Because the, the east, the east coast is a home of Nimbyism. Allen Hall: Sure, sir. Like Massachusetts. It’s pretty much prohibited new gas pipelines for a long time. Okay. That’s their choice. That is their choice. They made that choice. Let them live with it. Why are you then trying to, to double dip? I don’t get it. I don’t get it. And, but I do think, Joel, I think the reason. This is getting to the level it is. It has to do something to do with Greenland. It has something to do with the Danish, um, uh, ambassador or whoever it was running to talk to, to California and Newsom about offshore tournaments. Like that was not a smart move, my opinion, but [00:08:00] I don’t run international relations with for Denmark. But stop poking one another and somebody’s gotta cut this off. The, the thing I think that the Trump administration is at risk at is that. Or instead, Ecuador has plenty of cash. They’re gonna go to court, and they are most likely going to win, and they’re going to really handcuff the Trump administration to do anything because when you throw bull crap in front of a judge and they smell it, the the pushback gets really strong. Well, they’re gonna force all the discussion about anything to do with offshore to go through a judge, and they’re gonna decide, and I don’t think that’s what the Trump administration wants, but that’s where they’re headed. I’m not sure why Joel Saxum: you’d wanna do that. Like at the end of the day, that may be the solution that has to come, but I don’t think that that’s not the right path either. Right? Because a judge is not an SME. A judge doesn’t know all of the, does the, you know, like a, a judge is a judge based on laws. They don’t, they’re, they’re not an offshore wind energy expert, so they sh that’s hard for them to [00:09:00] decide on. However, that’s where it will go. But I think you’re correct. Like this, this is more, this is a larger play and, and this mor so this morning when this rolled out, my WhatsApp, uh, and text messages just blew up from all of my. Danish friends, what is going on over there? I’m like, I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not in the hopeful office. I can’t tell you what’s going on. I’m not having coffee in DC right now. I said, you know, but going back to it, like you can see the frustration, like, what, why, why is this the thing? And I think you’re right though, Alan, it is a large, there’s a larger political play in, in movement here of this Greenland, Denmark, these kind of things. And it’s a, it’s. It’s sad to see it ’cause it just gets caught. We’re getting caught in the crossfire as a wind industry. Yeah. It’s Allen Hall: not helping anybody. And when you set precedents like this, the other side takes note, right? So Democrats, when they eventually get back into the White House again, which will happen at some point, are gonna swing the pendulum just as hard and harder. So what are you [00:10:00] doing? None of, none of this matters in, in my opinion, especially if you, if you read Twitter today, you’re like, what the hell? All the things that are happening right now. RFK Jr had a post a few hours ago talking about, oh, this is great. We’re gonna shut off this off shore wind thing because it kills the whales. Sorry, it doesn’t. Sorry. It doesn’t, if you want, if you wanna make an argument about it, you have to do better than that. A Twitter post doesn’t make it fact, and everybody who’s listened to this and paying attention, I don’t want you to do your own research, but just know that you got a couple of engineers here, that that’s what we do for a living. We source through information, making sure that it makes sense. Does it align? Is it right? Is it wrong? Is, is there something to back it up with? And the information that we have here says. It is. It’s not hurting anything out there. You may not like them, but you know what? You don’t want a coal factor in your backyard either. Delamination and bottomline failures and blades are difficult problems to detect [00:11:00] early. These hidden issues can cost you millions in repairs and lost energy production. C-I-C-N-D-T are specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become expensive burdens. Their non-destructive test technology penetrates deep to blade materials to find voids and cracks. Traditional inspections completely. Miss C-I-C-N-D-T Maps. Every critical defect delivers actionable reports and provides support to get your blades back in service. So visit cic ndt.com because catching blade problems early will save you millions. Joel Saxum: When it comes down to sorting through data, I think that’s a big problem. Right? And that’s what’s happening with a lot of the, I mean, generalizing, a lot of the things that are happening in the United States in the last 10 years give it. Um, but people just go, oh, this person said this. They must be an authority. Like, no, it’s not true. We’ve been following [00:12:00] a lot of these things with offshore wind. I mean, probably closer than most. Uh, besides the companies that are developing those wind farms, simply because it’s a part of our day job, it’s what we do. We’re, we’re, we’re looking at these things, right? So. Understanding the risks, uh, rewards, the political side of things. The commercial side. The technical side. That’s what we’re here to kind of feed, feed the information back to the masses. And a lot of this, or the majority of all of this is bs. It doesn’t really, it doesn’t, it doesn’t play. Um, and then you go a little bit deeper into things and. Like the, was it the new Bedford Light, Alan, that said like, now they’re seeing that the turbines have actually been turned off, not just to stop work for construction. They’ve turned the turbines off up in Massachusetts or up off of in the northeast area? No, that they have. Allen Hall: And why? I mean, the error on the side of caution, I think if you’re an attorney for any of the wind operations, they’re gonna tell you to shut it off for a couple of days and see what we can figure out. But the, the timing of the [00:13:00] shutdown I think is a little unique in that the US is pretty much closed at this point. You’re not gonna see anything start back up for another couple of weeks, although they were doing work on the water. So you can impose a couple hundred million. Do, well, not a hundred million dollars, but maybe a couple million dollars of, of overhead costs in some of these projects because you can’t respond quick enough. You gotta find a judge willing to put a stay in to hold things the same and, and hold off this, uh, this, uh, b order, but. To me, you know, it’s one of those things when you deal with the federal government, you think the federal government is erratic in just this one area? No, it’s erratic in a lot of areas. And the frustration comes with do you want America to be stronger or do you want nonsense to go on? You know? And if I thought, if that thought wind turbines were killing whales, I’d be the first one up to screaming. If I thought offshore wind was not gonna work out in term, in some long-term model, I would be the first one screaming about it. That’s not Joel Saxum: reality. [00:14:00] Caveat that though you said, you’re saying if I thought, I think the, the real word should be if I did the research, the math and understood that this is the way it was gonna be. Right? Because that’s, that’s what you need to do. And that’s what we’ve been doing, is looking at it and the, the, all the data points to we’re good here. If someone wanted to do harm Allen Hall: to the United States, and God forbid if that was ever the case. That wouldn’t be the way to do it. Okay. And we, and we’ve seen that through history, right. So it, it’s, it doesn’t even make any sense. The problem is, is that they can shield a judge from looking at it somewhat. If they classify well, the judge isn’t able to see what this classified information is. In today’s world, AI and everything on the internet, you don’t think somebody knows something about this? I do. And to think that you couldn’t make any sort of software patch to. Fix whatever 1965 radar system they have sitting on the shorelines of Massachusetts. They could, in today’s world, you can do that. So this whole thing, it [00:15:00] just sounds like a smoke screen and when you start poking around it, no one has an answer. That is the frustrating bit. If you’re gonna be seeing stuff, you better have backup data. But the Joel Saxum: crazy thing here, like look at the, the, the non wind side of this argument, like you’re hurting job growth. Everybody that goes into a, uh. Into office. One of the biggest things they run on all the time, it doesn’t matter, matter where you are in the world, is I’m gonna bring jobs and prosperity to the people. Okay. How many jobs have just been stopped? How many people have just been sent home? How much money’s being lost here? And who’s one of the biggest companies installing these turbines in the states? Fricking ge like so. You’re, you’re hurting your own local people. And not only is this, you stand there and say, we’re doing all this stuff. We’re getting all this wind energy. We’re gonna do all these things and we’re gonna win the AI race. To the point where you’ve passed legislation or you’ve written, uh, uh, executive order that says, Hey, individual states, if you pass legislation [00:16:00] that slows or halts AI development in your state, the federal government can sue you. But you’re doing the same thing. You’re halting and slowing down the ability for AI and data centers to power themselves at unprecedented growth. We’re at here, 2, 3, 4, 5% depending on what, what iso you ask of, of electron need, and we’re the fastest way you could put electrons to the grid. Right now in the United States, it’s. Either one of those offshore wind farms is being built today, or one of the other offs, onshore wind farms or onshore solar facilities that are being built right now today. Those are the fastest ways to help the United States win the AI race, which is something that Trump has loud, left and right and center, but you’re actively like just hitting people in the shins with a baseball bat to to slow down. Energy growth. I, I just, it, it doesn’t make any logical sense. Allen Hall: And Rosemary just chime in here. We’ve had enough from the Americans complaining about it. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I mean, it’s hard for me to comment in too much detail about all of the [00:17:00] American security stuff. I mean, defense isn’t, isn’t one of my special interests and especially not American defense, but. When I talk about this issue with other Australians, it’s just sovereign risk is the, the issue. I mean, it was, it’s similar with the tariffs. It’s just like how, and it’s not just for like foreign companies that might want to invest in America. American companies are affected just, uh, as equally, but like you might be anti wind and fine. Um, but I don’t know how any. Company of any technology can have confidence to embark on a multi-year, um, project. Now, because you don’t know, like this government hates wind energy, but the next one could hate ai or the next one could hate solar panels, electric cars, or you know, just, just anything. And so like you just can’t. You just can’t trust, um, that your plans are gonna be able to be fulfilled even if you’ve got contracts, even if you’ve got [00:18:00] approvals, even if you are most of the way through building something, it’s not enough to feel safe anymore. And it’s just absolutely wild. That’s, and yeah, I was actually discussing with someone yesterday. How, and bearing in mind I don’t really understand American politics that deeply, but I’m gonna assume that Republicans are generally associated with being business friendly. So there must be so many long-term Republican donors who have businesses that have been harmed by all of these kinds of changes. And I just don’t understand how everyone is still behind this type of behavior. That’s what, that’s what I struggle to understand. Joel Saxum: This is the problem at the higher levels in. In DC their businesses are, are oil and gas based though. That’s the thing, the high, the high power conservative party side of things in the United States politics. The, the lobby money and the real money and the like, like think like the Dick Cheney era. Right. That was all Weatherford, right? It’s all oil and gas. Rosemary Barnes: So it’s not like anybody [00:19:00] cares about the, you know, I don’t know, like there’d be steel fabricators who have been massively affected by this. Right? Like that’s a good, a good traditional American business. Right. But are you saying it’s not big enough business that anyone would care that, that they’ve been screwed over? Joel Saxum: Not anymore Allen Hall: because all that’s being outsourced. The, the other argument, which Rosemary you touched upon is, is the one I’m seeing more recently on all kinds of social medias. It’s a bunch of foreign companies putting in these wind turbines. Well, who the hell Joel Saxum: is drilling your oil baby? This is something that I’ve always said. When you go go to Houston, Texas, the energy capital of the world, every one of those big companies, none of ’em are run by a Texan. They are all run by someone from overseas. Every one of ’em. Allen Hall: You, you think that, uh, you know, the Saudis are all, you know, great moral people. What the hell are you talking about? Are you starting to compare countries now? Because you really don’t wanna do that. If you wanna do that into the traditional energy marketplace, you’re, you’re gonna have [00:20:00] a lot of problems sleeping at night. You will, I would much rather trust a dane to put in a wind turbine or a German to put in a wind turbine than some of the people that are in, involved in oil and gas. Straight up. Straight up. Right. And we’ve known that for years. And we, we, we just play along, look. The fact of the matter is if you want to have electrons delivered quickly to the United States, you’re gonna have to do something, and that will be wind and solar because it is the fastest, cheapest way to get this stuff done. If you wanna try to plant some sort of gas pipeline from Louisiana up to Massachusetts or whatever the hell you wanna do, good luck. You know how many years you’re talking about here. In the meantime, all those people you, you think you care about are gonna be sitting there. With really high electricity rates and gas, gas, uh, rates, it’s just not gonna end well. Speaker 5: Australia’s wind farms are growing fast, but are your operations keeping up? Join us February 17th and [00:21:00] 18th at Melbourne’s Poolman on the park for Wind energy o and M Australia 2026, where you’ll connect with the experts solving real problems in maintenance asset management. And OEM relations. Walk away with practical strategies to cut costs and boost uptime that you can use the moment you’re back on site. Register now at W OM a 2020 six.com. Wind Energy o and m Australia is created by wind professionals for wind professionals because this industry needs solutions. Not speeches if Allen Hall: you don’t have enough on your plate already. Uh, the FCC has panned the import and sale of all new drone models from Chinese manufacturers, including the most popular of all in America, DJI, uh, and they clo. They currently hold about 70% of the global marketplace, the ban as DGI and Autel Robotics to the quote unquote covered list of entities deemed [00:22:00] a national security risk. Now here’s the catch. Existing models that are already approved for sale can still be purchased. So you can walk down to your local, uh, drone store and buy A DJI drone. And the ones you already own are totally fine, but the next generation. Not happening. They’re not gonna let ’em into the United States. So the wind industry heavily relies on drones. And, and Joel, you and I have seen a number of DJI, sort of handheld drones that are used on sites as sort of a quick check of the health of a, or status of a blade. Uh, you, you, I guess you will still be able to do that if you have an older dj. I. But if you try to buy a new one, good luck. Not gonna happen. Joel Saxum: Yeah. I think the most popular drone right now in the field, of course two of ’em, I would, I would say this, it’s like the Mavic type, you know, the little tiny one that like a site supervisor or a technician may have, they have their part 1 0 7 license. They can fly up and look at stuff. Uh, and then the [00:23:00] other one is gonna be the more industrial side. That’s gonna be the DJ IM 300. And that’s the one where a lot of these platforms, the perceptual robotics and some of the others have. That’s their base because the M 300 has, if you’re not in the, the development world, it has what’s called a pretty accessible SDK, which software development kit. So they’re designed to be able to add your sensors, put your software, and they’re fly ’em the way you want to. So they’re kind of like purpose built to be industrial drones. So if you have an M 300 or you’re using them now, what this I understand is you’re gonna still be able to do that, but when it comes time for next gen stuff, you’re not gonna be able to go buy the M 400. And import that. Like once it’s you’re here, you’re done. So I guess the way I would look at it is if I was an operator and that was part of our mo, or I was using a drone inspection provider, that that’s what comes on site. I would give people a plan. I would say basic to hedge your risk. I would say [00:24:00]basically like, Hey, if you’re my drone operator and I’m giving you a year to find a new solution. Um, that integrates into your workflows to get this thing outta here simply because I can’t be at risk that one day you show up, this thing crashes and I can’t get another one. A lot of companies are already like, they’re set and ready to go. Like all the new Skys specs, the Skys specs, foresight, drone, it’s all compliant, right? It’s USA made USA approved. Good to go. I think the new Arons drone is USA compliant. Good to go. Like, no, no issues there. So. Um, I think that some of the major players in the inspection world have already made their moves, um, to be able to be good USA compliant. Um, so just make sure you ask. I guess that’s, that. Our advice to operators here. Make sure you ask, make sure you’re on top of this one so you just don’t get caught with your pants down. Allen Hall: Yeah, I know there’s a lot of little drones in the back of pickup trucks around wind farms and you probably ought to check, talk to the guys about what’s going on to make sure that they’re all compliant. [00:25:00] In this quarter’s, PES Win magazine, which you can download for free@pswin.com. There is an article by Fran Hoffer, and they’re in Germany. If you don’t know who Fran Hoffer is, they’re sort of a research institution that is heavily involved in wind and fixing some of the problems, tackling some of the more complex, uh, issues that exist in blade repair. Turbine Repair Turbine Lifetime. And the article has a number of the highlights that they’ve been working on for the last several years, and you should really check this out, but looking at the accomplishments, Joel, it’s like, wow, fraud offer has been doing a lot behind the scenes and some of these technologies are, are really gonna be helpful in the near future. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Think of Frown Hoffer of your our US com compadres listening. Think of frown Hoffer as and NRE L, but. Not as connected to the federal government. Right. So, but, but more connected to [00:26:00] industry, I would say. So they’re solving industry problems directly. Right. Some of the people that they get funding research from is the OEMs, it’s other trade organizations within the group. They’re also going, they’re getting some support from the German federal government and the state governments. But also competitive research grants, so some EU DPR type stuff, um, and then some funding from private foundations and donors. But when you look at Frow, offerer, it’s a different project every time you talk to ’em. But, and what I like to see is the fact that these projects that they’re doing. Are actually solving real world problems. I, I, I, Alan and I talk about this regularly on the podcast is we have an issue with government funding or supportive funding or even grant funding or competitive funding going to in universities, institutions, well, whoever it may be, to develop stuff that’s either like already developed, doesn’t really have a commercial use, like, doesn’t forward the industry. But Frow Hoffer’s projects are right. So like one of the, they, they have [00:27:00] like the large bearing laboratory, so they’re test, they’ve tested over 500 pitch bearings over in Hamburg. They’re developing a handheld cure monitoring device that can basically tell you when resin has cured it, send you an email like you said, Alan, in case you’re like taking a nap on the ropes or something. Um, but you know, and they’re working on problems that are plaguing the industry, like, uh, up working on up towel repairs for carbon fiber, spar caps. Huge issue in the industry. Wildly expensive issue. Normally RA blade’s being taken down to the ground to fix these now. So they’re working on some UPT tile repairs for that. So they’re doing stuff that really is forwarding the industry and I love to see that. Allen Hall: Yeah. It’s one of the resources that. We in the United States don’t really take advantage of all the time. And yeah, and there’s a lot of the issues that we see around the world that if you were able to call f Hoffer, you should think about calling them, uh, and get their opinion on it. They probably have a solution or have heard of the problem before and can direct you to, uh, uh, a reasonable outcome. [00:28:00] That’s what these organizations are for. There’s a couple of ’em around the world. DTU being another one, frow Hoffer, obviously, uh, being another powerhouse there. That’s how the industry moves forward. It, it doesn’t move forward when all of us are struggling to get through these things. We need to have a couple of focal points in the industry that can spend some research time on problems that matter. And, and Joel, I, I think that’s really the key here. Like you mentioned it, just focusing on problems that we are having today and get through them so we can make the industry. Just a little bit better. So you should check out PES WIN Magazine. You can read this article and a number of other great articles. Go to ps win.com and download your articles today. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Thanks for joining us and we appreciate all the feedback and support we receive from the wind industry. If today’s discussion sparked any question or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out to us on LinkedIn and please don’t forget to subscribe so you [00:29:00] never miss an episode For Joel, Rosemary and Yolanda, I’m a hall. We’ll catch you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Allen delivers the 2025 state of the wind industry. For the first time, wind and solar produced more electricity than coal worldwide. The US added 36% more wind capacity than last year, Australia’s market hit $2 billion, and China extended its 25-year streak of double-digit growth. But 2025 also brought challenges: the Trump administration froze offshore wind projects, Britain paid billions to curtail turbines, and global wind growth hit its lowest rate in two decades. 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: 2025, the year the wind industry will never forget. Let me tell you about a year of records and reversals of triumphs and a bunch of turbulence. First, the good news. Renewable energy has done something historic for the first time ever. Wind and solar produce more electricity than coal worldwide. The energy think tank embers as global electricity. Demand grew 2.6% in the first half of the year. Solar generation jumped by 31%, wind rose nearly 8%. Together they covered 83% of all new demand. Coal share of global electricity fell to 33.1%. Renewables rose to 34.3. A [00:01:00]pivotal moment they called it. And in the United States, turbines kept turning wood. McKinsey and the American Clean Power Association report America will add more than seven gigawatts of wind this year. That is 36% more than last year in the five year outlook. 46 gigawatts of new capacity through 2029. Even Arkansas by its first utility scale wind project online through Cordio crossover Wind, the powering market remains strong. 18 projects will drive 2.5 gigawatts of capacity additions over the next three years. And down under the story is equally bright. Australia’s wind energy market reached $2 billion in 2024 by. 2033 is expected to reach $6.7 billion a growth rate of nearly 15% per year. In July, Australian regulators streamlined permitting for wind farms, and in September remote mining operations signed [00:02:00] long-term wind power agreements while the world was building. China was dominating when power output in China is on track for more than 10% growth for the 25th year in a row. That’s right, 25 years in a row. China now accounts for more than 41% of all global wind power production a record. And China’s wind component exports up more than 20%. This year, over $4 billion shipped mainly to Europe and Asia, but 2025 was not smooth sailing, as we all know. In fact, global wind generation is on track for its smallest growth rate in more than 20 years. Four straight months of year over year. Declines in Europe, five months of declines in North America and even Asia registered rare drops in September and October. The policy wind shifted too in the United States. The Trump administration froze offshore wind project work in the Atlantic. The interior [00:03:00] Department directed five large scale projects off the East Coast to suspend activities for at least 90 days. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cited classified national security information. That’s right. Classified information. Sure. Kirk Lippold, the former commander of the USS Coal. Ask the question on everyone’s mind. What has changed in the threat environment? Through his knowledge, nothing. Democratic. Governors of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York issued a joint statement. They called the pause, a lump of dirty coal for the holiday season, for American workers, for consumers, for investors. Meanwhile, in Britain, another kind of problem emerged the cost of turning off wind farms when the grid cannot cope, hit 1.5 billion pounds. This year, octopus Energy, Britain’s biggest household supplier is tracking it payments to Wind farms to switch off 380 [00:04:00]million pounds. The cost of replacing that wasted power with. Gas 1.08 billion pounds. Sam Richards of Britain remade called it a catastrophic failure of the energy system. Households are paying the price. He said, we are throwing away British generated electricity and firing up expensive gas plants instead. In Europe, the string of dismal wind power auctions also continued some in Germany and Denmark received no bids at all. Key developers pushed for faster permitting and better auction terms. Orsted and Vestas led the charge. And in Japan soaring cost estimates cause Mitsubishi to pull out of three offshore projects. Projects that were slated to start operations by 2030. Gone. The Danish shore Adapting Ted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer sold a 55% stake in its greater Chiang two offshore Wind Farm in Taiwan. The Buyer [00:05:00] Life Insurance Company Cafe, the price around $789 million. With that deal, Ted has signed divestments, totaling 33 billion Danish crowns during 2025. The company is trying to restore investor confidence amid rising costs, supply chain disruptions, and uncertainty from American policy shifts. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency is sounding the alarm director, Fadi Beal says Solar will account for 80% of renewable capacity growth through the end of the decade. And that sounds about right. So it’s got a bunch of catch up to do, but policymakers need to pay close attention. Supply chain, security grid integration challenges and the rapid rise of renewables is putting increasing pressure on electricity systems worldwide. Curtailment and negative price events are appearing in more markets, and the agency is calling for urgent [00:06:00] investments in grid energy storage and flexible generation. And what about those tariffs? We keep reading about wood McKenzie projects. Tariffs will drive up American turbine costs in 2026 in total US onshore wind capital expenditure is projected to increase 5% through 2029. US wind turbine pricing is experiencing obviously unprecedented uncertainty. Domestic manufacturing over capacity would normally push down prices, but tariff exposure on raw materials is pushing them up. And that’s by design of course. So where does this leave us? The numbers tell the story. Renewables overtook Coal. America will install 36% more turbines. This year, Australia’s market is booming. China continues. Its 25 year streak of double digit growth, but wind generation growth worldwide is at its lowest in two decades. And policy reversals in America have stalled. [00:07:00] Offshore development and Britain is paying billions to turn off turbines because the grid cannot handle the power. Europe’s auctions are struggling and Japan’s developers are pulling back and yet. The turbines keep turning. You see, wind energy has had good years and bad years, but 20 25, 20 25 may be one of the worst. The toxic Stew Reuters called it major policy reversals, corporate upheaval, subpar generation in key markets, and yet the industry sees reasons to expect improvement changes to auction incentives, supply chain adjustments, growing demand for power from all sources. The sheer scale of China’s expansion means global wind production will likely keep hitting new highs, even if growth grinds to a halt in America, even if it stays weak. In Europe, 2025 was a year of records and reversals. The thing to remember through all of this [00:08:00] is wind power is low cost power. It is not a nascent industry. And it is time to deliver more electricity, more consistency. Everyone within the sound of my voice is making a difference. Keep it up. You are changing the future for the better. 2025 was a rough year and I’m looking forward to 2026 and that’s the state of the wind industry for December 29th, 2025. Have a great new year.

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Independent investigative journalism, broadcasting, trouble-making and muckraking with Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com

What does it look like to spend more than two decades advancing community-led clean energy — from helping farmers and rural landowners build their own wind projects to supporting Native and tribal nations pursuing energy sovereignty today?In this episode, Catherine sat down with Lisa Daniels, one of the founders of Women of Wind Energy (now WRISE) and the longtime Executive Director of Windustry, whose work has shaped how rural and tribal communities participate in the renewable energy transition.Lisa came into this work as an environmentalist in the late 1990s, confused by an energy system that ignored the free wind and sunlight all around us while investing heavily in fossil fuels. When state funding for her early nonprofit work evaporated overnight due to political changes, she took the curriculum home and built a new organization from scratch — one that helped thousands of farmers, ranchers, and rural communities understand how to harvest the wind for themselves.To mark WRISE's 20th anniversary, we talked about:  • Why community ownership keeps economic benefits local • Building Windustry on a shoestring after state funding collapsed • The early volunteer-powered days of Women of Wind Energy • What it was like to be one of only a few women in every meeting, workshop, and conference • How WRISE's fellowship program gave new people their first real glimpse into the industry • Why state and local action will drive the next era of clean energyIf you're a clean energy employer and need help scaling your workforce efficiently with top tier staff, contact Catherine McLean, CEO & Founder of Dylan Green, directly on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3odzxQr. If you're looking for your next role in clean energy, take a look at our industry-leading clients' latest job openings: bit.ly/dg_jobs. 

It's the final Energy Gang of the year, and host Ed Crooks is joined by regulars Amy Myers Jaffe, Director of NYU's Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab, Shanu Mathew, a portfolio investor and manager, and Melissa Lott, a systems engineer and energy analyst, to take stock of an exciting year for energy.The buzzword of 2025 was undoubtedly AI. Data centres transformed the outlook for power demand, and rising electricity prices put pressure on a new US administration that is determined to focus on affordability. As the shockwaves from advances in AI spread out across the industry, everyone started talking about “bring your own power” and flexible loads on the grid. Meanwhile battery deployment soared, as businesses looked for solutions to the challenges raised by variable renewable generation and rising demand.The crew discuss permitting reform in the US, congestion pricing for cars in New York – one of the more positive stories of the year – and exciting times for nuclear power. The reality of new nuclear technologies was the subject of intense debate in 2025. Does the future of nuclear power really lie in small modular reactors, or do more established proven designs actually have a better chance to accelerate deployment? Join us for the hot topics that shaped energy in 2025, and will keep on making headlines in 2026.The article on air pollution reduction referenced by Ed and Melissa you can find here: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/12/congestion-pricing-improved-air-quality-nyc-and-suburbsBooks mentioned on the show include: Breakneck: China's quest to engineer the future by Dan WangHouse of Huawei: The secret history of China's most powerful companyby Eva DouConsumed: How big brands got us hooked on plastic by Saabira ChaudhuriWe hope you have a great holiday season and a very happy New Year. The gang will be back on January 6th. Follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coverage that provides news and analysis of national issues significant to regional Australians.

Allen, Joel, and Yolanda recap the UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight in Edinburgh and Great British Energy’s £1 billion manufacturing push. Plus Ørsted’s European onshore wind sale, Xocean’s unmanned survey tech at Moray West, and why small suppliers must scale or risk being left behind. 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. Allen Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host Allen Hall in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Queen City. I have Yolanda Pone and Joel Saxon back in Austin, Texas. Rosemary Barnes is taking the week off. We just got back from Scotland, Joel and I did, and we had a really great experience at the UK offshore wind supply chain spotlight 2025 in Edinburgh, where we met with a number of wind energy suppliers and technology advocates. A Joel Saxum: lot going on there, Joel. Yeah. One of the really cool things I enjoyed about that, um, get together the innovation spotlight. [00:01:00] One, the way they had it set up kind of an exhibition space, but not really an exhibition. It was like just a place to gather and everybody kind of had their own stand, but it was more how can we facilitate this conversation And then in the same spot, kind of like we’ve seen in other conferences, the speaking slots. So you could be kind of one in ear, oh one in year here, listening to all the great things that they’re doing. But having those technical conversations. And I guess the second thing I wanted to share was. Thank you to all of the, the UK companies, right? So the, all the Scottish people that we met over there, all the people from, from England and, and around, uh, the whole island there, everybody was very, very open and wanting to have conversations and wanting to share their technology, their solutions. Um, how they’re helping the industry or, or what other people can do to collaborate with them to help the industry. That’s what a lot of this, uh, spotlight was about. So from our, our seat, um, that’s something that we, you know, of course with the podcast, we’re always trying to share collaboration, kind of breed success for everybody. So kudos to the ORE [00:02:00] Catapult for putting that event on. Allen Hall: Yeah, a big thing. So, or Catapult, it was a great event. I’ve met a lot of people that I’ve only known through LinkedIn, so it’s good to see them face to face and. Something that we’ve had on the podcast. So we did a number of podcast recordings while we’re there. They’ll be coming out over the next several weeks, so stay tuned for it. You know, one of the main topics at that event in Edinburg was the great British Energy announcement. This is huge, Joel. Uh, so, you know, you know, the United Kingdoms has been really pushing offshore wind ambitions for years, but they don’t have a lot of manufacturing in country. Well, that’s all about the change. Uh, great British energy. Which is a government backed energy company just unveiled a 1 billion pound program called Energy Engineered in the uk, and their mission is pretty straightforward. Build it in the uk, employ people in the uk, and keep the economic benefits of the clean energy transition on British soil. 300 million pounds of that is really [00:03:00] going to be focused on supply chain immediately. That can happen in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. It’s a big promotion for the UK on the wind energy side. I see good things coming out of this. What were your thoughts when you heard that Joel Saxum: announcement, Joel? The offshore wind play. Right. It’s like something like this doesn’t happen to economies very often. Right. It’s not very often that we have like this just new industry that pops outta nowhere. Right. We’re, we’re not making, you know, it’s like when, when. Automotive industry popped up in the, you know, the early 19 hundreds. Like that was this crazy new thing. It’s an industrial revolution. It’s all this new opportunity. So offshore wind in, in my idea, same kind of play, right? It’s this new thing or newer thing. Um, and as a government, um, coming together to say, Hey, this is happening. We have the resources here. We’re gonna be deploying these things here. Why would we not take advantage of building this here? I mean. Any politician that says I’m bringing jobs or I’m bringing in, you [00:04:00] know, um, bringing in funds to be able to prop up an industry or to, uh, you know, start a manufacturing facility here or support an engineering department here, um, to be able to take advantage of something like this. Absolutely right. Why offshore this stuff when you can do it Here, you’ve got the people, you have the engineering expertise. It’s your coastline. You’ve operated offshore. You know how to build them, operate ’em, all of these different things. Keep as much of that in-house as you can. I, I mean, we’ve, we’ve watched it in the US over the last few years. Kind of try to prop up a supply chain here as well. But, you know, with regulations and everything changing, it’s too risky to invest. What the, it looks like what the UK has seen over there is, well, we might as well invest here. We’ll throw the money at it. Let’s, let’s make it happen on our shores. The Allen Hall: comparison’s obvious to the IRA Bill Yolanda and the IRA bill came out, what, A little over two years ago, three years ago, roughly. We didn’t see a lot of activity [00:05:00] on the manufacturing side of building new factories to do wind. In fact, there was a lot of talk about it initially and then it. It really died down within probably a year or so. Uh, you know, obviously it’s not a universal statement. There were some industries model piles and some steelworks and that kind of thing that would would happen. But sometimes these exercises are a little treacherous and hard to walk down. What’s your thoughts on the UK government stepping in and really. Putting their money where the mouth is. Yolanda Padron: I think it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s great, right? It’s great for the industry. It’ll, it’ll be a great case, I think, for us to look at just moving forward and to, like you said, government’s putting their money where their mouth is and what exactly that means. You know, not something where it’s a short term promise and then things get stalled, or corporations start looking [00:06:00] elsewhere. If every player works the way that they’re, it’s looking like they’re going to play right now, then it, it could be a really good thing for the industry. Allen Hall: Well, the, the United States always did it in a complicated way through tax policy, which means it runs through the IRS. So any bill that passes Congress and gets signed by the president, they like to run through the IRS, and then they make the tax regulations, which takes six months to 12 months, and then when they come out, need a tax attorney to tell you what is actually written and what it means. Joel, when we went through the IRA bill, we went through it a couple of times actually, and we were looking for those great investments in new technology companies. I just remember seeing it. That isn’t part of the issue, the complexity, and maybe that’s where GB Energy is trying to do something different where there’s trying to simplify the process. Joel Saxum: Yeah. The complexity of the problem over here is like that. With any. Business type stuff, right? Even when you get to the stage of, um, oh, this is a write off, this is this [00:07:00] for small businesses and those things, so it’s like a delayed benefit. You gotta plan for this thing. Or there’s a tax credit here, there. Even when we had the, um, the electric vehicle tax credits for, uh, individuals, right? That wasn’t not something you got right away. It was something you had to apply for and that was like later on and like could be. 15 months from now before you see anything of it. And so it’s all kind of like a difficult muddy water thing in the i a bill. You’re a hundred percent correct. Right. Then we passed that thing. We didn’t have the, the rules locked down for like two years. Right. And I remember we had, we had a couple experts on the podcast talking about that, and it was like, oh, the 45 x and the 45 y and the, the C this and the be that, and it was like. You needed to have a degree in this thing to figure it out, whereas the, what it sounds like to me, right, and I’m not on the inside of this policy, I dunno exactly how it’s getting executed. What it sounds like to me is this is more grant based or, and or loan program based. So it’s kinda like, hey, apply and we’ll give you the money, or we’ll fund a loan that supports some money of with low interest, zero [00:08:00] interest, whatever that may be. Um, that seems like a more direct way, one to measure ROI. Right, and or to get things done. Just just to get things done. Right. If someone said, Hey, hey, weather guard, lightning Tech. We have a grant here. We’d like to give you a hundred grand to do this. Or it was like, yeah, if you put this much effort in and then next year tax season you might see this and this and this. It’s like, I don’t have time to deal with that. Yolanda Padron: Yeah. We might also just change the rules on you a little bit, and then maybe down the line we’ll see where we go. Yeah. It does seem like they’re, they’re setting up the dominoes to fall in place a bit better. This way. Yeah, absolutely. Joel Saxum: That’s a, that’s a great way to put it, Yolanda. Let’s setting up the dominoes to fall in place. So it’s kinda like, Hey. These are the things we want to get done. This is what we wanna do as an industry. Here’s a pool of money for it, and here’s how you get access to it. Allen Hall: A lot’s gonna change. I remember, was it a couple of months ago, maybe, maybe a year ago, time flies guys. Uh, we were just talking about. That on the way home from [00:09:00]Scotland, like how many people have had in the podcast? It’s a lot over 60 have been on the podcast as guests. Uh, one of the people we want to have on is, uh, Dan McGrail, who’s the CEO of Great British Energy because, uh, we had talked about with Rosemary the possibility of building turbines all in. The uk, they have blade factories. All this stuff is doable, right? They have technology. This is not complicated work. It just needs to be set up and run. And maybe this is the goal is to just run, it may maybe not be OEM focused. I I, that’s what I’m trying to sort through right now as, is it vestas focused? Is it GE focused? Is it Siemens Keesa focused? Is there a focus or will these turbines have GB energy? Stamped on the side of them. I would Joel Saxum: see love to see support for sub-component suppliers. Yeah, I would too. Yeah. The reason being is, is like that’s, that’s more near and dear to my heart. That’s what [00:10:00] I’ve done in my career, is been a part of a lot of different, smaller businesses that are really making a difference by putting in, you know, great engineering comes from small businesses. That’s one of my, my things that I’ve always seen. It seems to be easier to get things done. In a different way with a small business than it does to engineering by committee with 50 people on a team faster, sometimes better. Uh, that’s just my experience, right? So I would like to see these smaller businesses propped up, because again, we need the OEMs. Yes, absolutely. But also spread it around, right? Spread the wealth a little bit. Uh, you know, a, a factory here, a factory there, a engineering facility here. The, uh, you know, an execution plant here. Some things like that. I would love to see more of these kind of, uh, spread around like the, like GB energy’s money spreads around, like fairy dust. Just kind of plant a little here, plant a little in this city, make a little here, instead of just lumping it to one or lumping it into one big, um, OEM. And that doesn’t necessarily [00:11:00] have to be an OEM, right? It could be a blade manufacturer that I’m talking about, or. Or a big, big gearbox thing or something like that. We need those things, and I, I’m all for support for them, but I just don’t think that all of its support should go to them. Speaker 7: Australia’s wind farms are growing fast, but are your operations keeping up? Join us February 17th and 18th at Melbourne’s Poolman on the park for Wind Energy o and M Australia 2026, where you’ll connect with the experts solving real problems in maintenance asset management. And OEM relations. Walk away with practical strategies to cut costs and boost uptime that you can use the moment you’re back on site. Register now at W OM a 2020 six.com. Wind Energy o and m Australia is created by Wind Professionals for wind professionals because this industry needs solutions, not speeches. Allen Hall: If you haven’t booked your tickets to Wind Energy o and m Australia 2026, you need to be doing [00:12:00] that. Today, uh, the event is on February 17th and 18th in Melbourne, Australia. Uh, we’ll have experts from around the world talking everything o and m, and there’s so many good people are gonna be on the agenda, Joel, and a lot of big companies sponsoring this Joel Saxum: year. Allen Hall: You want to give us a highlight? Joel Saxum: Yeah, so like you said, Alan, we have a ton of sponsors going to be there and, and I’d like to say the sponsors. Thank you ahead of time. Of course. Right. We’re, we’re, we’re super excited for them to get involved because as we’ve put this event together. We’re trying to do this no sales pitches, right? So we wanna do this, not pay to play. We want people here that are going to actually share and learn from each other. And the sponsors have been kind enough to get on board with that message and follow through with it. So, like our lead industry sponsor Tilt, uh, Brandon, the team over there, fantastic. Um, they have, they’re, they’re the, their key sponsor here and they’re supporting a lot of this. So the money’s going to applying in experts from all over the [00:13:00] world, putting this thing together. Uh, so we have an, uh. A forum to be able to talk at, uh, C-I-C-N-D-T. From here in the States, uh, we’ve got Palisades, who’s another operator in the, uh, Australian market, uh, rig com. ISP over there doing blade work and it just keeps rolling down. We’ve got squadron on board, squadron’s gonna do one of the coffee carts. Um, so I know that we’ve got a limited bit of tickets left. I think we are 250 in the venue and that’s what the plan is. I think we’re sitting at about half of that leftover. Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s getting close to running out. And I know in Australia everybody likes to purchase their tickets at the last minute. That’s great. And but you don’t wanna miss out because there is limited seating to this event. And you wanna go to WMA w om a 2020 six.com. Look at all the activities. Book some tickets. Plan to book your travel if you’re traveling from the United States or elsewhere. You need a couple of weeks [00:14:00]hopefully to do that ’cause that’s when the airline prices are lower. If you can book a a couple of weeks ahead of time. So now’s the time to go on Woma 2020 six.com. Check out the conference, get your tickets purchased, start buying your airline tickets, and get in your hotel arranged. Now’s the time to do that. Well, as you know, war has been selling off pieces of itself after setbacks in the America market. Uh, sounds like two heavyweight bidders are looking for one of those pieces. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and ENG G are allegedly competing for Seds European. Onshore Wind business, a portfolio valued at roughly 1 billion euros. Supposedly the bids are gonna be due this week, although nothing is certain in a billion dollar deals. This is a little bit odd. I understand why Stead is doing it, because they’re, they’re trying to fundraise, but if they do this. They will be essentially European offshore wind only [00:15:00] with some American onshore and a little bit American offshore. Not much. Uh, that will be their future. Are they gonna stay with America one onshore or, and American offshore? Is that a thing? Or they just could, could be all European offshore wind. Is that where Osted is headed? It’s a complicated mix because, you know, they’re, they’re, they’ve negotiated a couple of other deals. Most recently to raise cash. They’re supposedly selling, uh, another set of wind farms. I dunno how official that is, but it’s, it seems like there’s some news stories percolating up out there trying to raise more cash by selling large percentages of offshore wind farms. Where does Joel Saxum: this all end? I don’t know. The interesting thing is like if you looked at Ted, uh, man, two years ago, like if you Googled anything or used a jet, GPT or whatever it was like, gimme the. Three largest wind operators in the world. They were the top three all the time. Right. And, and most valuable. At one point in time, they were worth like, [00:16:00] uh, I don’t wanna say the wrong number, but I, I thought, I thought 25 billion or something like that. They were worth. ATS at one point in time. Market share. Allen Hall: Yeah, Joel Saxum: I think that seems right. So like they, they were huge and it just seems like, yeah, they’re trying to survive, but in survival mode, they’ve just kind, they’re just dwindling themselves down to being just o just a small offshore company. And, or not small, but a small, just a, just a siloed offshore company. A large offshore company. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, like, even just, there was, there’s another article, um. Today we’re, we’re talking here, CIP and Engie looking to buy their European onshore business. They’ve also are putting up like, uh, was it greater Ang of four in Taiwan for, for sale as well. So, I mean, like you said, where does it stop? I don’t know. Um, CIP is an interesting play. Uh, an Eng, CIP and Engie kind of battling this one out ’cause the CIP management team is a bunch of ex or said people, so they know that play very well. Um, ENGIE of course, being a big French [00:17:00] utility. So that one will sell, right? They’re, their European offshore or onshore assets will be gone shortly. Uh, they’ll be sitting with a bunch of offshore assets that they own and partially own around the world. Uh, and of course their, their, I think their US onshore fleet is about a gigawatt, maybe a and a half. Um, that could be the next domino to fall. You don’t, I, sorry, Yolanda, I used your, your, your, uh, euphemism from before, but, um. That they’re actively parting ways with some stuff. I don’t know when it stops. Allen Hall: It is odd, right? EOR has basically stopped a lot of renewables. Stat Craft has pulled back quite a bit. Another Norwegian company. A lot of the nor Northern European companies are slowing down in wind altogether, trying to stick to onshore for the most part. Offshore will still be developed, but just not at the pace that it needed to be developed. There is a lot of money moving around. Billions [00:18:00] and billions of, of euros and dollars moving. And I guess my, my thought is, I’m not sure from a market standpoint where Orid is headed, or even Ecuador for that matter, besides maybe moving back into oil and gas. They never really left it. The direction of the company is a little unknown because these, uh, news articles about sales. Are not really prefaced, right? It’s just like, all right, Taiwan, we’re selling more than 50% of the projects in Taiwan. We’re out, we’re selling European onshore pow, which there’d been some rumors about that, that I had heard, but nothing was really locked in, obviously, until you really start seeing some reliable news sources. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners is an interesting play just because it kind of keeps it. Up in Denmark and not in France with Engie. That’s what I’m, in my [00:19:00] head. I’m thinking Sted is not likely to sell it to Engie just because they’re French. This is a national, uh, security issue for Denmark Sted. Is it, I I how Engie is involved in this maybe to help set a, a baseline of what the valuation is so that CIP can then purchase it. Do you see CIP losing this, Joel? Joel Saxum: No, I don’t think so. I think, yeah, I think CCIP has to land with this one and, and CI P’s been building a portfolio quietly, building a, not, I guess not quietly, they’ve been building a portfolio for the last few years. It’s pretty stout, uh, pretty fairly sizable. Right? And it, it’s an interesting play watching this for me because you, you see all these people kind of rotating out. And it, and it has to do with the, the, in my opinion, it has to do with the macroeconomics of things, right? Once, when you develop something and you get through, like in, into the teething pain cycle and all that kind of stuff. [00:20:00] The asset is not designed to have a 50, 70%, you know, margin, right? That’s not how wind works. Wind, wind operates of small margins and a lot of times in the early, a early stages of a project, you end up running into issues that eat those margins away. So when you’re talking about small margins, they’re six to 10% is what you kind of see. Um, and it’s pretty easy to eat away a 6% or a 10% margin. If you have some kind of serial defect you have to deal with, uh, or that, that the OEM’s fighting you on and, and you know, whether or not they take responsibility for it or you have to pay for it. A lot of times those processes can drag out for 12, 24, 36 months until you get made whole. So the early state, the first, you know, five years of a lot of these projects, five to eight years, are very expensive. And then once you get through kind of those things and the thing starts just chugging. Then you actually are starting to make money, and that’s where CIP P’S buying these assets is in that years after it’s gone through its teething pains and the company that developed it is like, man, [00:21:00] we need to get outta this thing. We’ve just been burning through cash. Then CI P’s kinda swooping in and grabbing ’em. And I think that this is another one of those plays. Allen Hall: So they’re gonna live with a smaller margin or they’re gonna operate the assets differently. Joel Saxum: The assets may be being operated better now than they were when they started, just in that, in, they exist, the starting company simply because the, some of the issues have been solved. They’ve been sorted through the things where you have early, early failures of bearings or some stuff like the early fairings of gearboxes. Those things have been sorted out, so then CIP swoops in and grabs them after the, the teething issues that have been gone. Allen Hall: Does evaluation change greatly because of the way horse did, manages their assets? Up or down? Joel Saxum: I would say generally it would go up. Yeah. I don’t necessarily think it’s dependent on o and m right now. I think it’s just a, it’s a time to buy cheap assets, right? Like you see, you see over here in the States, you see a lot of acquisitions going on. People divesting, they’re not divesting because they’re like, oh, we’re gonna make a ton of money off this. They may need the cash. They’re [00:22:00] divesting in, in, um, what’s the term, like under duress? A lot of them, it may not look like it from the outside in a big way, but that’s kind of what’s happening. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I think it’ll be really interesting to see, uh, you know, there were a lot of layoffs in Ted and Europe as well, so seeing if maybe some of the people who can make those assets perform better. Come back just with a different t-shirt on. Allen Hall: As wind energy professionals staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it difficult. That’s why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit PES wind.com today in this quarter’s, PES Wind Magazine, which you can download a copy at PES [00:23:00] wind.com. There’s an article by Xan and they were, uh, contracted by Ocean Winds to evaluate the sea floor from. The sea floor at Moray West, which is way, way, way up north on the northern end of Scotland. A pretty rough area, Joel. And, but what ex Ocean did was they used unmanned survey equipment to monitor the ocean floor where the mono piles were gonna replace for the Moey West Wind Farm. That is a really difficult area to operate any sort of boat, but. Uh, the reason we’re doing this remotely unmanned was that it, it gave them sort of a, a less costly way to get high resolution images of the sea bottom. This is interesting because ocean wind was developing more a West apparently hadn’t used anything like this before, but the results, at [00:24:00] least from what I can see in PS win, look Joel Saxum: great. Yeah. This is a technology that’s been, um. Man, it’s been under development by a lot of companies in the last six, eight years. And now it’s starting to get to the point where it is, I mean, we’re, we’re TRL nine plus, right? There’s a lot of these solutions out there that are commercially ready. Xans been a top of this list since, man, since I was playing in that oil and gas world, to be honest with you. Like 20 18, 20 17, uh, really cool looking boats. That’s besides the point. Uh, but when they show up at trade shows and stuff with ’em, you’re like, ah, oh, that thing’s neat looking. Um, but it, it, it, it solves all kinds of problems, right? So when you go offshore and you’re just gonna do, say you’re just gonna go out there and do multibeam, so you’re just gonna do echo sound where you’re just looking to see depths and what’s on the sea floor. The minimum kind of vessel you need for that is 10 to 15 meters long. You need probably two to six people on that vessel. And that’s just, if you’re going out doing shift work, if you’re staying out there [00:25:00] and working 24 7, that vessel grows to. 30 meters instantly, right? So now you’re burning thousands and thousands of dollars in fuel. You’ve got food on board. You got all, it’s just a pain to put this vessel out there. You take all of those people out of harm’s way. You take all the costs away and they, and you put two of them, or one or two of them on shore in a facility, and then you put this three meter vessel out there that’s fully autonomous. No people, but collects the same style of data. I mean, it’s a no brainer, right? So you’re getting the same style of data and if, and the thing’s working 24 7, there is no need to have someone sleep. There’s a not a technician issue. There’s not, none of this is, is a problem anymore. Nobody’s getting seasick, right? So you’re sitting, you’re, you’re sitting back on shore, uh, going to work, uh, with no PPE on, um, having a, having a coffee from Starbucks down the street. And you’re running this thing 24 7, you’re collecting all [00:26:00] that fantastic data. Uh, it is just, like I said, it’s a no brainer. Now, now they’re getting to the stage where they’re putting ’em out as swarms, so you can cover whole fields. You’re doing live cable inspections. It’s, it’s pretty fantastic. So Exo ocean’s really making the next generation of robotics o offshore. Allen Hall: Yeah. And that’s gonna drive down the cost of energy. These kind of developments make huge strides in lowering costs, and this is why you need to read PES Win Magazine. So there’s a. Great articles all throughout the magazine. This quarter’s issue is, is Heavy with articles. Get your free copy@pswin.com today. As you know, in the wind industry, survival has always belonged to those who can keep up, uh, and Sorn freeze. Nuon knows better than most with his decades of experience at LM Wind Power and Uzon. He now chairs two Danish subcontractors, Polytech and Jupiter. Bach. Uh, his message to smaller suppliers in, in a recent article is. Pretty blunt. It [00:27:00]says the manufacturers, big OEMs want fewer partners and larger partners who can take on more responsibility. And if you cannot invest and grow with those manufacturers, you’ll be left behind the winners. It says it will be those who stay close to the turbine makers and adapt as the industry evolves. Joel, this is a really interesting discussion that, uh, Soren put out there. Obviously he’s invested in Polytech and Jupiter, Bach, uh, to great suppliers obviously, but small businesses are where a lot of the key technologies have been driven over the last five, six years. In wind, or more broadly the last 20 years in wind, a lot of great technology has come out of places that you wouldn’t have thought of. The OEMs have not been the bastion of innovation. I would say it [00:28:00] is necessary. You have both, wouldn’t you think? You have to have the small business innovation to prove out ideas and to show that they work, but you also have to have the large manufacturers to implement those ideas more broadly without either one of them, nobody wins. Joel Saxum: I fully agree and I think that one of the things that’s a little bit, uh, more of a granular comment there is. I think sometimes you need the OEMs and the other suppliers within the supply chain to open their doors a little bit, right? So this is, this is me wearing my, my small business, small innovative business, uh, in the wind industry cap. And that is, man, sometimes it is hard to get a conversation with a large subsupplier or with an OEM when you have something that can help them. And they just don’t want to communicate, don’t want to help. It’s just our way or the highway kind of thing. And if you watch, like we, so the podcast gives us an kind of, or not [00:29:00] gives us, it forces us to have kind of an op, an opportunity to look at, you know, what are the, what are the financial statements of some of these OEMs? What are the financial statements of some of their large sub-suppliers? You know? ’cause if they’re located in countries where that stuff is public knowledge, you can see how and what they’re doing. And if you, if you look at business in a general way where you rely on one customer or two customers to, for your whole business, you’re gonna be hurting. Um, especially in the way we look at things or what we’re seeing in the wind industry right now is if you’re, if you are a large company to say you do a hundred million in revenue and your customers are ge Vestas. Depending on what happens regulatory wise, in some random country somewhere your a hundred million dollars could shrink to 50 real quick. Um, so I don’t think that that’s a great way to do business. I think, you know, having a bit of diversification probably helps you a little bit. The OEMs Allen Hall: have a particular job to do. They need to deliver turbines onsite on time and create power for their customer. That’s our main [00:30:00] focus. They are a generator. Driven company, they make generators on steel towers with a propeller system basically. Right. Just simplify it way, way down. There’s not a lot of technology in that itself. Obviously there’s control systems, obviously there’s electronics involved, but the concept from this basic fundamentals is not difficult to to grasp. The difficulty is in execution. Showing that that product can last for 20 years, and that product can last in different environments. Australia, United States, up in Scandinavia, Canada, way down south and Brazil. There’s some really rough environments there and the OEMs are relying upon in industry, uh, guidance from like the IECs and then the dvs, uh, uls Tube. Nord. Uh. Bvs where they’re trying to make these turbines comply to a [00:31:00] set of essentially regulations, which just simplify it. You can do that. But as we have seen historically in the wind industry, if you make a turbine that just meets those requirements, you do not necessarily have a successful product. You have a product that is marginal, and as Yolanda has pointed out to me numerous times, there’s a lot of real issues in wind turbines. That probably could have been solved five years ago by small mobile companies with outside of the box ideas that could have given the OEMs a huge advantage, especially in blades. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, and I think a lot of these companies are, they’re looking at things from a different point of view, right? They’re smaller companies. You have people who could know the product, they know the real issue that’s going on on the ground. They know. Kind of what they need to do, what the next step is to move forward in their solution.[00:32:00] Right? But it’s not like it’s a, a company where you need 30 people to sign off before you can go onto the next stage, and then you need 30 more people to sign off before you can get funding to do something else. And so yes, the OEMs are doing a good job in their scope. If they’re meeting their scope, they are doing a good job. You know, if I, if I take like bread and cheese, then yes, I have a sandwich, right? Like, it might not be the best sandwich in the world, but I have a sandwich. So like, they’re making the sandwich and that’s great. But if you want something to, to actually work and to last and to, to give everybody else the, the idea that. You know, wind is profitable and we can all benefit from it. You have to get all those different layers in there, right? You have to make [00:33:00] sure that you know, if you have a big lightning issue, then you get the right people in the room to get that retrofit in there to solve your lightning issue. If you have a big leading edge erosion issue, then you get those right people in the room to solve everything, and it’s not always going to be a one size fits all. Right, but you do need those smaller companies to, to be in the room with you. Joel Saxum: I’m a hundred percent agreeing with you, Yolanda, and I think that this is the issue here is that at some level then an OEM, an OEM engineering head would have to admit that they’re not the end all be all, and that they may have got a couple of things wrong. And what, what I would love to see and who, and maybe maybe ask you this question, who of the major four Western OEMs. Do you think would be open to like an industry advisory board? Nordex, you think it’s Nordex? I think Yolanda Padron: that’s the closest one so far that we’ve seen. Right? Joel Saxum: Yeah. I, I, I agree with you, and I’m saying that because I don’t think any of the other ones would ever admit that they have an [00:34:00] issue, right? They have attorneys and they have problems, Allen Hall: so they really can’t, but I, I think internally they know that they haven’t optimized their production, they haven’t optimized their performance out in the field. They’re trying to improve availability, that’s for sure. Estes has spent a great deal of time over the last year or two improving availability so that the money is being spent. The question is, do they have all the right answers or the overspending to get to the availability that they want to deliver to their customers? That’s a great question because I do think that we we’re just in Scotland and there’s a number of technology companies in the UK that I think, wow, they should be implementing some of these. Ideas and these products that have been proven, especially the ones that have been out for a couple of years, they should be implemented tomorrow, but they’re not yet because they can’t get through the door of an OEM because the OEM doesn’t want to hear it. Joel Saxum: Yeah, agreed. Agreed. Right. Well, well, like I, the, the, the example that keeps popping into my mind is Pete Andrews and the team over [00:35:00] at Echo Bolt, simply because they have a solution that works. It’s simple. They’ve done the legwork to make sure that this thing can be optimized and utilized by technicians in the field around the world. But they, it just like, they haven’t gotten the buy-in from, from whoever, uh, that it seems to be, you know, there’s a hurdle here. Uh, and that hurdle may be the Atlantic Ocean. I don’t know. Uh, but I would love to see, I would love to see their, uh, solution for bolted connections, uh, and monitoring bolted connections kicked around the world because I think you could save. Uh, the wind industry a ton, a ton, a ton of money. And that is an example of a small business full of subject matter experts that made a solution that can solve a problem, whether you’re an OEM or you’re an operator or whatever. There’s there that’s there, utilize them, right? Those are the kind of things that we need in this industry. Yolanda Padron: And it’s also those smaller companies too that will look at your feedback and then they’ll say, oh. Okay, do I need to adjust here? [00:36:00] Did I not focus on this one parameter that your specific site has? Right. And you don’t see that from the OEMs ’cause they have so, uh, they have so many problems that they’re trying to tackle at once that it gets really difficult to, not just to hone in on one, but to, to tell everybody, oh, I, I have this perfect solution for everything. Here you go. Allen Hall: Right. I think there’s an internal conflict in the engineering departments and manufacturing departments of any OEM, regardless if it’s in wind or in any other industry, is that they have a system to make this product and they’re pretty confident in it, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. They don’t want to hear outside noise is I, I would describe it as noise. Like, uh, if you have a great solution that would help out their manufacturing process. But I work here, I know how, I know the ins and outs that that new idea by a small company won’t work here. Those [00:37:00] barriers have to be knocked down internally in the OEMs. The OEM management should be going through and saying, Hey, look, if I find me the manager of this operation, if I find a company that could help us and save us money, and you’re being a roadblock, guess what? See ya. Hit the road because there is no way you can let those opportunities pass you by. In today’s marketplace, you need to be grabbing hold of every opportunity to lower your cost, to improve your product availability, to improve your relationship with your customers. How do you do that? Quickly, you look at the companies that are providing solutions and you grab them, grab them, and hold on for your life and listen to what they have to say because they have probably done more research into your product than your people have. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you [00:38:00] found value in today’s discussion, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we’ll catch you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen

Independent investigative journalism, broadcasting, trouble-making and muckraking with Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com

California is often described as the state where you can see the future of the US, and of the world. That has certainly been true in terms of some of the problems faced by the electricity grid. California has been grappling with the impact of wildfires and a big shift to renewable generation, and now faces the prospect of rising power demand from electrification and data centers.In this episode, host Ed Crooks and regular guest Amy Myers Jaffe of NYU talk to Elliot Mainzer, President and CEO of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), to dig into how the state is tackling those challenges.California's electricity prices have nearly doubled in eight years, rising to about 32 cents per kilowatt hour for residential customers. Affordability has become a political flashpoint, as it has in many other parts of the US, and other countries around the world. Elliot explains how CAISO is using reforms of transmission planning and interconnection queues to help “bend the cost curve” downwards.The discussion also covers an important shift that is now under way in western power markets. Governor Gavin Newsom of California recently signed AB 825, advancing an independent regional governance structure for the emerging extended day-ahead market. Elliot outlines how implementing the new law could change reliability, capacity planning, and resource adequacy across 11 states.Another pressure point is AI, and the data centers needed to support it. While large load growth in California is more modest than in some other states such as Texas or Virginia, the state still expects 2.3 gigawatts of new data center demand by 2030. Ed and Amy question how much flexibility these data centers can provide, whether price pressure is pushing hyperscalers elsewhere in the US, and how CAISO will manage the all-important issues around siting and grid integration.The episode also dives into one of California's most contentious debates: the role for distributed energy resources and virtual power plants. Elliot discusses what CAISO can see, what it can't, and what needs to change for DERs to support affordability and reliability—while highlighting the remarkable performance of the state's battery fleet in avoiding Flex Alerts for the past three summers.Finally, the conversation looks ahead to California's longer-term energy future. The state has set an ambitious energy goals, including sourcing all its electricity from zero-ccarbon generation by 2045. To achieve that, many gigawatts of new renewables are still required, and wide-area coordination across the western US will have to live up to its full potential. As Elliot puts it, managing this grid is challenging, but “the challenge is energizing.”Stay tuned to The Energy Gang as we continue tracking the forces that are reshaping the power industry, from technology and finance to policy and climate.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Investigative journalist, blogger, and broadcaster Brad Friedman's investigative interviews, analysis and commentary, as ripped from the pages of The BRAD BLOG (BradBlog.com), today's current events (if they matter) and the rest of the stuff we have to live with.

Allen, Joel, Rosemary, and Yolanda discuss a German study finding 99.8% of birds avoid wind turbines, challenging long-standing collision risk models. They also cover Pattern Energy’s SunZia project nearing completion as the Western Hemisphere’s largest renewable project, lightning monitoring strategies for large-scale wind farms, and offshore flange alignment technology. Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia 2026!Learn more about CICNDTDownload the latest issue of PES Wind Magazine 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 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, where a cold front is just blown through, but we’re not nearly as cold as Joel was up in Wisconsin, Joel, you had a bunch of snow, which is really the first big storm of the season. Joel Saxum: Yeah, the crazy thing here was the Wind Energy Podcast. So since that storm I, we, we got up in northern Wisconsin, 18 inches of snow, and then we drove down on last Saturday after US Thanksgiving through Iowa, there’s another 18 inches of snow in Des Moines. I talked to a more than one operator that had icing and snow issues at their wind farms all through the northern Midwest of these states. So from [00:01:00] North Dakota. All the way down to Nebraska, Northern Missouri, over into Indiana. There was a ton of turbines that were iced up and or snowed in from that storm, Allen Hall: and Rosemary was in warm Australia with other icing knowledge or de-icing knowledge while the US has been suffering. Rosemary Barnes: But you know, on the first day of summer here, a couple of days ago, it was minus one here overnight. So. Um, yeah, it’s, uh, unseasonable and then tomorrow it’ll be 35. Allen Hall: The smartest one of us all has been Yolanda, down in Austin, Texas, where it doesn’t get cold. Yolanda Padron: Never. It’s so nice. It’s raining today and that’s about it. Traffic’s going crazy. Joel Saxum: Rain is welcome for us, isn’t it though, Yolanda? Yolanda Padron: It’s sweet. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does. Very rainy for like 24 hours. Allen Hall: We’ve been saving a story for a couple of weeks until Rosemary is back and it has to do with birds and a year long study over [00:02:00] in Germany. And as we know, one of the most persistent arguments against wind energy has been the risk to birds and permitting and operation shutdowns have been the norm, uh, based on models and predicted collision risks. Well. A new study comes, has just come out that says, what if the models are all wrong? And the new German study suggests that they may be wrong. The Federal Association of Offshore Wind Energy, known by its German acronym, BWO Commission Research to examine. Actual collision risk at a coastal wind farm in Northern Germany. The study was conducted by Biocon Consult, a German research and consulting firm, and funded by eight major offshore wind operators, including Sted, Vattenfall, RWE, and E, roa, and. Rosemary using some of the newer technology. They were able to track bird movements with radar [00:03:00] and AI and stereo vision cameras to, to watch birds move through and around, uh, some of these wind farms. And it analyzed more than 4 million bird movements and over 18 months, and they searched for collision victims and what they found was pretty striking more than 99.8% of both day migrating and night migrating birds. Avoided the turbines entirely. The study found no correlation between migration intensity and collision rates. And BD and BWO says The combination of radar and AI based cameras represents a methodological breakthrough. Uh, that can keep turbines moving even when birds are in transit. This is pretty shocking news, honestly, Rosemary, I, I haven’t seen a lot of long-term studies about bird movements where they really had a lot of technology involved to, besides binoculars, to, to look at bird movement. The [00:04:00] 99.8% of the migrating birds are going around The turbines. No, the turbines are there. That’s. Really new information. Rosemary Barnes: I think. I mean, if you never heard anything about wind turbines and birds, I don’t think you’d be shocked like that. Birds mostly fly around obstacles. That’s probably an intuitive, intuitive answer. Because we’ve had it shoved down our throat for decades now. Wind turbines are huge bird killers. It’s kind of like, it’s been repeated so often that it kind of like sinks in and becomes instinctive, even though, yeah, I do think that, um, it’s. Not that, that shocking that an animal with eyes avoids a big obstacle when it’s flying. Um, but it is really good that somebody has actually done more than just trying to look for bird deaths. You know, they’ve actually gone out, seen what can we find, and then reported that they found mostly nothing. We already knew the real risks for birds, like hundreds or thousands, even millions of times [00:05:00] more, um, deadly to birds are things like. Cats. Cars, buildings, even power lines kill more birds than, um, wind turbines do. In fact, like when you look at, um, the studies that look at wind, um, bird deaths from wind turbines, most of those are from people driving, like workers driving to site and hitting a bird with their cars. Um, you know, that’s attributed to wind energy. Not a surprise maybe for people that have been following very closely, but good to see the report. Nonetheless. Joel Saxum: I think it’s a win for like the global wind industry, to be honest with you, because like you said, there’s, there’s no, um, like real studies of this with, that’s backed up by metric data with, like I said, like the use stereo cameras. Radar based AI detection and, and some of those things, like if you talk with some ornithologists for the big OEMs and stuff, they’ve been dabbling in those things. Like I dabbled in a project without a DTU, uh, a while back and it, but it wasn’t large scale done like this. A [00:06:00] particular win this study in the United States is there’s been this battle in the United States about what birds and what, you know, raptors or these things are controlled or should have, um, controls over them by the governments for wind installations. The big one right now is US Fish and Wildlife Service, uh, controls raptors, right? So that’s your eagle’s, owls, hawks, those kind of things. So they’ll map out the nests and you can only go in certain areas, uh, or build in certain areas depending on when their mating seasons are. And they put mild buffers on some of them. It’s pretty crazy. Um, but the one rule in the United States, it’s been kind of floated out there, like, we’re gonna throw this in your face, wind industry. Is the Federal Migratory Bird Act, which is also how they regulate all like the, the hunting seasons. So it’s not, it’s the reason that the migratory birds are controlled by the federal government as opposed to state governments is because they cross state lines. And if we can [00:07:00] prove now via this study that wind farms are not affecting these migratory bird patterns or causing deaths, then it keeps the feds out of our, you know, out of the permitting process for. For birds, Rosemary Barnes: but I’m not sure this is really gonna change that much in terms of the environmental approvals that you need to do because it’s a, you know, a general, a general thing with a general, um, statistical population doesn’t look at a specific wind farm with a specific bird and you’re still need to go. You’re still going to have to need to look at that every time you’re planning an actual wind farm. That’s it’s fair. Yolanda Padron: And it’s funny sometimes how people choose what they care or don’t care about. I know living in a high rise, birds will hit the window like a few a month. And obviously they will pass away from impact and the building’s not going anywhere. Just like a turbine’s not going anywhere. And I’ve never had anybody complain to [00:08:00] me about living and condoning high rises because of how they kill the birds. And I’ve had people complain to me about wind turbines killing the birds. It’s like, well, they’re just there. Joel Saxum: If we’re, if we’re talking about energy production, the, if everybody remembers the deep water horizon oil spill 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. That oil spill killed between 801.2 million birds. Just that one. Speaker 6: Australia’s wind farms are growing fast, but are your operations keeping up? Join us February 17th and 18th at Melbourne’s Poolman on the park for Wind energy o and M Australia 2026, where you’ll connect with the experts solving real problems in maintenance asset management. And OEM relations. Walk away with practical strategies to cut costs and boost uptime that you can use the moment you’re back on site. Register now at W om a 2020 six.com. Wind Energy o and m Australia [00:09:00] is created by wind professionals for wind professionals because this industry needs solutions, not speeches Allen Hall: well in the high desert of Central New Mexico, near a lot of what were ghost towns that were abandoned during the Great Depression. If there is a flurry of activity pattern, energy sunzi, a project is near completion after 20 years of planning and permitting. When. It’s supposed to be finished in 2026. It’ll be the largest renewable energy project in the Western hemisphere. More than 900 turbines spread across multiple counties. A 550 mile transmission line stretching to Arizona and then onward to California, and $11 billion bet that’s being made on American wind. Now, Joel, it’s a kind of a combination of two OEMs there, Vestus and ge. The pace of building has been really rapid over the last six, eight months from what I can [00:10:00] tell. Joel Saxum: Yeah. We have talked to multiple ISPs, EPC contractors. Um, of course we know some of the engineers involved in building a thing on the pattern side. Right. But this sheer size of this thing, right, it’s, it is three and a half gigawatts, right? You’re talking 900 turbines and, and so big that one OEM really couldn’t, I mean, it’s a, it’s a risk hedge, right? But couldn’t fulfill the order. So you have massive ge tur set of turbines out there. Massive set of vestas turbines out there. And I think one thing that’s not to be missed on this project as well is that transmission line, that high voltage transmission line that’s feeding this thing. Because that’s what we need, right? That was when we built, started building up big time in Texas, the cre, the crest lines that were built to bring all of that wind energy to the major cities in Texas. That was a huge part of it. And we have seen over the last six months, we have seen loans canceled, uh, permits being pulled and like troubles being in hurdles, being thrown up in the face of a lot of these transmission lines that are planned. [00:11:00] These big ones in the states. And that’s what we need for energy security in the future, is these big transmission lines to go. So we can get some of this generation to, uh, to the market, get electrons flowing into homes and into industry. But this thing here, man, um, I know we’ve been talking about Sunz, the Sunz project, uh, and all the people involved in it, in the wind industry for a, what, two, three years now? Oh, at least. Yeah. It’s been in planning and development stage for much longer than that. But the. The, the big bet. I like it. Um, bringing a lot of, um, bringing a lot of economic opportunity to New Mexico, right? A place that, uh, if you’ve driven across New Mexico lately, it needs it in a dire way. Uh, and this is how wind energy can bring a lot of, uh, economic boom to places that, uh, hadn’t had it in the past. Allen Hall: And this being the largest project to date, there’s a, I think a couple more than a pipeline that could be larger if they get moving on them. We see another project like this five years [00:12:00] from now, or we think we’re gonna scale down and stay in the gigawatt range just because of the scale and the things that Sunzi went through. Joel Saxum: We have the choke chair, Sierra Madre project up in Wyoming that’s been chugging the Anschutz Corporation’s been pushing that thing for a long time. That’s, that’s along the same size of this unit. Um, and it’s the same thing. It’s, it’s kind of hinged on, I mean, there’s permitting issues, but it’s hinged on a transmission line being built. I think that one’s like 700. 50 miles of transmission. That’s supposed to be, it’s like Wyoming all the way down to Las Vegas. That project is sitting out there. Um, it’s hard to build something of that size in, like say the wind corridor, the Texas, Oklahoma, uh, you know, all the way up to the Dakotas, just simply because of the massive amount of landowners and public agencies involved in those things. It’s a bit easier when you get out West New Mexico. Um, I could see something like this happening possibly in Nevada. At some point in time to feed that California [00:13:00] side of things, right? But they’re doing massive solar farms out there. Same kind of concept. Um, I, I think that, um, I would love to see something like this happen, but to invest that kind of capital, you’ve got to have some kind of ITC credits going for you. Um, otherwise, I mean, $11 billion is, that’s a lot of money Allen Hall: since Zia will have PTC. Which is a huge driver about the economics for the entire project. Joel Saxum: Yeah. But you’re also seeing at the same time, just because of the volatility of what’s happening in the states wind wise, uh, there was a big article out today of someone who got wind that EDF may be selling its entire Allen Hall: US onshore renewable operation or US renewable operation. That was Wood Mac that. Put that out. And I’m still not sure that’s a hundred percent reliable, but they have been 50% for sale for a while. Everybody, I think everybody knew that. Joel Saxum: Yeah. I don’t know if it’s a hundred percent reliable as well. I would agree with you there. However, there’s, it’s the [00:14:00] same thought process of European company pulling outta the United States. That’s where a lot of the renewable energy capital is, or it has been fed to a lot of that capital comes from Canada and other places too. Right. But that’s where it’s been fed through. Um, but you’re starting to see some, some. Uh, purchasing some acquisitions, a little bit of selling and buying here and there. I don’t, I don’t think that there’s, uh, massive ones on the horizon. That’s just my opinion though. Allen Hall: Well, won’t the massive ones be offshore if we ever get back to it? Joel Saxum: Yeah, you would think so, right? But I, that’s gonna take a, uh, an administration change. I mean the, the, all that stuff you’d see out in California, like when we were originally seeing the leases come out and we were like, oh, great. More offshore opportunity. Ah, but it’s California, so it’ll be kind of tough. It probably won’t be till 20 32, 20, something like that. I don’t think we’ll see possibly California offshore wind until 2040 if we’re lucky. Allen Hall: Joel, what were the two wind turbines selected for Sunz? They were both new models, right? One from Renova and then the other one from [00:15:00] Vestas, Joel Saxum: so the Vestas was 242 V, 1 63, 4 0.5 megawatts machines, and the, and the GE Renova. Just so we get, make sure I get clarity on this. 674 of its three. They were 3.6, but they’re 3.61 50 fours. Allen Hall: Okay. So both turbine types are relatively new. New to the manufacturer. CZ has two new turbines styles on the site. Joel Saxum: Yeah, we were told that when they were originally like getting delivered, that they didn’t have type certificates yet. That’s how new they were. Allen Hall: So Yolanda. As Sania starts to turn on, what are things that they need to be aware of blade wise, Yolanda Padron: besides the lightning and the dust in New Mexico? It’s probably gonna tip them. I don’t know exactly what they’re counting with as far as leading edge protection goes. Allen Hall: Pattern usually doesn’t, uh, have a full service agreement. Joel, do you remember if that was an FSA? I don’t think so. Joel Saxum: I would say [00:16:00] because those are Vestas turbines on the one that, yes, Vestas really doesn’t sell a turbine without it. Knowing internally how big patterns engineering group are, I don’t know if they can completely take on the operations of a thousand more turbine, 900 more turbines overnight. Right? So I think that there is gonna be some OE EMM involvement in these things, uh, simply to be at that scale as well. I don’t know of anywhere else with a 1 54 install a GE 1 54. So the things that I wouldn’t looking out is the. It’s the brand new type stuff, right? Like do internal inspections when they’re on the ground. You don’t know what kind of condition these things are in, what, you know, what is the, you haven’t, nobody’s seen them. Like you’re the first ones to get to get your hands on these things. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I think they’re definitely gonna have to go with some sort of consulting or something externally as far as what exactly they’re dealing with. I know, Rosemary, you’ve touched on it a lot, right about. [00:17:00] How the changing the blade types and changing the turbines every x amount of years is really not conducive to, to being able to repeat the same results. And if you’re having that for hundreds of turbines at a new site that you’ve already had so much time and money invested in creating, it’ll, it’s, it’s a big undertaking. Rosemary Barnes: It’s really interesting because. When you have such a large wind farm be, I’m assuming one of the first wind farms may be the first to get this new turbine types, then if there’s a serial defect, it’s gonna be very obvious. ’cause with smaller wind farms, one of the problems is that, uh, the numbers are too small to definitively say whether something is, um, serial or just random bad luck. Um, but when you get. So how many wind turbines is it? Joel Saxum: Almost a thousand total. It’s [00:18:00] 674 GE turbines and 242 Vesta turbines. Rosemary Barnes: You can do statistics on that kind of a population and this area. I mean, there’s lightning there, right? Like this is not an area where you’re not gonna see lightning. You know, in know the first couple of years, like there, there will be. Hundreds of turbines damaged by lightning in the, the first couple of years I would suggest, um, or, you know, maybe not. Maybe the LPS are so, so great that that doesn’t happen. But, you know, the typical standard of LPS would mean that, you know, even if you only see, say we see 10 strikes per turbine to year and you get a 2% damage rate, that is, you know, lots of, lots of individual instances of blade damage, even if everything works as it should according to certification. And if it doesn’t, if you see a 10% damage rate or something from those strikes, then you are going to know that, you know, the, um, LPS is not performing the way that the standard says that it should. It’s not like that’s a slam dunk for, um, [00:19:00] proving that the design was not sufficient or the certification wasn’t correct. It’s always really, really tricky. My recommendation would be to make sure that you are monitoring the lightning strikes, so you know exactly which turbine is struck and when, and then go inspect them and see the damage. Ideally, you’re also gonna be measuring some of the characteristics of the lightning as well. But you do that from day one. Then if there is a problem, then you’re at least gonna have enough information within the, um, you know, the serial defect liability period to be able to do something about it. Joel Saxum: Let me ask you a question on that, on just the, that lightning monitoring piece then. So this is something that’s just, it’s of course we do this all the time, but this is boiling up in the thing. How do you, how do you monitor for lightning on 916 turbines? Probably spread, spread across. 200 square miles. Rosemary Barnes: Well, there’s, there’s heaps of different ways that you can do it. Um, so I mean, you can do remote, remote lightning detection, which is [00:20:00] not good enough. Then there are a range of different technologies that you can install in the, um, turbines. Um, the most simple and longest standing solution was a lightning cart, which is installed on the down conductor at the blade route. That will just tell you the amplitude of the biggest strike that that turbine has ever seen when it’s red. I have literally never seen a case where the lightning card definitively or even provided useful evidence one way or another when there’s a, a dispute about lightning. So then you move on to solutions that, uh, um. Measuring they use, uh, Alan, you’re the electrical engineer, but they, they use the, the principle that when there’s a large current flowing, then it also induces a magnetic field. And then you can use that to make a, a, a change and read characteristics about it. So you can tell, um, well first of all, that that turbine was definitely struck. So there are simple systems that can do that quite cheaply. The OGs ping [00:21:00] sensor, does that really cost effectively? Um, and then OG Ping. Phoenix Contact and Polytech all have a different product. Um, all have their own products that can tell you the charge, the duration, the um, polarity or the, yeah, the, the, if it’s a positive or a negative strike, um, yeah, rise time, things like that. Um, about the strike, that’s probably, probably, you don’t. Need to go to that extent. Um, I would say just knowing definitively which turbine was struck and when is gonna give you what you need to be able to establish what kind of a problem or if you have a problem and what kind of a problem it is. Joel Saxum: I think that like an important one there too is like, uh, so I know that Vest is in a lot of their FSA contracts will say if it’s struck by lightning, we have 48 or 72 hours to inspect it. Right. And when you’re talking something of this scale, 916 turbines out there, like if there’s a lightning storm, like [00:22:00]we’ve been watching, we watch a lot of lightning storms come through, uh, certain wind farms that we’re working with. And you see 20, 30, 40 turbines get struck. Now if a storm comes through the middle of this wind farm, you’re gonna have 200 turbines get struck. How in the hell do you go out without ha Like you need to have something that can narrow you down to exactly the turbines that we’re struck. That being said that next morning or over the next two days, you need to deploy like 10 people in trucks to drive around and go look at these things. That’s gonna be a massive problem. Pattern has about 3000 turbines, I think in their portfolio, and they, so they’re, they’re familiar with lightning issues and how things happen, but something at this scale when it’s just like so peaky, right? ’cause a storm isn’t through every night, so you don’t have that need to go and inspect things. But when you do. That is gonna be a massive undertaking. ’cause you gotta get people out there to literally like, at a minimum, binocular these things to make sure there isn’t any damage on ’em. And it’s gonna be, there’s gonna be storms where hundreds of turbines get hit. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, well [00:23:00] those three companies, those three products that I mentioned are aiming to get around that. I mean, it will depend how contracts are worded. I know in Australia it is not the norm to check for lightning ever. So if the contract says someone has to, you know, use human eyeballs to verify lightning damage or not, then. That’s, you know, that’s what has to happen. But all of these technologies do aim to offer a way that you wouldn’t have to inspect every single one. So Polytech is using, um, different lightning characteristics and then they’ve got an algorithm which they say will learn, um, which types of strike cause damage that could. Potentially progress to catastrophic damage. Um, and then the other one that is interesting is the eLog Ping solution because they’ve also got the, um, damage monitoring. That’s their original aim of their product, was that if there’s a damage on the blade tip, say it’s been punctured by lightning, it, it actually makes a noise. Like it makes a whistle and they listen out for that. So if you combine the [00:24:00]lightning detection and the, um, like blade. Tip structure monitoring from Ping, then you can get a good idea of which ones are damaged. Like if it’s damaged badly enough to fail, it is almost certainly gonna be making a noise that the ping can, um, detect Allen Hall: as wind energy professionals. Staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it, d. That’s why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit PE ps win.com today and this quarter’s PES WIN Magazine. There’s a lot of great articles, and as we roll into December. You’ll have time to sit down and read them. You can download a free copy@pswin.com. And there’s a, a really interesting article about [00:25:00] offshore, and there’s a number of articles about offshore this quarter. Well, two Dutch companies developed a solution to really one of the industry’s most persistent headaches. And when it’s flange alignment. So when you’re trying to connect the transition piece to the mono paddle out in the water, it’s not really easy to do. Uh. So PES interviewed, uh, Ontech and Dutch heavy lift consultants to explain their flange alignment system known as FAS. And it started when a turbine installation needed a safer, faster way to try to align these two pieces. So if you can think about the amount of steel we’re talking about, these are really massive pieces you’re trying to line and put bolts in, not easy to do out in the ocean. Uh, so what this new device can do is it can align the flanges in a couple of minutes. It can reshape deformed, flanges and Joel, as you know, everything offshore can get dinged warped. That’s pretty easy to do, so you don’t want that when you have a, a heavily loaded, bolted joint, like those flanges to be [00:26:00] perfectly, uh, smooth to one another and, and tight. So these two companies, Amek and Dutch heavy Lifting consultants have come up with some pretty cool technology to speed up. Installations of wind turbines. Joel Saxum: Yeah, I would say anybody who’s interested in wind, offshore wind, any of that sort, and you have a little bit of an engineering mind or an engineering, uh, quirk in your mind. As, as I think we said earlier in the episode today, engineering nerds. Um, I would encourage you to go and look at some heavy lift operations offshore, whether it is offshore wind, offshore oil and gas, offshore construction of any time or any type even pipe lay operations and stuff. Just to take, just to take in the, the sheer scale. At how, uh, at how these things are being done and how difficult that would be to manage. Think about the just tons and tons of steel and, uh, trying to put these pieces together and these different things. And then remember that these vessels are thousands of dollars, sometimes a minute for how specialized they are. Right? So a lot of money gets put into [00:27:00] how the, like when we’re putting monopiles in that these transit transition pieces get put on. A lot of money has been spent on. The ver like technology to get, make sure they’re super, super tight tolerances on the verticality of those when they’re driving the actual piles in. And then you’re doing that offshore in a nasty environment, sometimes from a jack up vessel, sometimes not from a jack vessel, sometimes from a mor or like a, you know, a pseudo mor vessel on, uh. Dynamic positioning systems, and then you’re swinging these big things with cranes and all this stuff, like, it’s just a crazy amount of engineering eng engineering and operational knowledge that goes into making this stuff happen. And if you make one little mistake, all of a sudden that piece can be useless. Right? Like I’ve been a part of, of heavy offshore lifting for oil and gas where they’ve. It’s built a piece on shore, got it out to the vessel, went to go put it off sub sea in 2000 meters of water, lowered it all the way down there and it didn’t fit like you just burned [00:28:00] hundreds and hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars in time. So this kind of technology that Anima Tech is putting out in Dutch Heavy Lift consultants. This is the key to making sure that these offshore operations go well. So kudos to these guys for solve for seeing a problem and solving a problem with a real solution. Uh, instead of just kind of like dreaming things up, making something happen here. I’d like to see it. Allen Hall: Check out that article and many more in this quarter’s. PES Wind Magazine downloaded free copy@pswind.com. Well, Yolanda, as we know, everybody’s out with Sky Specs, uh, doing blade inspections, and so many turbines have issues this year. A lot of hail damage, a lot of lightning damage and some serial defects from what I can tell. Uh, we’re, we’re getting to that crazy season where we’re trying to get ready for next year and prioritize. This is the time to call C-I-C-N-D-T and actually take a deep hard look at some of this damage, particularly at the blade root area. We’ve seen a lot more of that where, [00:29:00] uh, there’s been failures of some blades at the root where the bolt connection is. So you’re gonna have to get some NDT done. Boy, oh boy, you better get C-I-C-N-D-T booked up or get them on the phone because they’re getting really busy. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, you definitely need to schedule something. Make sure that you know at least where you stand, right? Be because imagine going into try to fix something and just have a hammer and then close your eyes and then see what you can fix. That way, like sometimes it feels like when you’re in operations, if you don’t have the proper. The proper inspections done, which sometimes there’s, there’s not enough budget for, or appetite or knowledge, um, in some of these projects to have early on. You come in and just, you, you see the end result of failure modes and you might see something that’s really, really expensive to fix now. Or you might think of, oh, this problem happened at X, Y, Z. [00:30:00] Site, so it’ll probably happen here. That’s not necessarily the case. So getting someone like NDT to be able to come in and actually tell you this is what’s going on in your site, and these are the potential failure modes that you’re going to see based on what you’re getting and this is what will probably happen, or this is what is happening over time in your site, is a lot more indicative to be able to solve those problems faster and way. More way, in a way less expensive manner than if you were to go in and just try to fix everything reactively. You know, if you have half a bond line missing. Then later you, your blade breaks. It’s like, well, I mean, you, you could, you could have seen it, you could have prevented it. You could have saved that blade and saved yourself millions and millions of dollars and, and so much more money in downtime. Joel Saxum: Yeah. The first time I ran into Jeremy Hess and the C-A-C-N-D team was actually on an insurance project where it was Yolanda, like you said, like [00:31:00] they let it go. The, the operator and the OEM let it go way too long, and all of a sudden they had a, like wind farm wide shutdown costing them millions in production. Uh, to find these, these issues that, uh, could have been found in a different manner when you talk to the team over there. Um, why we like to recommend them from the podcast is Jeremy has an answer for everything. He’s been around the world. He’s worked in multiple industries, aerospace, race, cars, sailboats, you name it. Um, he’s been a client to almost everybody, you know, in the wind industry, all the OEMs, right? So he knows the, the issues. He has the right tool sets. To dive into them. You, you may not know, not, you don’t need to be an NDT expert to be able to have a conversation because he will coach you through, okay, here you have this problem. Alright, this is how we would look at it. This is how we would solve it. Here’s how you would monitor for it, and then this is how you would, you know, possibly fix it. Or this is what the, the solution looks like. Um, because I think that’s one of the [00:32:00] hurdles to the industry with NDT projects is people just don’t. Know what’s available, what’s out there, what they can see, what they, you know, the issues that they might be able to uncover, like you said, Yolanda. So, um, we encourage, um, anybody that says, Hey, do you know anybody in NDT? Yeah, it’s Jeremy Hanks and the C-I-C-N-D-T team. Call ’em up. They’ve got the solutions, they’ll help you out. Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we’ll catch you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:33:00] Podcast.

"Pax Universalis" Hosts: Darren Weeks, Vicky Davis Website for the show: https://governamerica.com Vicky's website: https://thetechnocratictyranny.com COMPLETE SHOW NOTES AND CREDITS AT: https://governamerica.com/radio/radio-archives/22645-govern-america-december-6-2025-pax-universalis Listen LIVE every Saturday at 11AM Eastern or 8AM Pacific at http://governamerica.net or on your favorite app. UN transforming of poor developing nations with technology is not for their benefit! Follow-up on the COP30 meeting, as they pushed for more censorship which seems to be manifesting in the form of "age verification" laws which are likely to lead to a compulsory digital ID to access the Internet. But don't worry, they tell us it is for the children! BRICS work with EU to monetize carbon. President George Bush advocated for the theft of our country via the "Pax Universalis" agenda. Regionalism, Pacific Northwest Economic Region, and the USMCA. The "renewable energy" scam, calls and more!

At the start of the year things were looking uncertain for nascent renewables like hydrogen and geothermal. With policy support from the previous US administration they had boomed with the IRA, then came July 2025 and the Trump administration's One Big Beautiful Bill, which tore up tax credits and removed incentives for those renewable technologies. As we approach the end of the year, has anything changed for the better? How are hydrogen, wind and geothermal looking as we prepare for 2026?Regular host Sylvia Leyva Martinez is on maternity leave until the middle of next year, so her fellow energy analyst Bridget Van Dorsten is stepping up to keep the mic warm. Bridget is an analyst researching hydrogen, but she has an engineer's understanding of technologies across the energy spectrum. She doesn't just cover that ‘frustrating, inefficient, expensive-to-move-around molecule' (as she calls it); she knows what's real in the energy world and what's just hype. To kick off her tenure as host she's picked out a few highlights from the year relating to those important renewables – geothermal, hydrogen and wind. Looking back on those conversations Sylvia had with experts on those fields, Bridget then gives the energy analyst's view on how things are progressing in the current policy environment. Expect in-depth analysis on what's changed, and the key stats and forecasts you need to know as 2026 approaches. Plus, Bridget looks back on the conversation Sylvia had with energy investors back in July, when we saw the oil and gas majors like Shell and Equinor announce they were scaling back their climate ambitions under pressure from investors. Bridget explores why the energy transition is unfolding slower than expected, how shareholder pressure is reshaping low-carbon strategies, and why companies like TotalEnergies and Shell have retreated from their plans to phase down fossil fuels. Bridget will be hosting until mid-next-year, and she wants to know what topics you want explored.Connect with the show and let us know what you want to hear, on LinkedIn, X or Bluesky at @interchangeshow, and follow the podcast so you don't miss the episodes coming in the new year.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

5pm: Video Guest – Cliff Mass – Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at UW // Cliff Mass on Climate lawsuit: “This is all nonsense.”  Also, Seattle Winter preview and the problem with wind energy in the PNW // Lawsuit says Big Oil’s decades of climate deception fueled Washington’s soaring home insurance costs // The Problem With Wind Energy in the Northwest // TSA announces $45 fee for travelers with no REAL ID // Letters

Allen and Yolanda discuss Statkraft’s workforce cuts and sale of its Swedish offshore wind projects. They also cover ORE Catapult’s partnership with Bladena to conduct torsional testing on an 88-meter blade, and the upcoming Wind Energy O&M Australia conference. Register for ORE Catapult’s Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight event! Visit CICNDT to learn more! 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, Allen Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. I have Yolanda Padron in of all places, Austin, Texas. We’re together to talk to this week’s news and there’s a lot going on, but before we do, I want to highlight that Joel Saxon and I will be in Edinburgh, Scotland for the re Catapult UK offshore supply chain spotlight. That’s on December 11th, which is a Thursday. We’re gonna attend that event. We’re excited to meet with everybody. Over in the UK and in Scotland. Um, a lot of people that we know and have been on the podcast over a number of years [00:01:00] are gonna be at that event. If you’re interested in attending the OE Catapult UK Offshore Supply Chain spotlight, just Google it. It’s really inexpensive to attend, and I hope to see most of you there, Yolanda. There’s some big news over in Scandinavia today, uh, as, as we’re reading these stories, uh, the Norwegian State owned Utility Stack Craft, and it’s also one of Europe’s largest renewable energy companies. As, uh, as we know, I’ve been spending a lot of money in new markets and new technologies. Uh, they are in electric vehicle charging biofuels and some offshore wind development. Off the eastern coast of Sweden. So between Finland and Sweden, they’re also involved in district heating. So Stack Craft’s a really large company with a broad scope, uh, but they’re running into a little bit of financial difficulty. And this past July, they announced some [00:02:00] workforce reductions, and those are starting to kick in. They have 168 fewer employees, uh, by the end of this third quarter. 330 more expected to leave by the end of the year when all the dive are complete. This is the worrisome part. Roughly 1000 people will longer work for the company. Now, as part of the restructuring of Stack Craft, they are going to or have sold their offshore portfolio to Zephyr Renewable. Which is another Norwegian company. So Stack Craft is the Norwegian state owned renewable energy company. Zephyr is an independent company, far as I can tell my recollection that’s the case. So they agreed to acquire the bot, the uh, offshore Sigma and Lambda North projects, which makes Zephyr the largest offshore wind developer. Sweden, not Norway, [00:03:00] in Sweden. Obviously there’s some regulatory approvals that need to happen to make this go, but it does seem like Norway still is heavily involved in Sweden. Yolanda, with all the movement in offshore wind, we’re seeing big state owned companies. Pulling themselves out of offshore wind and looks like sort of free market, capitalistic companies are going head first into offshore wind. How does that change the landscape and what should we be expecting here over the next year or two? Yolanda Padron: We, we’ve seen a large reduction in the, the workforce in offshore wind in all of these state owned companies that you mentioned. Uh, something that I think will be really interesting to see will be that different approach. Of, you know, having these companies be a bit more like traditional corporations that you see, not necessarily having them, [00:04:00] um, be so tied to whatever politically is happening in the government at the moment, or whatever is happening between governments at a time, um, and seeing exactly what value. The different aspects of a company are bringing into what that company is making into, um, what, uh, the revenue of that company is, and not just kind of what is, what is considered to be the best way forward by governments. Do you agree? Is that something that you’re sensing too? Allen Hall: The COP 30 just wrapped down in the rainforest of Brazil, and there has not been a lot of agreement news coming out of that summit. Uh, I think next year it’s gonna move to Turkey, but Australia’s involved heavily. It was supposed to be in Adelaide at one point and then it’s moved to Turkey. [00:05:00] So there doesn’t seem to be a lot of consensus globally about what should be happening for renewables, and it feels like. The state owned companies are, uh, getting heavily leveraged and losing money trying to get their footing back underneath of them, so they’re gonna have to divest of something to get back to the core of what they were doing. That’s an interesting development because I think one of the question marks regarding sort of these state owned companies was how fast were they willing to develop the technology? How much risk were they willing to take? Being backed by governments gets a little political at times, right? So they, they want to have a, a steady stream of revenue coming from these operations. And when they don’t, the politicians step in and, uh, lean on the company is a good bit. Does the move to more, uh, standalone companies that are investing sort of venture capital money and bank money taking loans? I assume most of this [00:06:00] does that. Change how the offshore industry looks at itself. One and two, what the OEMs are thinking. Because if they were going to sell to an TED or an Ecuador, or a stack raft or vattenfall, any of them, uh, you know, when you’re going to that sales discussion that they’re backed by billions and billions and billions of, of kroner or whatever the, the currency is. So you may not have to. Really be aggressive on pricing. Now you’re dealing with companies that are heavily leveraged and don’t have that banking of a government. Do you think there’s gonna be a tightening of what that marketplace looks like or more pressure to go look towards China for offshore wind turbines? Yolanda Padron: It’ll definitely get a bit more audited internally, exactly what decisions are made and and how objective teams are. I think that there’s. [00:07:00] In all of the companies that you mentioned, there’s some semblance of things that maybe happened because of what was going on politically or, or because of ties that certain governments had to each other, or certain governments had to specific corporations, um, which was a, a great way for those companies to operate at the time and what was, what made sense. But now that it’s. A third party who genuinely, you know, needs that cash flow in from that business or that part of the business, it’ll, I think you’ll definitely start seeing some, some greater efficiencies going on within Allen Hall: these teams. Well, I would hope so. If you think about the way the United States moved pre, uh, the current administration. There were a number of US based companies sort of going 50 50 on a lot of the [00:08:00] offshore development, and then they slowly started backing away. The only one that’s still really in it is Dominion, was the coastal offshore, um, coastal Virginia offshore wind project that is still progressing at a good pace. But, uh, everybody else that was involved in, and they’re not the same kind of structure as an Ecuador is. They’re not, uh, there’s kinda state-owned entities in the United States and states can’t have deficits, unlike nations can. So the US deficit obviously is massively large, but state deficits don’t really exist. So those electric companies can’t get highly leveraged where they’re gonna bleed cash. It’s just not a thing. It’s gonna happen. So I think I saw the precursors to some of this offshore turbulence happening in the United States as the. They didn’t see a lot of profit coming from the state electric companies. That seems to be flowing into Europe now pretty heavily. That started about six months [00:09:00] ago. How are they gonna structure some of these offshore projects now? Are they just gonna put them on hold and wait for interest rates to come down so that the margins go up? Is is that really the play? Is that you have the plot of land? You already have all the, the filings and the paperwork and authorization to do a project at some point, is it just now a matter of waiting where the time is? Right. Financially, Yolanda Padron: that question will be answered by each specific company and see what, what makes sense to them. I don’t think that it makes sense to stall projects that if you already have the permits in, if you already have everything in, and just to, to see when the time is right, because. Everything’s been ramping up to that moment, right? Like, uh, the water’s always already flowing. Um, but it, it’ll, it’ll definitely be interesting to see what approach, like where, where each company finds themselves. I, they’ll have to rely on [00:10:00] what information has come out in the past and maybe try to analyze it, try to see exactly where things went wrong, or try to pinpoint what. Decisions to not make. Again, knowing what they know now, but with everything already flowing and everything already in queue, it’ll have to be something that’s done sooner rather than later to not lose any of that momentum of the projects because they’re not reinventing the wheel. Allen Hall: Siemens is developing what a 20 odd megawatt, offshore turbine? 22 megawatt, if I remember right. 21, 22. Something in there. Obviously Ming Yang and some others are talking about upwards of 15 megawatts in the turbine. If you have a lot of capital at risk and not a lot of government backing in it, are you going to step down and stay in the 15 megawatt range offshore because there’s some little bit of history, or are you gonna just roll the dice? Some new technology knowing that you can get the, the dollar per megawatt [00:11:00] down. If you bought a Chinese wind turbine, put it in the water. Do you roll that? Do you roll that dice and take the risk? Or is the safer bet and maybe the financing bet gonna play out easier by using a Vestus 15 megawatt turbine or a Siemens older offshore turbine that has a track record with it. Yolanda Padron: I think initially it’ll have to be. Using what’s already been established and kind of the devil, you know? Right. I, I think it’ll, there’s a lot of companies that are coming together and, and using what’s done in the field and what operational information they have to be able to, to. Take that information and to create new studies that could be done on these new blades, on these new technologies, uh, to be able to take that next step into innovation without compromising any [00:12:00] of the, of the money, any of the aspects really like lowering your risk Allen Hall: portfolio. Yeah. ’cause the risk goes all the way down to the OEMs, right. If the developer fails and the OEM doesn’t get paid. It, it’s a. Catastrophic down the chain event that Siemens investors are looking to avoid, obviously. So they’re gonna be also looking at the financing of these companies to decide whether they’re going to sell them turbines and. The question comes up is how much are they gonna ask for a deposit before they will deliver the first turbine? It may be most of the money up front. Uh, it generally is, unless you’re a big developer. So this is gonna be an interesting, uh, turning point for the offshore wind industry. And I know in 2026 we’re gonna see a lot more news about it, and probably some names we haven’t heard of in a while. Coming back into offshore wind. Don’t miss the UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight 2025 in Edinburg on December 11th. Over 550 delegates and 100 exhibitors will be at this game changing event. [00:13:00] Connect with decision makers, explore market ready innovations and secure the partnerships to accelerate your growth. Register now and take your place at the center of the UK’s offshore Wind future. Just visit supply chain spotlight.co.uk and register today. Well, as we all know, the offshore wind industry has sort of a problem, which is now starting to come more prevalent, which is the first generation of offshore wind turbines that prove that the technology could work at scale or getting old. We’re also developing a lot of new wind turbines, so the blade links are getting much longer. We don’t have a lot of design history on them. Decommissioning is expensive. Of course, anything offshore is expensive. What if we can make those blades last longer offshore, how would we do that? Well, that question has come up a number of times at many of the, the conferences that I have attended, and it looks like ORI Catapult, which is based in the UK and has their test center [00:14:00] in Blythe, England, is working with Blade Dina, which is a Danish engineering company that’s now owned by Res. So if you haven’t. Seeing anything from Blade Dina, you’re not paying attention. You should go to the website and check them out. Uh, they have all kinds of great little technology and I call it little technology, but innovative technology to make blades last longer. So some really cool things from the group of Blade Dina, but they’re gonna be working with re catapult to test an 88 meter blade for torsion. And I’m an electrical engineer. I’m gonna admit it up front, Yolanda. I don’t know a lot about torsional testing. I’ve seen it done a little bit on aircraft wings, but I haven’t seen it done on wind turbine blades. And my understanding, talking to a lot of blade experts like yourself is when you start to twist a blade, it’s not that easy to simulate the loads of wind loads that would happen normally on a turbine in the laboratory. Yolanda Padron: Absolutely. I think this is going to be so [00:15:00] exciting as someone in operations, traditionally in operations, uh, because I think a lot of the, the technology that we’ve seen so far and the development of a lot of these wind projects has been from teams that are very theory based. And so they’ve, they’ve seen what simulations can be done on a computer, and those are great and those are perfect, but. As everyone knows, the world is a crazy place. And so there’s so many factors that you might not even think to consider before going into operations and operating this, uh, wind farm for 10, 20 years. And so something that Blade Dina is doing is bringing a lot of that operational information and seeing, like applying that to the blade testing to be able to, to get us to. The next step of being able to innovate while knowing a little bit [00:16:00]more of what exactly you’re putting on there and not taking as big a risk. Allen Hall: Does the lack of torsional testing increase the risk? Because if you listen to, uh, a, a lot of blade structure people, one of the things that’s discussed, and Blaina has been working on this for a couple of years, I went back. Two or three years to see what some of the discussions were. They’ve been working with DTU for quite a while, but Dina has, uh, but they think that some of the aging issues are really related to torsion, not to flap wise or edgewise movement of the blade, if that’s the case, particularly on longer blades, newer blades, where they’re lighter. If that’s the case, is there momentum in the industry to create a standard on how to. Do this testing because I, I know it’s gonna be difficult. I, I can imagine all the people from Blaina that are working on it, and if you’ve met the Blaina folk, there [00:17:00] are pretty bright people and they’ve been working with DTU for a number of years. Everybody in this is super smart. But when you try to get something into an IEC standard, you try to simplify where it can be repeatable. Is this. Uh, is it even possible to get a repeatable torsion test or is it gonna be very specific to the blade type and, or it is just gonna be thousands of hours of engineering even to get to a torsion test? Yolanda Padron: I think right now it’ll be the thousands of hours of engineering that we’re seeing, which isn’t great, but hopefully soon there, there could be some sort of. A way to, to get all of these teams together and to create a bit of a more robust standard. Of course, these standards aren’t always perfect. We’ve seen that in, in other aspects such as lightning, but it at least gets you a starting point to, to be able to, to have everyone being compliance with, with a similar [00:18:00] testing parameters. Allen Hall: When I was at DTU, oh boy, it’s probably been a year and a half, maybe two years ago. Yikes. A lot has happened. We were able to look at, uh, blades that had come off the first offshore wind project off the coast of Denmark. These blades were built like a tank. They could live another 20, 30 years. I think they had been on in the water for 20 plus years. If I remember correctly. I was just dumbfounded by it, like, wow. That’s a long time for a piece of fiberglass to, to be out in such a harsh environment. And when they started to structurally test it to see how much life it had left in it, it was, this thing could last a lot longer. We could keep these blades turned a lot longer. Is that a good design philosophy though? Are should we be doing torsional testing to extend the lifetime to. 40, 50 years because I’m concerned now that the, well, the reality is you like to have everything fall apart at once. The gearbox to fail, the generator to fail, the [00:19:00] blades, to fail, the tower, to fail all of it at the same time. That’s your like ideal engineering design. And Rosemary always says the same thing, like you want everything to fall apart and the same day. 25 years out because at 25 years out, there’s probably a new turbine design that’s gonna be so much massively better. It makes sense to do it. 20 years is a long time. Does it make sense to be doing torsional testing to extend the lifetime of these blades past like the 20 year lifespan? Or is, or, or is the economics of it such like, if we can make these turbines in 50 years, we’re gonna do it regardless of what the bearings will hold. Yolanda Padron: From, from speaking to different people in the field, there’s a lot of appetite to try to extend the, the blade lifetime as long as the permits are. So if it’s a 50 year permit to try to get it to those 50 years as much as possible, so you don’t have to do a lot of that paperwork and a lot of the, if you have to do [00:20:00] anything related to the mono piles, it’s a bit of a nightmare. Uh, and just trying to, to see that, and of course. I agree that in a perfect world, everything would fail at once, but it doesn’t. Right? And so there you are seeing in the lifetime maybe you have to do a gearbox replacement here and there. And so, and having the, the blades not be the main issue or not having blades in the water and pieces as long as possible or in those 50 years, then you can also tackle some of the other long-term solutions to see if you, if you can have that wind farm. For those 50 years or if you are going to have to sort of either replace some of the turbines or, or eat up some of that time left over in the permit that you have. Allen Hall: Yeah, because I think the industry is moving that way to test gear boxes and to test bearings. RD test systems has made a number of advancements and test beds to do just that, to, [00:21:00] to test these 15, 20, 25 megawatt turbines for lifetime, which we haven’t done. As much of this probably the industry should have. It does seem like we’re trying to get all the components through some sort of life testing, whatever that is, but we haven’t really understood what life testing means, particularly with blades. Right? So the, the issue of torsion, which is popped its head up probably every six months. There’s a question about should we be testing for torsion that. Is in line with bearing testing that’s in line with gearbox testing. If we are able to do that, where we spend a little more money on the development side and the durability side, that would dramatically lower the cost of operations, right? Yolanda Padron: Absolutely. It, it’d lower the cost of operations. It would lower the ask. Now that. A lot of these companies are transition, are [00:22:00]transitioning to be a bit more privatized. It’ll lower the risk long term for, for getting some of those financial loans out, for these projects to actually take place. And, you know, you’ll, you’re having a, a site last 50 years, you’re going to go through different cycles. Different political cycles. So you won’t have that, um, you won’t have that to, to factor in too much, into, into your risk of whether, whether or not you, you have a permit today and don’t have it tomorrow. Allen Hall: It does bring the industry to a interesting, uh, crossroads if we can put a little more money into the blades to make them last 25 years. Pretty regularly like the, the, you’re almost guaranteeing it because of the technology that bleeding that’s gonna develop with Ory Catapult and you get the gearbox and you can get the generator and bearings all to do the same thing. [00:23:00] Are you willing to pay a little bit more for that turbine? Because I think in today’s world or last year’s world, the answer was no. I wanted the cheapest blade. I wanted the cheapest, uh, to sell. I could get, I wanna put ’em on a tower, I’m gonna call it done. And then at least in the United States, like repower, it’s boom, 10 years it’s gonna repower. So I don’t care about year 20. I don’t even care about year 11, honestly, that those days have are gone for a little while, at least. Do you think that there’s appetite for say, a 10% price increase? Maybe a 15% say 20. Let’s just go crazy and say it’s a 20% price increase to then know, hey, we have some lifecycle testing. We’re really confident in the durability these turbines is. There’s a trade off there somewhere there, right? Yolanda Padron: Yeah. I mean, spending 10, 20% of CapEx to it, it. Will, if you can dramatically increase [00:24:00] the, the lifetime of the blades and not just from the initial 10 years, making them 20 years like we’re talking about, but some of these blades are failing before they hit that 10 year mark because of that lack of testing, right. That we’ve seen, we’ve talked to so many people about, and it’s an unfortunate reality. But it is a reality, right? And so it is something that if you’re, you’re either losing money just from having to do a lot of repairs or replacements, or you’re losing money from all of the downtime and not having that generation until you can get those blade repairs or replacements. So in spending a little bit more upfront, I, I feel like there should be. Great appetite from a lot of these companies to, to spend that money and not have to worry about that in the long term. Allen Hall: Yeah, I think the 20 26, 27, Joel would always say it’s 2027, but let’s just say 2027. If you have an [00:25:00] opportunity to buy a really hard and vested turbine or a new ing y, twin headed dragon and turbine, whatever, they’re gonna call this thing. I think they’re gonna stick to the European turbine. I really do. I think the lifetime matters here. And having security in the testing to show that it’s gonna live that long will make all the little difference to the insurance market, to the finance market. And they’re gonna force, uh, the developers’ hands that’s coming, Yolanda Padron: you know, developing of a project. Of course, we see so many projects and operations and everything. Um, but developing a project does take years to happen. So if you’re developing a project and you think, you know, this is great because I can have this project be developed and it will take me and it’ll be alive for a really long time and it’ll be great and I’ll, I’ll be able to, to see that it’s a different, it’s a different business case too, of how much money you’re going to bring into the [00:26:00]company by generating a lot more and a lot more time and having to spend less upfront in all of the permitting. Because if instead of having to develop two projects, I can just develop one and it’ll last as long as two projects, then. Do you really have your business case made for you? Especially if it’s just a 10 to 20% increase instead of a doubling of all of the costs and effort. Speaker 4: Australia’s wind farms are growing fast, but are your operations keeping up? Join us February 17th and 18th at Melbourne’s Poolman on the park for Wind Energy o and M Australia 2026, where you’ll connect with the experts solving real problems in maintenance asset management. And OEM relations. Walk away with practical strategies to cut costs and boost uptime that you can use the moment you’re back on site. Register now at W om a 2020 six.com. Wind Energy, o and m Australia is created [00:27:00] by Wind professionals for wind professionals. Because this industry needs solutions, not speeches, Allen Hall: I know Yolanda and I are preparing to go to Woma Wind Energy, o and m Australia, 2026 in February. Everybody’s getting their tickets and their plans made. If you haven’t done that, you need to go onto the website, woma WMA 2020 six.com and register to attend the event. There’s a, there’s only 250 tickets, Yolanda, that’s not a lot. We sold out last year. I think it’s gonna be hard to get a ticket here pretty soon. You want to be there because we’re gonna be talking about everything operations and trying to make turbines in Australia last longer with less cost. And Australians are very, um, adept at making things work. I’ve seen some of their magic up close. It’s quite impressive. Uh, so I’m gonna learn a lot this year. What are you looking forward to at Wilma 26? Yolanda. [00:28:00] Yolanda Padron: I think it’s going to be so exciting to have such a, a relatively small group compared to the different conferences, but even just the fact that it’s everybody talking to each other who’s seen so many different modes of failure and so many different environments, and just everybody coming together to talk solutions or to even just establish relationships for when that problem inevitably arises without having it. Having, I mean, something that I always have so much anxiety about whenever I go to conferences is just like getting bombarded by salespeople all the time, and so this is just going to be great Asset managers, engineers, having everybody in there and having everybody talking the same language and learning from each other, which will be very valuable. At least for me. Allen Hall: It’s always sharing. That’s what I enjoy. And it’s not even necessarily during some of the presentations and the round tables and the, [00:29:00] the panels as much as when you’re having coffee out in the break area or you’re going to dinner at night, or uh, meeting before everything starts in the morning. You just get to learn so much about the wind industry and where people are struggling, where they’re succeeding, how they dealt with some of these problems. That’s the way the industry gets stronger. We can’t all remain in our little foxholes, not looking upside, afraid to poke our head up and look around a little bit. We, we have to be talking to one another and understanding how others have attacked the same problem. And I always feel like once we do that, life gets a lot easier. I don’t know why we’re make it so hard and wind other industries like to talk to one another. We seem somehow close ourselves off. And uh, the one thing I’ve learned in Melbourne last year was. Australians are willing to describe how they have fixed these problems. And I’m just like dumbfounded. Like, wow, that was brilliant. You didn’t get to to Europe and talk about what’s going on [00:30:00] there. So the exchange of information is wonderful, and I know Yolanda, you’re gonna have a great time and so are everybody listening to this podcast. Go to Woma, WOMA 2020 six.com and register. It’s not that much money, but it is a great time and a wonderful learning experience. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. And if today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t for, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we’ll catch you on the next episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. This time next [00:31:00] week.

Allen, Joel, and Yolanda share their annual Thanksgiving reflections on a year of major changes in wind energy. They discuss industry collaboration, the offshore wind reset, and upcoming changes in 2026. Thanks to all of our listeners from the Uptime team! 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: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. Joel Saxon’s up in Wisconsin, and Yolanda Padron is down in Texas, and this is our yearly Thanksgiving edition. Thanks for joining us and, and on this episode we always like to look back at the year and, uh, say all we’re thankful for. We’ve had a number of podcast guests on more than 50, I think total by the time we get to conferences and, uh, all the different places we’ve been over the past year. Joel, it does seem like it’s been a really interesting year. We’ve been able to watch. The changes in the wind industry this year via the eyes of [00:01:00]others. Joel Saxum: Yeah. One of the things that’s really interesting to me when we have guests on is that we have them from a variety of parts of the wind industry sector. So we have ISPs, you know, people running things out in the field, making stuff happen. We’ve got high level, you know, like we have this, some CEOs on from different, uh, people that are really innovative and trying to get floating winged out there. They have like on, we had choreo generation on, so we, so we have all different spectrums of left, right center, Europe, well us, you name it. Uh, new innovative technology. PhD smart people, uh, doing things. Um, also, it’s just a, it’s just a gamut, right? So we get to learn from everybody who has a different kind of view on what’s Allen Hall: happening. Yolanda, you’ve been in the midst of all this and have gone through a big transition joining us at Weather Guard, lightning Tech, and we’re very thankful for that, for sure. But over the last year, you’ve seen a lot of changes too, ’cause you’ve been in the seat of a blade engineer and a [00:02:00] large operator. What do you think? Yolanda Padron: Uh, something I am really thankful for this year is, and I think a lot of owner operators are, is just knowing what’s coming up. So there was a lot of chaos in the beginning before the big beautiful bill where everyone theorized on a lot of items. Um, and, and you were just kind of stuck in the middle of the court not really knowing which direction to go in, but. Now we’re all thankful for, for what? It’s brought for the fact that everyone seems to be contributing a lot more, and at least we all know what direction we’re heading in or what the, what the rules are, the of the game are, so we can move accordingly. Joel Saxum: Yeah. I got some clarity. Right. I think that, but that happened as well, like when we had the IRA bill come in. Three, four years ago, it was the same thing. It was like, well, this bill’s here, and then you read through it. I mean, this was a little bit opposite, right? ’cause it was like, oh, these are all [00:03:00] great things. Right? Um, but there wasn’t clarity on it for like, what, six months until they finalized some of the. Longer on some of the, some of the tax bills and what it would actually mean for the industry and those kind of things. So yeah, sorting this stuff out and what you’ve seen, you’re a hundred percent correct, Yolanda, like all the people we talked to around the industry. Again, specifically in the US because this affects the us but I guess, let me ca caveat that it does affect the global supply chain, not, you know what I mean? Because it’s, it’s not just the, the US that it affects because of the consumption here. So, but what we have heard and seen from people is clarity, right? And we’re seeing a lot of people starting to shift strategy a little bit. Right now, especially we’re in budgeting season for next year, shifting strategy a little bit to actually get in front of, uh, I know like specifically blades, some people are boosting their blades, budgets, um, to get in front of the damages because now we have a, a new reality of how we need to operate our wind farms. The offshore Allen Hall: shift in the United States has really had a [00:04:00] dramatic impact. On the rest of the world. That was, uh, a little unexpected in the sense that the ramifications of it were broader, uh, just because of so much money going into offshore projects. As soon as they get pulled or canceled, you’ve have billions of dollars on the table at that point. It really affects or seen it. Ecuador seen it. Anybody involved in offshore wind has been deeply affected. Siemens has seen it. GE has clearly seen it. Uh, that has. In my opinion, probably been the, the biggest impact. Not so much the big beautiful bill thing, but the, uh, ongoing effort to pull permits or to put stoppages on, on offshore wind has really done the industry some harm. And honestly, Joel, I’m not sure that’s over. I think there’s still probably another year of the chaos there. Uh, whether that will get settled in the courts or where it’s gonna get settled at. I, I still don’t know. [00:05:00] But you’ve seen a big shift in the industry over in Europe too. You see some changes in offshore wind. It’s not just the US that’s looking at it differently. Yeah. Globally. I think offshore wind Joel Saxum: right now is in a reset mode where we, we went, go, go, go, go, go get as much in the water as we can for a while. And this is, I’m, I’m talking globally. Um. And then, and now we’re learning some lessons, right? So there’s some commercial lessons. There’s a lot of technical lessons that we’re learning about how this industry works, right? The interesting part of that, the, the on or the offshore wind play here in the States. Here’s some numbers for it, right? So. It onshore wind. In the states, there’s about 160 gigawatts, plus or minus of, uh, deployed production out running, running, gunning, working, spinning all day long. Um, and if you look at the offshore wind play in planned or under development, there’s 66 gigawatts of offshore wind, like it’s sitting there, right? And of that 66, about 12 of them are permitted. Like [00:06:00] are ready to go, but we’re still only at a couple hundred megawatts in the water actually producing. Right. And, and I do want, say, this is what I wanna say. This is, I, I think that we’re taking a reset, we’re learning some things, but from, from my network, I’m seeing, I got a, a whole stack of pictures yesterday from, um, coastal offshore, Virginia Wind. They’ve, and they looked promising. They looked great. It was like a, it was a marshaling facility. There was nelle stacked up, there was transition pieces ready to go. Like, so the industry is still moving forward. It’s just we’re we need to reset our feet, um, and, and then take a couple steps forward instead of those, the couple steps back, Allen Hall: uh, and the industry itself, and then the employees have been dramatically reduced. So there’s been a lot of people who we’ve known over the past year, they’ve been impacted by this. That are working in different positions, look or in different industries right now, uh, waiting for the wind industry to kind of settle itself [00:07:00] out to, to figure out what the next steps are That has been. Horrible, in my opinion. Uh, uh because you’re losing so much talent, obviously. And when you, when you talk to the people in the wind industry, there’s like, oh, there’s a little bit of fat and we can always cut the fat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we’re, we’re down to the bone. We’re cutting muscle right now. We’re into some bones, some structure. That is not what I anticipated to happen. But you do see the management of these companies being. Uh, very aggressive at the minute. Siemens is very aggressive. Vestas is very aggressive about their product line and, and getting availability way up. GE has made huge changes, pretty much closing LM wind power, uh, and uh, some things happening in South Carolina that we probably people don’t know about yet, but there’s so much happening behind these scenes that’s negative and we have to acknowledge it. It’s not great. I worry about everybody that has been [00:08:00] laid off or is, is knows their job is gonna go away at the end of the year. I struggle with it all the time and I, I think a lot in the wind industry do. But there’s not a lot to do about it besides say, Hey, uh, we’ve gone through this a couple of times. Wind has never been bountiful for 50 years. It’s bountiful for about 10, then it’s down for about five and it comes back for 10. It’s that ebb and flow, but you just hate to be involved with that. It’s particularly engineering ’cause this industry needs engineering right Joel Saxum: now. All of us on this podcast here have been affected by ups and downs in the industry at some point in time in our life, in in major ways. I guess one of the positive things I have seen that from an operator standpoint, and not as much at the latter half of this year, but at the beginning half of this year is when some of these OEMs were making cuts. There was a lot of people that landed at operators and asset owners that were huge assets to them. They walked in the door with. Reams of knowledge about how, [00:09:00] you know, how a ge turbine works or how the back office process of this works and they’re able to help these operators. So some of that is good. Um, you get some people spread around in the industry and some knowledge bases spread around. But man, it’s really hard to watch. Um, your friends, your colleagues, even people that you, that you don’t know personally just pop up on LinkedIn, um, or wherever. And. That they’ve, they’re, they’re looking for work again. Allen Hall: Yolanda, how do you look at 2026 then, knowing what’s just happened in 2025? Is there some hope coming? Is there a rainbow in the future? Yolanda Padron: I think there’s a rainbow in the future. You know, I, I think a lot of the decisions were made months ago before a lot of people realized that the invaluable, how invaluable some of that information in people’s heads is. Uh, particularly, I mean, I know we’ve all talked about the fact that we’re all engineers and so we, we have a bit of bias that way. Right. But, uh, [00:10:00] just all of the knowledge that comes in from the field, from looking at those assets, from talking to other engineers now, which is what, what we’re seeing more and more of, uh, I think, I mean. So there’s going to have to be innovation, right? Because of how, how lean everybody is and, and there’s going to have to be a lot more collaboration. So hopefully there, there should be some, some good news coming to people. I think we, we need it a little Joel Saxum: bit. You know, to, to, to pair on with what you’re saying there, Yolanda, like, this is a time right now for innovation and collaboration. Collaboration, right. I want to touch on that word because that is something that we, we talk about all the time on the podcast, but you also see the broader industry talking about it since I’ve been in it, right. Since I think I came in the wind industry, like 2019. Um, you hear a lot of, uh, collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. But those were like, they were [00:11:00] fun, like hot air words, like oh yeah, but then nobody’s really doing anything. Um, but I think that we will start to see more of that. Alan, you and I say this a lot, like at the end of the day, once, once the turbines are in the ground as an asset owner, you guys are not competing anymore. There’s no competition. You’re competing for, for green space when you’re trying to get the best wind resource. I get that. Um, but I mean, in the central part of the United States, you’re not really competing. There’s a lot of hills out there to stick a turbine on. Uh, but once they’re, once they are spinning. Everybody’s in the same boat. We just wanna keep these things up. We wanna keep the grid energized, we wanna do well for renewable energy and, um, that collaboration piece, I, I, I would like to see more and more of that in 2026. And I know from, from our chairs here, we will continue to push on that as well. Yolanda Padron: Yeah. And just so many different operators, I mean sure they can see themselves as, as being one against the other. Right. But. When you talk [00:12:00] to these people and it, I think people in the past, they’ve made the, the mistake of just being a little bit siloed. And so if you’re just looking at your assets and you’re just looking at what your OEM is telling you of, oh, these problems are new and unique to you, which I’m sure a lot of people hearing us have heard that. You can stay just kind of in that zone of, oh no, I, I have this big problem that there’s no other way to solve it except for what some people are telling me or not telling me, and I’m just going to have to pay so much money to get it done and take the losses from generation. Uh, but there’s so many people in the industry that have a hundred percent seen the issues you’ve seen. Right. So it’s, it’s really, really important to just talk to these people, you know? I mean, just. Just have a, a simple conversation. And I think some of the issue might be that some people don’t know [00:13:00] how to get that conversation started, right? And so just, just reach out to people, someone in the same position as you go to Wilma, you know, just talk to the person next to you. Joel Saxum: I mean, like I said about visibility, like we’re here too. Like the, the three of us are sitting here. We’ve got our. We’re always monitoring LinkedIn and our emails like if you, if you have a problem, we, we had one this morning where I, Alan, you got a message from someone, I got a message from someone that was like, Hey, we’ve got this root bolt issue. Can you help us with it? We’re like, Hey, we know two companies that can, let’s just connect them up and, and make that conversation happen. So we’re happy to do the same thing. Um, if, if you have an issue, we have a, a Allen Hall: broad reach and use us as Joel has mentioned a thousand times on the podcast. If you don’t know where a technology lies or where a person is that you need to reach out to, you need to go to the Uptime podcast. You can search it on YouTube and probably get an answer, or just reach us on LinkedIn. We’re all willing [00:14:00] to give you advice or help or get you in the right direction. We’ve done it all year and we’ve done it for years. Not everybody takes us up on that opportunity. It’s free. We’re just trying to make this world just a tiny bit better. Yolanda Padron: No one has the time or the money right now to reinvent the wheel, right? So I mean, it just doesn’t make sense to not collaborate. Allen Hall: I think we should discuss what will happen to all the people that have left wind this past year willingly or unwillingly. And what that means for the industry, in my opinion. Now there is more knowledge than ever walking on the streets and probably doesn’t have an NDA to tie them up. ’cause it’s been long enough that the industry hasn’t tapped into, the operators have not grabbed hold of the people who designed the blade that, uh, manufactured the blade that looked at. The LEP solutions that looked at all the bearings and all the different gear boxes that they evaluated and were involved in the testing of those [00:15:00] things. Those people are available right now and a little bit of LinkedIn shopping would give you access to, uh, really invaluable wealth of information that will make your operations work better, and you may have to be willing to pay for it a little bit. But to tap into it would save you months and months and months of time and effort and, uh, limit having to add to your engineering staff because they will work as consultants. It does seem like there’s an opportunity that maybe the operators haven’t really thought about all that much because they haven’t seen too much of it happening yet. Occasionally see the, the wise old operators being smart about this, they’ve been through these loops before and are taking advantage of it. Don’t you see? That’s like 2026 is is is the year of the consultant. I a hundred percent Joel Saxum: agree with you, Alan. Um, I saw a TEDx talk oh, years ago actually now. Uh, but it was about the, what the future of worker looks like, the future of [00:16:00] work and the future of work at that time for those people giving that TEDx talk was workers on tap. Basically consultants, right? Because you have subject matter experts that are really good at this one thing, and instead of just being that one thing good for just this one company, they’re pulling back and going, I can do this, this, this, and this for all these companies. So we have, um, we have a lot of those in the network and we’re starting to see more and more of them pop up. Um, at the same time, I think I’ve seen a couple of groups of them pop up where, uh, you didn’t have. When I look at ISPs, um, I’m always kind of like, oh man, they could do this a little bit better. They could do this a little bit better. And I, I recently heard of an ISP popping up that was a bunch of these like consultant types that got together and we’re like, you know what? We have all this knowledge of all these things. Why not make this a, a company that we can all benefit from? Um, and we can change the way some things are done in the wind industry and do it a little bit better, uh, a little bit more efficiently. Allen Hall: Does that change the way we think about technicians also. [00:17:00] We had the Danish Wind Power Academy on the podcast a couple of months ago talking about training and specific training for technicians and engineers for that matter on the turbines that are at their sites and how much productivity gain they’re getting from that. And we’ve recently talked about how do I get a 10% improvement? Where does that 10% lie? Where is that? And a lot of times we get offered the 1%, the half a percent improvement, the 10% lies in the people. If you know who to ask and you get your people spooled upright, you can make multiple percentage point changes in your operation, which improves your revenue. But I think that’s been left on the table for a long time because we’ve been in build, build, build. And now that we’re into operate, operate, operate. Do you see that shift happening? Do you see O operators starting to think about that a little bit that maybe I should train up my technicians on this? Intercon turbine Joel Saxum: that they’re not familiar with. In my [00:18:00] opinion, I think that’s gonna be a 2027 reality. Because we’re seeing this, your, your right now what? You know we have this cliff coming where we’re gonna see in, in the face of the current regulations in the US where you’re gonna see the. Development kind of slow, big time. And when that happens, then you can see the focus start to switch onto the operating assets. So I don’t think that’s a 26 thing, I think that’s a 27 thing. But the smart operators, I believe would be trying to take some of that, take control of some of that stuff. Right. Well we see this with the people that we know that do things well. Uh, the CRS team at EDF with their third party services and sala, Ken Lee, Yale, Matta, and those guys over there. They’re doing a, I don’t wanna lose any other names here, Trevor Engel. Like, I wanna make sure I get a Tyler. They’re all superstars, they’re fantastic. But what they’re doing is, is is they’re taking, they’re seeing what the future looks like and they’re taking control. I think you’ll see, you’ll, you’ll see an optimization. Um, companies that are investing in their technicians to train [00:19:00] them are going to start getting a lion’s share of the work, because this time of, oh, warm bodies, I think is, is they’re still gonna be there, right? But I think that that’s gonna hopefully become less and less. Allen Hall: Yolanda, I want to focus on the OEM in 2025, late 2025, and moving into 2026 and how they deal with the developers. Are you thinking that they’re going to basically keep the same model where a lot of developers are, uh, picking up the full service agreements or not being offered a turbine without a full service agreement? Will that continue or do you see operators realize that they probably don’t need the OEM and the historical model has been OEMs manufacture products and provide manuals in the operations people and developers read the manuals and run the turbine and only call over to the OEM when they need really severe help. Which way are we gonna go? Yolanda Padron: I think on the short term, it’ll still be very FSA focused, in my opinion, [00:20:00] mainly because a lot of these operators didn’t necessarily build out their teams, or didn’t have the, the business case wasn’t there, the business model wasn’t there. Right. To build out their internal teams to be able to, to do the maintenance on these wind turbines as much as an OEM does. Uh. However, I do think that now, as opposed to 10 years ago when some of these contracts started, they have noticed that there’s, there’s so many big things that the OEN missed or, or just, you know, worked around, uh, that really has affected the lifetime of some of these blades, some of these turbines. So I think the shift is definitely happening. Uh, you mentioned it with EDF NextEra, how, how they’re at a perfect spot to already be there. Uh, but I think at least in the US for some of these operators that are a lot [00:21:00] more FSA focused, the shift might take a couple of years, but it’s, it surely seems to be moving in that direction. Joel Saxum: So here’s a question for you, Ilana, on that, on that same line of thinking. If we, regulation wise, are looking to see a slow down in development, that would mean to me that the OEMs are gonna be clamoring for sales over the next few years. Does that give more power to the operators that are actually gonna be buying turbines in their TSA negotiations? Yolanda Padron: I think it should, right. I mean, the. If they, if they still want to continue developing some of these, it and everyone is fighting, you know, all of these big OEMs are fighting for the same contracts. There’s, there’s a lot more kind of purchase power there from, from the operators to be able [00:22:00] to, to, you know, negotiate some of these deals better. Stay away from the cookie cutter. TSA. That the OEMs might supply that are very, very shifted towards the OEM mindset. Joel Saxum: You, you’re, you’re spot on there. And if I was a developer right now, I’d be watching quarterly reports and 10 k filings and stuff at these operators to make sure, or to see when to pounce on a, on a, a turbine order, because I would wait to see when in, in the past it’s been like, Hey, if we’re, it doesn’t matter who you are, OEM, it has been like we’re at capacity and we have. Demand coming in. So we can pick and choose. Like if you don’t buy these turbines on our contract, we’ll just go to the next guy in line. They’ll buy ’em. But now if the freeboard between manufacturing and demand starts to keep having a larger delta, well then the operators will be able to go, well, if you don’t sell it to me, you’re not, there isn’t another guy behind me. So now you have to bend to what I want. And all the [00:23:00] lessons that I’ve learned in my TSA negotiations over the last 20 years. Yolanda Padron: Something relating to Alan’s point earlier, something that I think would be really, really interesting to see would be some of these developers and EPC teams looking towards some of those contract external contractor consultants that have been in the field that know exactly where the issues lie. To be able to turn that information into something valuable for an operating project that. Now we know has to operate as long as possible, Allen Hall: right? Without repower, I think two things need to happen simultaneously, and we will see if they’ll play out this way. OEMs need to focus on the quality of the product being delivered, and that will sustain a 20 year lifetime with minimal maintenance. Operators need to be more informed about how a turbine actually operates and the details of that technology so they can manage it themselves. Those two things. Are [00:24:00] almost inevitable in every industry. You see the same thing play out. There’s only two airplane companies, right? There’s Boeing and Airbus. They’re in the automobile world. There’s, it gets fewer and fewer every year until there’s a new technology leap. Wind is not gonna be any different, and I hope that happens. OEMs can make a really quality product. The question is, they’ve been so busy developing. The next turbine, the next turbine, the next turbine. That have they lost the magic of making a very, very reliable turbine? They’ll tell you, no, we know how to do it. Uh, but as Rosemary has pointed out numerous times, when you lose all your engineering talent, it gets hard to make that turbine very robust and resilient. That’s gonna be the challenge. And if the OEMs are focused on. TSAs it should be, but the full service agreements and taking care of that and managing all the people that are involved with that, it just sucks the life out of the OEMs, I think, in terms of offering the next great product. [00:25:00]Someone showed me the next GE Joel Saxum: one five. Oh, I would love to see it. Do you believe that? Okay, so I, we’ll shift gears from oe, uh, wind turbine OEMs to blade manufacturers. LM closing down shops, losing jobs, uh, TPI bankruptcy, uh, 99% of their market cap eroding in a year is there and, and, and the want for higher quality, better blades that are gonna last. Is there space, do you think there’s space for a, a blade manufacturer to come out of nowhere, or is there just someone’s gonna have to scoop some of these factories up and and optimize them, or what do you think the future looks like for blade Allen Hall: manufacturers? The future is gonna be vertically integrated, and you see it in different industries at the moment where they’re bringing in technology or manufacturing that would have typically been outsourced in the two thousands. They’re bringing it back underneath their roofs. They’re buying those companies that were vendors to them for years. The reason they’re doing that is they [00:26:00] can remove all the operational overhead. And minimize their cost to manufacture that product. But at the same time, they can have really direct oversight of the quality. And as we have seen in other industries, when you outsource a critical component, be it gear, boxes, bearings, blades, fall into that category, those are the critical items for any wind turbine. When you outsource those items and rely upon, uh, uh, companies that you don’t have direct control over, or not watching day to day, it can go awry. Management knows it, and at some point they’re willing to accept that risk. They know that the cost is right. I gotta build this, uh, turbine. I know I’m working three generations ahead, so it’s okay, I’ll, I’ll live with this for the time being, but at some point, all the staff in the OEMs needs to know what the quality component is. Is it being delivered on time? Do I have issues out in the field with it? Do I keep this supply chain? Do I, and do I build this in house blades? [00:27:00] I think eventually. Like they were years ago, were built in-house. Uh, but as they grew too quickly, I think everybody will agree to that Joel Saxum: capacity. Yeah, Allen Hall: right. They started grabbing other factories that they didn’t know a lot about, but it gave them capacity and ability able to make sales. Now they’re living with the repercussions of that. I think Siemens is the obvious one, but they’re not the only one. GE has lived through something very similar, so, uh, vertical integration is going to be the future. Before we wrap the episode, we should talk about what we’re thankful for for this year, 2025. So much has happened. We were in Australia in February, weather guard moved in April to North Carolina. We moved houses and people, and the whole organization moved from Massachusetts and North Carolina. Joel got married. Yolanda got married. We’ve been all over the world, honestly. Uh, we’ve traveled a great deal and we’re thankful for everybody that we’ve met this year, and that’s one of the pleasures of doing this podcast is I just [00:28:00] get to meet new people that are very interesting, uh, and, uh. Talk, like, what’s going on? What are you thinking? What’s happening? It just feels like we’re all connected in this weird way via this podcast, and I, I, I’m really thankful for that and my always were saying Thanks. I will go through my list. I’m thankful for my mom. I’m thankful for my wife Valerie, who pretty much runs Weather Guard, lightning Tech, and Claire, who is my daughter who does the podcast and has been the producer, she graduated this year from Boston College. With honors that happened this year. So I’m very thankful that she was able to do that. And my son Adam, who’s earning his doctorate degree out in San Diego, always thankful for him ’cause he’s a tremendous help to us. And on the engineering side, I’m thankful to everybody we have with us this year. We brought Yolanda on, so we’re obviously thankful that, uh, she was able to join us. Of course, Joel Joel’s been here a couple of years now and helping us on sales and talking to everybody [00:29:00] in the world. We’re super thankful for Joel and one of the people we don’t tell behind the who’s behind the scenes on our side is our, our, uh, manufacturing person, Tammy, um, and Leslie. They have done a tremendous job for us over the years. They don’t get a lot of accolades on the podcast, but people who receive our strike tape product, they have touched. Tammy and Leslie have touched, uh, Tammy moved down with us to North Carolina and we’re extremely grateful that she was able to do that. Another person behind the scenes for us is Diane stressing. She does her uptime tech news newsletter. So the high quality content doesn’t come from me, it comes from Diane ’cause she can write and she’s an excellent newsletter writer. She helps with a ton of our content. She’s behind the scenes and there’s a lot of people at, at, uh, weather, car Lightning Tech that are kind of behind the scenes. You don’t get to see all the time, but when you do get an email about uptime, tech news is coming from Diane. So we’re super grateful for her. We’ve been blessed this year. We [00:30:00] really have. We’ve brought on a lot of new friends and, uh, podcast has grown. Everything has done well this year, so we’re super happy. Joel, what are you thankful for? Joel Saxum: I would start it the same way. Uh, my, my new. Sorry, my new wife as of last May, Kayla, she is the, the glue that holds me together, uh, in our household together, in this kind of crazy world that we’re in, of the ups and downs and the travels and the moving and grooving. Um, she keeps, she keeps me grounded. She keeps our family grounded. So, um, uh, I, I don’t think I can thank her enough. Uh, and you know, with that being said, we are always traveling, right? We’re, we’re here, we’re there. We’re. All around the world, and I am thankful for that. Um, I’m thankful for the people that we meet while we get to travel, the cultures and the, the experiences and the people that want to share with us and the knowledge gained from, uh, the conversations, whether it be in a conference room or over a beer.[00:31:00] Um, uh, the, the people that we have, uh, grown into this uptime network and, um, I know like my personal network from the past and of course everybody that will come in the future. I think that’s where, you know, the, the, if you know me, you know that I’m very much an extrovert, uh, talking with people and, and getting those conversations gives me energy. Um, and I like to give that back as much as I can. So the, all of the people that I’ve run into over the, over the past year that have allowed me to monologue at them. Thank you. Sorry. Apologies. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s hard to. I think this, this is a, this is always why Thanksgiving is like a six hour long thing in the United States, eight hour long thing. You have dinner at three and you hang out with your friends and family until 10, 11:00 PM because it gives you time to reflect on, um, the things that are awesome in life. Right? And we get bogged down sometimes in our, you know, in the United States. We are [00:32:00] work, work, work, work works. First kind of society. It’s the culture here. So we get bogged down sometimes in the, you know, we’re in the wind industry right now and it’s not always. Um, you know, roses and sunshine, uh, but ha having those other people around that are kind of like in the trenches with you, that’s really one thing I’m thankful for. ’cause it, it’s, it’s bright spots, right? I love getting the random phone calls throughout the day of someone sharing a piece of information or just asking how you’re doing or connecting like that. So, um, that, that would be the, the thing I’m most thankful for, and it puts it into perspective here, to a me up home in Wisconsin, or my, my not home. Home is Austin, but my original hometown of northern Wisconsin, and I’ve got to see. Quite a few of my, my high school buddies are, yeah, elementary school buddies even for that matter over the last couple weeks. And, um, that really always brings me back to, to a bit of grounding and puts, puts life in perspective. So, uh, I’m really appreciative for that as well. Yolanda, newly married as well, and welcome to the club. Yolanda Padron: Thank [00:33:00] you. Yeah, I’m really, really thankful for, for Manuel, my husband, uh, really. Really happy for our new little family. Uh, really thankful for my sisters, Yvonne and Carla and my parents. Um, my friends who I like to think of as my chosen family, especially, you know, here in Austin and then, and in El Paso. Uh, really, really thankful for, for the extended family and for, for weather card for, for this lovely opportunity to just. Learned so much. I know it’s only been almost two months, but I’ve, I’ve just learned so much of just talking to everybody in the industry and learning so much about what’s going on everywhere and just getting this, this whole new outlook on, on what the future holds and, and what exactly has happened and technology wise, and I’m thankful for [00:34:00] this year and how. How exciting everything’s going to be. So, yeah, thankful for you guys. Allen Hall: And we don’t wanna forget Rosemary and Phil, uh, they’ve been a big part of 2025. They’ve worked really hard behind the scenes and, uh, I appreciate everything they’ve done for the podcast and everything they’re doing for. Us as a company and us as people. So big shout out to Rosemary and Phil. So that’s our Thanksgiving episode. Appreciate everybody that’s joined us and has enjoyed the podcast in 2025 and will continue to in 2026. The years coming to an end. I know the Christmas holidays are upon us. I hope everybody enjoys themselves. Spend a little bit of time with your family. And with your coworkers and take a little bit of time. It’s been a pretty rough year. You’re gonna need it. And that wraps up another episode of the Uptime Winner Energy podcast, and we appreciate you joining us here today. If anything has triggered an idea or a question. As we’ve mentioned, reach out to us on LinkedIn. That’s the easiest way to get ahold of [00:35:00] us and don’t ever forget to subscribe. So click that little subscribe button so you don’t miss any of the Future Uptime podcast episodes, and we’ll catch you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

The COP30 climate talks in Belem wrapped up over the weekend, and reactions to the outcome were sharply divided. Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, said “climate cooperation is still alive…we're undeniably still in it and we are fighting back.” Others said the COP had been another failure, with a final statement that amounted to “a form of climate denial”.To make sense of what really happened at COP30, and where the talks leave the global effort on climate change, host Ed Crooks is joined by three regular Energy Gang contributors who have been following the negotiations closely. Amy Harder is the national energy correspondent at the news service Axios, Lisa Jacobson is the president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, and Simon Evans is deputy editor of the website Carbon Brief. Together they discuss the arguments over COP30's statement on fossil fuels, the rise of climate adaptation as a key priority, and hopes for increasing flows of capital to lower-income countries.A pledge to triple adaptation finance for developing countries by 2035 is attracting a lot of scrutiny. Lower-income countries are pushing for clear plans for delivery, not just vague aspirations. What could those plans look like? Another key issue is China's complicated role in the energy transition. It is leading the way in manufacturing and deploying low-carbon energy technologies. But it is still adding coal-fired generation capacity at a rapid pace. Does it make sense to see China as a climate leader?It is a complex picture. The world is still off track for the Paris Agreement's climate goals, even after the latest round of country pledges on emissions, known as Nationally Determined Contributions. But solar, wind and storage are still on declining cost trends, and are making significant progress in many countries.Finally, Ed speaks with Gianpiero Nacci, who's Managing Director for Climate Strategy and Delivery at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, for a focused discussion on climate finance. Gianpiero explains why multilateral development banks such as the EBRD are being asked to do more, what makes adaptation harder to fund than mitigation, and what the new COP30 to COP31 roadmap means for climate finance, as focus shifts to next year's meeting, which will be held in Turkey a year from now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Allen, Joel, Rosemary, and Yolanda discuss Modvion’s €39M grant for wooden wind turbine towers, leading to a discussion about funding vs. engineering readiness in the wind industry. Plus they highlight Veolia’s blade recycling advances in PES Wind Magazine. And the Weather Guard team announces they’ll be in Edinburgh for the ORE Catapult Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight! Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia 2026!Learn more about CICNDT! 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: A portion of the Weather Guard team. We’re headed to Scotland for the ORE Catapult Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight, which is gonna happen on December 11th in Edinburgh. We’re gonna attend that and it’s gonna be a, a number of great offshore companies there. We’re hoping to interview a couple of them while we’re there. But Joel, this is a real opportunity, uh, for offshore companies in the UK to showcase what they can do and they can get on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Joel Saxum: Of course. So we’re flying over the sixth and seventh there over the weekend. And we will be, uh, in Edinburgh, uh, on the eighth. So Monday morning through Thursday. Thursday and Thursday is the or E Catapult event. And yeah, we’re excited to see some of the companies that are gonna be there, interview some of them, get the, the picture, uh, of the uk um, supply chain, right? Because I think it’s a really cool event that they’re doing. I’d love to see other countries do that. I’d love to see the US do that. Um. Just say like, Hey, this is, these are the companies, the up and [00:01:00] comers and the, the people that are changing the game and, and kinda give them a platform to speak on. So we’re excited to do that. It’s gonna be a one day event. Um, love to see some people join us, but the other side of that thing is we’re gonna be over in Scotland. So we’re, well, we’ve got a couple meetings in Glasgow, a couple meetings in Borough. So if you are around the area, um, of course we’re linking up people on the uptime network, but, uh. If you’re around the area and you want to, you wanna chat anything wind, or maybe you got lightning protection problems, get ahold of us. ’cause we’ll be over there and, uh, happy to drop in and uh, share coffee with you. Allen Hall: It’s just part of Weather Guards and the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast outreach to the world. So we’re gonna be in Scotland for an entire week. We’re heading down to Melbourne, Australia for probably a couple of weeks while we’re down that way. And we will be somewhere near you over the next year probably. It’s a really good, uh, free service that we provide, is we want to highlight those businesses and those new technology ideas that need a little bit of exposure to grow. And that’s what the Uptime podcast is here to do. So join us [00:02:00] and if you want to reach out to us, you can reach us via LinkedIn, Allen Hall, Joel Saxon. We’ll respond to you and hopefully we can meet you in Speaker 3: Edinburgh. You’re 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 in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. Soon, the home of Maersk North America, I think we’re going to find out. And also the new Home of Scout, if you haven’t seen the little, what was formerly a MC little vehicle that’s gonna be made, well engineered in Charlotte and then built in South Carolina. So we’re looking forward to that. And with me as Yolanda Pone in Texas. Joel Saxons up in the great state of Wisconsin and Rosemary [00:03:00] Barnes is back in Australia. And there’s plenty of things to talk about this week, and I, I think our pre-recording discussion has centered on wooden wind turbines. And if everybody’s been following, um, mod Vion, they have received a 39.1 million Euro grant and they are making of all things. Wooden wind towers. So, uh, up in Sweden, there’s plenty of wood to make towers out of, out of it. And it’s a laminated process. And if, if you’ve looked online, I encourage everybody to go look online. It’s kind of an interesting technology they have where they’re layering wood together to build these towers sections. And so instead of using steel or other materials, concrete, you can make them outta wood. Uh, so the European Union is backing this, and as Joel has pointed out. This is not the only money they have received to develop this technology. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Back in 2020, they received a six [00:04:00] and a half million euro. Grant as well. And then they had some investment money come in, um, and it was in Swedish Knox. Okay. Or of course they’re in Sweden, so Makes sense. But that was a, a convertible note around 11, 12 million, uh, euros as well. So when you add this 39 million Euro grant on, you’re looking at about 55, 50 7 million euros in funding over the last five or six years for this company. Allen Hall: How does the European Union decide where to invest? These innovation funds at, Rosemary Barnes: you know, it’s interesting ’cause I visited MO when I was in Sweden a few months ago. I actually have a video, uh, about to come out hopefully next week. Um, about, yeah, I got a tour of their factory and, uh, interviewed one of their engineers who’s been with them like the whole time. Um, and I visited them just a few days after I visited C 12. I made a video about that as well. That’s a floating vertical axis wind turbine. C 12, just like four days after I visited them, they, um, received the [00:05:00] news that they had been awarded a similarly sized European grant. So, yeah, in the tens of millions, I can’t remember the exact number. And I was thinking, what would I do if I got, you know, 40 million euros, which is like nearly 80 million, I think Australian dollars. Like I could really come up with something major and develop it in that time. It’s not, they haven’t been given the money to come up with the right solution, right? They’ve been given the money for the solution that they already have. And I think that it’s really interesting that these European grants, it’s set up like that where they’re supporting, uh, assume that they’ve got a certain technology readiness level that you have to be at before that they will support you. And that kind of means that you’re locked in to a solution by the time that you’re at that point, right? Rewards only that kind of model where you have a charismatic person with a vision that they just pursue to the end. It does not reward getting the smart people who could find solutions to the real problems. It [00:06:00] doesn’t reward that because you, no one’s getting heaps of money, like $10 million early on to be like, here’s a problem, now find a solution and we’re going to. Fund that through the 10 things that you try that don’t end up working, no one is funding that, right? So all of that has to be done on the basis of your own pockets or the ability of your charisma to convince other people to support it. And I just think that it’s probably like. Not the right way to spend your, you know, if you’ve got like $500 million to spend to get the next big thing in wind energy, you shouldn’t be picking a bunch of companies that are tier L five. You should be getting the smartest people and giving them money to found a company and um, yeah, come up with solutions that way. Joel Saxum: Is it wooden? Wind turbine tower worth it. Rosemary Barnes: And ev everyone will have to have to watch my video. ’cause I asked, I asked quite in depth questions ’cause I went into it very, very skeptical thinking that this was a su sustainability play. And I’ve got two issues with that. Like, first of all, wind turbine tower is [00:07:00] not that unsustainable. I mean, wind turbines on average are paying back the energy that it took to make them in, you know, six months or so. But what was interesting is, you know, wood is a, a composite material, right? It’s got the, um. Fibers, cellulose fibers in a malignant matrix. It’s, it’s, it’s a composite material, just like fiberglass is. Why don’t we make fiberglass towers? I mean, it’s partly ’cause of the cost and it’s partly ’cause joining them is quite tricky as well. Um, and yeah, those are probably the, the main two things, but I’ve actually done a bit of work into it. If you could make a fiberglass tower, you could go. Way, way taller than you can with, with a steel tower, with, you know, transport constraints and whatever. So the wooden tower actually has a lot of the advantages that you would find if you had, were able to make a fiberglass tower. So they are expecting to be able to go taller, um, with, you know, they’re as constrained by transport because, you know, the fibers are all running this way. It’s fine to cut it, um, like longitudinally, um, slice it into pieces and join the all site. Doesn’t, um, [00:08:00] reduce the, the. The strength really. So there from that point of view, there’s something to it. If you can go taller, make it easier to go taller with towers, then that’s a real problem that needs a solution. There are other solutions. There’s like NARA Lift, you know the one just got bought by Ford Spanish company where they build a turbine on like a tiny tower and then slot pieces in underneath it to come up. That’s another great solution. Um, people are also looking at 3D printing concrete towers and thing, things like that. So it’s not like this wooden tower is the only way that we’re gonna be able to do that, but it’s a real problem with a plausible solution to it. So. I think that they’re ahead of many, many, many, many of this kind of company. Just just from that, that at least they’re solving a real problem. Allen Hall: Delamination and bottomline failures and blades are difficult problems to detect early. These hidden issues can cost you millions in repairs and lost energy [00:09:00] production. C-I-C-N-D-T are specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become expensive burdens. Their non-destructive test technology penetrates deep to blade materials to find voids and cracks. Traditional inspections, completely. Miss C-I-C-N-D-T Maps. Every critical defect delivers actionable reports and provides support to get your blades. Back in service. So visit cic ndt.com because catching blade problems early will save you millions. Is it the fact that founders in that sense can speak about problems and tell a story, which it feels like if you watch Shark Tank, this is sort of the Shark Tank wind energy connection. I always think it when you watch Shark Tank. Is someone who gets money there or what’s the equivalent? In the UK it’s called Dragon’s Den. There’s [00:10:00] a a certain personality type. Rosemary Barnes: How often am, am I saying? Are we all saying what we’ve got here is a solution looking for a problem? Like there’s a real disconnect between. Engineering a good solution and, um, that, that will work in the field versus fake it till you make it to attract investor money. I think it’s like this, this Silicon Valley like model where with software you kind of can fake it till you make it and it, you know, like update quickly, learn quickly. But with a hardware product as big as a wind turbine. You can’t, like if the engineering isn’t right, the product will never succeed. You can’t bluff your way through that. Um, the projects that are done, like with the right engineering can’t attract enough. Funds. So they, they fail before they ever prove it. But the ones that attract enough funds are doing it because they’re like, uh, designing for investors rather than to build a successful project. And so it’s like you’ve got these two alternatives, both of which are guaranteed to fail.[00:11:00] Um, I think that that’s the, like the biggest problem for how hard it is to get like legitimate innovation in energy Yolanda Padron: up. I feel like it’s almost like a, it should be a training. For engineers in school to be able to at least pretend like you can not care about the details as much, you know, for 20 minutes in the day or something. ’cause imagine how successful some of these projects could potentially be if you were at least for a meeting like par with. Those people who just have that personality type. Allen Hall: Not all engineers are gonna be founders of company and not all founders of company are gonna be engineers. And that has an influence on what the little tiny pool of people that can be able to do this where you’ve taken a very complicated problem, come up with a solution and being able to sell it or market it, which is even harder. You gotta market before you can sell it. [00:12:00] The engineering. Type person tends to wanna focus on the details, the of the product, not on the problem that someone is struggling with and what that means to that person. Here’s, I think where that line gets crossed, and you can do both, is that, that the engineers that are just. Focused, super focused on learn, learn, learn, learn, knowing what you do not have and going to get those skill sets because you don’t have to be the world’s best engineer, nor do you have to be the world’s best marketer, but you have to know enough to be dangerous and you as an engineer. Training I had in school was keep. Pounding, keep trying to learn more. And I, I feel like Rosemary’s in the same vein, right? So she’s always trying to learn more and that’s why she has her engineering with Rosie, uh, YouTube channel is because she’s constantly trying to pick up new things. But you also look at Rosemary. Oh, Rosemary, I don’t mind if I use you [00:13:00] as an example here, but you didn’t come out of, uh, Australian Elementary School, whatever that is, being a a, a really good speaker, like that’s something you’ve learned over time. You’ve been able to. Work in a very large company, you now, you’re in a very small company, the one that you own, and you’ve had to bridge that. And that means you have to know what the budgets are, what the money, where this money’s coming from. You have to sell to large corporations. You have to learn all those skills. That takes time, and each one of those skills you learn is extremely painful. So you have to have the resilience to say, you’re shooting arrows at me all the time. I’m not dead yet. I’m gonna keep moving forward because I could, I can see a way that I can make a business that produces a revenue that I can pay the mortgage with. Joel Saxum: That’s what it takes. Another, another side of this is, is if you’re trying to, to get, you’re getting to the point where you’re building a team out, right? I think it’s very [00:14:00] important for a founder to under, to understand their limitations at certain points in time. Because if you build a company and you’re just like, I like engineers, so I’m gonna build a company with five engineers and us six are gonna make something happen that may not be the best, you know, the best strategy if you’re gonna want like. I did, we used to do this thing, um, in a, in a company that I was a partner in where we had those, it’s a, basically like a spider graph, right? And you take, you answer all these questions and it ranks you on points of like, where you are for problem solving and where you are for the, you know, the big picture where you are for details. And then it overlays them all. So you look at your management team, you overlay ’em, what you wanna see is a perfect circle that you’ve filled every one of these. Areas, these silos with skills on your management team or on your execution team, or on your project team or whatever it may be. You can’t really Allen Hall: have an ego in a sense. The thing about starting a company is everybody is shooting Arrow, is that you, when you first go to a customer [00:15:00] that first time, they are gonna blow holes in you because you haven’t thought of all these different things that they consider to be very important. And you come out of it like, boy, yeah, yeah, I was not ready for that. Yes, Rosemary Barnes: but you’ve gotta want that. See that not as an insult to your ego, but as information that you need to, to grow. I think. ’cause I work a lot with startups as well as having one of my own. Um, and one thing that I do is I really, really early on screen them to figure out what kind of founder there are. ’cause there’s, there’s two kinds. There’s the one that wants to develop a significant product that will be successful in the world. And then there’s other ones who just love their idea and want to keep on working on it forever. And that second type, they don’t, they don’t want to learn anything wrong with their product. They don’t want to know about, um. You know, showstoppers because that’s gonna prevent them from doing what they love, which is working on this idea. So I only wanna work with the, the first kind, who would see a, being informed about a [00:16:00] showstopper for their project. They would see that as a real win. So that’s my always, my philosophy is just, uh, just gonna break it. What, whatever your idea is, I’m gonna do whatever I can to break it. Whether that’s physically or whether that’s commercially break the business case. You just throw everything you can at it intentionally. And with my own products too. You. Do everything you can to make it a failure. ’cause that’s how you learn how to make something that cannot fail, you know? And that’s what you need to succeed. It’s not enough to have an idea that, you know, like, like a lot of times with wind energy, you come up with something that might make be better, right? Than the status quo. So let’s think about, you know, um. Wind turbine. They’ve all got three blades. They all have a, um, the upwind facing rotor. You know, they’re, they’re very, very similar. There are all sorts of ideas that could be better. Right? That could be a better way to do it. You know, there’s different ways to make the, the blade maybe out of sailcloth instead of fiberglass. You can have two blades. Um, you can have a [00:17:00] downwind rotor. You can, like any, all of these ideas have been tried before, but being a little bit better is, is not. It’s not close, it’s not close to being enough like it is so far from, from being enough. It has to be so good that it can’t fail. That is the only way for you to overcome the, um, the gap that you have to what the status quo is. And so many people like, but my, you know, but my design is 1% more efficient. People could, you know, get all this amount extra. They, they’re not, that is not enough to get you over that massive hump between where you are now with an idea. What it would take to get people buying enough of it that it will ever reach its potential. That’s what people don’t see. Allen Hall: That’s exactly circling back what we’re talking about. The idea has to be a big improvement. Whatever it does. The wheel was a big improvement. The pencil was a big improvement. Paper was a big improvement. [00:18:00] Sliced bread, huge improvement. It just made your life easier. It has to be something that makes. Life easier, not just a little bit. And Rosemary is 100% right about this. It has to be a lot. So when, when I hear people in wind that are working in technology talk about a quarter percent, a half a percent, say 2%, that’s usually not enough to get somebody to react to it. It has to be a bigger number. Now, the two percents of the world. Incrementally, we will make the world better. Rosemary Barnes: It, it’s fine if it’s a, if it’s a small technology that will just fit in with a status quo without making anyone’s life harder than 2% is amazing. If it requires anyone to do anything different, then it is not close to enough. Allen Hall: Don’t miss the UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight 2025 in Edinburg on December 11th. Over 550 delegates and 100 exhibitors will be at this game changing event. Connect with decision makers. Share your market ready innovations and secure the partnerships to accelerate your [00:19:00] growth. Register now and take your place at the center of the UK’s offshore Wind future. Just visit supply chain spotlight.co.uk and register today. So we have somebody on the other side of the table, which is Yolanda, who sees all the crazy people come up to ’em. If you’re sitting across the table from someone who wants to sell you a product, I, I can’t even think of what. To be selling you, honestly. ’cause there’s not a lot of, um, maybe, maybe they’re selling aerodynamic improvements. Maybe they’re selling some blade whizzbang thing or CMS system. Maybe CMS system. Can you suss that out? Can you just tell that this person is not locked in on reality? It’s, does that show up in a meeting? Yolanda Padron: Well, initially, a lot of times some people just won’t. They don’t care exactly what your problem is or what the, you know, a problem might be big, but it might [00:20:00] not have as big an impact on generation as the spend to fix it would be. Or a lot of times the, the problem that you may be seeing is just. You know, it, it’s a risk that you’ll, you’ll take because of the, the cost of the solution. I mean, if, if you have, if I have $2,000 budgeted to fix or deal with an issue and you’re offering me a solution for $45,000, I just can’t take it. You know? I mean, as great as you might sound and as much as you believe in your project, uh, on your product, you just can’t take it. And I think there’s some people who. Come to the table really caring about what the issue is and finding a solution together for the sake of the industry, as was weather guard and is. Uh, but there is also [00:21:00] just some, some teams who just really, really just want their product, who will come to an engineer and won’t even bring an engineer to the table, who will just not even care about testing. Their, their product in a, their an accredited facility. And we’ll say, I mean, I had people come to me in a sales pitch and then when I asked them for testing results, they would say, well, will you fund this testing? It’s like, no, I. I, I won’t, you’re, you’re selling me the product. Like I don’t, Rosemary Barnes: I don’t think you understand. I saw so many companies that that was their biggest failure. They couldn’t get real world testing and that, that’s why I know that weather guard and paddle load are like poised for at least once you have a good idea, you’re gonna be able to develop it. Because the testing is, the testing capability is built in and I definitely could get people to pay to test. [00:22:00] A product that I developed because I know exactly what their problem is. I know exactly how much it’s worth to them, and they know that I understand it better than than them even. So I think people don’t, um, like it’s a very wind specific thing, but it is so hard if you just come up with an idea and you don’t know anybody that, um, managers wind farms. It’s so hard to convince someone to put something like even to just allow you to put it on for free. That’s a really, really hard sell. Allen Hall: So what is the advice for. Small businesses that want to be large businesses that are, have wind products that they’re offering today, what are the steps they need to take to make it a reality? Rosemary Barnes: They need to understand the, the problem really well, or the problem that they’re. Potential customers had and they also needed to understand the other pain points in that person’s life. Because a lot of times I’ve seen people get so, um, kind of worked up that, yeah, they’ve got a business case on [00:23:00] paper that, you know, the company should, in theory, make way more money from having this product. They’re not having it, but people don’t have enough time. Um, it has to be. Solving, either solving a problem that is taking up their time already, and you will immediately take up less of their time with when your solution is, when they even start to implement your solution. It’s not enough that they do a year project and then they start to have their problem solved. Um, so either, yeah, it has to be so much better or it needs to be totally painless to implement it. That’s the, that’s the two, two options that you have. There isn’t a third option. Yolanda Padron: I think it’s really important to balance your humility. Uh, and just your ego a little bit. Of course, you need to be proud of your product and you want to believe in it and everything. Uh, but you need to be humble enough to listen to the person and listen to their issues and listen to maybe your product isn’t perfect and it needs some tweaks [00:24:00] and mower likely than not, it will need some tweaks. So just don’t. Continue going forward to something that just won’t work. Speaker 6: Australia’s wind farms are growing fast, but are your operations keeping up? Join us February 17th and 18th at Melbourne’s Pullman on the park for Wind energy ONM Australia 2026, where you’ll connect with the experts solving real problems in maintenance asset management. And OEM relations. Walk away with practical strategies to cut costs and boost uptime that you can use the moment you’re back on site. Register now at WMA 2020 six.com. Wind Energy o and M Australia is created by wind professionals for wind professionals because this industry needs solutions, not speeches. Allen Hall: So everybody’s preparing to go to Melbourne in February of 2026 for Woma [00:25:00] Wind Energy, o and m Australia and the promos have just hit LinkedIn. Everybody’s talking about it. We’re getting a, a quite a number of sponsors. Joel. We have a, a couple of sponsorship levels still available, but not many. Joel Saxum: Yeah, we are fresh out of round table sponsors. Um, we’ve still got a couple hanging out there for some. Receptions and lunches and things like that. But, uh, yeah, we’ve got, uh, a lot of our friends joining up, a lot of emails coming in to ask of can I get involved somehow? Um, which is great because to be honest with you, even if we don’t have a spot for an ex ex exhibitor spot or a sponsorship spot, getting to talk with people at an early engagement level is fantastic. But we’re, ’cause we’re finding more and more subject matter experts through these conversations as well. So we’re able to bring, if, if we can’t. Engage on a sponsorship level, fine. Still reach out because the, there might be a spot for you up on a panel as one of these people that can educate, uh, and share, uh, with the Australian wind industry Allen Hall: and as the promos are saying, Rosemary. We [00:26:00] want solutions, not speeches. So this whole event is about solution, solution solutions, right? Rosemary Barnes: And problems. Allen Hall: What kind of problems are we gonna talk about? Rosemary Barnes: I mean, I think that’s the, the interesting part is that it brings those two, two parts together. That’s what we’ve been talking about with technology development. That the, you know, the critical thing is to know, understand very well what your customers. Facing in terms of problems. And so this is the event where everybody is there to talk about exactly what problems they’re actually spending time on day to day. And those are the ones where, you know, it’s a much easier pathway to succeed. So if you’re a, a. Technology developer, you know, a company that has some new technologies, then this is the event to come to to make sure that you get that fit right. Allen Hall: And Woma 2026 will be held the 17th and 18th at the Pullman Hotel, which is in beautiful downtown Melbourne. And you need to be going online. Go to Woma 2026 WOMA, 2020 six.com. Get registered. There’s only 250 seats [00:27:00] available and a number of them have already been reserved. So it’s shrinking day by day. If you want to attend and you should attend, go ahead, register for the event. If you’re interested in sponsorship, you need to get a hold of Joel. And how do they do that? Joel Saxum: Uh, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, um, pretty easy to find there. Uh, or send me a direct email. JOEL Do a xm. I have to say that out loud because. I gets confused a lot@wglightning.com, so Joel dot saxon@wglightning.com. Allen Hall: So go to Wilma. 2020 six.com and register today. This quarter is PES WIN Magazine, which has arrived via the Royal Mail. There are a number of great articles and uh, I was thumbing through it the other day and the article from Veolia, and we had Veolia on the podcast, uh, a couple of years ago on blade recycling. And there’s a number of, of cool things happening there. You know, Veolia was grinding down the blades and then using them, [00:28:00] uh, mixing them with, with cement. Reducing some of the coal and other energy forms that are used to, to make cement. And they were also using, uh, some of the fiber as fill. So that process, when they first started, we were talking to ’em. Then there’s been a lot of iterations to it. It’s like anything in recycling, the first go around is never easy. But Veolia has the. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Thanks for joining us as we explore the latest in wind energy technology and industry insights. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you. Found value in today’s conversation. Please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we’ll catch you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:29:00] Podcast.

Allen and Joel sit down with Michael McQueenie, Head of Sales for SkySpecs in Europe at the SkySpecs Customer Forum. They discuss the booming European wind energy market, SkySpecs’ role in asset management, and their expansion into solar farm operations. 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: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. I have Joel Saxum with me. I’m Allen Hall, the host, and we are here with Michael McQueenie head of sales for SkySpecs over in Europe. Michael, welcome to the show. Michael McQueenie: Thanks for having me. Allen Hall: We are at SkySpecs customer Form 2025 and it has been a blowout event, so many operators from all over learning and exchanging information about how they operate their assets. We wanted to have you on today because you’re our reference to Europe and what is happening with SkySpecs in Europe. America and Europe are on different pathways at the moment. What is that status right now in Europe? What are people calling you for today? Michael McQueenie: the, European market is really booming. we get calls from customers to support [00:01:00] with internal inspections, external inspections as we always have for, nearly a decade now. We are seeing a lot more, discussions around the, enablement services that we can offer. how did, how do we bring a blade engineer and how do we bring a CMS engineer into support and give us, give us more of an insight on the data that we have or, or the data that Skys fix are producing. things are evolving. and, it’s a buoyant offshore industry at the moment. Allen Hall: yeah, there’s like thousands of turbines going up right now. it used to be when you thought of. Deployment. Unlike Germany, for example, it’d be three turbines on the hillside. Michael McQueenie: Yeah. Allen Hall: Now we’re talking about in the uk have hundreds of turbines hitting the water. Michael McQueenie: Yeah. Allen Hall: And that’s change of scale has driven a lot of operators realize I need expertise in blades, I need expertise in CMS. I need an expert in gearbox, but I don’t necessarily need them full time. Michael McQueenie: Yeah. Allen Hall: Skys spec. Can you help me? Michael McQueenie: the projects [00:02:00] are, they’re fewer projects, but they’re, the scale of these projects are massive. the scale of the turbine scale of the projects and the impact the projects can have on, the country, as a whole is, is massive. So yeah, it’s, it is a. It’s a, it is a great time to be in Europe and to see the growth. it’s been, coming for a long time. I’ve worked with consultancies who are looking at feasibility studies, in offshore, and onshore. But the, the growth has been. Just, it’s just around the corner. And I do feel like now with some of these big projects that they’re installing, and yeah, just given the size of the turbines, it’s it’s massive. Joel Saxum: one of the things I want to, I think there’s an important context here is that we’re talking, we’re sitting in Ann Arbor, right? we’re in the us You’re over in Europe. I worked for a Danish company for a while and it was always like this seven hour delay. Kinda can I get the in, can I get the support? Can they get the support? Can we work? How do we work back and forth? Sometimes it was cool because you’d send an email at two o’clock and when you woke up in the morning [00:03:00] it was done. That was awesome. But also there was these delays. Now this is the interesting thing here is, and Skys facts. This morning we listened to Cheryl. always a great presentation. Yeah. the head of the TEI blade stuff here. She was delivering some insights, but with her was Thomas. Thomas is in Europe. And you have CMS experts in Europe. You have the local talent that’s over there that can work with these operators on their timelines, on their regular day stuff. They’re not waiting as, and what I’m trying to get to is, is SkySpecs is not a Ann Arbor company. Skyspace is a global company in a big way. And so this, so thinking like, oh, this is an American company, w. Will we use someone that’s more local no. No. Skyspace is a local European company as well. Michael McQueenie: Yeah, and we’ve got the SMEs over there. it’s not just Cheryl, who’s a fantastic en engineer. Having your at your, disposal, Thomas is phenomenal. customers are seeing real value in integrating him into their team, being the SME [00:04:00] for them, as you, as we said before. Being able to turn ’em off, on and off as required. Don’t, you’ve not got that the FTE cost right. to bring in an SME that, that needs to, support you with a, with an individual component of your, asset. Yeah. Blades are a huge problem. The industry’s seeing that as they’re getting bigger, the problems are getting bigger. but yeah, having, a local presence in Europe is, massive. my inbox is full from, all the US. Inquiries and issues, during the night, just like you’re saying. Yeah. And I wake up to dozens of emails with, requirements on inbox and my to-do list is full. But the, but the reality is yeah, we’re, grown in Europe. we are. Our real solid presence in Europe and we’ve, seen massive growth this year. Joel Saxum: I think it, it’s part of the value chain there. Touching on the Thomas and Cheryl. Right. So in SkySpecs over this week, we’ve been talking more and more about the, how you guys like to specifically work within a workflow. And that workflow being we have [00:05:00]inspections, we’re in the platform now we’re in horizon, bam. And we can enable the tech enabled services, which is those SMEs which you have inside. The company and then rolling that forward to the repair vendor management, which is happening in a big way in the States. Yesterday I saw a number, $13 million in repairs managed by the Sky Spec team. That’s huge. And, that same capability. And we’re just talking blazes right now, like we haven’t even touched on CMS performance monitoring, financial asset monitoring. That same concept is, is replica replicate in the EU as well. Michael McQueenie: No, it absolutely is, Our customers have got problems, we can help them with the problems. Thomas is, as you said, we work in workflows and Thomas is, is looking to support customers with how they, touch their data as few times as they possibly can. How do we get from A to B and how does a customer understand what their problems are and how they fix the problems? And sometimes an [00:06:00]SME is the, way to fix that. Thomas has provide, provided huge value to our customers. The design of workflows in Horizon is the, essence. It exists just to try and get from A to B and, and try and drive insights and then next steps. And I think that’s the important part, being, this is the action to Joel Saxum: get Michael McQueenie: to the, we’ve got the data, we understand what the data’s telling us. here’s an insight, but actually what is the follow up? And, Thomas is designing that follow up for our customers and providing the support. Allen Hall: and just a little bit comparison between the United States and Europe, when we still talk to anybody in the United States about a turbine. Almost always, it’s a two megawatt, one and a half megawatt turbine, right? Occasionally a four. Sometimes someone says Joel Saxum: yesterday like, oh, that’s a three megawatt Allen Hall: turbine. Whoa, what’s big? And in Europe, three megawatts was like years ago, particularly offshore that, everything’s 6, 8, 10. Michael McQueenie: Yeah. Allen Hall: Plus Michael McQueenie: 3.6 was the common [00:07:00] turbine. Five, eight. Allen Hall: Yeah. Michael McQueenie: Years ago, that was, what everyone was working on. And, they’re a very reliable turbine. It’s, there was a reason why there were so many of them installed at that time. but nowadays, we’re helping OEMs with 50 megawatt turbines. Allen Hall: and I think that’s the, thing that we just don’t see in the states is a turbine that’s 15 megawatts is down for a day. Is so much more expensive and particularly offshore and the expenses go astronomical compared to onshore. Yeah, and Michael, I always see your position of you’re there to save. Millions of pounds or millions, of euros all the time because a shutdown there is huge. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Allen Hall: And because the grids are changing so much in Europe where they’re becoming more solar and wind dependent and coal is going to change away. And Joel Saxum: triage. Allen Hall: Yeah. The triage bit, is that the SkySpecs is in that position to really help a lot our operators out. You’re [00:08:00] providing the insights and the guidance and the knowledge that. An operator probably doesn’t have, because they don’t have the staff to go do it. It’s a And can you enlighten us like what that is because we just don’t see a lot of that here. Michael McQueenie: Yeah. I think there’s a good reason you don’t see that this was, we are just providing data to some of these, transactions. Whether it’s a due diligence, inspection, or an end of warranty. We are just providing the insights for the customers to. Make their own decisions. Um, so it’s not a SkySpecs decision. We are just providing insights to, to allow them to make a, smart, educated, data-driven decision. Joel Saxum: I think that’s important, concept too. ’cause like here, the Skys spec user form, of course, we’re in the States, so we’ve been talking and I think there’s only two or three people here from. Yeah. From overseas. So we’ve been talking a lot about the one big, beautiful, what it means. That doesn’t mean that much to you in your daily life, right? No. But your daily life is a bit different with, you have more of a focus on. Maybe financial asset owners. ’cause the market’s different, right? Michael McQueenie: yeah. Absolutely. The, [00:09:00] simplification of process and actually having a workflow no matter what, it’s, whether we’re taking financial data, CMS data or performance, SC data, The simplification of that process and driving insights from it is literally the foundation of what SkySpecs have been here to do. So providing, financial institutions funds with the ability to. Reach out and, make quick decisions, data-driven decisions. there’s some very smart people in these organizations, asset managers who are, A costly resource to the fund. What they really need to do is pull le pull levers as in when it’s required to. We need some support with sc. We need some support with blades. How do we, how do they, bring that resource and that expertise in house without having the FTE? and the funds are, phenomenal companies. They’re, growing fast. They don’t want the linear growth of people. to go along with that, that, growth of their portfolio. So it’s important that we build relationships and make sure that we’re helping them [00:10:00] in every side of their business, whether it’s financial decisions or, technical decisions. Joel Saxum: I think there’s a, there’s an important takeaway from this week as well, listening to all the SkySpecs, the people, the presentations, the communications, the, collaborations, the conversations. Some of ’em a little bit later at night than other ones. I, won’t name any names, but. Listening to those things and understanding this. So a few weeks ago when I was talking with, we talked with Josh Garrell a little bit ago, and I, shared this with him. I saw a McKinsey report that said, SkySpecs, inspection company. SkySpecs to me is not an inspection company. they do the best inspections in the world, in wind, in my opinion. Yes. However, there’s so much more, there’s so much more there. And it is, it’s really a full support in my opinion, for the CMS to scada, the performance monitoring, the financial asset modeling, the tech enabled insights, repair, vendor management. There’s so many other solutions within this umbrella that I think a lot of people don’t see. Allen Hall: And the one case study that came up yesterday, Michael, I think [00:11:00] that I found interesting was the offshore. Inspections before blades are hung. Yeah. And we see a lot of times in the states where blades are damaged in transport, we think, okay, yeah, the truck damaged it. Okay, fine, we can fix it on the ground. But on the offshore case, that simple repair now has to happen out in the ocean, and that goes from a couple of thousand dollars to 10. Pounds to tens of thousands of pounds or more to get that resolved. And you had a case just like that. Michael McQueenie: Yeah, and I think it’s hundreds of thousands if we’re being honest. Yeah. If you start looking at vessel costs, crew costs, everything else. But actually what I like about it is that OEMs are actually becoming way more proactive because they know the cost of an up tower repair compared to, an onshore repair. So having the foresight to. Have the inspections completed at the right time. Working with us on timelines, using technology to perform the inspections, getting through as many as we can, as quickly as we can, [00:12:00] addressing the problems, doing the analysis, and then actually solving the problem before it goes offshore is massive drainage that, how many times is a bleed lifted from the factory to installation. Lot. It’s a lot. It’s a lot, It’s handled a lot. So there’s a opportunity for something to go wrong, as you said, oh, it’s been knocked, it’s, there’s something wrong. Something’s happened. but solving that is the OEM’s responsibility. So they’re becoming much more proactive in my opinion. we’ve, we’ve had a lot of use cases this week, and it’s always been about the, owners, the operators, how we’ve saved them money, how we provided them value. The OEMs are looking to us to help them on that front as well, whether it’s robotic or whether it’s, providing analysis or, or a platform to, to manage the data. we are working with, with them in offshore, but the problems are so much bigger. Allen Hall: I think the OEMs are learning from Skys spec, so watching what operators are doing to hedge their bets to protect their assets. And SkySpecs is pretty much involved in all of that. [00:13:00] Now the OEMs are watching the operators saying, why are we not doing that? We’re seeing that in Joel Saxum: the lightning. Allen Hall: Absolutely. We’re seeing enlightening. We’re seeing it in CMS now. We’re seeing it in a number of areas where the OEMs have watched SkySpecs maneuver and provide better value to their customers that the OEMs are trying to mirror, Joel Saxum: I touch on another case study because Alan, you and I sat in on this one yesterday, and if so, I’m gonna put my, my, I’m a European operator hat on. and this is a little weird. I don’t, I have a good accent. Not, I’m not gonna try that, but okay. Say I’m going to, I have a smaller wind farm, right? So I may have, 20 turbines of a specific model, and I would like to understand where am I at for performance benchmarking? Am I doing well or not? I don’t have a huge fleet. European fleets are not that big unless you’re offshore. As specifically compared to the US where our wind farms are a hundred, 120 turbines. Sun Z is a thousand turbines, right? That’s a wind farm. So the problem is different, [00:14:00] but Skys spec has that data. If this is your site, let’s look at how your site is doing compared to. These 1500 of the same models around the world. And then you can look at that, understand your performance benchmark, and then start diving into the issues that may be causing it, to not perform as well. And then fixing them and getting it up to speed to what it should be compared to everybody else. And I thought, man, what a use case, especially in the European market. Michael McQueenie: No, absolutely. and we always talk about benchmarking. We’ve, I’ve been with companies who have tried benchmarking in the past, looking at KPIs. How do you benchmark your performance of your turbine against something similar? And I think Skyspace are starting to get that right. we’ve, got the sc the scatter data and looking at the biggest impact in damages or the biggest failure faults that you have on your turbine and how we, how it can help you. Push the OEMs. Yeah, just give them a prod to, Joel Saxum: we saw Michael McQueenie: case studies on that Joel Saxum: yesterday. Michael McQueenie: The case studies we’ve seen this week have actually been incredible, and that’s probably the, biggest takeaway for a lot of [00:15:00]people. Just try and understand how we’ve helped. The, customers achiever a return or, what we’ve saved them, over time. those have been probably the biggest takeaway for me this week. just people are starting to understand and appreciate the returns they could see if they engage with us on all these other products. But the performance side of thing, benchmarking is, a really interesting topic. Completely away from just looking at performance data. Everyone in the room over the last couple of days. Is, dancing around the, topic of benchmarking because, they’re, very, protective of the data. Yes. but I think people, and we’ve spoke about maybe for the last 12 months, they have shown an interest in, oh, I can share some data and if it’s anonymized, that I’d be happy to take part in that. But. I’d love to see, that taking a step further, I’d love to see that. I think everyone in the industry, everyone in that room would benefit from, [00:16:00]from data sharing to, to learn from each other with freely optimiz data. Yeah, absolutely. Allen Hall: there have been a number of announcements this week also from SkySpecs. Some of the bigger ones are the move into solar and Europe. There’s a lot of solar power in Europe, particularly some parts of Europe. That could be a massive amount of phone calls your way, Michael. oh, sky Spec is doing blades. Turbines and solar. I’ll take it. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Allen Hall: And I think there’s been a huge demand for that for the last several years, but it’s just been, you’ve been so busy with turbine problems, so honestly that you haven’t had the ability to get to solar. Now with some of the tools you just brought in, you can. Michael McQueenie: Yeah, I think we, we started off just blades, as we all know. Yeah. As you said, if we were just an inspection company. the acquisitions we’ve made, over the last few years have been taking us to the point where we’re now covering full turbine asset health monitoring. And that was an important part. once we achieve that, now you can, you gain a [00:17:00] bit of clarity. we can start to look at diversification into new asset types. Solar’s been something I’m asked about once a month from European customers, and prospects. So we’ve tempered expectations for quite a long time. We, we know we were going to move into solar at some point. we’ve got, we’ve got a really big opportunity I think, we’re very well positioned to, to help solar operators. Yeah, Allen Hall: I think, I think there’s the variability in solar. From the different manufacturer. There’s so many manufacturers of panels and are inverters and even some of the configurations, the, support structures have issues, but SkyScan specs is gonna make that a lot easier because the tools are better now than they were five years ago. Michael McQueenie: Yeah, no, absolutely. And we’ve got a massive customer base with that mix of wind, solar battery. So we, have to come up with that solution and, the tools are perfectly placed. Allen Hall: Yeah. Michael McQueenie: It’s the same engineers that will be asked. Joel Saxum: See Michael McQueenie: now [00:18:00] you’re dealing with solar. There’ll be no questions asked. There will be. That’s happening already. You fixed wind for us. There’s, I’m gonna change your job description as wind engineer plus solar. Allen Hall: Yeah. And then it’s gonna be plus Allen Hall: best, right? Michael McQueenie: That, reviewable energy engineer, Joel Saxum: that’s what it will be. But I think there’s a, there’s some things here too to share with the European crowd is, there has been some strategic additions to the leadership team, Ben Token coming on as the CTO helping with some of that data architecture in the background. And then what will be the future of you guys have, there’s always work to be done, right? But have gotten really close to having a big, perfect little model of this is how you manage a wind asset. now that can be control C, C control V, solar, control C control V best, and that’s the future of what Skys spec is going to become a renewable energy company. And that’s the future. Michael McQueenie: Yeah. I think that the additions to the business have been pretty visionary. Yeah. rich and Ben are both. Phenomenal individuals will, that will drive us to, success in all these other areas. [00:19:00] rich has, been part of the business and has from the board from a, for a number of years now, and, I think he’s now seeing the. How special the business is. How special it could be. Yeah. Once we, start that diversification. Joel Saxum: Yeah. I’ve seen Rich here at the, ’cause we are in Ann Arbor at the forum. It’s Wednesday. So we’ve, we’re on day two, and I’ve seen Rich floating around talking with some of the customers, talking with a lot of the SkySpecs employees. I’ve had a few conversations with him and. That man has a big smile on his face all day long. Michael McQueenie: Yeah. Joel Saxum: He sees the opportunity. he’s happy to engage. He wants to talk with people. he’s gonna be a big part of the future of the group. And I, think it’s exciting to see him here. Michael McQueenie: He really has, I think both of them have, really accelerated the excitement and the, development of all the tools. everyone’s rallying behind them to Joel Saxum: Yeah. Michael McQueenie: to try and make sure that, we, get to the next tech. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Last night we talked with, Ben about big data and analytics. We’re recording it now. So we’re, telling we’re gonna try to get him down to [00:20:00] Australia to speak to the Australian crowd during our event down there in February about big data analytics and his background, what Skys books is doing with it. Allen Hall: Yeah. And big data is the future. Everybody knew it three years ago. Yeah. We’re finally at the level we can start processing it and make use of it. I think Michael, you’re in a unique position and SkySpecs is in a really unique position in Europe. The world is looking to Europe on renewables. The expansion of renewables, how coal has essentially gone away. Gas is still kicking around. France has a, still a good bit of nuclear and rightly It’s a great resource for them. but the solar, wind battery play is gonna be the, big push over the next several years. Without SkySpecs, it’s gonna be really hard to be successful there and to get the revenue stream that you expected out of it. Your phone has to be ringing off the hook all the time. Yeah. Michael McQueenie: The, co-location story has been building momentum for a couple of years now, and right now it’s [00:21:00] just, everyone’s talking about it, the battery, adding batteries to sites and co-locating solar with wind. And, yeah, it’s, been, it is a really exciting thing. it’s skys picks are really well positioned to help every one of them. Allen Hall: So how do people get ahold of you? And is LinkedIn the best place? Just go, Michael McQueenie and SkySpecs. Michael McQueenie: Yeah, most people, I’m fairly well connected in the European market. A lot of people will have my details, but yeah, LinkedIn, absolutely. Allen Hall: Okay, great. Michael, I love having you, on webinars and in person for these, interview sessions because Joel and I learn so much. you’re just a great resource and if you’re interested in SkySpecs and, and the services that they offer. In Europe, get ahold of Michael. He will get you set up and get you into the horizon platform and get you solutions. So Michael, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Michael McQueenie: Thank Allen Hall: you very much for it. It’s been [00:22:00] great.

Negotiations in the COP 30 climate talks are continuing in Belem, Brazil. The headlines are focusing on the divisions between countries that are shaping this year's climate talks. But despite the doom and gloom, there are some practical steps being taken to support the transition towards lower-carbon energy. There may be a notable lack of significant new pledges. But making a pledge is the easy part. Implementation is always harder, and that is the focus for COP30.At COP28 in Dubai two years ago, a goal was set to double the pace of global energy efficiency gains, from 2% a year to over 4% a year. Can we hit that goal, and what will it mean if we do?To debate those questions, Ed Crooks and regular guest Amy Myers Jaffe are joined by Bob Hinkle, whose company Metrus Energy develops and finances efficiency and building energy upgrades across the US. Bob is there at the talks in Belem, and gives his perspective on the mood at the meeting. The presence of American businesses at the conference this year is definitely reduced compared to other recent COPs. But Bob still thinks it was well worth him going. He explains what he gets out of attending the COP, why energy efficiency has a vital role to play in cutting emissions, and why he is still optimistic about climate action.Another initiative that came out of COP28 was the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter (ODGC): a group of more than 50 of the world's largest oil and gas companies, which aim to reach near-zero methane emissions and end routine flaring by 2030. Bjorn Otto Sverdrup is head of the secretariat for the OGDC, and he joins us having just returned from Belem.Bjorn Otto tells Amy and Ed that there has been some real progress in the industry. The 12 leading international companies that are members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative have reported some positive numbers: their methane emissions are down 62%, routine flaring is down 72%, and there's been a 24% reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions.There is still huge potential for cutting in total greenhouse gas emissions by curbing methane leakage and routine flaring worldwide. How can we make more progress? Bjorn explains the scale of the opportunity, the real-world constraints, and the growing role of new technology including satellites and AI in detecting leaks. Keep following the Energy Gang for more news and insight as COP30 wraps. Next week we'll talk about what happed, what was promised, what didn't happen, and what to expect on climate action in 2026.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Utility-scale clean energy projects in development are still facing connection queues and regulatory barriers. RE+ may be done for 2025, but the debate is still going. Host Sylvia Leyva Martinez, Research Director at Wood Mackenzie, sits down with three leaders who are driving progress from different corners of the energy transition, from utility-scale project development to digital grid optimisation and solar system reliability. Sylvia Leyva Martinez and her guests discuss how federal and state regulations shape project timelines and financing, the latest innovations in the grid and the future of interconnection studies, the supply chain outlook for developers and technology providers, and how policy and software are converging to accelerate the energy transition. In this episode you'll hear from: Angela Amos from AES Clean Energy - As Director of Commercial Strategy & Innovation, Angela brings a unique vantage point that bridges policy, finance, and market execution. Drawing on her experience at AES, Uplight, and FERC, Angela shares how developers are navigating an evolving regulatory landscape, adapting to federal and state policy shifts, and rethinking how technology integration shapes long-term strategy. She also discusses how AES is approaching supply chain partnerships and what “innovation” really looks like at a global energy developer. Lindsey Williams from Shoals Technologies Group - Lindsey is VP of Marketing & Communications at Shoals, and she joins Sylvia to unpack the latest in solar and storage performance. Building on Shoals' recent focus on EBOS (Electrical Balance of System), Lindsey reflects on how component design, reliability, and digital monitoring are redefining project outcomes. She also shares what she heard from the floor at RE+, including the big industry talking points shaping developer confidence and long-term investment certainty in clean energy infrastructure. Inalvis Alvarez Fernandez from Simple Thread - Inalvis is a Senior Energy Technology Engineer at Simple Thread, and she explains how digital tools like Minerva are helping reduce project backlogs, streamline utility processes, and unlock grid capacity faster. Inalvis also discusses the challenges clean energy companies face scaling renewables and how regulatory clarity can enable more efficient technology deployment. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

COP30, which began this week in Belém, Brazil, marks a decade since the Paris Agreement was adopted at COP21 in 2015. It's being billed as the “implementation COP”: instead of grand new announcements of international agreements, governments are supposed to be focused on delivering on the commitments they have already made. Host Ed Crooks and regular guest Amy Myers Jaffe welcome back Amy Harder, National Energy Correspondent at Axios. She says not every COP is created equally, and “this is definitely one of those COPs that are more of an ebb than a flow.”But that said, it doesn't mean COP30 will inevitably be unproductive. Amy Myers Jaffe, who is the Director of NYU's Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab, argues that COP30 “could wind up over time being seen as a more successful meeting than people are currently thinking it will be.”Instead of a new comprehensive global framework, the objectives for this year's talks will be a series of smaller-scale sectoral initiatives: scaling sustainable fuels, tackling industrial emissions, protecting forests, and aligning private capital with policy goals. The Energy Gang also welcomes to the show for the first time Lisa Jacobson, who is President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. She joins the show from Brazil to give the boots on the ground view as the conference begins. Previous COPs have generally put the mosh emphasis on government action. Lisa says that a focus on what's good for business might be a better way to spur change. Clean energy technologies are winning in many markets around the world because they make commercial sense. Policy can be helpful, but is it ultimately the business case that has to be what pushes the energy transition forward? Ed, Amy, Amy and Lisa debate the changes to US energy and climate policy, China's emissions trajectory, the global impact of EU measures, and how much of the clean energy build-out is now driven by economics rather than politics. And they wonder whether there is a central paradox in global climate policy. If the future of energy will be decided by market forces and national interests, not by anything that happens at COP30, is that a sign that the series of past COPs has been a success? We've got more coverage of COP30 coming soon, so make sure you're following us for all the key news and insight from Brazil. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

COP30, now getting under way in Belem, Brazil, has been billed as “the implementation COP”, which means a focus on governments taking real steps to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. We will be examining all the key issues for government negotiators in the talks very soon. But for this show, we are looking at the role of business. At New York Climate Week in September, the discussion was all about how businesses are facing up to the challenges of meeting growing demand for energy while also curbing emissions. With the rise of AI and broader electrification trends driving up power demand in some places at rates not seen for decades, sustainability goals are under pressure. Will companies abandon them? Or are they just finding new ways to decarbonise while keeping things going? Two companies in very different industries but both focused on similar goals, are Prologis and Trane. First up, host Ed Crooks speaks to Susan Uthayakumar, Chief Energy and Sustainability Officer at Prologis. She explains how the world's largest logistics real estate company is turning its vast rooftop space into a decentralized power network. It is building on-site solar, storage, and microgrids to keep global supply chains resilient, while generating new revenue streams.Then, Holly Paeper, President of Commercial HVAC for the Americas at Trane, describes how cooling systems are becoming a cornerstone of sustainable infrastructure. From AI-driven optimisation to data centres that can heat Olympic swimming pools, Holly talks about ways to reinvent thermal systems to reduce energy waste, enable grid flexibility, and turn buildings into active contributors to their communities.For all the breaking news and insight from COP30, follow Energy Gang wherever you get your podcasts. Expect our top team of energy experts, plus leaders from the worlds of business, finance and policy, as we break down what you need to know from the opening week of the talks.Got power? At HiTHIUM, we make sure the answer is always YES. Ranked Top 2 globally in battery shipments for 2025.HiTHIUM delivers safe, reliable, and profitable energy solutions that keep the clean energy transition powering forward. Let green energy benefit all. Trusted worldwide. Built to last.Reach out and let's talk energy that works - for good!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when women stop waiting to be invited to the table — and start building their own network? That question led Suzanne Tegen and her peers to found Women of Wind Energy, now Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy (WRISE), twenty years ago.Today, WRISE has over 3,000 members, 47 chapters, a robust slate of annual programming, and continues to expand its impact across the renewable energy industry.Suzanne is now Acting Director at Colorado State University's Center for the New Energy Economy, where she leads bipartisan clean energy policy research and works with state legislators, governors' offices, and utilities to advance practical, state-level policy solutions.To mark WRISE's 20th anniversary, Catherine sat down with Suzanne to talk about: • Building leadership confidence through community and mentorship • Lessons from two decades of WRISE's growth and impact • What allyship really looks like — and how to practice it when someone's not in the room • The importance of inclusion in energy transitions, especially for fossil-fuel-reliant communities • Her vision for the next chapter of WRISE and a more inclusive clean energy workforceOne line that stayed with us:  "Inclusion is intentional. You have to dig in, find out who isn't being heard, and make sure they're involved so that better decisions can be made."If you're a clean energy employer and need help scaling your workforce efficiently with top tier staff, contact Catherine McLean, CEO & Founder of Dylan Green, directly on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3odzxQr. If you're looking for your next role in clean energy, take a look at our industry-leading clients' latest job openings: bit.ly/dg_jobs. 

As world leaders, businesses and NGOs start their journeys to Brazil for the COP30 climate talks, more than 200,000 people attended ADIPEC in Abu Dhabi, the world's biggest energy event. Energy Gang was there to bring you the highlights from the week's discussions. One of the key talking points was the theme of energy addition, rather than transition. In other words, the idea that new renewables and other low-carbon sources are adding to global energy supplies, rather than replacing fossil fuels. With forecasts showing an acceleration in power demand growth driven by AI, and the continuing need for increased energy supply to raise living standards in low and middle-income countries, calls for a rapid transition away from oil, gas and coal seem to many to be unrealistic. At ADIPEC, the conversation centred around the vision of new low-carbon supplies stacking on top of hydrocarbons, to reduce costs, increase access and cut emissions intensity. But there was confidence in the prospect of robust global demand for oil and gas, in particular, for decades to come. To debate that vision and assess what it means for the world, host Ed Crooks is joined by energy executives and analysts who have been part of the conversation. Dr Carole Nakhle is the founder and CEO of Crystol Energy, an independent advisory firm. She was first up to discuss whether decarbonisation targets are being pushed further into the future, and how they can be met if clean energy is complementing fossil fuels rather than replacing them. “Complementarity beats substitution,” Carole says. What does that mean for energy security, access and emissions? Next, Ed spoke with John Gilley, CEO of Kent, which designs and engineers assets for the energy industry, including both oil and gas and low-carbon technologies. John isn't worried about a slowdown in clean energy deployment. When energy is cheaper, it gets used, he says, and solar and wind keep winning on cost. He believes climate change is the greatest challenge of our times, and his purpose at Kent is to support ways to tackle it, while meeting the world's demand for energy. John and Ed talk it all through.Sascha Sissiou is sales director for the Middle East and Africa at Aerzen, a German manufacturer of equipment for oil and gas and other industries. Sascha argues that, far from the momentum towards decarbonisation slowing, it is actually speeding up, as reflected in demand from Aerzen's customers. Demand for flare-gas recovery and other emissions reduction technologies has grown, and Aerzen is rolling out new large compressors for the hydrogen industry. Sustainability standards now influence sourcing, logistics and manufacturing across industries from wastewater to petrochemicals. Next, Clay Seigle, senior fellow at the thinktank CSIS, talks about the implications of sustained oil demand for energy security. On climate, he highlights the importance of industry-led investments in methane controls and carbon capture. Looking ahead, permitting reform could emerge as the next big US energy story; Clay explains why. Finally, as the Energy Gang prepares to switch focus to COP30, Ed sat down with Bjorn Otto Sverdrup, who's the head of the secretariat for the Oil & Gas Decarbonization Charter. They bring together more than 50 leading oil and gas companies from around the world to work together to cut their emissions. Bjorn says the industry's top CEOs are staying the course on near-term decarbonisation goals with high impact - cutting methane and eliminating routine flaring by 2030 – because they make operational and reputational sense. There will be more to come on this issue at COP30. We will be bringing you all the big stories and exclusive commentary and analysis on COP30 from our energy expert friends, as well as some new voices. So don't forget to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, to keep up with all our coverage of the climate talks over the next two weeks. This episode was recorded live at ADIPEC 2025, the world's largest energy event, held in Abu Dhabi from 3–6 November. With more than 205,000 attendees and 1,800 speakers, this year's theme - Energy Intelligence Impact - sparked vital conversations about the future of energy. Learn more about the event at adipec.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vestas vice president Jan Daniel Kaemmer discusses wind industry in Australia, the blockages and the potential. Plus: What to make of the free solar offer.

Allen and Joel are joined by Matthew Stead, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of EOLIGIX-PING, at the SkySpecs Customer Forum 2025. They discuss the biggest takeaways from the forum, new developments at EOLOGIX-PING, and the upcoming Wind Energy O&M Australia event. 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! Intro: [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 Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Alan Hall, and I'm with Joel Saxon. And we are in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Matthew Stead, chief Product Officer. And co-founder of eLog Ping and he is traveled all the way from Australia to be here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We are at the Skys Specs customer Forum 2025. We've been spending the last couple of days with most of the operators in the United States, uh, learning about what issues they are having and how they're using Skys specs to reduce their overall operational costs. Boy, Matthew, it, it is been a really interesting couple of days hearing where customers are struggling and where they are trying to attack lost revenue. Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think it's [00:01:00] been amazing. I'm so pleased to be here. And, you know, it was great to get the invitation, uh, from Skyspace. I, I think, um, really the things that I've been hearing is the data and pulling data together, uh, to getting those insights as to what's going wrong and then, and then fixing it and getting the money back. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Yeah. The, the big thing here, we're talking about the one big beautiful build, and it's followed on the industry.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Right. So the, the theme of the event is prevent, perform, or prevent, prevent, predict, perform, I'm gonna get it wrong again.  Allen Hall: There's three Ps,  Joel Saxum: three very important ps. But what we're looking at is, is how, how can digitalization, how can the next generation of op intelligent asset management change the way we do things? Because you can't do things reactively like we were in the past anymore.  Matthew Stead: Yeah,  Joel Saxum: right. Even when budgets were tight before they're gonna get even tighter. We're gonna, and we're gonna have to make sure that these assets are running. And that's where like your smarter, smarter, smarter, smarter, right? Yeah. Your solutions come into play. The Skys specs team. The, the, the conversations in the sessions. The [00:02:00] conversations around the sessions, the conversations over a beer.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah.  Joel Saxum: They have all been about the same concepts, right? About how can we do this better, more efficiently. And one of the reasons I really like events. Like this is, like you said, Allen, you have all these operators. Yeah. You have all of these engine. It's a, it's a room full of 50 engineers that probably control man, 60 to 70% of the  Allen Hall: Oh yeah.  Matthew Stead: The US  Joel Saxum: fleet. In the US fleet. Right. So you have so much knowledge, so much sharing, and it's an open forum. You have people p piping up, Hey, we use this strategy. Hey, we do this. I heard some really cool things this week.  Matthew Stead: Yeah, I, I, at breakfast this morning, I was sitting to two guys, one from Canada, one from the US and they were talking about Repowering. One guy's got GE turbines. He didn't know that he could put a vestas in a cell on a G turbine.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Matthew Stead: And so these guys have exchanged details. Ban.

Electricity demand in the US is rising faster than it has in decades, driven by AI and a wave of investment in domestic manufacturing. But with transmission lines and other electricity infrastructure taking years to permit and build, how can America secure the power it needs fast enough to remain competitive?In this special episode of The Energy Gang, recorded at the ACORE Grid Forum in Washington DC, host Ed Crooks speaks with industry leaders, innovators, and policymakers tackling the challenge of “speed to power”, and asks them for their ideas on how to accelerate the build-out of the next grid.Ed begins the episode with Heather Reams, President of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, who explains why bipartisan consensus on permitting reform is finally within reach, and what it will take to sustain political will through an election year.Next, Richard Kauffman, Chair of the Coalition for Green Capital, shares his perspective on how creative financing models and public-private partnerships can unlock investment for distributed and community-scale energy projects that strengthen the grid from the ground up.Ed then speaks with Rob Gramlich, Founder and President of Grid Strategies LLC, who breaks down the regulatory and planning challenges slowing progress on transmission and offers insight into the reforms needed to modernise America's grid for a new era of demand.Technology can help find solutions faster. Theodore Paradise, Chief Policy and Grid Strategy Officer at CTC Global, discusses how advanced conductors with carbon fibre cores can double transmission capacity without building a single new line. He also explains how CTC's new partnership with Google is accelerating the deployment of new transmission technology.Finally, Ray Long, President and CEO of ACORE, joins Ed to bring all the threads together, highlighting how political leadership, technology, and finance must converge if the US is to meet its rising power needs and remain globally competitive.This episode was recorded at the ACORE Grid Forum in Washington DC.You can also watch the full conversation in video format on YouTube - just search Energy Gang.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Electrification is surging, AI data centres are multiplying, and volatility is rising on both sides of the meter. Can storage step in as the flexible backbone the US grid now needs? Host Sylvia Leyva Martinez is joined by Joanna Martin Ziegenfuss, General Manager for Strategic Market Development (North America), and Ruchira Shah, General Manager of Software Product Management at Wärtsilä Energy Storage. Together they unpack how high-performance hardware paired with sophisticated control software delivers real-time flexibility, from synthetic inertia and fast frequency response to price arbitrage and microgrid operation. The conversation tracks the shift from treating storage as a bolt-on to renewables to viewing it as a core reliability asset. Sylvia, Joanna and Ruchi explore how AI-driven load growth and volatile demand profiles change planning assumptions; why interconnection queues are pushing some data centres toward on-site generation plus batteries; and how market rules and policy must evolve to reward flexibility and sub-second response. They also dig into software's role in future-proofing assets as grid requirements tighten, and where innovators are already meeting new performance thresholds.If you're navigating project economics, market design or grid operations in a fast-changing landscape, this episode offers a pragmatic look at what's working, what's missing, and why storage is set to anchor a resilient, decarbonised grid. This episode is brought to you by Wärtsilä Energy Storage – Wärtsilä delivers high performing, large-scale energy storage systems by combining sophisticated software, robust safety, and long‑term reliability—empowering utility, IPP, and data center customers to maximize energy value and investment returns. To learn more, visit: https://www.wartsila.com/energy/energy-storage?utm_source=woodmac&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=energy_storage_saving_the_grid&utm_content=hostSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As wind energy continues to grow in Canada, so does the body count for migratory bats.Biologist Cori Lausen has spent years advocating to help prevent bats from being killed by wind turbines. She even helped inform the rules around wind energy development and bats in Alberta. But she worries it may have been too little too late to prevent some species from going extinct. Molly Segal travels from Alberta wind farms to BC's forests to discover if there's a way to save bats without disrupting getting renewable energy from turbines. Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

What happens when the surge in electricity demand comes faster than we can build the infrastructure to support it? Live in front of an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, host Ed Crooks leads a conversation on the future of the US energy grid, skyrocketing load from data centers and electrification, and why politics keeps getting in the way of practical solutions. Neil Chatterjee, the former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), has spent a long time working on the interaction of markets and policy in energy. He says: “America needs to take the politics out – or the lights go out.” Is overzealous federal regulation really undermining the reliability of the grid? How can we win support for realistic solutions that will keep the lights on and ChatGPT on line. Joining Ed and Neil to discuss these questions is regular guest Amy Myers Jaffe, who is director of the Energy, Climate Justice & Sustainability Lab at NYU. She proposes that AI might not be the cause of both blackouts and a climate catastrophe. She argues that we might actually save more energy from using AI than we consume in powering the data centers that support it.Debating the issues with Amy, Ed and Neil is Cecilio Velasco, managing director in infrastructure at KKR, a global investment firm that deploys capital in infrastructure. Cecilio brings the investor view on what it will take to unlock the trillions in capital needed for a reliable and resilient energy system in the age of AI. The panel address the uncomfortable truth that the US may need every available electron – from wind and solar to batteries to nuclear power and gas – to meet its goals.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen

As global energy systems evolve, emerging economies face a defining challenge: how to secure affordable power for today while investing in the low-carbon solutions that will drive tomorrow's growth. Can energy diversification unlock a new era of industrial development, resilience, and inclusive prosperity?In the third and final episode of our special series ahead of ADIPEC 2025, host Ed Crooks is joined by Charlotte Wolff-Bye, Group Chief Sustainability Officer at PETRONAS, and Andrew Smart, Senior Managing Director at Accenture. Together, they explore how countries in Asia, the Middle East and beyond are using integrated energy strategies to build stronger, fairer economies.Charlotte explains how PETRONAS is redefining its role as a national energy company: supporting Malaysia's growth through lower-carbon development, capacity-building, and nature-based solutions. She outlines how the company's investments in renewables, hydrogen, and carbon capture are creating skilled jobs, building local supply chains, and delivering a “just transition” that lifts communities.Andrew shares Accenture's perspective from the Middle East, where nations are emerging as pivotal connectors between the Global North and South-linking capital, technology, and opportunity. He discusses how digital innovation, AI, and regional interconnection are reshaping resilience and competitiveness, while new financing and regulatory models aim to make clean-energy investment bankable at scale.The message from emerging economies is clear: energy transition and economic development can must advance hand-in-hand. Finally, the group considers what a decade of progress might bring us, including more collaborations across borders and across sectors. They explain why new connections such as regional power grids, diversified supplies, and joined-up policies and corporate strategies point to brighter futures for energy and human development.This is the third and final special episode sponsored by ADIPEC 2025, where the theme is Energy Intelligence Impact. The event brings together 205,000+ attendees and 1,800+ speakers in Abu Dhabi from 3–6 November 2025. The Energy Gang will be recording live at the event. Join us there to be part of the conversation.Learn more and register at adipec.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Everyone agrees it takes too long and costs too much to build energy infrastructure in America, but what exactly needs fixing, and can we make progress without rolling back vital environmental protections?In this special episode of Energy Gang, recorded live at the ACORE Grid Forum in Washington D.C., host Ed Crooks takes a deep dive into one of the most complex and consequential issues in US energy policy: permitting reform. Ed begins the episode in conversation with Matt Christiansen, partner at Wilson Sonsini and former General Counsel at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Drawing on his experience inside the commission, Matt explains where the real choke points lie in the permitting process, how federal and state powers intersect, and what the newly confirmed FERC commissioners could do to accelerate much-needed grid investment.Later, Ed sits down with three experts who work daily on these challenges in Congress and the private sector: Elizabeth Horner, partner at ArentFox Schiff and former counsel to Senators Shelley Moore Capito and John Barrasso; Daniel Palken, Director of Infrastructure for Energy and Permitting at Arnold Ventures; and Jeremy Horan, Permitting Lead at ACORE. Together, they unpack the politics behind reform, the relationship between permitting and transmission planning, and the growing urgency created by surging power demand from data centers and new manufacturing.The group also discusses the mood in Washington, and hopes that bipartisan momentum can be built to support pragmatic, economy-wide permitting reform.This episode is the first of two recorded live at the ACORE Grid Forum, where industry leaders, regulators, and policymakers came together to discuss the future of America's electricity system.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This special wrap-up episode of Interchange Recharged takes listeners on a fast tour of the entire carbon capture value chain, from industrial emitters and LNG developers to UK transport and storage pioneers. Host Sylvia Leyva Martinez, Research Director at Wood Mackenzie, brings together three leaders shaping how CCUS moves from theory to reality.First, James Lopez, Subsurface CO₂ Storage Advisor at CEMEX, explains why cement's process emissions make it one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise and why storage certainty is now the key enabler for investment. He shares how CEMEX is identifying and evaluating CO₂ storage hubs across global sites, and why capture without a permitted storage solution is a business risk few emitters can take. “CCUS doesn't work if you only have the C,” he says, “you need the full chain.”Next, Glenn Wilson, Chief Financial Officer at Coastal Bend LNG, discusses how LNG economics and carbon capture can work hand in hand. Designed from day one as a low-carbon project, Coastal Bend LNG is integrating capture across both pre-treatment and post-combustion stages, aiming for near-zero emissions. Glenn explains how 45Q tax credits and the sale of verified environmental attributes create a dual-revenue model, and why tokenising the carbon intensity of each LNG cargo could redefine transparency in global energy trade. “We're not just reducing emissions,” he says, “we're creating a new market for verified carbon value.”Finally, Nick Terrell, Executive Director at Carbon Catalyst, joins from the UK to reveal how depleted gas fields are being repurposed into next-generation carbon storage sites. Following the country's first offshore CO₂ injection test, he shares how reusing North Sea infrastructure is cutting costs, driving bankability, and opening the door to cross-border storage for European emitters. As policy alignment grows between the UK and EU, Terrell argues that liberalisation and private capital will be the next accelerators. “Once we have more FIDs,” he says, “finance, technology, and data will do the rest.”From the cement kiln to the seabed, this episode captures the energy and optimism emerging across the CCUS ecosystem - a clear sign that carbon capture is moving from cautious planning to confident execution.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nuclear power is back at the centre of the global energy conversation again. Is a real renaissance in the industry under way? Or are we just in another moment of excitement before familiar challenges emerge and the hype cycle turns down again?In the second of three special episodes ahead of ADIPEC 2025, host Ed Crooks speaks with Dr Sama Bilbao y León, Director General of the World Nuclear Association, about how the role of nuclear power in a world of turbocharged electricity demand growth and continuing pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions.Sama explains how nuclear power has shifted from an afterthought at climate summits to a cornerstone of countries' decarbonisation strategies. COP28 in Dubai in 2023 marked a turning point, she says. 199 countries formally recognised nuclear power as essential to meeting their climate goals, and 31 of them committed to triple nuclear generation capacity by 2050. Investment is accelerating, with new projects breaking ground across Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. And where new developments are slow, countries are embracing lower-cost options, including extending plant lifetimes and restarting previously retired reactors.The discussion explores the growing influence of AI and data centres, which give new relevance to nuclear because of their round-the-clock need for electricity. AI is part of a new alignment of conditions that mean that this time the momentum behind nuclear power is real, Sama argues. Financing is available, governments are pragmatic, and the tech giants are now among the most vocal advocates for 24/7 clean baseload power.Sama and Ed also unpack the rise of small modular reactors (SMRs). Factory-built to a larger degree, repeatable, and scalable, SMRs could open new opportunities for industrial clusters, remote regions, and energy-hungry digital infrastructure. They may not be the answer to all the challenges the nuclear industry faces, but they should definitely have a role to play. However, Sama warns that probably only a handful of designs will survive the early shake-out that will be needed to streamline the SMR industry. Finally, the conversation turns to policy and politics. In a more polarised world, nuclear is emerging as rare common ground, backed by governments seeking climate progress, energy security, and economic competitiveness. Sama calls for a balanced system that values integration over ideology: renewables, nuclear, and smarter grids working in tandem.This is the second of three special episodes sponsored by ADIPEC 2025, where the theme is Energy Intelligence Impact. The event brings together 205,000+ attendees and 1,800+ speakers in Abu Dhabi from 3–6 November 2025. The Energy Gang will be recording live at the event. Join us there to be part of the conversation. Learn more and register at adipec.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the surprising story of how Texas – rich in oil and gas – became America's biggest producer of wind energy. For our first episode, Ryan and Anjali talk with Pat Wood, once George W. Bush's right hand man and head of Texas's Public Utility Commission, to uncover the innovative approach that turned Texas into a renewable energy powerhouse. It's a story about what could get done before partisan politics got in the way of good climate policy, and it shows that economic incentives for consumers, government, and companies can play a huge role in supercharging clean energy.For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscriptsHow to Be a Better Human is nominated for the Signal Award for Best Advice & How To. Vote here!Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyou Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Ed Crooks talks to Jason Liu, Chief Executive of Wood Mackenzie and co-author (with Chief Analyst Simon Flowers) of a new book, Connected, about the fast-changing world of energy. They are also joined by Sunaina Ocalan, formerly Senior Director for Corporate Strategy & Climate at the oil and gas company Hess, now Senior Analyst and Co-Head for Americas Energy & Transition at Bernstein Research. Together, they explore how energy leaders can plan, invest and operate operate in a world where different sectors, technologies and geographies are interconnected in more powerful and complex ways than ever before.They talk about the language of “the energy transition”, and whether it can lead to misconceptions. Global demand for hydrocarbons is still growing, and they will continue to play a critical role in our energy system for decades to come, even as new supply from renewables and other low-carbon sources surges higher. A wider appreciation of that reality is driving a shift from siloed thinking about individual sectors to integrated solutions. For example, companies are increasingly looking at pairing solar and storage with gas generation to meet demand from data centers for reliable low-carbon power.Sunaina takes us inside the the thinking of energy leaders as they assess strategies and investment decisions. She sets out a practical approach to scenario analysis, with “exit ramps” so companies can pivot as facts change. The aim isn't to predict one future, but to be ready for a range of possible outcomes. That means balancing the advantages and disadvantages of a wide range of technologies, and taking a strategic view through short-term fluctuations as far as possible. Effective decision-making is impossible without reliable data. Jason warns about three traps: using too little real data, leaning on synthetic/modelled data without ground truth, and poor integration across different sectors. Data collection technology is advancing rapidly, and with sensors, satellites and market intelligence, decision-makers can increasingly see what's really happening with precision and granular detail, often in real time.Then there's AI. Like other industries, the world of energy is being transformed by the tools that have become available over the past few years. Scenario runs have been cut from months to minutes, with hundreds of models combined to give a comprehensive coherent picture. AI tools can even assess the best models to use on particular data sets: a capability Jason calls hyper-modelling. And still there is a vital role for human intelligence and judgement, to find and interpret the information that the AI tools miss. The challenges in the energy sector today are vast. It is a cliche to say that uncertainty is higher than ever, but today it genuinely seems true. The pace of innovation in AI is changing the world in ways that have never been seen before. But the opportunity is vast, too. The energy industry will need $75 trillion or more in investment over the next 25 years, to meet ever-growing demand while reducing the impact on the environment. The businesses that succeed in making the most of this opportunity will be the ones that get three things right: the right data, the right AI capabilities, and the right people, all brought together to deliver actionable insights. Download the book (free): Connected: Bringing predictability to the increasingly uncertain world of energy.Let us know what you think. We're on X, at @theenergygang and Bluesky, at ‪@theenergygang.bsky.social. Make sure you're following the show so you don't miss an episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Low-carbon hydrogen has taken a few knocks in the headlines lately. There have been cancelled projects and fewer splashy announcements. Policy support has been jittery. Is momentum fading, or are we simply moving out of the hype phase and into the serious work of delivery? Host Ed Crooks puts that question to two industry leaders who are aiming to build hydrogen businesses at scale: Pierre-Étienne Franc, CEO of HY24, and Alex Tancock, CEO of Intercontinental Energy.Pierre-Étienne argues the market is normalising rather than stalling. The projects that are reaching final investment decision have risen sharply in size, and production of electrolyser modules has scaled from tens of megawatts to hundreds of megawatts. One crucial change is that the centre of gravity of the industry is shifting toward Asia and the Middle East. The first wins can come where hydrogen already has a job to do: swapping grey molecules for green in fertilisers and refining. In the steel industry, the green premium for low-emissions metal looks manageable. And over time, hydrogen can start meeting power and industrial demand via ammonia and methanol. For heavy trucks, hydrogen may have a role as a complement to battery electric vehicles, deployed where long charge times and grid bottlenecks make them impractical.Alex explains his production model. His 26-gigawatt Australian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara would decarbonise roughly 4% of the region's iron-ore output. It's designed as repeatable “LEGO blocks”: the project can be build out with dozens of near-identical phases that drive down cost with each addition.Some in the low-carbon hydrogen industry used to talk about how $1/kg was the production cost that would be needed for large-scale deployment. Alex says that benchmark is no longer relevant. What matters now is capex, the supply chain, and the cost of capital, he says, and China's ultra-automated factories are slashing equipment costs. However, Europe still needs clearer rules to unlock demand. For sectors like sustainable aviation fuel, durable policy will be essential while costs remain high. This is the first of three special episodes recorded in the run-up to the ADIPEC 2025 conference. Its theme: Energy. Intelligence. Impact. ADIPEC has sponsored this series to invite more of you to join the conversation in Abu Dhabi on 3–6 November 2025, alongside 205,000+ attendees and 1,800+ speakers. The Energy Gang will be on the ground recording during the event, come and find us to share your perspective. Find out more and register at adipec.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the surprising story of how Texas – rich in oil and gas – became America's biggest producer of wind energy. For our first episode, Ryan and Anjali talk with Pat Wood, once George W. Bush's right hand man and head of Texas's Public Utility Commission, to uncover the innovative approach that turned Texas into a renewable energy powerhouse. It's a story about what could get done before partisan politics got in the way of good climate policy, and it shows that economic incentives for consumers, government, and companies can play a huge role in supercharging clean energy.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyou Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded live on day two of Wood Mackenzie's CCUS Conference in Houston, this episode of Interchange Recharged explores how carbon capture is advancing from state-level regulation to real-world innovation and global market trends.Host Sylvia Leyva Martinez begins with Lily Barkau, Groundwater Section Manager at the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, who explains how Wyoming became one of the first states to secure Class VI primacy and why local leadership is key to building trust, speeding up permitting, and ensuring long-term stewardship of CO₂ storage.Next, Katherine Hough of GEVO connects policy with practice, describing how her team links biogenic CO₂, carbon sequestration, and sustainable aviation fuel to create a truly circular carbon economy. Her insights show how business models, not just technology, are making carbon management commercially viable.Finally, Sylvia sits down with Ed Crooks, Vice Chair, Americas at Wood Mackenzie and host of Energy Gang, for a wide-angle look at how policy clarity, AI-driven demand, and global energy dynamics are shaping the next phase of CCUS.From permitting to project finance to public perception, this on-the-ground episode captures the collaborative energy driving carbon capture forward—and marks a rare crossover between Wood Mackenzie's two flagship podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the surprising story of how Texas – rich in oil and gas – became America's biggest producer of wind energy. For our first episode, Ryan and Anjali talk with Pat Wood, once George W. Bush's right hand man and head of Texas's Public Utility Commission, to uncover the innovative approach that turned Texas into a renewable energy powerhouse. It's a story about what could get done before partisan politics got in the way of good climate policy, and it shows that economic incentives for consumers, government, and companies can play a huge role in supercharging clean energy.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This special episode of Interchange Recharged brings together finance, law, and technology leaders shaping the path to commercial carbon capture. Host Sylvia Leyva Martinez explores how capital, regulation, and innovation are converging to turn early-stage CCUS projects into bankable reality.The conversation opens with Omer Farooq, Head of Sustainable Asset Finance at Bank of America, on how one of the world's largest banks is approaching carbon capture — from financing first-of-a-kind projects to assessing new business models and risk structures. Omer explains why point-source capture is already investable, why direct air capture still has hurdles to clear, and why incentives like 45Q remain the backbone of the economics. “Policy drives energy,” he says, “and transport and permitting are the next frontiers.”Next, Liz McGinley, Partner at Bracewell LLP, joins to unpack the evolving U.S. regulatory landscape. She discusses the expanded 45Q tax credit, the lingering uncertainty around the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, and why the slow pace of pipeline permitting has become a bottleneck for deployment. Yet, she says, investor confidence is growing fast — driven by clarity on incentives and insurance mechanisms to manage geological risk.Finally, Shahul Hameed, Vice President of Global Oil & Gas Measurement Instrumentation at Emerson, explains how technology is catching up with policy. He shares how decades of oil and gas expertise are being repurposed for CO₂ transport and storage, and how automation, measurement accuracy, and data integrity are helping to de-risk projects. From AI-driven analytics to mass-based metering, Shahul outlines how precision is becoming the new currency of CCUS.From finance and legal frameworks to field-level innovation, this episode captures the mood on the ground in Houston — one of optimism, collaboration, and rapid evolution. As Sylvia concludes, “Finance follows certainty. The incentives are there, the technology is advancing, and the industry is learning fast.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the surprising story of how Texas – rich in oil and gas – became America's biggest producer of wind energy. For our first episode, Ryan and Anjali talk with Pat Wood, once George W. Bush's right hand man and head of Texas's Public Utility Commission, to uncover the innovative approach that turned Texas into a renewable energy powerhouse. It's a story about what could get done before partisan politics got in the way of good climate policy, and it shows that economic incentives for consumers, government, and companies can play a huge role in supercharging clean energy.TED Talks Daily is nominated for the Signal Award for Best Conversation Starter Podcast. Vote here!Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded in front of a packed room at NYU's Kimmel Center during Climate Week NYC, Ed Crooks and Amy Myers Jaffe moderate a debate on the high-stakes topic of AI and energy. They dig deep into the questions raised by the surge of investment in data centers: what it means for grid stability and electricity bills, and how new technologies and market structures can help the power industry adapt.Climate Week this year often felt more like AI Week, given how many discussions were centred around it. To explore the issues, the team Ed and Amy are joined by representatives of two of the key companies at the heart of the revolution. Josh Parker is Head of Sustainability at NVIDIA, and Craig Sundstrom is Head of Energy & Sustainability Policy at AWS. Xizhou Zhou, Wood Mackenzie's Head of Power and Renewables, also joins the discussion, to add his perspectives on how the industry is changing The load shock is real. Xizhou says that more than 116 GW of US data centers are under construction or fully committed to interconnect in the next few years: equivalent to about 15% of US peak load today. After two decades of flat demand, the electricity industry must rebuild its muscle memory for rapid infrastructure build-out. US power prices went up 6% in the past year, with rates in some states going up far more. What is driving that surge? And what can be done to provide some relief for hard-pressed consumers? One answer comes from rapid progress in the technologies that make AI possible, including the chips. NVIDIA's Josh Parker notes NVIDIA has cut energy use for inference tasks by 100,000× over the past decade ,and by about 30× in just the past two years. Craig from Amazon explains how new grid-enhancing technologies could quickly make a difference, pointing to an AWS/RMI study showing that 6.5 GW of extra capacity could be freed up on the PJM grid without building any new transmission lines. He adds that AI is already helping in California, where smart battery dispatch is cutting costs in real time. Data centers don't only use electricity for computation: they create a lot of heat, too. Josh says there are ways to use that heat, and describes Scandinavian projects that use it for their local district heating networks. With geothermal and new small modular reactors unlikely to reach widespread deployment until well into the 2030s, the panel agrees that the real solutions in the next few years lie in upgrading transmission, expanding storage, redesigning rates, and building in flexibility.It's a busy and lively discussion, with a couple of questions from the audience answered by the panel. If you have any further questions or comments on the show, we'd love to hear them. You can comment on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or find us on YouTube and leave a comment there. Thanks!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For COP30, the international climate talks in Brazil in November, the countries of the world are supposed to roll out their new Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs: their commitments to cut emissions. China's NDC is particularly eagerly awaited: it is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Its NDC has been described as the most important document that will be published this year. In this edition of the Energy Gang, recorded at New York University, host Ed Crooks and regular guest Amy Myers Jaffe (Director of NYU's Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab) explore the security, technology and climate implications of China's energy policy. They are joined by someone who knows a lot about China's role in the energy transition: David Sandalow, who is the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. He talks through China's rapid clean energy rollout, from solar to EVs, and its implications for the race for dominance in AI. We also welcome back Joseph Webster of the Atlantic Council, who studies China's energy system and the implications for geopolitics.China's energy surge in recent years has been staggering. The country added 217 gigawatts of solar capacity in 2023, and kept growing into 2024 and 2025. It is also leading the world in batteries and electric vehicles. Joseph explains how China's energy investments intersect with military tech, particularly in AI and batteries, positioning China as a global leader in energy and technology innovation. Is the US struggling to keep up?Then, late drama! While we were recording, China finally released its new NDC, pledging a relatively modest 7-10% emissions reduction from peak levels. Some other countries and climate campaigners had hoped for more ambition. But the numbers involved are still staggering. The NDC sets a target of expanding wind and solar capacity to 3,600 GW by 2035, six times 2020 levels, and three times the entire generation capacity of the US, in all technologies. Ed, Amy, David and Joseph react to the news in real time and debate what it means for energy in the US and beyond.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At Climate Week NYC continues, the hottest topic is the question of how to meet growing demand for electricity while cutting emissions. In New York State, electricity use is expected to increase by 25% over the next 15 years. To meet that demand, the state plans to add tens of gigawatts or renewables. But that is not enough. It also wants more “dispatchable, emissions-free” power to keep the grid stable, and that includes new nuclear reactors.Back in June, Governor Kathy Hochul asked the New York Power Authority to move ahead with at least 1 gigawatt of new nuclear generation. And the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is exploring what it needs to do to make that happen. Doreen Harris is President and CEO, and she explains to host Ed Crooks that nuclear is a central pillar of an emissions-free power mix.She says New York's plan isn't about bringing back old reactors like the ones at the Indian Point nuclear plant, controversially closed in 2021. The state wants new designs that are safer, modular, and more efficient. NYSERDA is leading a “Master Plan for Responsible Advanced Nuclear Development”, expected to be published by end of 2026, to explore technologies ranging from large reactors to small modular and micro reactors. Ed and Doreen discuss the plan, and the barriers and opportunities for nuclear in the US.Support from federal, state and local governments is going to be essential to make new nuclear construction a reality. But backing from the private sector will also be essential. Nick Campanella is a Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays investment bank. He says new nuclear investment will move forward only if three pieces line up: clear policy support, customers willing to buy the power, and an EPC ready to build the plant.Nick and Ed discuss the cost overruns and delays that have plagued nuclear projects in the West. Hyperscalers might be able to get costs down by committing to multiple reactor builds at once. The ‘first-of-a-kind' project is always risky. The ‘nth-of-a-kind' developments that benefit from the lessons learned on previous projects should be more predictable, and less costly. Nick believes it is quite possible that a final investment decision to build at least one new nuclear plant in the US is very possible before the end of 2026. If that happens, the first project to go ahead could be for large plants, not small or micro reactors. The US grid doesn't need tens of megawatts; it needs thousands.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.