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The crew discusses the White House missing its offshore wind appeal deadline, France’s 12 GW tender with restrictions on Chinese permanent magnets, and WOMA 2027 planning. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” 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. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen. I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, who is in Australia, and our newest guest is Nikki Briggs, who is the new CCO of Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Welcome to the show, Nikki.  Nikki Briggs: Thank you. Nice to, nice to be here.  Allen Hall: So there’s the full docket, and Nikki’s gonna get indoctrinated today to the podcast, and she’s gonna be holding on tight because we have a really, uh, very controversial podcast. I think once Rosemary gets in here and starts talking about. Offshore wind. And I wanna lead off this week ’cause it is a big deal, although not many people are talking about it, that, uh, the White House missed a deadline to file an [00:01:00] appeal against all the offshore wind farms in the United States. And the feeling was, is that there was gonna be an appeal and they’re gonna push to slow down those projects or cancel those projects. And obviously, uh, one of the purchasers of one of the sites decided to sell it back to the US for about a. Billion US dollars, but the administration missed a key deadline for appeals, uh, which may indicate that they have other things to do besides fight offshore wind Now. The question really remains is, is this going to continue on that nothing is going to happen. Uh, hopefully all the wind projects that are being built at the moment will complete and we’ll be providing power to all the onshore locations, particularly up and down along the East coast. But, uh, there’s still a long way to go here. Rosemary, I know there’s been a lot of concern about what’s happened in the United States on offshore [00:02:00] wind for several months now. You think this is gonna be just a change of direction because there’s other things happening in the world.  Rosemary Barnes: To me, it just sounded like too hard to, unlikely to actually succeed and kind of keeps on drawing attention back to the issue. So better to just kind of let it quietly fade away and not talk about it anymore. Allen Hall: And there is a financial emphasis for those companies that have these wind farms because if they can get their projects done. They get paid sooner. They can produce power, obviously they’re gonna get paid sooner. So there is a big incentive to push, push, push, push. And a lot of the projects are delivering power right now. And I think the, the biggest one, which is uh, dominion Energy’s Project of Coastal Virginia, offshore Wind is doing that. So. All these wind projects that are kinder in a way I think are going to finish, which is gonna be a, a big relief to a lot of the states.  Rosemary Barnes: I don’t wanna talk about us, um, politics because I am not living there. But don’t you have midterms coming up and potential [00:03:00] for the situation to dramatically change? Like, my understanding is that the expectation is that there will be. More, um, democratic involvement in, in decision making after the midterms. And so surely, you know, like if they don’t, if they’re not acting now, then things are likely to be easier from here on out. Is that, is that a correct interpretation of what’s going on over there?  Allen Hall: Not correct. And Nikki, you can jump in here too. Congress can change and does every two years there’s elections in the US and so the full House of Representatives is voted in or out. So all 435 members of the House of Representatives have an election, but about a third of the Senate has an election. So the Senate doesn’t change as dramatically as the House does, but, uh, for everything that’s been codified into law, which happened a year and a half ago, uh, the executive branch can kind of do what they [00:04:00] want there. So there will be very little that Congress can do. Once a law is a pass and the executive branch can continue on,  Rosemary Barnes: it’s two year terms for your house of reps. Allen Hall: Yeah. It’s two years terms. Yeah.  Rosemary Barnes: That’s not very long. That’s not very good job security.  Allen Hall: It was never meant to be  Rosemary Barnes: in school. About a thousand years ago, I learned that, um, the Australian government is, is, is largely based on a combination of um, UK and. US government basically. But I think it’s a lot closer to the us. Um, and yeah, we have, I, I think we have not, we haven’t got fixed terms, but it’s usually about every three years and yeah, you lose a few, a few months, but we don’t, we don’t do the big song and dance about it that you do with all of the, um, pre-selection and all that stuff. We don’t do that. So our, our system is a lot quicker. Um, so yeah, I just wonder like how, how do you actually govern when you have to spend half of your time worried about, um, getting in and then you can only make plans for basically one year [00:05:00] ahead or two years ahead, like at the absolute maximum.  Allen Hall: That’s the problem with House of Representative is you nailed it right on the head, which is they’re constantly fundraising and trying to get to the next election. Two years is a short amount of time anymore. They didn’t used to do it like that, where the last six months, maybe a year were campaign time, but pretty much once they get an election over, which happens in November, they’re already campaigning for the next one. So it does lead to a lot of chaos where things don’t happen in the House of Representatives like. They used to maybe 20, 25 years ago. It’s changed dramatically and I don’t think Australia has that same issue weirdly enough. Although I would say you’re becoming more like the US in a lot of ways. That’s not one of them.  Rosemary Barnes: We’ve got some, there’s some things in place, like one of the advantages of basing our system on other countries as we could take. Take the bits that worked and see what, what we could already see what didn’t really work and um, you know, try to, try to take it, um, try to take care of that, ensure that it couldn’t happen. [00:06:00] So  Allen Hall: the offshore wind piece in America rolls into other offshore wind, uh, across Europe in that, uh, although US is reconsidering offshore wind in some sense. Europe is not. In fact, uh, France is getting very active. So you remember the France has been trying to launch, uh, offshore wind tenders for about two years. So you keep hearing France is gonna go to offshore wind, and then it didn’t really happen. Well, that political gridlock is, uh, over really how to pay for the renewables, uh, and how they’re gonna try to finance this thing. Meanwhile, uh, France has, uh. Less than what? Two gigawatts of offshore wind operating against a, a national target of about 15 gigawatts by 2035. Uh, so there’s a lot of catching up to do the 12. They just had a 12 gigawatt package. They announced where, uh, they, they’re [00:07:00] attempting to really catch up all at once, uh, but buried inside of this tender. Is a supply chain rule, which is very unique. So coming outta Scotland and all the things that happen with Ming Yang in Scotland, France is doing something very similar. France is limiting the percentage or the quantity of permanent magnets that can come from China. So France is saying, Hey, they don’t wanna get locked into an offshore, offshore wind supply chain that involves China specifically for, but they’re probably the most important ingredient, which is. Permanent magnets. The Netherlands is moving ahead also and has offered two one gigawatt offshore wind farms, and it’ll be permitting those pretty quickly. So all of a sudden, the offshore wind effort for some of the countries that have been quiet in Netherlands in particular, and then France, all of a sudden probably ’cause of what’s happening in the. The straight in the Middle East have decided to speed up their offshore wind [00:08:00] projects. Is this gonna be the right move? Do you think they’re gonna stick with this process of, of completing these projects or is this a spur of the moment decision that they’re gonna change their minds later on in the next year or two once things calm down to the Middle East? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I mean, if it is a, a knee jerk response to the. Specific right now problem and doesn’t seem very well advised because it’s gonna be years before they actually see any electricity entering their grid. I mean, France is a bit different to other European countries ’cause they’ve got so much nuclear and in general, uh, I think with the exception of like the year before last, they had that summer where it was really hot. They had heat waves and they had to shut down a lot of. Nuclear power plants because the cooling water was too hot. They, they couldn’t, they couldn’t put it back into the river. And, um, yeah, uh, river levels were too low in some cases. So in, in that year, they did have to import energy. Um, but in general, their energy exporters. So I don’t, I, I would be surprised if this [00:09:00] was in direct response to, you know, that I don’t think they have an electricity crisis right now. Um, and, uh, yeah, I think it’s probably more of a long-term plan.  Allen Hall: Are they gonna force the OEMs to build product in country? GE already has an offshore wind blade factory in France. And, uh, they can get a lot of components in Europe for sure. You could actually dictate what percentage of the wind turbine is built in France and what is built in Europe and what’s gonna be left to be imported in from China. You think this is where everybody is headed?  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I mean, I think it is. Smart move to make sure that you don’t have one single country locking down any critical part of your supply chain. So I’ll agree with that. I haven’t seen the exact wording, but it’s not like it’s just banned that anything comes from China. I mean, that would be a good way to make sure that you didn’t ever get a timely, uh, a project completed in time. Um. So, you know, that makes sense. But, you know, if no one [00:10:00] project can use a hundred percent Chinese magnets or I, I don’t know the wording, maybe they’re allowed to buy, um, the rare Earth materials from China and then turn them into magnets locally. I don’t, I don’t know what the wording is, but, um, it is going to require that, you know, some new manufacturers start up and I just wonder what kind of support they’re gonna provide for that and what kind of guarantees, because it’s not, um. So straightforward to just start up a new manufacturing facility for something that has never been made in that, in that area before. Um, you know, there’s a lot of risk and hard to get financing. They’re gonna want to have some, um, guarantees from the government or some support to, you know, make sure that the risk benefit is worth it.  Allen Hall: I think that’s probably the most important part of this, is the business aspect. You can’t spool up a 20 year business. In a year that’s hard to do and you’re not gonna do it if the supply chain can willy-nilly switch to an external supply chain to China, for example. So if you do set up [00:11:00] something complicated in France, I would almost bet that they would have to pass something in law and lock it in before you see a lot of investment happening that way. Similar things happen in the UK really is uh, with all the offshore wind growth and wanting to build turbines in the country. They’re gonna have to put some barriers in to keep the Chinese out, which they’re obviously doing  Rosemary Barnes: or provide direct support. They don’t necessarily need to make it a law. I think like the way we would do it in Australia is that the government would either co-invest or they would, you know, underride a loan or um, you know, guarantee revenue or something, something like that, to make all the pieces fall into place. I don’t think, um, law is the only way to do it.  Allen Hall: France obviously is gonna be able to choose from a couple of wind OEMs. Where do you think they’ll go is It’s pretty much right now, I guess it’s Siemens and Vestas for sure. I’m not even sure GE is offering a offshore wind turbine at the moment. Does France [00:12:00] have a Siemens or Vestas stake at the minute? Rosemary Barnes: Not that I know of, but what’s happening to the um, Bel Factory? The GE Blade Factory? That was. They were making blades for hall aids, which is the troubled platform that kind of turned them off. Offshore wind altogether. Um, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know what’s happened to that one.  Allen Hall: Remember that GE sold the LM factory, what up in Poland and Vestas ended up buying that? I wonder if something similar happened here.  Rosemary Barnes: Uh, yeah. I dunno. I need to, we should have, we should have looked it up before we started recording.  Allen Hall: The thing about this podcast is that we start putting the puzzle pieces together. Before the, the pieces are out on the table. And when you see the way that GE has really slowed down offshore, obviously they talked about it a number of times that they don’t like the offshore business and would like to finish vineyard wind and all the commitments they have and then pause until they can make sure they’re gonna make money on offshore wind. Vestas is going crazy and has made a lot of sales, [00:13:00] and I know Siemens is trying to get back into that offshore market. So you really have two players. If you are not gonna choose a Chinese turbine, you see image and you have Vestas. But onshoring, that work is an obvious, uh, French move, I think just like it was in the uk. Rosemary Barnes: I mean, assuming that they are not gonna be choosing, uh, Chinese manufacturers, given that they’re trying to move away from that, um, yeah. Complete dominance, but I mean, why couldn’t Ming Yang or someone supply turbines but just, you know, get their, their magnets from a local supplier instead? I mean, it’s very common that, you know, like European manufacturers, if they wanna sell in India, then they have to have a certain local, um, you know, amount of local manufacturing. So. Why wouldn’t a, a Chinese company do the same thing? So, yeah, I don’t think they’ve only got two choices, but. Those will be the obvious ones.  Allen Hall: As wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it difficult. That’s why the Uptime podcast [00:14:00] 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. So Rosemary, after the successful WMA 2026 event in Melbourne, in which I know I mispronounced, but you’re just gonna have to let it go. There’s been a a ton of inquiries about WMA 2027 and I. I’m thinking, man, we just finished moment 2026. You ready for 2027? The answer is yes, we need to go.  Rosemary Barnes: I think it’s because the, um, certain other Australian wind energy events are spamming everyone’s inboxes with like multiple emails a day, months out. It’s got everyone thinking, gee, this conference is super annoying. Thought about that [00:15:00] non annoying conference that I went to.  Nikki Briggs: Yeah. Well I’m not pestering people, but if anybody wants to, you know, get signed up to be a sponsor for WMA 2027, reach out to me because, you know, we’re that not annoying conference. So, um, we gotta have good sponsors. And  Rosemary Barnes: that is true. That is one thing about, about Wilmar is we keep it really cheap for attendees, but it is still a high quality conference. And the main way that we’re able to do that is because we have really good sponsors that. Um, yeah, they, they provide money obviously, to pay for, uh, a large chunk of the event, but they also don’t expect to be allowed to get up and sell at people. Um, yeah, I, I don’t even know how we managed to get such great sponsors that are, you know, happy with that trade off, but I guess that, yeah, they’ve figured out that it isn’t actually that beneficial to get up and give a sales pitch to people who. Receptive to it. It is much better to just get up and talk about all the things that you know, and then the people who have problems that can be solved by what you [00:16:00] do will naturally get in touch with you. I mean. I think it works better. That’s, that’s my entire sales sales approach. And I guess everybody at the, at the conference, that’s what, yeah, that’s what we’re relying on. I think it’s a better way  Nikki Briggs: and we’re here to help and save you money.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And the Woma 2027 website is up. Just Google. It’s, and we’re looking for sponsors, although a number of sponsors, pretty much everybody from 26 who wants to be back into twenties. 27. So we’ll be, uh, reaching out to all of you and making sure that happens. But the conference is probably gonna get bigger in 2027 just because of the demand. So we’ll be looking for a, a couple of more key sponsors. We want you to get involved as soon as possible. You should do that by, in the us. You can do that by getting a hold of, of Nikki. It’s Nikki, N-I-K-K-I dot Briggs, B-R-I-G-G s@wglightning.com. Or you can just go to Nikki’s LinkedIn page and send her an InMail and, uh, get ahold of her that way or [00:17:00] connect with her on LinkedIn and she’d be glad to help you. Now, Rosemary, I know one of the things we talked about was, uh, some of the expansion of topics for 2027. There was a lot of feedback and we are paying close attention. And thanks to everybody who sent us feedback on the conference, uh, the number of five star reviews are really high, and I, I’m, I’m still a little shocked and um, maybe embarrassed by like, wow. Uh, that’s awesome. But we wanna expand on some of the topics for next year, and we’re talking about doing a blade masterclass and that which would involve rosemary. Maybe some others talking about some of the blade issues that exist around the world. And Rosemary, what are you thinking about?  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, describing how the process works. ’cause that’s the, that’s probably one of the main things, or the main value that I bring to Australia is the time that I spent working at a, um, um. Wind turbine blade manufacturer, and you know, how does the design process work? What kind of testing do they do? What [00:18:00] does certification mean? Um, all those sorts of things. Uh, they, you might think, oh, I don’t really care about that ’cause I just use the blade once I’ve got it. But anytime you run into a problem, you do need to kind of know how all that stuff works, basically. So, um, yeah, we’ll give a, a masterclass on that topic and so you can come and get. You know, a bit of an understanding about how that works. Ask whatever questions that you’ve got that relate to your specific problems, but then, you know, even if you don’t have a problem now in the future when something comes up, you’ll have that knowledge to fall back on. And it just really helps to be able to know when something’s not right, um, when something wasn’t done right. Um, yeah, I mean there are always at some point an argument about, you know, who’s gonna pay. So it is really helpful to know if things have been done the way that they said that they would be. The way they should be. Um, yeah, but I’m also. I’m really keen to hear about what to include in the main conference. ’cause you know, it can’t be the same every year. Um, I’m super focused on, on blades and I, I think we, I [00:19:00] mean, blades is the biggest, the biggest topic in wind turbine o and m, so it makes sense that we would be focused on that and we’re, we will, but I have less of, um, yeah, in depth knowledge about what non blade issues people are really struggling with at the moment. So definitely be keen to hear from. Viewers about, um, sorry, I’ll say that again. Definitely be keen to hear about potential attendees about what topics they would wanna see covered to make sure that, yeah, it’s interesting and fresh every year.  Allen Hall: Can I circle back on the masterclass a little bit because I had my own little, little mini masterclass this past week looking at the IE specification for wind turbine blades, and I don’t know what prompted me to read that document. I thought it was gonna be a lot thicker than it was, and I was shocked at the lack of detail that on the requirement side, I always think the blade people must have millions of requirements to go [00:20:00] do. And it’s gonna be very technical and a lot of check boxes there, but turns out maybe not as many as I thought there would be. Rosemary Barnes: Oh yeah. That’s interesting that you’re, you’re surprised. Um. I mean, I haven’t worked with it closely since when I was doing my PhD, uh, the PhD was on, there was a, yeah, design of a family, family of wind turbine blades. And so, you know, I was looking at the standard to see what, um, load cases that you had to consider, you know, like the 50 year extreme gust is one of the big ones. And then, you know, various operational loads and that sort of thing. Um, it’s never gonna cover absolutely everything. But I, yeah. What, what, what issues do you see that are, are missing from it?  Allen Hall: Well, when, when I look at the airplane world and we qualify an airplane with the Federal Authority, whoever that could be, it could be Yasa in Europe, could be the FAA in the United States, there’s a pages, there are books of requirements and [00:21:00] guidance materials and details of things you must do to show that the airplane is. Safe to go fly. I figured the wind turbine world would’ve adapted that to some level to have very specific requirements on design margins and, and maybe they’re there as an electrical engineer. I can’t suss all that out, but I can usually tell how rigorous the requirements are by the weight of the document. Usually those documents make a lot of noise when you drop ’em on the desk. This was, uh, a very soft whimper. I thought, well, okay, maybe there’s a lot here I’m missing. I’m sure that I am. I’m an electrical guy. I’m gonna admit it. Right now, I don’t understand all the structural things, but on the airplane side, I know that the airplanes have a lot to do and the requirements are crazy hard, but maybe there’s a lot more tolerance in wind. Rosemary Barnes: They do include safety margins, and there is, uh. A lot more, a lot more tolerance in wind as [00:22:00] there should be because people aren’t flying and wind turbines. You know, like if there was somebody like physically seated inside every blade 24 7, then I think that you would see that the, the standard would be, would be tightened up because you know, like every tightening of the standard is going to result in an increase in cost. So I mean, the biggest difference that I. I I see between, um, arrow and wind, aside from the, the safety issue is the maintenance. There is annual maintenance and they are maintained more than that. They’re, they’re constantly doing stuff, but like if it’s possible to design it to last for 20 or 30 years without needing maintenance, and that’s the way that you want it to be. In general, blades are not supposed to be maintained until there’s a problem. Um, you know, it’s not like. Places where you know that you’re gonna be replacing grease or, um, you know, anything, anything like that that’s built for accessibility. The blades are certainly, certainly not. So yeah, I mean, [00:23:00]you’re definitely not maintaining in the same way as you are with, um, aerospace or Yeah, just aviation. Allen Hall: Howard Pinrose has the, for motor dock, has the Chaos and Caffeine podcast. Which is on YouTube and I watch that. Typically Saturday morning, I think that’s when it comes out. It’s on the weekend. And his last, uh, podcast was about the studies about general maintenance. Back to Rosemary, your point that performing general maintenance, regardless of how much there is, is less costly than trying to fix it on the fly. And that if you devote. Sufficient resources to keeping the equipment maintained in the, in the way it was intended to. You’re gonna have significantly less problems. Uh, and lower costs, but it’s surprising. Wind doesn’t do that  Rosemary Barnes: well, but I mean, the difference is that wind is designed to not be maintained. So it’s, it’s not easier engineering, or not [00:24:00] engineering. It’s not like lazy. It’s actually the opposite. It’s actually really hard to design something that won’t need to be maintained for 30 years. I mean, think about another machine that is not supposed to be looked at for 30 years and you know, that will go through the stress that a wind turbine blade does. But you know, if you think of. Yeah, anything that’s inside your blade, like think about, um, the lightning cable in a blade. Um, you know, like the, if it, if it breaks, you have to cut open the blade to get into it. And, um, most of the length of the blade, that would be, that would be what you would do. It’s huge, huge, huge repair. Um, so, you know, you design it so that that will very rarely happen in theory, you know, if everything’s working well, maybe the lightning cable is a bad example because, um, the lightning protection system is. Almost certainly the, the least well-functioning part of a, a wind turbine, I’d say. But you know, like you think about in every other part of the blade structure, you know, you design it so that it will last for 30 years easily. Um, and then [00:25:00] it’s only when several things go wrong that you would end up having to go in and do that. Um, that maintenance.  Allen Hall: This should be kind of a woma topic actually, because is it even conceivable that you could have minimal maintenance on such a. Heavy industrial piece of equipment for 30 years versus every other machine in human operation that can’t do that. What other machine, I’m sure somebody will write in about that. And if you, if you know what, a machine will operate for 30 years with no maintenance, please send us a note because I don’t know what that is.  Rosemary Barnes: No, I, I think Brent turbines are really, are really special and I think that it is, uh, like commonly misunderstood that, um, you know. Not maintaining for 30 years is, you know, somehow not in engineering correctly or making the engineering easier, but it’s the opposite. You’re making the engineering harder. The same with manufacturing of, um, the blades specifically or anything made out of composite materials. Like the tolerances are huge, but the fact is that that makes the engineering harder, not easier because it has to work at [00:26:00] any, you know, if the web is here or if it’s a hundred millimeters this way, it’s still has to work exactly the same for the exact same amount of time. So to make it low cost and reliable for that amount of time with that little maintenance is a huge job. Um, and you know, one world record that I know that wind turbines have is that the blades are the largest, like single piece component of any human made structure. There is nothing, there’s nothing bigger than, um, a wind turbine blade. Like a bridge is made of multiple different members and a airplane. Has, you know, two, two wings that don’t even, even the span of most airplanes isn’t, um, both wings together isn’t the same as the longest wind turbine blades. Like, there’s not, there’s no one big single component that’s bigger than a wind turbine blade. Not to mention the strain. Um, they bend a lot that they, they really, they really bend a lot. That’s a very. Difficult operating environment. They do millions of, of fatigue cycles in their [00:27:00] lifetime. Uh, it’s just like, you know, they’re, they’re breaking records all over the place. It’s a, it’s a super cool thing to mark on as an engineer, to be honest. Allen Hall: Okay. So at Walmart 2026, I know that was one of the discussions that popped up, uh, on the panel, was what should we expect for a lifetime? Or sort of a less re a reduced level of maintenance on a wind turbine. And the answer was maybe a year. And I thought that was a very Australian way of answering that question. It’s, it’s a real answer. I think, uh, the people that operate wind turbines know that that probably is true. You got about a year and then you gotta get on it. But financial investors don’t necessarily have that opinion about it. They think you just turn it on, let it run 30 years and collect all this money and. What we’re learning is it’s, it’s a complicated problem. And Rosemary, I think you’re 100% right. All the variables that happen during the manufacturing and the design of a wind turbine have to incorporate safety features that keep that operating for 30 years. That’s really hard to do, [00:28:00] and you’d have no way to really verify it once you shove it out the door, especially the first thousand you make. It’s almost an impossible task.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I mean there obviously there is heaps of maintenance that needs to be done to, to wind turbines, even if it is incredibly low maintenance compared to other kinds of machines. And if you are skipping that kind of maintenance or doing it incorrectly, then that is definitely a very um, Australia relevant issue. You know, everyone’s on these full service agreements. Sometimes not for the full lifetime of the the turbine. So you can imagine if you’re kind of like half-assing your maintenance for the, those first 10 years, then you’re just sending a, you know, time bomb to the next person to take over that contract. So. That’s a real challenge, but I’d see it with blades where it’s like, oh, they’re just quietly fixing, um, damages. They get the same damage over and over again and they just quietly fix it and not say anything and, or, you know, not really raise it like maybe you’re technically getting the reports, but it’s never flagged that, you know, Hey, this is a serial issue and no one’s ever investigating. What’s the [00:29:00] real root cause of this? It might be that, you know, they’re fixing it well enough to last to the end of the FSA period. And then, yeah. Oh hey. Turns out your whole fleet has a serial issue that you need to take care of now with, without the backing of the manufacturer, which, um, you know, obviously makes it about 10 times harder. Allen Hall: And that’s why you want to go to Wilma 2027 because we’re gonna to talk about that issue in a. About 20 others during the two day event. At least that’s what it’s scheduled for right now. Maybe it’ll go to a third day. Rosemary, maybe we need to add a third day because of all the topics  Rosemary Barnes: we need to move to a beach location. If we’re gonna start going for multiple days,  Allen Hall: Rosemary wants to have it in Fiji or was it Tahiti? What was the other place you were saying you would like to go to?  Rosemary Barnes: Tahiti would be fine. Um, Maldives is what I was saying, but yeah, I will accept that. It’s not that. Logical to run Australia. Um, win o and m event offshore. Allen Hall: We wanna send a congratulations to Yolanda and [00:30:00]Manuel as they have gotten married down in Mexico, uh, with all friends and family, several hundred attendees as I have learned. So congratulations to those two. And Yolanda will be back on the podcast. In the next week or two, that wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love for to hear from you, just reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe. So if you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It helps other wind energy professionals discover the show. For Rosie and Nikki, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:31:00] Podcast.

Dr. Liz Beavis, Asset Manager at Tilt Renewables, joins to discuss O&M contracts, balance of plant, and lessons from Australia’s biggest and oldest wind farms. Contact Liz on LinkedIn or by email. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” 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: Liz, welcome to the program. Thanks,  Liz Beavis: Alan. I feel I’m a long time listener. First time caller, so it’s exciting.  Allen Hall: You are a long time listener and thanks for doing that. Uh, and Liz, I just find you to be a wealth of knowledge and, uh, we met on a couple occasions since I’ve been in Australia and it’s just, uh, a fun to connect here because I think a lot of the things that are happening in Australia need to be spread around the world. A lot of, uh, good o and m practices happening in Australia, uh, from hard lessons learned. So that’s what I want to dive into today. And then the first one is, I don’t think many people realize this, that you went. From commissioning, Australia’s largest wind farm, Cooper’s gap to managing seven [00:01:00] of the 10 oldest operational wind farms in the country. So you got some of the biggest, newest to some of the oldest assets. Uh. Uh, my question is like, when you started that, did you just kind of assume like wind, wind farms or wind farms or wind turbines or wind turbines and you could just basically own and end them the same, or do, or did it just occur to you immediately like, I need to take a different plan of attack here? Liz Beavis: I think I, I knew nothing about wind farms when I turned up at Cooper’s Gap, so, so yeah, I got my, well, okay, we’ll go right back to the start. So I was working at a thermal power station and I was just thinking. There’s no future in coal. How do I get into renewables? And then a wind farm got built like 50 kilometers from my house. I can, I can see it in the horizon. Um, and I thought, oh, they’re not gonna need a chemical engineer there, but I wonder if they need a site manager or something. And then the site manager role came up, I applied for it. So the services site manager. So, [00:02:00] um. That was July, 2020. That’s when I first started listening to the podcast. ’cause I thought I better find out something about this industry before I do my job interview. And so I’ve been listening ever since. But, um, yeah, so I don’t know. I was just lucky to get that role. And I turned up and, um, I think it was the end of September, 2020 first time I’d ever set foot on a wind farm ’cause of COVID and everything. I didn’t, I didn’t go there for the interview. My manager was in Thailand. I just turned up. And, um, so they, they’d finished construc, they’d built all the towers where they hadn’t finished commissioning. And so we’re still working out of construction, dongas, you know, temporary buildings and um, and there was hundreds of people on site and it was just the absolute chaos of. Constructing a two hundred, a hundred and twenty three turbines. You know, like there’s just people everywhere. And I thought, wow, I’ve just gotta figure out what I’m supposed to be doing here. There were a few technicians. I found out how many technicians I supposed to have. Just started recruiting, started figuring out what I was supposed to be doing there, and I just [00:03:00] learned so much. In the two years we took over the new r and m building. We had failed gear, boxes, generators, transformers, overhead line, underground line, pretty much. Anything that could fail failed, and I got to see what we needed to do. Um, but through all of that, I was also thinking, oh, how do I manage this wind farm better? I don’t know anything about wind farms, and I’m reaching out to the other GE sites, but the, the next biggest site was 75 turbines, and all of the rest of them are 30 and 40. So they’re saying to me, oh, you just get a team to go around. And I’m thinking. Well, that’s six weeks of work. You know, like, like everything is so much bigger on a bigger wind farm. And then I’d reach out to the, the American sites. That had big wind farms, but their contracts were so different, and I didn’t understand at first, I started to realize, well, their contracts are completely different and their focus is different, and so they’re not facing the same issues that I’m facing. Um, and then, you know, even speaking to a wind farm in [00:04:00] Sweden that was a similar size, but they, you know, they. They have to think about climate and what work they can do in winter. So I started to, as you said, you start to think, well actually everyone farms very different. And it’s, um, you know, you can learn from others, but you really need to understand how your conditions are affecting what you can and can’t do. Um, and then, so then I got the job at Wally Power Services with as a portfolio manager for the renewables, um, fleet There. And yeah, a whole lot of really old turbines. And it was just so interesting to see that contrast between the new turbines and the old ones and um, and also being a independent service provider, what we could do and what the technicians. So many clever technicians out there on wind farms, just figuring stuff out and, and fixing things that if you tried to do that within the OEM, you get really hamstring Engineers say, oh no, you can’t. You can’t do that. You can’t fiddle with that. Whereas once you’re released from that, for better or worse, [00:05:00] the technicians are just off sorting things out. So that was really interesting to see that contrast. And now I’m with, um, tilt Renewables. So I’m the asset manager for Cooper’s Gap and Silverton Wind Farms. So I’m, I’m now seeing from the owner’s point of view how we actually manage these contracts with the OEMs and with ISPs and how we, how can we do r and m better? Matthew Stead: And from the, um, from the ISP, um, experience, um, compared to your experience now, what are some of the biggest differences that you’ve observed between the old, the other sites and the, and the new site?  Liz Beavis: Yeah, I think it, it’s really just that you’re on your own. Um, so you’re relying on good technicians. To figure things out, you can, you need a parts and service agreement with the OEM, um, so you can reach out to them and ask for support, but they’re, you are the lowest priority. So yeah, you don’t always get information, [00:06:00] so you just gotta be set up to figure things out. But then that does give you the freedom to make changes and to, to fix the things that you’re saying, whereas. Often the OEMs are so, uh, stuck with that mindset of, oh, we, we don’t want people to know we’ve got a serial defect. So we’ll just keep kind of patching things up and hopefully, hopefully no other sites find out about this. You know, instead of just saying, Hey, we know this is an issue, here’s a good way of fixing it. ’cause just all I understand, all of the liability that throws, that, that flows from that, uh, you know. You can’t handle it. Allen Hall: Does that change your perspective, knowing all those things? Do you have a, just a unique background in so many ways where you’ve seen, uh, pretty much all sides of wind operations. How do you think about that now? How are you, are you are addressing contracts differently or are you thinking about the way you staff differently just from your experience?[00:07:00] How does that play into it?  Liz Beavis: Yeah, so definitely from a owner’s point of view. I understand what the limitations are of the OEMs and the ISPs, and so I know, I know what I can push them to do and what I can’t push them to do. And even though you’ve got the contract in front of you and you know it, it says you’re gonna do this, there’s certain things where you, you know, that you need to let it slide because it’s just not reasonable to push it. You just, you just know that they can’t achieve things. Um. But then also going into new r and m contracts, you kind of know what’s critical, what to ask for, what, you know, what, what we need to make sure that we’re getting right from the start.  Allen Hall: How do you sort that out? Because I’ve heard, uh, I’ve talked to many operators. that are doing O&M and they look at the contract much like you, and then they, they look at the contract and go, okay, here’s are the things I can probably get. Here’s the things I can’t get. How did you come to that determination is just because you’ve been so close at all this time? Because I think a [00:08:00] lot of people in wind that are new look at that contract, as the rule of law and you’re gonna get everything in there. But I think the more experienced people realize it’s more of a negotiation or starting point, even  Liz Beavis: particularly, uh, like Comparing construction to O&M I say, construction’s the. sprint and O&M’s the marathon, and you’re in a relationship with this O&M provider for 10, 15, 25, 30 years, depending on your contract terms. So you can’t go in at year three and just have a big fight with each other And you know you, need to, You need to be able to work together. So it’s understanding what the value drivers are on both sides and, um. And focusing on that. So, you know, for us as the owner, we, we just want generation. So even though availability is what’s in the contract, really what we want is generation. So if we can figure things out together to get the maximum generation, and maybe that helps the O&M [00:09:00] provider save some costs because, they’re not just doing what’s in the contract, but they’re doing what actually helps us get generation. That’s, that’s kind of the. That’s how we work. And then the contracts there. If, everything falls apart, you’ve got a legal document underpinning where you can say, hold on, you were supposed to do this. This is the damages we can claim. And this is where we can go with it. But you’re not just enforcing every, clause. Because some of it’s been written so long ago, it’s not even relevant.  Allen Hall: Does that lead you down the path of shadow monitoring then?  Liz Beavis: My view is I would rather have, I would rather be at a point where I have a relationship with the OEM where we can agree that there’s no point me spending money that they’ve already spent and that. That we get access to their data. Even if I pay half of what I would spend on shadow monitoring as an additional fee to the OM provider, so they get some revenue and they provide me with the data, I think that’s a better outcome for both parties than to [00:10:00] feel like I’m there looking over their shoulder monitoring what they’re doing. So, I mean, it depends on what your relationship is, but our, our preference would be. That we’re working together and that we’re both benefiting from something rather than spending more money than we need to on doing something twice.  Matthew Stead: Maybe a question, Liz, in terms of your, you know, former, you know, thermal, uh, background, what, what sort of lessons learned or, or things did you sort of bring across from that, that previous um, experience? You know, although six years ago,  Liz Beavis: I think that the first thing was safety. There was, um. There’s a big difference and, and particularly coming into a construction site, that’s, it’s always a challenge because there’s just this time crunch and cost crunch and, and it’s all just, we need to just jump in and get everything done. We can’t stop and make sure we’re doing this safely or properly. Um, so getting my [00:11:00] team to stop thinking like that. We are here, we’re doing o and m. We’re here for the long term. If we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it properly. If we need to wait a couple of days to have the right tooling, that’s what we’re gonna do. And just kind of slow everyone down and then, and get the right procedures and the equipment and, and everything. Uh, so we did that. Um, and then. I think the other thing I’ve probably just brought across is understanding of the market. So I was quite involved, um, with thermal generation and, um, market and bidding and um, and I think if you come into Wind Farm o and m, you’re kind of separated from that because you are just there to maintain the turbines and you, you don’t care what the market’s doing, but your owner cares what the market’s doing. So being able to, to think about, well, what. What does my owner actually need? Um, and, and do that, you know, support that as well. Then you, you’re better at [00:12:00] delivering the o and m,  Allen Hall: right? Because it does add a little bit of perspective to it. I see a lot of operations and maintenance where availability is a thing, but it’s not like the top priority. It’s, it’s odd how they think about it. At the end of the day, you’re producing power, and I know Tilt Renewable, having been to your offices there. Is focused on availability. You’re selling power to the grid. You need to be looking at what the prices are. You’re actually monitoring that. There’s, it’s a complicated enterprise. It’s much more complex than I think, uh, you would think of a old power company, uh, particularly in the states where everything just kind of runs and it’s, it just happens in Australia. It’s a lot more freewheeling, I would say, and there’s more emphasis on. Making sure the assets are running, that they’re available and they are producing power. That must change the way you think about managing the assets and particularly. You, you, there will be problems, right? There’s always problems. Are you, are you trying to then categorize [00:13:00] problems and trying to assess when you’re gonna take turbines out? Or you’re just saying, Hey, we just can’t fix this thing until next year. There must be some sort of organization going on there. How do you think about that in terms of keeping your availability so high?  Liz Beavis: That’s one thing that I had to change my mindset. From thermal to wind because there’s a lot of work you can do on a thermal power station while it’s running. Whereas anything, anything you wanna fix on a wind turbine, you’re taking it down. And then on a thermal power station, you have a six or eight week outage where everything’s shut down, 200 people turn up, everything gets fixed. And then you run it back up again and then you hope that it doesn’t come back down. Yeah. Whereas the wind turbine, it’s like, it’s, the way I see it is just if it’s running, it’s running. You don’t go and stop it for any reason. You know, so it’s you, you only, you’re going there to do reactive work. When it stops and you’re going to do proactive annual maintenance work every 12 months, [00:14:00] and it’s really about getting the scope of your annual maintenance, right, so that you’re addressing everything. And you know, the goal is like, this is what was drilled into me with GE was the goal is you go to that turbine once a year or twice a year if it has a semi-annual. Maintenance requirement, but that’s, that’s what you’re trying to achieve. So you’re trying to get the reliability to a point where you only need to go there when it breaks, and Oh, so you only need to go there for the annual maintenance and it shouldn’t be breaking down in between. Unfortunately, that’s. Very difficult to achieve. I think. I think what it was interesting to see the older turbines, um, have a lot more engineering, uh, margin in them. Everything sort of does perform better.  Allen Hall: Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you because I do think there’s a difference between a slightly older turbine, even a turbine that was manufactured 20 years ago versus today. It does seem like there’s a lot more knowledge about those turbines. Maybe it’s just, uh, tribal knowledge. Over time you’re gonna learn more about them, but there, there is a huge knowledge [00:15:00] gap. Between on a new turbine, you just, you just don’t know what you don’t know. How are you trying to address that? Are, are you getting involved in RCAs or are you, are you trying to be proactive monitoring scada, the, it’s just a lot of your plate here. How do you try to manage all that and what’s your process there?  Liz Beavis: So the way the contract is structured, that’s all the OEM’s responsibility. Uh, but what, what we’re trying to do is say, well, we’ve got a lot of expertise in our asset management team. Involve us. Like, we’d like to help. We can ask the questions, we can tell you what we’ve seen on other sites. We can, you know, we, we can actually help with this. Um, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s kind of awkward that, um. There’s no requirement in the RM phase for them to provide us with an RCA under this contract. So, you know, there’s some, there’s some contracts where they may have to, but, um, yeah, [00:16:00] I think that’s an oversight because we’re kind of guessing or we’re, we’re getting given. Part of the information, but we don’t necessarily have the whole story. And I think the advantage that the OEM has is that they’ve got hundreds of thousands of turbines out there and they, they’re monitoring all of them. They, they should be able to figure out what’s going on a lot easier than I can. I’m looking at two sites and saying, oh, hey, is, is that an issue? Or is, you know, they’ve got all that data. And, and that was the challenge with an RSP is that you, you’re only looking at a limited. Subset of sites, you’re not necessarily being able to put everything together, but I’m not sure that we all get the value of that knowledge, whether, whether they’re actually crunching the data or whether they’re keeping it to themselves because they don’t want us to know about serial issues. Um, but yeah, I, I feel like the OEMs could be leveraging that more.  Allen Hall: Are you able to bridge that gap sometimes with the [00:17:00]OEMs? I do feel like the OEMs have. Pretty good. Uh, at a minimum. I mean, I think a lot of times they’re really good on the back offices, on the engineering side of the technical expertise and the subject matter experts do exist there, and they are pretty quick to get to the root cause of a problem. But are you able to get to those back offices, to those engineering experts and to talk to them? Have you found a way to do that, that that kind of works for, for both sides of that, of that business?  Liz Beavis: Something I found really helpful is, um. We’ve joined some international groups. There’s a few groups around that say the O2 O, they’ve, they were O2 O wind, they’re now O2 O renewables and also epr, um, electric Power Research Institute. So we’ve joined them. We are sharing sort of general, um, breakdown information and issues. Um. Within those groups. And so then we are hearing from, you know, there’s a wind farm in Scotland that says, oh yeah, we’ve got the same [00:18:00] component. We are seeing this issue. And then I say, oh, well I better go check if we’ve got that problem. And then, you know, so, so we’re, we’re kind of owner to owner learning things, so that’s quite helpful.  Allen Hall: So you’re leveraging the other, uh, operators of the same turbines or, or really something similar to what you’re operating globally? That’s a, that’s a smart move and a lot of operators do not do that. I mean, and maybe in the States there’s a couple of, of organizations in the states, EPRI being one of them. O2 O is, I think, uh, definitely popular in Europe. They’re both very effective. So in instead of having to rely on the OM all the time, you’re basically word of mouth with other operators saying, I have this problem. Does anybody else have this problem? Have you solved it? Or maybe what the OEM has said, maybe the OEM has has told another operator what the answer is. Uh, is that the way you’re kind of thinking about attacking that problem?  Liz Beavis: Yes, but we’re not sharing any confidential information [00:19:00]through those forums.  Allen Hall: Never gonna do that. However, it does, I mean, if you get some heads nodding in those discussions, like an oh two, oh, uh, uh, meeting or even an EPRI meeting, uh, or e-cig in the United States. Basically doing something very similar. A lot of times I don’t think operators use them, the, maybe the way that they should, they, they, they turn into kind of complaint sessions instead of solutions, uh, that could be shared. Are you finding that you’re able to get to some solutions through those organizations? Liz Beavis: I probably found out more about failure modes and things to look out for. Necessarily then solutions. But yeah, it, it’s definitely, it’s definitely been valuable.  Matthew Stead: Um, and Liz, we went for a bit of a drive around your site. Once  Liz Beavis: I be how many days, Matt? You’re like, oh, come up for a day. And then I said, you’re gonna need to come for longer. Matthew Stead: The one day turned into three days. It was a wonderful time. Um, um, however, I think a part of our conversation was about. All the extra balance [00:20:00] of plant. And, um, I know you’ve got a few te uh, pet topics around balance of plant, including, um, toilet facilities. So maybe you could, uh, share your thoughts on, you know, the, the forgotten part of the, the site. Liz Beavis: Okay. Well, I can talk about toilets. Um, I think, I think we got away with. Um, small wind farms with just an o and m building and, um, technicians could drive back to the toilet pretty easily. Now. Cooper’s Gap Wind Farm is um, uh, 123 turbines. The furthest turbine is an hour’s drive. No one’s driving, you know. Back from the turbine and then to the r and m building and then back to their work site. So, um, we need to, we need to consider that in the design phase, but also I’ve just been talking about it every opportunity ’cause um, people just aren’t aware and that we need to think about what facilities we’re providing to our technicians. And particularly in Australia, we’ve got a big [00:21:00] energy transition we’re trying to deliver and we’re not gonna get the workforce. If people think that wind farms aren’t nice places to work, so I, I think it’s really important. So I’ve, um, I have purchased a demountable containerized toilet facility that’s gonna go out into one of our furthest corners of the wind farm. Um, so I’m gonna establish that and then look at where else we need to put them. And that was, um, $50,000 Australian delivered. So it’s really. A small cost considering everything else we spend on that one farm. Um, just to provide suitable facilities for our workforce. So, uh, I’m encouraging people to think about that and I’ve had some good conversations since I brought it up at wma, so it’s been good. Matthew Stead: Yeah, it also struck me several, um, several challenges were a much bigger issue than you may have thought them to be at the start.  Liz Beavis: I think what I found interesting is, uh, o over all the different wind farms is, um, it’s [00:22:00] really difficult to predict what the civil cost is gonna be. You, you can have some wind farms that are just dead flat and have very minimal civil costs, but as soon as you build a wind farm. On a ridge, you know, ridge line and you’ve got lots of bridges and steep roads and drainage issues. Yeah. And then depending on the erod ability of the soil and the rainfall, suddenly you’re out there grading pretty regularly. Um, I have now learned way too much about civil engineering, and it’s not my area of interest, but, um, I think there’s, there’s better decisions that can be made during construction and. Design stage of the wind farm. There’s, you know, there’s some roads, uh, I’ve driven around as a civil contractor at one of my sites and, um, he was involved during construction and he’s also a landholder and he said, well, I told them to put the road over there where it would’ve been sort of gentle slope up the hill, but they wanted to just build a shorter road. So they [00:23:00] just put a straight up the hill and then they had to bring, um, extra machines in to tow all the components up the hill. ’cause they made it too steep. But that’s then what they’ve left us. For RM to maintain, you know, so that it’s just bad decisions and, and I think it’s, yeah, it gets very fraught during construction. And then, um, you know, towards the end you’re just trying to get the project finished and you’re trying to get handover and you’re just worried about the turbines, you know, like what’s happening with these generators. And all of that becomes a focus. And meanwhile, the, the civil work hasn’t been finished to the standard and the drains haven’t been built to the drawing. And, and that’s just. The last thing on anyone’s list. ’cause we’re trying to get the turbines right. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s a cost that you then wear for the rest of the project, so it’s worth thinking about. Um, and in Australia we’ve also, it’s quite common for the electrical balancer plant to be maintained by the OEM. Um, and we’re starting to find it’s not really their area of [00:24:00] expertise. They’re not really set up for it. You know, there’s sort of a question mark whether that’s. The best approach or whether, uh, as an owner, we are better to split that out and look after it ourselves, but then that complicates availability guarantees. And who’s responsible for the underground cable? Yes. And there’s, there’s a lot to think about.  Allen Hall: I was gonna ask you about that because that is an important difference, uh, in Australia where the BOP seems to be, uh, more, or the responsibility of the operator than the OEM, and that must be at least somewhat Australian specific because of the nature of the country and the difficulties that are involved there, but. Does that mean that as you, as the operator need to be bringing on people that know, uh, substation, architecture, underground cables, transformers, pads, uh, roads, all that, is that something that you just have decided that it makes more sense to do and we can probably do it [00:25:00] better, uh, as a, to make availability better and make the site more accessible? Is that, is that the thought process that went into that?  Liz Beavis: I think the driver was, um. The lenders. So, so finance, um, they, and that’s, that’s why that there was a real trend for the fully wrapped contract. So a, a 25 year fully wrapped contract and, and the finance world is de-risked, you know, it’s magically de-risked because, because you’ve locked it in and it’s all just gonna get done. And it’s, and now I think everyone’s realizing, well, it’s not actually DeRoot. Like there’s, there’s a lot. That we need to manage and, and now we’ve lost control over it. And actually maybe we’d like to pull that back, but it, it’s, it’s site specific. You know what you. What makes sense to, to give to the o and m contractor versus separating it out and managing it  Allen Hall: Well then let’s talk about the two wind farms you are involved with day to day, Silverton [00:26:00] and Cooper’s Gap, and now they are not next door to one another. Silverton’s in New South Wales, far west. Right. And then, uh, Cooper’s Gap is up in Queensland, way up north Counter by Brisbane. Uh, those are what, 500,000 miles apart from one another. They’re a long ways away.  Liz Beavis: Yeah, I haven’t looked at how far they’re, but um, so I live near Cooper’s Gap, so everyone in Melbourne’s quite pleased with that because it’s a pain for them to get here. ’cause it, I, it’s a three hours, I’m three hours drive from Brisbane. That’s not even North Queensland. That’s, I’m still in Southeast Queensland. Really.  Allen Hall: Right. True. Yeah.  Liz Beavis: So then for me to get to Broken Hill, I have to drive to Brisbane and then fly to Sydney or fly to Adelaide and then fly into Broken Hill. So it’s two flies. So we did have, we’ve got another asset manager who was very involved with Silverton, uh, for a long time, and she lives in Sydney. And so I. When I came in, because I lived near Cooper’s Gap, obviously I took Cooper’s Gap and then it made sense for me to also have Silverton because it’s another [00:27:00] GE three X site. So that’s why I’ve got those two. Yeah. Uh, even though it’s not my closest site, so I go out to Silverton about four times a year. Um. I make sure I spend a week there and I drive around and look at everything, and I go up tower and I spend time with the team and I, I do feel like I don’t have as much control over that site as Cooper’s Gap. I’m here most days and I’m, and I’m in the pre-start and I see where all the teams are going, and I go and talk to them. Yeah, so I, I get a lot more information and I think as an asset manager, it’s really important to be on site and to be up tower and to be talking to everyone. Um, so when I do go to Silverton, I make sure I go there for a long time, or I see some owners will just pop in for the day, or they, they’ll sort of come in at 10 o’clock in the morning and, and then leave. So they don’t even see preset. You can’t really get a feel for what’s going on in site if you’re not. Um, so I would like to be at Silverton more often, but [00:28:00] I just don’t like the 12 hours of traveling it takes me to get there. Um, but um, we have, so teams is amazing, right? Like what we can do remotely now. Um, I have a fortnightly call with the site manager and we go through what turbines are on and what’s off and what’s he working on and what issues. And, um, so I do get a lot of information. Um, not being on site and, and all the systems that we have access to, I’m constantly spying on them. They all know that. But also I’m there to help. Like, I’ll, I’ll read the fault code and go, what does this fault code mean? That sounds really bad. And they’re like, oh yeah, we better go check that. So, um, yeah, we we’re working together. Um. And it’s really just, yeah, they know that we’re, we just wanna try and get the availability up. We don’t wanna be charging them damages all the time. We, it, it doesn’t really cover our costs. So it’s better for all of us that we just improve the availability and it doesn’t matter who’s doing it, we just need to figure it out. [00:29:00] Allen Hall: Well, Liz, you’re a busy person and in your off time you co-founded an organization called Power Up Queensland and you mentor female engineers. Uh, and you have done that for a while throughout your career. What’s your message to women that are considering entering the wind energy sector?  Liz Beavis: Oh, we need more women in wind. Onsite, not just in the, in the head office. And, um, I’m fixing the toilet situation, so I’ve got it under control. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s really sad when I sort of look around at preset and there’s, I’m, I’m the only woman in the room usually. Um, but yeah, I, like, I go up tower and, um. I think it’s, it’s a lot of fun if you’re, if you’re someone that likes heights and doing something a bit more physical. And I think also the, um, for the, from the trade point of view, you get to work across mechanical and electrical. So if you’re not, uh, you know, if you’re interested in sort of working across your trade instead [00:30:00] of just a purely being a mechanic or an electrician, I think it’s a really interesting, um, uh, workplace to be in. You get. And, and there’s lots of civil work to do and, um. And then as an asset manager, you know, you can, you can come into that from a, from a mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or mechanical engineer. There’s, there’s lots of civil work to do, but even in our team, we’ve got people from finance and accounting backgrounds and, um, trade backgrounds. So it’s, it’s, um, something that you can come. From a broad range of, um, disciplines. Um, and I just, I love being out and about this morning before I came on the call, I had to go out and put some signs out for a biosecurity issue. So, so I like, that’s the kind of thing, like I, I’m not stuck in the office. I just go for a drive and put some signs on the gate and yeah. So it’s, you’re not stuck in the office. I think it’s, it’s really. It’s, it’s a really awesome job. [00:31:00] So I encourage, yeah, people that want, don’t wanna be in the office and actually be outdoors and involved and doing some physical stuff. It’s a good job.  Allen Hall: Well, Liz, you’re a wealth of knowledge and uh, it’s always great to see you in Australia and thanks for coming to the Woma event. If people wanna reach out to you and connect about o and m issues or entering the wind industry, how can they do that?  Liz Beavis: Um, so I’m on LinkedIn. Maybe I can just put my email in the show notes because I get, I get a lot of LinkedIn connection requests and I sort of don’t know who’s who.  Allen Hall: We’ll definitely put your email in the show notes, and I know we’ve had a lot of discussions of, of getting you on this podcast. I’ve been really looking forward to this discussion, and this has been great. We need to have you on more often. So, Liz, the invitation is. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast and yeah, we’ll see you soon.  Liz Beavis: Thanks [00:32:00] El.

Vestas hasn’t shared SCADA data after a South Korea turbine collapse, citing an expired warranty. Plus workers at Nordex in Iowa are concerned about tariffs. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Transcript The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by StrikeTape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strikeTape.com. And now your hosts. Allen Hall Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m Allen Hall and I’m here with Rosemary Barnes. And Fergus is here. Hi. Welcome to our top story. This week is a wind turbine collapse that happened in South Korea at the Changpo Wind Power Complex in Yeongdeok, and the turbine lost a blade. There’s some video here that was recorded when the turbine collapsed, so it happened a couple of months ago, and investigators have been trying to determine the cause of that failure. They’re having a little bit of difficulty because they would like to access the SCADA system of that turbine because that would have a lot of more information about [00:01:00] how the tower was operating at that particular moment. And they’re having trouble in that it is a Vestas turbine and Vestas has not released the SCADA data and it’s citing an expired warranty. Now, Rosemary, this leads to a lot of problems because obviously there’s a ton of sensors in wind turbines today, and they can help determine causes of failures pretty rapidly. But without it, you’re just really looking at video in this particular collapse. Rosemary Barnes It’s amazing that you can look at video. The video is far more useful than the SCADA data is, probably. Um, yeah, it’s, well, I’ve never actually, like, I’ve worked on a lot of RCAs and I’ve never actually got to see video footage of the incident, so that’s actually really cool that they’ve got this dash cam footage. Looking at it now, you can, um, see the lower, probably two thirds of the turbine tower, so you can see the blades coming past. I wish the video would start just like 10 seconds earlier. [00:02:00] Um, because maybe you can see a bit of wobble in the tower. You can see that one of the blades is already missing a tip, or the tip kind of flies off anyway, so maybe it was bent. So definitely looks to me like the root cause was that there was a blade failure. The, um, part of the blade broke off, caused a rotor imbalance, which then meant that one of the blades hit the tower and then it’s really easy for a tower to buckle once it’s got some damage in it. So that, that in itself, like, that’s not an uncommon scenario. Um, and yeah, for sure, like you would ask for the SCADA data, but, uh, I don’t think it’s accurate that they’re saying. There must have been a faulty sensor or something because when there’s a rotor imbalance, it should stop, um, stop the turbine. But I do know from experience, it does not always stop the turbine quickly enough to stop this happening. So, um, I’m not, I’m not sure that the SCADA data would tell you anything [00:03:00] groundbreaking. However, I think it is very interesting Vestas are very publicly not sharing because it’s out of warranty because to me, access to the SCADA data is a key part of being able to operate your turbine safely. And you don’t sell a turbine — like you might sell a turbine with a two year warranty, sure, but that doesn’t mean that you are selling a turbine that can only be operated safely for two years. That’s just like absolutely insane and contrary to — at least a lot of the world’s laws, there’s laws around, you know, how safely you can operate equipment, and especially energy generation assets have specific laws about that. You have to be able to operate them safely and yeah, from what we can see here, like you can’t get access to the SCADA data. So in, in this case, I don’t know if there was a problem with the turbine controller that contributed to this problem. I, I mean, I’m, I’m always a bit surprised that a turbine can shake itself apart and it’s not, you know, there isn’t a sensor in there that can stop it in time to stop the collapse because if you take just the population of turbines that have collapsed, which is, you know, [00:04:00] very, very few from considering the whole global population, but looking at those ones that have collapsed, it’s pretty common way that it happens is from, um, part of a blade falling off and then a rotor imbalance causing the tower to, um, start wobbling and the blades to hit the tower. Allen Hall So would it be in the control laws, Rosemary, where the shutdown would happen in terms of detecting vibration or motion? Maybe swing of the tower? Would that would then drive a safety circuit? Rosemary Barnes At a certain, at a certain level? Um, ’cause all of those, like the rotor does get in a bit of imbalance. The tower does accelerate in, you know, four and a half side to side, that all happens and can happen like quite, quite a lot as well. Like if you’re inside a wind turbine and when they stop it, um, then it makes like a very noticeable shudder right as that stops. And if you do an emergency stop, um, hopefully not while, you know, hopefully you’re not inside the tower when it goes from full, um, operation [00:05:00] to stopping as soon as, as quickly as possible. But that does make a big, um, jump. So, you know, like it’s not shutting down every time that there’s some kind of imbalance or, um, tower acceleration. But yeah, it just, the thing is, it’s, you just, they’re big and heavy, right? And there’s just so much inertia in the system that things can’t happen that fast. Like even if the control system can respond really quickly, it doesn’t mean that it can respond — like it can actually physically stop things before it’s had, you know, even one rotation to hit the tower, um, can be enough. What’s really interesting is that it could be a control system problem, right? That would — that they have now learned. There’s some faulty logic they need to replace it across the wind farm. But Vestas is saying, we’re not gonna tell you if that’s the case or not, because you can’t access this data. And I think that that is really interesting because like I’m constantly frustrated by how little, um, cooperation you can get for root cause analysis and like you can [00:06:00] understand it, no one wants to share their data, but it is in theory covered by laws, at least in, uh, Australian states. You, you know, that you, you’re required to provide information to operate the assets safely for its lifetime. And I, it just, to me is really highlighting that that’s not the case. It’s, it’s not an unusual situation, is kind of what I’m saying. Um, it’s very common that they don’t wanna cooperate, and I’m surprised that they’re happy to say that so, so publicly. Allen Hall Well, the threshold needs to be set somewhere when investigators are looking into an accident like this. I always think you try to help the investigators as much as you can. In the airplane world when there’s an accident, that’s one of the first things that happens is they go pull all the data from the aircraft and then go search through it and see what happened. In the wind turbine world, that’s not necessarily the case, but there is a lot of data at all the OEMs, and it’s not necessarily locked into the turbine. It’s usually remote access, so it would be very easy to give access to [00:07:00] investigators. So it’s, it’s curious to me as to why there’s any hesitation at all if the Korean investigators wanna see the data, just give it to ’em. Rosemary Barnes Yeah. Especially because like from just the brief look that I’ve had, it doesn’t look like it’s gonna turn out that there’s some problem with the turbine controller. If Vestas aren’t to blame, it would be much easier for them to just privately release the data under an NDA and say, look, hey, it’s nothing. It’s not here. But I will say that, um, in the RCAs that I’ve worked on, safety regulators can compel data from the owner and the operator, but it’s not so clear that they have the right to get data from the manufacturer. When you’ve got full service agreements, you can get that because the manufacturer is the operator. But in this case, if Vestas had nothing to do with the operation, then like, I don’t know what the laws are in South Korea, but it is possible at least that they don’t have any right to compel Vestas for the data. Um, for the data. And I think that [00:08:00] is wrong. And, um, this, you know, will hopefully highlight to people, safety regulators around the world — hey, you know, do we need to be changing this regulation a little bit to make sure that when you sell a wind turbine, or you know, any, anything else, any other big bit of industrial equipment, when you sell it, you have to — you have to provide enough information for the life of the wind turbine to operate it safely. Doesn’t mean you need to give away all your trade secrets, but it needs to be safe. And part of that is when you have a catastrophic failure, you do need to make sure that this is not gonna repeat itself across the whole wind farm or across, you know, every turbine of this type in the world. That’s why you do a root cause analysis after the fact. Like you’re not saving this turbine. It’s in like absolute pieces on the ground, right? Like the most value you’ll ever get out of this turbine again is probably recycling the steel. Um, that’ll be the most value. So you don’t do the root cause analysis for the lost asset. You do it to make sure that you understand what’s happened and you are [00:09:00] able to, um, know ahead of time if this is a risk for future assets. Um, and you can’t, yeah, you cannot do that if you don’t have all the data. So, yeah. Very interesting. Allen Hall Like we talked about at the WOMA conference a few months ago, access to SCADA data is paramount for a lot of operators. And, uh, when contracts are assigned, a lot of times that is not lined into the contract — that I will have full access to the SCADA data — and it can be, which I think a lot of operators don’t even consider. So that’s a negotiated item for most contracts and most wind turbine purchases. Especially in Europe now with the new data laws in Europe. I think all the OEMs have to provide that data regardless if there’s an accident or not. You just have — yeah, I think they have to give full access. The means of doing it, I think it’s being implemented this year. Well, it sounds like talking to operators they are just getting some of that data, but once that door opens in Europe, do you think the rest of the world will probably follow? Rosemary Barnes Yeah, I mean, it’s one thing, like they don’t want you reverse engineering their [00:10:00] IP. That’s, that’s basically it. All their trade secrets. Allen Hall Could you do that? I mean, that, that, that’s always the, the, the real issue, right? So I hear that quite a bit from OEMs. We don’t want you to reverse engineer the turbine, but can you do that from the SCADA data? That seems like an impossible task. Rosemary Barnes I also don’t think that anybody is doing anything that tricky, that it’s really gonna be worth the, the effort, you know. And it’s one thing, like it’s annoying — you can’t access the control system. Um, so you can’t make improvements, you know, like you could get a bit more yield out of your wind farm if you can start doing things like wake steering or, you know, changing the speed of operation to, um, you know, depending on environmental conditions, and those, like you, you can improve your operations a bit from that. And so it’s been annoying that you, you can’t actually do those cool projects because you can’t get into the control system. And you know, there exist companies that will come in and take a, a, you know, 10-year-old wind turbine, rip out the control system, put in a new [00:11:00] one, and people go through that whole painful, expensive process just so that they can get control over operation and the data. And that’s, that’s annoying. And, you know, maybe getting an extra, you know, I don’t know, two or 3% AEP out of your wind farm is a big deal. But, um, you know, that’s on the one hand. But on the other hand, when it comes to being able to safely operate your asset, it just shouldn’t be any question. You know? And I don’t know why a manufacturer would be really digging their heels in on this because like I do see, and I hope that this is the kind of incident that makes safety regulators go, hey, you know, this isn’t, this isn’t cool. This is not okay, that we don’t have the information we need to make sure that these turbines are safe across the rest of the, um, the country, you know. Like an overzealous safety regulator could easily be like, oh, okay, well we don’t have a root cause, we can’t rule out that there’s not a fleet-wide problem — all of these Vestas turbines across, um, South [00:12:00] Korea have to shut down now. You know, like that, that is a potential outcome that could happen. That would be terrible for Vestas. Um, so I just don’t understand why they don’t just give the data. — SPONSOR: PES WIND MAGAZINE — 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 PESwind.com today. Allen Hall Well, a wind turbine factory in West Branch, Iowa just reopened after sitting idle for 12 years and already its workers are worried about tariffs. Nordex restarted the facility in July of last year to manufacture nacelles and drivetrains for the American and Canadian markets. [00:13:00] Orders are strong for this Nordex facility. Alliant Energy awarded Nordex contracts for up to 190 turbines — that’s pretty good — representing over 1,060 megawatts of capacity, the largest single award in the company’s 25-year history in American operations. Uh, but the concerns at the Nordex facility at the moment have to do with tariffs, where a lot of the components that are coming into the factory are running into hefty tariffs, which makes the margins really tough for Nordex to operate that plant. Uh, so the tax advantages of having a facility in the United States are really being offset by some of these extra taxes that are being levied on wind turbine components. Uh, this is not the only facility in Iowa that must be thinking hard about this. The TPI facility in Iowa that is going through the bankruptcy hearings at the moment. [00:14:00] There’s an offer from a company to buy that facility, or acquire that facility, and a couple of the TPI facilities down in Mexico. As it stands, GE is backing the Iowa plant in case those initial purchases of those factories fall through — GE would like to have the Iowa factory, most likely for tax purposes, because some of the projects probably depend upon the tax advantages of building particularly blades and large components like nacelles in the US. So Iowa is a real key here. The restart and some of the increased operations in the United States are indicative of how things are going, I think, globally in the wind energy world, where factories have been closed or they’ve been considering closing a number of factories in Europe and trying to find key places to manufacture components where maybe the tariffs are lower or the operational costs are lower, or [00:15:00] labor costs are lower. Uh, we’re seeing a real big shuffle at the moment. Do you think that this is gonna settle up very quickly? ‘Cause it does seem like there is a migration to the UK because of the amount of money being spent in the United Kingdom, and a migration out of Northern Europe, and probably a migration out of America over time. Rosemary Barnes I mean, it’s interesting how much governments are playing a role. You know, government policies are playing a role in where manufacturing is happening. Um, I think it’s not even like you would’ve said until really recently that you put factories where labor is cheap. And, you know, for the really big components, you want to get roughly close to where the final project is, or at least close to a port so that you can get on a ship and, you know, ’cause um, overland transport is an issue. Um, but now I don’t even think that the labor is the main factor anymore, and maybe even [00:16:00] the geographical location in the world is not even the biggest issue now. It’s about, you know, where are the favorable conditions, and whether that’s because, you know, because of tariffs. And so I do think that we see in the UK the biggest thing that they have — it’s certainly not cheap labor, right? Um, it is, it’s pretty well located for a lot of projects. Um, the UK government has got a good, um, plan for, you know, a decade or more into the future. Right. You know, they’ve also executed on some of those, so we know that it’s not all just talk, and they’ve got some pretty good certainty about these projects and how the economics are going to work out. Allen Hall The UK is a good example of, of maybe a process that’s going well at the moment, but the long-term prospects I think is where everybody gets a little bit nervous. This thing that happened in America like two years ago where everybody was really excited about creating new factories — and then we get down the line a little bit and now we’re not happy to have factories. It really depends upon how [00:17:00] dedicated the government is and how many, uh, barriers they put in to prevent the money from going away. Right? When you lock in long-term funding where it doesn’t put the projects at risk, then it’s great, but if it can be wiped away by the next administration or just the passage of a single bill, then it just makes it really risky. Rosemary Barnes I think I just wanted to make the point that, you know, labor is expensive in the UK, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t have manufacturing, even, you know, like wind turbine blades at least are a very labor intensive thing to manufacture compared to most things these days. Um, but even then it’s not the most important thing anymore. So, you know, um, any country has the ability to put in place the ingredients that would be needed to get, uh, manufacturing of wind turbines in their own country. Um, so, you know, it’s a choice to a large extent, but people are scared to commit long term. You know, the manufacturers are scared to [00:18:00] commit a factory. Countries are scared to commit to a pipeline ’cause they don’t wanna be, you know, interfering in the market. But it’s just, it’s a big lumpy market that just makes it hard for people to want to invest and commit. And so, you know, if you want that manufacturing in your country, then you can, you can get it if you give confidence. Allen Hall At what point do you make decisions about manufacturing for wind turbines or even solar panels in your country with what’s happening in the Middle East? Does that really change the dynamic quite a bit, where the incremental cost delta of making it in-country is totally worth it with the knowledge that you’ll be free of all, uh, connections to the Middle East and the turmoil that does seem to happen there every couple of years. Rosemary Barnes It’s not like a direct enough link that it’s gonna make people make that decision overnight. We’re not buying our wind turbines from the Middle East currently, right? So, you know, existing turbine supply chain. So I think [00:19:00] it could definitely make you wanna turn up the pace at which you buy wind turbines and install them. And if you’ve got, you know, um, bigger pipelines, then it nudges you more and more towards local manufacturing. I guess that people are nervous in general of relying on other supply chains, um, or supply chains from overseas, but it’s a huge difference between, you know, relying on liquid fuels, which are, you know, arriving every day and you need them to continue arriving every day. And if one strait gets closed and that’s a 20% decline in the, you know, volume that can be moved around — you know, try and take 20% of, um, demand out of the system — and that’s obviously huge. But if you had the same thing, if it was wind turbine blades being transported through the strait, then, um, you know, it’d be no new wind farms [00:20:00] this year. It wouldn’t be that all of your existing wind turbines have to be turned off — like they keep on running. It’s just that the future doesn’t grow as fast as you would like it to. So I think it’s just like a much slower timeframe for shocks if you are relying on, um, wind turbines and solar panels, even if they’re made overseas. I still think that it is worth considering, like for security, like if you got into a big long war, and especially with, um, China because they’re the ones that make most of, uh, solar panels and batteries — at least, not wind turbines, although they are a major manufacturer, they’re not the majority for projects outside of China. Most countries are investing in some, you know, local capability to make things, you know, like Australia is investing in capacity to make solar panels, even though we know that we’ll never make them as cheap as China. The US also has done a lot to encourage local manufacturing of solar panels. Um, everybody is [00:21:00] trying to make batteries. Um, so yeah, I think we are doing that. I heard on a podcast, I think it was the Energy Transition Show, reference to, you know, every country does their study about what is net zero gonna cost. Um, and whatever the study was done in the UK, the amount that the energy transition was gonna cost — net zero by 2050, what is the cost to the economy — um, and it was, I can’t remember the number, some amount of trillions. They pointed out that that is the same as one crisis. Like what we’re going through now costs about that same amount of money. Um, you know, one fuel crisis. So it’s like if you can save yourself from one crisis, um, yeah, if you can insulate yourself from one crisis, it’s paid for itself. Do we really think that in the next 24 years — and it’s not just over 24 years, it’s, you know, it’s forever after that — do you think that there’s only gonna be one? No way. There’s gonna be lots. So I’m hopeful that, [00:22:00] um, this crisis is gonna get people thinking, hey, we can insure against this sort of thing by electrifying, um, that, you know, we’ve had oil shocks before. We’ll have them again in the future. I mean, in Australia, like, I’ve heard international commentary saying things like, you know, Australia will be a winner out of this because we’re such a big exporter of LNG. But in reality in Australia, there are petrol stations that don’t have any diesel — um, like, you know, lots of them. So people with diesel cars are driving around and around and around to, um, you know, find somewhere where they can buy fuel. And in a just delicious piece of irony, like back two or three elections ago, um, the conservative party was having this point of difference with the more progressive party — the Labor party — that, you know, they wanted to promote EVs, and the coalition said they’re gonna ruin your weekend. They’re gonna end, they’re gonna end the [00:23:00] weekend, I think was the saying, because yeah, like EVs, you can’t go camping or whatever with an EV. And now we’ve got the Easter long weekend and people are legitimately saying I can’t find fuel to drive to my plans for the Easter weekend. So now it’s diesel specifically — you know, fossil fuel cars in general — that are ending the weekend. You know, people have had their weekend ended by, um, not having an EV this time around. So I think that it should really reframe people’s thinking, refocus us. Allen Hall But isn’t that what eventually happens — is that the realism hits, and so no matter what your ideology is or your thought process, you still have to deal with what’s happening on the ground at any particular moment. And this is not the first time these events have happened, they’re not gonna be the last time that they’ve happened. Your best mode of operation is to decouple from these events as much as [00:24:00] you can. Where I think the UK is headed. Obviously Norway has, in a sense, decoupled itself because of the amount of electric vehicles that it has and the natural resources that it has. Honestly, every country — every major country — if they can decouple, is going to try to decouple. Just to stop, uh, because it has seemed like in the United States, well, since the 1970s, it’s just been this rocky road. And the discussion — at least you hear discussions here now more recently about what are we doing? We just keep doing the same thing and we end up with these trillion dollar spends to create some new future, and the future never really shifts all that much. Should we be involving ourselves in this? In terms of energy production, I think you see more of a push for more independent energy production and decoupling, which I think Australia’s headed to and could do. The UK is [00:25:00] trying to do it, and other countries are trying to do it. If you have enough of an economy to do it, when energy is one of those things, I think you just can’t not do it — you would need to be involved in solar and wind. You need to be involved in batteries and you need to be involved in LNG if you can do it, you need to be involved in nuclear if you can pull it off. All of the above is gonna be the answer for a lot of countries to get out of the strait. Rosemary Barnes I think the US is a bit different though, because, um, unlike many countries, you could become more energy secure or entirely energy secure without electrifying. I think that you, you have enough of the various different kinds of, um, fossil fuels that you could. Uh, and I’m sure that will be the response as well in the, at least immediate future in the US. Whereas other countries who don’t have that option, we’re forced to move into the future. And I think that, you know, is better for us in the long term. Allen Hall Well, this is the thing about Australia — and we pointed out at WOMA — [00:26:00] is Australia is leading the world in a lot of ways, and electrification is one of them. So the rest of the world is watching what happens in the way that Australia goes about it. A lot of wind, even more solar, and some batteries — and how that plays out’s gonna affect where the rest of the world goes. 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. Don’t forget to subscribe, so you never miss an episode. And if you have found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show. So for Rosie — Yolanda and Matthew are on holiday — I’m Allen Hall and we’ll see you here next time on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:27:00] Podcast.  

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Allen reports live from ACP OM&S in Orlando, where the crew discusses high attendance costs, a pay-to-play model that shuts out newcomers, and how the event compares to WOMA. Plus, Vestas CEO Henrik Anderson says he’ll leave Denmark if proposed wealth taxes go through, sparking a debate on executive pay and Danish culture. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! [00:00:00] 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. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host Allen Hall, and I’m here with Yolanda Padron, Rosemary Barnes and Matthew Stead. I am at ACP OM&S in Orlando. Home of Mickey Mouse and we’ve had, uh, this is our second day at OM and S and this is the conference where all the operators and the maintenance and the ISPs and all the new technologies show up to, to discuss their products and try to get some work for the summertime. Uh, so there’s a, a good number of vendors here. Solars here, not as much best as I would as expected, and obviously a lot to do with wind. [00:01:00] Uh, I know we’ve been talking internally on Slack and amongst one another. This is one of the, the most expensive conferences I have ever attended. It’s about $2,200 to attend just to get yourself into the door. Rosemary Barnes: And that’s US dollars too.  Matthew Stead: Real dollars.  Allen Hall: Green backs.  Rosemary Barnes: That’s like three and a half times what our event cost. What warmer cost. If you do the conversion  Allen Hall: yes.  Rosemary Barnes: And you get access to what? An exhibition and all of a whole bunch, a variety of amazing, informative, technical topics included with that ticket price, right?  Allen Hall: No. You get access to the exhibition, they will feed you some, uh, enchiladas and some, uh, free beer, but all the technical talks are extra. You have to pay. Uh, a couple hundred dollars  Rosemary Barnes: enchiladas and beer are a must have that everyone obviously wants, but talking about wind energy, totally optional. Nobody. Now, obviously not everybody is gonna wanna talk about wind energy, [00:02:00] so that’s, that’s an extra ticket that you need for that one. Allen Hall: Well, in order to go to the, I would call them technical talks, you have to pay for those. They have an A space in the middle of the convention where they’re doing what they call powered cast. Which are kind of modeled on podcasts, uh, that are sort of a produced thing where they have a panel up there. It’s similar what to where you’d done in Melbourne with Woma, but not with real technical people. The more polishing people. That’s what I saw. I don’t know a lot of the names and I’m pretty used to, to recognizing names of wind and it looks like to be a lot more policy people not. Blade experts or people like that. Rosemary Barnes: I’m a little bit confused because it’s very different to, you know, I love to complain about the Australian wind energy events, but this sounds very different to the way that it’s run here. Like usually at the exhibitions, the exhibitors pay like a bunch of money to be there, and what they want is people to come see it. So [00:03:00] usually here the exhibition is. Free to attend because you are there to be advertised to, you know, like it’s not some like amazing, valuable thing to you. It’s super valuable to the exhibitors. That’s why they have to pay, you know, $10,000 plus to, to be there. Right, but you are saying that they’re, they’re charging the, the attendees are, they’re giving the exhibition space away for free then? Allen Hall: No, the exhibition space costs a tremendous amount of money for a little tiny space. I’m actually in our slot, we share. A slot because the prices are so high, we’re sharing it with AC 8 83 who we love and with C and C onsite, who also we love. So it’s a good combination ’cause we like one another. We’re fun to hang out with, but it’s probably a nine by nine space. Uh, and then you have to pay for carpet and all the furniture that happens inside of that space, you can easily spend. $10,000 on a salon.  Matthew Stead: Question for you, Allen. So, um, how [00:04:00] does, how does the industry foster, you know, new, new technology, new companies, you know, growth of the industry, new ideas, so, you know, how does this event, um, foster those sorts of things? Allen Hall: It doesn’t because it’s really, it’s pay to play as Rosemary has pointed out a number of times and is frustrated by. In order to get heard, you have to pay to one, have a booth, or if you want to get up on stage, it costs money. It’s, it’s not a small amount, by the way. So, uh, if you’re a new company, you got a great idea. You even have traction. Say you’re TRL seven plus and you want to connect with operators, it’s hard to do that here. Uh, the operators tend to be a little gun shy and, and they’re. Off on the side. I, I know some of them obviously, ’cause I, I know who they are, but it isn’t like, uh, the operators are walking around necessarily talking to all the exhibitors. That’s not how this [00:05:00] works. What generally is happening is the operators are talking, uh, to people that are selling products in these conference rooms on the side. So those things are completely off the show floor. It’s not the best situation. Like, I gotta admit, I’ve been to a lot of other conferences like in aerospace. Those tend to be a little more free flowing.  Rosemary Barnes: It’s interesting ’cause it’s like, obviously you go to the events because everybody goes to the event and I’m sure you’ve had some great conversations. Um, however, you don’t need to go inside. Like when you go to one of these huge events, you’re trapped inside a windowless room for all day, every day for several days in a row. Like, why does it need, why does it need to be there if they’re discourage, actively discouraging people from going to any presentations? Why couldn’t you just grab a bunch of friends, you know, put on an open invite, Hey, we’re all gonna the beach this week. Let’s go talk wind energy at the beach. Like, I, I don’t understand why we need to subject ourselves to this sort of, this sort of event. Like I [00:06:00] just, it it’s gotten out outta control, don’t you think?  Allen Hall: It has. I would never talk wind energy while I’m at the beach. I go, that’s probably one place where I’m not talking wind energy, but there are other nice places you could be. To talk about what’s happening in the industry and, and that’s one of the frustrating pieces about this is, although I love a lot of the people that are here, it’s not a great place to share new ideas or to learn something new. It’s, it’s mostly a, a meet and greet and catch up a reunion in a sense. Of, Hey, we’re the survivors. That’s it. Part of it is that feel right.  Rosemary Barnes: It’s pretty hard though if you are not like, you know, everybody you need to talk to. And I started doing the same thing, like at the um, one, one of the recent events or one of the events last year in, in Australia. I was so fed up with it the year before. I’m like, I’m not giving them any money this year. I was at least allowed to go to the exhibition for free at that event. So, you know, at least that’s something, but I mean, I barely even did that. Anyway. What I did was I set up at a cafe near to the event and just, I just [00:07:00]scheduled meetings like back to back for two days. Um, everyone just came to the cafe. But that’s ’cause I know everybody, right? Like, it’s like someone that’s new to the industry can get nothing out of these events. Now it seems like it’s just, it’s so, it’s so sad. Like where, how, how are you going? Like, you know, people brand new to the industry. You used to be able to go to an event and just be like, okay, I’m gonna just have information overload for two or three days, meet a bunch of great people and I’ll come away feeling like I’m part of this industry. I just can’t imagine. That happening at the event that you are describing, that someone would, would show up and, you know, come away knowing a lot more about the industry and with, with a bunch of useful connections. Am I right?  Allen Hall: Uh, I think you’re right. There’s were a couple of people that I ran into that were new to the industry, trying to start a service provider or repair business, generally speaking that, or a drone business that we’re trying to get into the, the industry and we’re reaching out and talking to people and. The thing about [00:08:00] wind is when you actually get ahold of somebody, they will help you. It’s, it’s very, uh, open. What do you do? What are you trying to do? Wherever you talk, who you talk to, here’s some names that will happen, but it is daunting because there’s a lot of people here. You don’t know anybody, and there’s no way to really introduce them. I think that one of the things that, uh, American C Clean powered. Did, uh, that I noticed was they had like a first timers reunion space, so, or a meeting space so that it had some beach balls and a little Tahiti hut or whatever those tiki hut or whatever that was where you could kind of hang out because you knew. But I’m not sure that’s the best way to do that. I think, you know, American clean power could do a much better job of knowing who’s first time and connecting them. If the industry’s gonna grow, you need to be taking in new people and new ideas. To it. The only way you’re gonna be able to do that is if you actively make it happen. Matthew Stead: Did you learn anything new [00:09:00] so far?  Allen Hall: Not new. Uh, I, because we’re doing the podcast and we’re recorded several episodes in the last two days, I was able to ask specific questions like, what are you working on? What’s new? What’s coming out? And that’s the way to get to those answers. But if you’re walking the exhibit four, you would not see a lot of new technology and. Three years ago, I think four years ago, especially like during COVID, there was some pretty cool technology out on the show floor, uh, but not so much Today, the industry’s matured and, and it’s a tough industry to, to survive in. So what you generally see is companies that have been around 3, 4, 5 years that have made it, that are profitable, that are making good and income, and are providing a service and have sustained businesses, that’s what’s here today. Yolanda Padron: I think that a CP, the intent behind events like the one you’re, and Allen and the one we’ve, the ones we’ve all been to are, the intent is great, but the [00:10:00] execution isn’t super great. Not just from the the point of view of people coming in from new to the industry and wanting to start an ISP or something, but just from the owner operator. Point of view, you know, you’re, if you have to pay to go to specific talks or to go to technical talks that you don’t really know how much they’ll benefit you until basically the end of it. Once you see the information that’s gone into it and the practicality of everything that they, they’re talking about, and then when you’re walking in the showroom like four, like it’s a little bit daunting sometimes. There’s hundreds of companies. Sitting around in kind of like a maze, right? And it’s not always like, oh, you need lightning protection. Like that’s that area. Or you need better locks for your o and m buildings or for your towers or something. It’s that section like you’re just walking around everywhere. And then just. It kind of turns [00:11:00] into, like sometimes it can turn into just a game of like, if you’re going with a lot of colleagues, like a kind of a drinking day or a day to just see who can collect more freebies. Like I remember one year we had a group chat of like, oh, like every time you saw something cool that was like a, a merchandise thing, like you would put it in the group chat, like E 46 has this. And then we would all go and get it and it was. I don’t think that’s the intent behind what, what we wanted to do. It really wasn’t what we saw at oma if we’re being completely honest.  Matthew Stead: What I’m hearing is that there’s a really strong need in the US for another event. Is that, is that what I’m hearing?  Allen Hall: I think there needs to be a real technical event run by people who are technical experts. I think that’s it because there are a lot of new solutions out there, but you’re not gonna find them at OMX. That’s just not the place. Now, I’m sure a CP would dispute that and that’s fine. They [00:12:00] have their own opinion. But I think having attended this for several years and a CP and a number of other, uh, conferences in wins, there’s a small subset that are sharing solutions. It’s small and maybe there is need for one in America. It’s hard saying, Matthew, I. I think that maybe there’s is a time and place for it. I’m not sure America’s ready for it in, in a broader scope, but maybe something small. Maybe that’s the way to start off, is to do something small. Bring in the people we know and love from around the world have, go back to Rosemary’s point. Maybe we do something by the, by the pool or by the ocean. Maybe we do talk wind energy for, for an afternoon.  Rosemary Barnes: I understand why you can’t, um, have an event at. A resort. And it was suggested actually to me a couple of times, like people when we were organizing Wilma, why is this in Melbourne? Why isn’t this in the Maldives? Or you know, some, something like that. And the [00:13:00] one of the reasons like for us, ’cause in our Melbourne event it’s a, you know, it’s a very low cost event. We don’t make any money from it. It’s small. At least half of wind energy People in Australia are living in Melbourne, so it’s very, you know, easy for them to go to that it doesn’t, it doesn’t cost much or take much time. So that was that reason. But I think that, you know, more broadly, like say we did a global event and we put it in the, in the malice or in Fiji or Hawaii or whatever, like, people aren’t gonna get that approved from their managers, right? So even though you know, you’ve spent, I don’t know how much the technical sessions were, but by the time that you’ve gotten to a CP, if you had to. Even, you know, fly there in Australian hotel for a few nights, like it’s gonna be, you know, four grand or something. You can get to a nice location, probably an all-inclusive resort for a week, somewhere nice for similar money. Like you would spend more time having quality conversations and it would be, you know, nice and enjoyable, but [00:14:00] your manager is never gonna approve that. So I think that’s the challenge. To find somewhere that’s like nice and conducive to being relaxed and open, but that doesn’t sound like. So obviously a junket that no one will get approval to go to it. That’s the, that’s the challenge.  Matthew Stead: Um, just this week we got the feedback from the WMA conference. So we got, um, some of the results from the survey and I think, uh, probably the key thing to me was that we achieved 4.6 out of five, um, star rating. Um, everyone gave it a four or a five. And we know people that give things four out of five actually mean five. So I think we did really well. So, uh, and the feedback was also, um, you know, the technical content, but people want more, more and more, uh, technical content and, and the interaction with people. Rosemary Barnes: That’s a really, a really key thing to get feedback on if there are. Experts or categories of information that you would like to see covered that haven’t been, because I think, like we talk a lot about how, what the [00:15:00]problems are with a pay to play kind of model where speakers pay and get up and give a sales pitch and you know, there’s a lot of problems with that. But then when it’s the other way around and you know, we’re choosing speakers that we know are good, then you fall into the risk of having it become cliquey where it’s just, you know, like all our friends over and over again. It’s uh, like hard for us to both vet the quality and bring in people that we don’t know. So that’s where the outside feedback is gonna make that a lot better. Um, and it takes a long time, you know, you do, ’cause you, you do need to get to know a speaker before you can decide whether they’re gonna get up in the acne. You don’t sell at you for half an hour when they were supposed to, you know, do something informative. So, would love to hear that feedback.  Matthew Stead: I think the proof is in the pudding because, uh, at for woma, no one said that they were unlikely to attend.  Allen Hall: Oh, I, I would hate to see what the numbers are gonna be for OMS this year. Uh, ’cause you know, you know why I say that? Because a lot of people that have exhibited in the past do not have a booth this year, and they’re walking [00:16:00] around the show. And to me that’s an alarm signal. They should have a booth. They have good things to talk about. They’re a successful company. They’re doing great things to win, but they feel like this is just too much. It’s too much. Eventually you reach too much. I think we’re there.  Rosemary Barnes: I think it’s been a really good, like, uh, a big event with an exhibition can be a real money maker. And for, you know, like, uh, assuming that SAP uses this. The money that they make from this event to deliver services for the American Wind Industry. Uh, I mean, you, you know, you can probably argue about how well or not they do that. I don’t have an opinion ’cause I’m not in America. But, you know, like, I, I’m not saying that that’s not the, um, a, a noble goal and a good thing to, for the business to be doing. However, I think that it, that you can overshoot and, you know, so you can make a, a bunch of money for a few years. You know, you’ve got a good reputation for your event. You’ve got everybody comes to it. You can charge squillions to exhibitors. You can charge squillions more to speakers. You can even start charging people to watch the speakers who have [00:17:00] paid to be there. Probably, I don’t, I don’t actually know in this case, my assumption. Um, but at some point. Like you’ve cottoned on that, hey, it’s not actually worth paying extra for the, um, you know, to go watch the speakers. And the last one of these, you know, similar Australian events I was at, I was like, Hey, it’s not actually worth me paying to go into there because I can get all the benefits by just being near to it, like then. Once you don’t have heaps and heaps of people moving through, then exhibitors don’t wanna pay $10,000 to be there. Um, and so like, it’s just, it’s not sustainable to run the event like that. And that’s what I don’t think that, um, a lot of these event organization companies, especially the ones that aren’t run by an industry body, um, the ones that are just run by a company who exist to make money off events. You know, like they’re not, I don’t think that they’re planning these events to be sustainable in the long term and to improve the industry.  Matthew Stead: Can I ask, um, a question for Yolanda and Allen. Um, so assuming this money for a CP [00:18:00] ends up as lobbying money, do you think lobbying at the moment actually helps? Allen Hall: Here’s the feeling about it on the floor, and I haven’t talked to everybody here clearly. But the significant percentage I had talked to thinks that the policy efforts have not borne fruit, and that in some aspects, uh, they have increased the tension. Whether they’ve intentionally have done that or not, I don’t know. But I think the feeling on the floor here, the last two days has been the industry is in a quote unquote downturn or a pause, and they’re waiting till 2028 to see what happens. That’s not the answer I wanted to hear. And also at the state level, I think, uh, the amount of policy changes that are happening are not pro wind, pro solar or pro best, except maybe in a couple of states. So, uh, you feel like although [00:19:00] American clean power is on a national level, you will also like them to be at a state level, helping move some things forward and stop some of the prohibitions that are happening, or to get some of the permits issued. That’s one of the things that popped up today, talking to someone in the know as that permits are hard to get hold of in some states. Well, American Clean Power is supposed to be helping with that. I’m not sure that they are, at least if they are, you can’t see anything visible happening. From the outside, which is a shame. That’s really a shame. So, you know where we go from here? I, I, I’m kind of in Rosemary’s camp. I had no idea. Uh, next year gonna be really interesting. I, I don’t know what the numbers of attendees are. Uh, I’m guessing a couple thousand people are here. I’m guessing, let’s just say it’s 2000 people. I may be off plus or minus. Well, not on the negative side. It’s more than a thousand people here, but it’s not 10,000. That’s for sure.  Yolanda Padron: I think that, uh, someone at Woma summed it up really [00:20:00] well when they said that, um, we need to shift the conversation from this is the right thing to do to this, is this, we should make this to be cost effective and it should be the obvious decision to make. Right? Just from a financial standpoint. Uh, and I think, I think that’s right from my, uh. Personal interactions with a lot of people in dc I think that lobbying really helps regardless of the political party that one is affiliated to. Um, just, just the way that sometimes our, our system seems to. I not, not to say that anything’s negative, I think it’s, I mean, it’s just the, the way things pan out, uh, oftentimes in the [00:21:00] us. Um, yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve heard from. From both sides.  Allen Hall: Well, to Yolanda’s point, I would say we don’t belong to American clean power because one, it’s expensive and as a small business, does it make sense as the changing policy that helps me? The answer to that historically has been no. It doesn’t mean it’s not gonna happen in the future. I think a lot of. Companies of our size are saying the same thing. There are some that have been here a lot longer that have knew a CP before it was a CP when it was a, a slightly different organization and they’ve continued on on, on some level just I think because they’re familiar with it. But I think the newcomers are having a heart attack. And I would consider me to be a newcomer that we’ve been in wind since about 2012 or 2013, so we’ve been in it quite a while at this point. But there’s some old guard here. The new. The new players though, I think are struggling. I think there’s very few new companies that are flashy. Like we saw in San Antonio a [00:22:00] couple of years ago at American Clean Power. We’re like, wow, there are some boosts here. And man, there’s some firepower happening and some really good marketing and some new products and new ideas. That’s not. That’s not here. Not, not this year. Delamination and bottom line, failures and blades are difficult problems to detect 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 a. 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.[00:23:00] Denmark has long been the home of the wind industry, but now our proposed new wealth taxes threatening to push one of its most prominent executives out the door. And Henrik Anderson, chief executive officer of Vestas says he will leave Denmark rather than pay the new tax, even if it costs him tens of millions of Broner and exit fees. Uh, Anderson earned 32 million Kroger last year, and estimates he pays an effective tax rate of 60% already. He argues Denmark already leads Europe in income taxation and adding a wealth tax crosses the line and he, if he goes, he warns senior leadership could follow. Now, that’s a pretty bold statement for someone who was seen as one of the leadership. Uh, a group of Denmark on the industrial side. Of course,  Rosemary Barnes: I’d argue it’s also culturally, [00:24:00] culturally not a super Danish thing to, to say at least publicly. Um, yeah, I dunno how many Danish listeners we’ve got, but one thing that I learned when I lived there, they’ve got this thing called yte Long. I think it comes from an, an old book, like fictional book, but it does pretty. Well, Danish people say it pretty accurately describes Danish culture. I’ve just, uh, looked it up. But, um, so it’s Y Y’s law and that has 10, there’s 10 rules in Y’s law and they are, one, you’re not to think that you are anything special. Two, you’re not to think you are as good as we are. Three, you’re not to think you are smarter than we are, or you’re not to imagine yourself better than we are. You know, it can, it continues down like that. But I just wonder like, is the Danish wind industry, have they flown too close to the sun? Have they become too thought themselves too special? Is this an example of where Denmark Danish people would say, you know [00:25:00] what? Who do you think you are when dentistry, you think that you’re better than us? You think you’re smarter than us? Do you think that you don’t deserve to contribute to society? Because that is one of the biggest cultural differences that I found in in Denmark, was that people genuinely think that they have the um, responsibility when they’re doing well to make sure that everybody else in society is doing well. This is an interesting cultural moment for Denmark, is all I would try to say that this to me, I’m very interested to see how Danish people respond to this idea that. We’re gonna, we’re gonna leave now because we don’t wanna share our, uh, wealth with the Danish, with Danish society as a whole  Allen Hall: 32 million kroners, that’s actually extremely low and in the United States. Uh, there are thousands of companies, much smaller than Vestas, where the CEO is making a lot more than that, and to give half of that, more than [00:26:00] half of that away, so the CEO is taking home a million and US dollars, like 1,000,002, that’s not a tremendous amount of money. I for the responsibility which are on that person’s shoulders. I could see being a little upset about that. And obviously he travels in circles in which he meets a lot of people that are making a lot more money come to America, stop at a, I don’t know, there’s a lot of places, machine shops that’ll make more money than that. Uh, so I think there’s a right to be upset about it. You know, the, everything that’s happening in Denmark at the moment, I’m trying to. I feel like Denmark is getting it together. And then these things happen and I start to worry again. Uh, there’s, there’s so many things that have happened in the United States. They’re pushing against Denmark, and I feel, I’m always apologizing to my people I know in Denmark and like, this is another one. Like, oh, geez, yeah, we, you know, vest can move to America. Oh, no, no, no, no. I want buses to be where it is. Stay [00:27:00] there. But I think there’s opportunities for investors to move and you kind of get the feeling that they’re leaving Denmark slowly. Have you noticed that recently?  Rosemary Barnes: Maybe. I mean, uh, all of those Danish wind energy companies used to manufacture in Denmark and barely, there’s barely any Danish manufacturing now. So I mean, to a certain extent this is, you know, started a long time ago, but I also think that the, what you described at the tax of the CEO income and the income not being high, it’s not just, uh. Top 1% kind of issue. That’s something that I, I definitely felt it when I worked there, but I think that like, would your average Danish person wish that CEOs were paid more like Americans and that Danish society became more like American with a huge wealth inequality? I, I’m gonna go out in a limb and say. 90% plus of Danish people would absolutely abhor the idea of that happening there. And they will be very firmly on side of you should be, um, CEOs should not be [00:28:00] making that much money and people that are making a lot of money should be paying a lot of tax to support the rest of society at just, I, I, I’m. Pretty sure that he is like a really core cultural value.  Matthew Stead: I think he is good at, I mean, things don’t change unless things change. And, um, uh, I think it’s good for him to be pushing and, you know, making this a, a public discussion and a public topic. I mean, if he hadn’t have come out talking about this problem, we wouldn’t have been talking about it. So, uh, I think yeah. Good on him for raising it and for being brave. I mean, you, like you say, Rosie, um, is not traditional cultural. Values in, in, in Denmark, but, you know, good on him for, for pushing the, pushing the, the, the barrow.  Allen Hall: It’s, it’s hard, right? I think Vestas works in a global community and they see all different kinds of cultures and all kinds of economic systems, and they operate in all of ’em. And, uh, the CEO of Vestus were in the United States and they have a large manufacturing presence in the United States. Let’s face it. [00:29:00] Uh, easily making 10 million in the United States, maybe more easy. And I don’t think they’re paying him nearly enough for the work that he has done and things that he has accomplished. You have to admit, the CEO of Vestus has really put a lot of time and effort into that company and has improved it in ways that are somehow, uh, never discussed, but are, in my opinion, immeasurable. So for the long-term health of that company, they are seen as the preeminent wind turbine manufactured today. That’s hard to do. 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 to you. Never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s this conversation for. Please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show for Rosie, Yolanda and Matthew. I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:30:00] Podcast.

Allen, Rosemary, and Yolanda, joined by Morten Handberg from Wind Power LAB, recap WOMA 2026 live from Melbourne. The crew discusses leading edge erosion challenges unique to Australia, the frustration operators face getting data from full service agreements, and the push for better documentation during project handovers. Plus the birds and bats management debate, why several operators said they’d choose smaller glass fiber blades over bigger carbon fiber ones, and what topics WOMA 2027 should tackle next year. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! [00:00:00] 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. Welcome to the Uptime Winner Energy podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall. I’m here with Yolanda Pone, Rosemary Barnes, and the Blade Whisperer, Morton Hamburg. And we’re all in Melbourne at the Pullman on the park. We just finished up Woma 2026. Massive event. Over 200 people, two days, and a ton of knowledge. Rosemary, what did you think? Yeah, I mean it was a, a really good event. It was really nice ’cause we had event organization, um, taken care of by an external company this time. So that saved us some headaches, I think. Um. But yeah, it was, it was really good. It was different than last year, and I think next year will be different again because yeah, we don’t need to talk about the same topics every single year. But, um, yeah, I got really great [00:01:00] feedback. So that’s shows we’re doing something right? Yeah, a lot of the, the sessions were based upon feedback from Australian industry and, uh, so we did AI rotating bits, the, the drive train blades. Uh, we had a. Master class on lightning to start off. Uh, a number of discussions about BOP and electrical, BOP. All those were really good. Mm-hmm. Uh, the, the content was there, the expertise was there. We had worldwide representation. Morton, you, you talked about blades a good bit and what the Danish and Worldwide experience was. You know, talked about the American experience on Blades. That opened up a lot of discussions because I’m never really sure where Australia is in the, uh, operations side, because a lot of it is full service agreements still. But it does seem like from last year to this year. There’s more onboarding of the technical expertise internally at the operators. Martin, [00:02:00] you saw, uh, a good bit of it. This is your first time mm-hmm. At this conference. What were your impressions of the, the content and the approach, which is a little bit different than any other conference? I see an industry that really wants to learn, uh, Australia, they really want to learn how to do this. Uh, and they’re willing to listen to us, uh, whether you live in Australia, in the US or in Europe. You know, they want to lean on our experiences, but they wanna, you know, they want to take it out to their wind farms and they ga then gain their own knowledge with it, which I think is really amicable. You know, something that, you know, we should actually try and think about how we can copy that in Europe and the US. Because they, they are, they’re listening to us and they’re taking in our input, and then they try and go out. They go out and then they, they try and implement it. Um, so I think really that is something, uh, I’ve learned, you know, and, and really, um, yeah, really impressed by, from this conference. Yeah. Yolanda, you were on several panels over the, the two days. What were your impressions of the conference and what were your thoughts [00:03:00] on the Australia marketplace? I think the conference itself is very refreshing or I think we all feel that way being on the, on the circuit sometimes going on a lot of different conferences. It was really sweet to see everybody be very collaborative, as Morton was saying. Um, and it was, it was just really great about everybody. Yes, they were really willing to listen to us, but they were also really willing to share with each other, which is nice. Uh, I did hear about a few trials that we’re doing in other places. From other people, just kind of, everybody wants to learn from each other and everybody wants to, to make sure they’re in as best a spot as they can. Yeah, and the, the, probably the noisiest part of the conferences were at the coffees and the lunch. Uh, the, the collaboration was really good. A lot of noise in the hallways. Uh, just people getting together and then talking about problems, talking about solutions, trying to connect up with someone they may have seen [00:04:00]somewhere else in the part of the world that they were here. It’s a different kind of conference. And Rosemary, I know when, uh, you came up to with a suggestion like, Hey. If there’s not gonna be any sales talks, we’re not gonna sit and watch a 30 minute presentation about what you do. We’re gonna talk about solutions. That did play a a different dynamic because. It allowed people to ingest at their own rate and, and not just sit through another presentation. Yeah. It was made it more engaging, I think. Yeah, and I mean, anyway, the approach that I take for sales for my company that I think works best is not to do the hard sell. It’s to talk about smart things. Um, and if you are talking about describing a problem or a solution that somebody in the audience has that problem or solution, then they’re gonna seek you out afterwards. And so. There’s plenty of sales happening in an event like this, but you’re just not like, you know, subjecting people to sales. It’s more presenting them with the information that they need. And then I, I think also the size of the conference really [00:05:00] helps ’cause yeah, about 200 people. Any, everybody is here for the same technical kind. Content. So it’s like if you just randomly start talking to somebody while you’re waiting for a coffee or whatever, you have gonna have heaps to talk about with them, with ev every single other person there. And so I think that that’s why, yeah, there was so much talking happening and you know, we had social events, um, the first two evenings and so. Mo like I was surprised actually. So many people stayed. Most people, maybe everybody stayed for those events and so just so much talking and yeah, we did try to have quite long breaks, um, and quite a lot of them and, you know, good enough food and coffee to keep people here. And I think that that’s as important as, you know, just sitting and listening. Well, that was part of the trouble, some of the conference that you and I have been at, it’s just like six hours of sitting down listening to sort of a droning mm-hmm. Presenter trying to sell you something. Here we were. It was back and forth. A lot more panel talk with experts from around the world and then.[00:06:00] Break because you just can’t absorb all that without having a little bit of a brain rest, some coffee and just trying to get to the next session. I, I think that made it, uh, a, a, a more of a takeaway than I would say a lot of other conferences are, where there’s spender booze, and. Brochures and samples being handed out and all that. We didn’t have any of that. No vendor booze, no, uh, upfront sales going on and even into the workshop. So there was specific, uh, topics provided by people that. Provide services mostly, uh, speaking about what they do, but more on a case study, uh, side. And Rosie, you and I sat in on one that was about, uh, birds and bats, birds and bats in Australia. That one was really good. Yeah, that was great. I learned, I learned a lot. Your mind was blown, but Totally. Yeah. It is crazy how much, how much you have to manage, um, bird and wildlife deaths related to wind farms in Australia. Like compared to, I mean, ’cause you see. Dead birds all the time, right? Cars hit [00:07:00] birds, birds hit buildings, power lines kill birds, and no one cares about those birds. But if a bird is injured near a wind farm, then you know, everybody has to stop. We have to make sure that you can do a positive id. If you’re not sure, send it away for a DNA analysis. Keep the bird in a freezer for a year and make sure that it’s logged by the, you know, appropriate people. It’s, it’s really a lot. And I mean, on the one hand, like I’m a real bird lover, so I am, I’m glad that birds are being taken seriously, but on the other hand, I. I think that it is maybe a little bit over the top, like I don’t see extra birds being saved because of that level of, of watching throughout the entire life of the wind farm. It feels more like something for the pre-study and the first couple of years of operation, and then you can chill after that if everything’s under control. But I, I guess it’s quite a political issue because people do. Do worry about, about beds and bats? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I thought the output of that was more technology, a little or a little more technology. Not a lot of technology in today’s world [00:08:00] because we could definitely monitor for where birds are and where bats are and, uh, you know. Slow down the turbines or whatever we’re gonna do. Yeah. And they are doing that in, in sites where there is a problem. But, um, yeah, the sites we’re talking about with that monitoring, that’s not sites that have a big, big problem at sites that are just Yeah, a few, a few birds dying every year. Um, yeah. So it’s interesting. And some of the blade issues in Australia, or a little unique, I thought, uh, the leading edge erosion. Being a big one. Uh, I’ve seen a lot of leading edge erosion over the last couple of weeks from Australia. It is Texas Times two in some cases. And, uh, the discussion that was had about leading edge erosion, we had ETT junker from Stack Raft and, and video form all the way from Sweden, uh, talking to us live, which was really nice actually. Uh, the, the amount of knowledge that the Global Blade group. Brought to the discussion and just [00:09:00] opening up some eyes about what matters in leading edge erosion. It’s not so much the leading edge erosion in terms of a EP, although there is some a EP loss. It’s more about structural damage and if you let the structure go too far. And Martin, you’ve seen a lot of this, and I think we had a discussion about this on the podcast of, Hey, pay attention to the structural damage. Yeah, that’s where, that’s where your money is. I mean, if you go, if you get into structural damage, then your repair costs and your downtime will multiply. That is just a known fact. So it’s really about keeping it, uh, coding related because then you can, you can, you can move really fast. You can get it the blade up to speed and you won’t have the same problems. You won’t have to spend so much time rebuilding the blade. So that’s really what you need to get to. I do think that one of the things that might stand out in Australia that we’re going to learn about. Is the effect of hail, because we talked a lot about it in Europe, that, you know, what is the effect of, of hail on leading edge erosion? We’ve never really been able to nail it down, but down here I heard from an, [00:10:00] from an operator that they, they, uh, referenced mangoes this year in terms of hail size. It was, it was, it was incredible. So if you think about that hitting a leading edge, then, uh, well maybe we don’t really need to, we don’t really get to the point where, so coding related, maybe we will be structural from the beginning, but. Then at least it can be less a structural. Um, but that also means that we need to think differently in terms of leading edge, uh, protection and what kinds of solutions that are there. Maybe some of the traditional ones we have in Europe, maybe they just don’t work, want, they, they won’t work in some part of Australia. Australia is so big, so we can’t just say. Northern Territory is the same as as, uh, uh, um, yeah. Victoria or uh, or Queensland. Or Queensland or West Australia. I think that what we’re probably going to learn is that there will be different solutions fitting different parts of Australia, and that will be one of the key challenges. Um, yeah. And Blades in Australia sometimes do. Arrive without leading edge protection from the OEMs. [00:11:00] Yeah, I’m sure some of the sites that I’ve been reviewing recently that the, the asset manager swears it’s got leading edge protection and even I saw some blades on the ground and. I don’t, I don’t see any leading edge protection. I can’t feel any leading edge protection. Like maybe it’s a magical one that’s, you know, invisible and, um, yeah, it doesn’t even feel different, but I suspect that some people are getting blades that should have been protected that aren’t. Um, so why? Yeah, it’s interesting. I think before we, we rule it out. Then there are some coatings that really look like the original coating. Mm. So we, we, I know that for some of the European base that what they come out of a factory, you can’t really see the difference, but they’re multilayer coating, uh, on the blades. What you can do is that you can check your, uh, your rotor certificate sometimes will be there. You can check your, uh, your blade sheet, uh, that you get from manufacturer. If you get it. Um, if you get it, then it will, it will be there. But, um, yeah, I, I mean, it can be difficult to say, to see from the outset and there’s no [00:12:00]documentation then. Yeah, I mean. If I can’t see any leading edge erosion protection, and I don’t know if it’s there or not, I don’t think I will go so far and then start installing something on something that is essentially a new blade. I would probably still put it into operation because most LEP products that can be installed up tower. So I don’t think that that necessarily is, is something we should, shouldn’t still start doing just because we suspect there isn’t the LEP. But one thing that I think is gonna be really good is, um, you know, after the sessions and you know, I’ve been talking a lot. With my clients about, um, leading edge erosion. People are now aware that it’s coming. I think the most important thing is to plan for it. It’s not right to get to the point where you’ve got half a dozen blades with, you know, just the full leading edge, just fully missing holes through your laminate, and then your rest of your blades have all got laminate damage. That’s not the time to start thinking about it because one, it’s a lot more expensive for each repair than it would’ve been, but also. No one’s got the budget to, to get through all of that in one season. So I do really [00:13:00] like that, you know, some of the sites that have been operating for five years or so are starting to see pitting. They can start to plan that into their budget now and have a strategy for how they’re going to approach it. Um, yeah. And hopefully avoid getting over to the point where they’ve missing just the full leading edge of some of their blades. Yeah. But to Morton’s earlier point, I think it’s also important for people to stop the damage once it happens too. If, if it’s something that. You get a site or for what, whatever reason, half of your site does look like terrible and there’s holes in the blade and stuff. You need to, you need to patch it up in some sort of way and not just wait for the perfect product to come along to, to help you with that. Some of the hot topics this week were the handover. From, uh, development into production and the lack of documentation during the transfer. Uh, the discussion from Tilt was that you need to make sure it is all there, uh, because once you sign off. You probably can’t go back and get it. And [00:14:00] some of the frustration around that and the, the amount of data flow from the full service provider to the operator seemed to be a, a really hot topic. And, and, uh, we did a little, uh, surveyed a about that. Just the amount of, um, I don’t know how to describe it. I mean, it was bordering on anger maybe is a way. Describe it. Uh, that they feel that operators feel like they don’t have enough insight to run the turbines and the operations as well as they can, and that they should have more insight into what they have operating and why it is not operat. A certain way or where did the blades come from? Are there issues with those blades? Just the transparency WA was lacking. And we had Dan Meyer, who is from the States, he’s from Colorado, he was an xge person talking about contracts, uh, the turbine supply agreement and what should be in there, the full service [00:15:00] agreement, what should be in there. Those are very interesting. I thought a lot of, uh, operators are very attentive to that, just to give themselves an advantage of what you can. Put on paper to help yourself out and what you should think about. And if you have a existing wind farm from a certain OEM and you’re gonna buy another wind farm from ’em, you ought to be taking the lessons learned. And I, I thought that was a, a very important discussion. The second one was on repairs. And what you see from the field, and I know Yolanda’s been looking at a lot of repairs. Well, all of you have been looking at repairs in Australia. What’s your feeling on sort of the repairs and the quality of repairs and the amount of data that comes along with it? Are we at a place that we should be, or do we need a little more detail as to what’s happening out there? It’s one of the big challenges with the full service agreements is that, you know, if everything’s running smoothly, then repairs are getting done, but the information isn’t. Usually getting passed on. And so it’s seems fine and it seems like really good actually. Probably if you’re an [00:16:00] asset manager and everything’s just being repaired without you ever knowing about it, perfect. But then at some point when something does happen, you’ve got no history and especially like even before handover. You need to know all of the repairs that have happened for, you know, for or exchanges for any components because you know, you’re worried about, um, serial defects, for example. You need every single one. ’cause the threshold is quite high to, you know, ever reach a serial defect. So you wanna know if there were five before there was a handover. Include that in your population. Um, yeah, so that’s probably the biggest problem with repairs is that they’re just not being. Um, the reports aren’t being handed over. You know, one of the things that Jeremy Hanks from C-I-C-N-D-T, and he’s an NDT expert and has, has seen about everything was saying, is that you really need to understand what’s happening deep inside the blade, particularly for inserts or, uh, at the root, uh, even up in, with some, some Cory interactions happening or splicing that It’s hard to [00:17:00] see that hard to just take a drone inspection and go, okay, I know what’s happening. You need a little more technology in there at times, especially if you have a serial defect. Why do you have a serial defect? Do you need to be, uh, uh, scanning the, the blade a little more deeply, which hasn’t really happened too much in Australia, and I think there’s some issues I’ve seen where it may come into use. Yeah, I think it, it, it’ll be coming soon. I know some people are bringing stuff in. I’ve got emails sitting in my inbox I need to chase up, but I’m, I’m really going to, to get more into that. Yeah. And John Zalar brought up a very similar, uh, note during his presentation. Go visit your turbines. Yeah, several people said that. Um, actually Liz said that too. Love it. And, um, let’s this, yeah, you just gotta go have a look. Oh, Barend, I think said bar said it too. Go on site. Have a look at the lunchroom. If the lunch room’s tidy, then you know, win turbine’s gonna be tidy too. And I don’t know about that ’cause I’ve seen some tidy lunchroom that were associated with some, you know, uh, less well performing assets, but it’s, you know, it’s [00:18:00] a good start. What are we gonna hope for in 2027? What should we. Be talking about it. What do you think we’ll be talking about a year from now? Well, a few people, quite a few people mentioned to me that they were here, they’re new in the industry, and they heard this was the event to go to. Um, and so I, I was always asking them was it okay? ’cause we pitch it quite technical and I definitely don’t wanna reduce. How technical it is. One thing I thought of was maybe we start with a two to five minute introduction, maybe prerecorded about the, the topic, just to know, like for example, um, we had some sessions on rotating equipment. Um, I’m a Blades person. I don’t know that much about rotating equipment, so maybe, you know, we just explain this is where the pitch bearings are. They do this and you know, there’s the main bearing and it, you know, it does this and just a few minutes like that to orient people. Think that could be good. Last, uh, this year we did a, a masterclass on lightning, a half day masterclass. Maybe we change that topic every year. Maybe next year it’s blade design, [00:19:00] certification, manufacturing. Um, and then, you know, the next year, whatever, open to suggestions. I mean, in general, we’re open to suggestions, right? Like people write in and, and tell us what you’d wanna see. Um, absolutely. I think we could focus more on technologies might be an, an area like. It’s a bit, it’s a bit hard ’cause it gets salesy, but Yeah. I think one thing that could actually be interesting and that, uh, there was one guy came up with an older turbine on the LPS system. Mm. Where he wanted to look for a solution and some of the wind farms are getting older and it’s older technology. So maybe having some, uh, uh, some sessions on that. Because the older turbines, they are vastly different from what we, what we see in the majority with wind farms today. But the maintenance of those are just as important. And if you do that correctly, they’re much easier to lifetime extent than it will likely be for some of the nuance. But, you know, let. Knock on wood. Um, but, but I think that’s something that could be really interesting and really relevant for the industry and something [00:20:00] that we don’t talk enough about. Yeah. Yeah, that’s true because I, I’m working on a lot of old wind turbines now, and that has been, um, quite a challenge for me because they’re design and built in a way that’s quite different to when, you know, I was poking, designing and building, uh, wind turbine components. So that’s a good one. Other people mentioned end of life. Mm-hmm. Not just like end of life, like the life is over, but how do you decide when the life end of life is going to be? ’cause you know, like you have a planned life and then you might like to extend, but then you discover you’ve got a serial issue. Are you gonna fix it? Or you know, how are you gonna fix it? Those are all very interesting questions that, um, can occur. And then also, yeah, what to do with the. The stuff at the end of the Wind Farm lifetime, we could make a half day around those kinds of sessions. I think recycling could actually be good to, to also touch upon and, and I think, yeah, Australia is more on the front of that because of, of your high focus on, on nature and sustainability. So looking at, well, what do we do with these blades? Or what do we do with the towers of foundation once, uh, [00:21:00] once we do need to decommission them, you know, what is, what are we going to do in Australia about that? Or what is Australia going to do about that? But, you know, what can we bring to the, to the table that that can help drive that discussion? I think maybe too, helping people sort of templates for their formats on, on how to successfully shadow, monitor, maybe showing them a bit mute, more of, uh. Like cases and stuff, so to get them going a bit more. ’cause we heard a lot of people too say, oh, we’re, we’re teetering on whether we should self operate or whether we continue our FSA, but we, we we’re kind of, we don’t know what we’re doing. Yeah. In, in not those words. Right. But just providing a bit more of a guidance too. On that side, we say shadow monitoring and I think we all know what it means. If you’ve seen it done, if you haven’t seen it done before. It seems daunting. Mm-hmm. What do you mean shadow monitoring? You mean you got a crack into the SCADA system? Does that mean I’ve gotta, uh, put CMS out there? Do I do, do I have to be out [00:22:00] on site all the time? The answer that is no to all of those. But there are some fundamental things you do need to do to get to the shadow monitoring that feels good. And the easy one is if there’s drone inspections happening because your FSA, you find out who’s doing the drone inspections and you pay ’em for a second set of drone inspections, just so you have a validation of it, you can see it. Those are really inexpensive ways to shadow monitor. Uh, but I, I do think we say a lot of terms like that in Australia because we’ve seen it done elsewhere that. Doesn’t really translate. And I, if I, I’m always kind of looking at Rosemary, like, does it, this make sense? What I’m saying makes sense, Rosemary, because it’s hard to tell because so many operators are in sort of a building mode. I, I see it as. When I talked to them a few years ago, they’re completely FSA, they had really small staffs. Now the staffs are growing much larger, which makes me feel like they’re gonna transition out an FSA. Do we need to provide a little more, uh, insight into how that is done deeper. [00:23:00] Like, these are the tools you, you will need. This is the kind of people you need to have on staff. This is how you’re gonna organize it, and this is the re these are the resources that you should go after. Mm. Does that make a little si more sense? Yeah. That might be a good. Uh, idea for getting somebody who’s, you know, working for a company that is shadow monitoring overseas and bring them in and they can talk through what that, what that means exactly. And that goes back to the discussion we were having earlier today by having operators talk about how they’re running their operations. Mm. And I know the last year we tried to have everybody do that and, and they were standoffish. I get it. Because you don’t want to disclose things that your company doesn’t want out in public. And year two, it felt like there’s a little more. Openness about that. Yeah, there was a few people were quite open about, um, yeah, talking about challenges and some successes as well. I think we’ll have more successes next year ’cause we’ve got more, more things going on. But yeah, definitely would encourage any operators to think about what’s a you A case study that you could give about? Yeah, it could just be a problem that’s unsolved and I bet you’ll find people that wanna help you [00:24:00] solve that problem. Or it could be something that you struggled with and then you’re doing a better job and Yeah, I mean the. Some operators think that they’re in competition with each other and some think that they’re not really, and the answer is somewhere, somewhere in the middle. There are, you know, some at least small amounts of competition. But, you know, I just, I just really think that. We’re fighting against each other, trying to win within the wind industry. Then, you know, in 10, 20 years time, especially in Australia, there won’t be any new wind. It’ll just be wind and solar everywhere and, and the energy transition stalled because everyone knows that’s not gonna get us all the way to, you know, a hundred percent renewables. So, um, I do think that we need to, first of all, fight for wind energy to improve. The status quo is not good enough to take us through the next 20 years. So we do need to collaborate to get better. And then, yeah, I don’t know, once we’re, once we’re one, wind has won, then we can go back to fighting amongst ourselves, I guess. Is Australia that [00:25:00] laboratory? Yeah, I think I, I say it all the time. I think Australia is the perfect place because I, I do think we’re a little bit more naturally collaborative. For some reason, I don’t know why, it’s not really like a, a cultural thing, but seems to be the case in Australian wind. Um, and also our, our problems are harder than, uh, than what’s being faced elsewhere. I mean, America has some specific problems right now that are, you know, worse, but in general, operating environment is very harsh Here. We’re so spread out. Everything is so expensive. Cranes are so expensive. Repairs are so expensive. Spares spare. Yeah, spares are crazy expensive. You know, I look every now and then and do reports for people about, you know, what, what’s the average cost for and times for repairs and you know, you get an American values and it’s like, okay, well at a minimum times by five Australia and you know, so. It, there’s a lot more bang for buck. And the other thing is we just do not have enough, um, enough people, enough. Uh, we’ve got some really smart people. We need a lot more [00:26:00] people that are as smart as that. And you can’t just get that immediately. Like there has been a lot of good transfer over from related industries. A lot of people that spoke so that, you know, they used to work for thermal power plants and, um, railway, a guy that spoke to a guy had come in from railway. Um. That’s, that’s really good. But it will take some years to get them up to speed. And so in the meantime, we just need to use technology as much as we can to be able to, you know, make the people that good people that we do have, you know, make them go a lot further, um, increase what they can do. ’cause yeah, I don’t think there’s a single, um, asset owner where they couldn’t, you know, double the number of asset managers they had and, you know, ev everyone could use twice as many I think. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I think something that we really focused on this year is kind of removing the stones that are in people’s path or like helping at least like to, to say like, don’t trip over there. Don’t trip over here. And I think part of that, like, like you mentioned, is that. [00:27:00] The, the collaborative manner that everyone seemed to have and just, I think 50% of our time that we were in those rooms was just people asking questions to experts, to anybody they really wanted to. Um, and it, it just, everybody getting the same answers, which is really just a really different way to, to do things, I think. But more than, I mean, we, we we’re still. We’re still struggling with quality in Australia. That’s still a major issue on, on a lot of the components. So until we have that solved, we don’t really know how much of an influence the other factors they really have because it just overshadows everything. And yes, it will be accelerated by extreme weather conditions, but. What will, how will it work if, if the components are actually fit, uh, fit for purpose in the sense that we don’t have wrinkles in the laminates, that we don’t have, uh, bond lines that are detaching. Mm-hmm. Maybe some of it is because of, uh, mango size hails hitting the blades. Maybe it’s because of extreme temperatures. Maybe it’s [00:28:00] because of, uh, uh, yeah. At extreme topography, you know, creating, uh, wind conditions that the blades are not designed for. We don’t really know that. We don’t really know for sure. Uh, we just assume, um, Australia has some problems with, not problems, but some challenges with remoteness. We don’t, with, uh, with getting new, new spares that much is absolutely true. We can’t do anything about that. We just have to, uh, find a way to, to mitigate that. Mm-hmm. But I think we should really be focused on getting quality, uh, getting the quality in, in order. You know, one thing that’s interesting about that, um, so yeah, Australia should be focused more on quality than anybody else, but in, in, in the industry, yeah. Uh, entire world should be more focused on quality, but also Australia. Yeah. But Australia, probably more than anyone considering how hard it is to, you know, make up for poor quality here. Um. At the same time, Australia for some reason, loves to be the first one with a new technology, loves to have the biggest [00:29:00] turbine. Um, and the, the latest thing and the newest thing, and I thought it was interesting. I mean, this was operations and maintenance, um, conference, so not really talking about new designs and manufacturing too much, but at least three or four people said, uh. Uh, I would be using less carbon fiber in blades. I would not be, not be going bigger and bigger and bigger. If I was buying turbines for a new wind farm, I would have, you know, small glass blades and just more of them. So I think that that was really interesting to hear. So many people say it, and I wasn’t even one of them, even though, you know, I would definitely. Say that. I mean, you know, in terms of business, I guess it’s really good to get a lot of, a lot of big blades, but, um, because they just, people, I don’t think people understand that, that bigger blades just have dramatically more quality problems than the smaller ones. Um, were really kind of exceeded the sweet spot for the current manufacturing methods and materials. I don’t know if you would agree, but it’s, it’s. Possible, but [00:30:00] it’s, it, you know, it’s not like a blade that’s twice as long, doesn’t have twice as many defects. It probably has a hundred times as many defects. It’s just, uh, it’s really, really challenging to make those big blades, high quality, and no one is doing it all that well right now. I would, however, I got an interesting hypothetical and they’re. Congrats to her for, for putting out that out. But there was an operator that said to me at the conference, so what would you choose hypothetically? A 70 meter glass fiber blade or a 50 meter carbon fiber blade, so a blade with carbon fiber reinforcement. And I did have to think quite a while about it because there was, it was she say, longer blades, more problems, but carbon blade. Also a lot of new problems. So, so what is it? So I, I ended up saying, well, glass fiber, I would probably go for a longer glass fiber blade, even though it will have some, some different challenges. It’s easier to repair. Yeah, that’s true. So we can overcome some of the challenges that are, we can also repair carbon. We have done it in air, air, uh, aeronautics for many, many years. But wind is a different beast because we don’t have, uh, [00:31:00] perfect laboratory conditions to repair in. So that would just be a, a really extreme challenge. So that’s, that’s why I, I would have gone for carbon if, for glass fiber, if, if I, if I could in that hypothe hypothetical. Also makes more energy, the 70 meter compared to it’s a win-win situation. Well, it’s great to see all of you. Australia. I thought it was a really good conference. And thanks to all our sponsors, uh, til being the primary sponsor for this conference. Uh, we are starting to ramp up for 2027. Hopefully all of you can attend next year. And, uh, Rosie, it’s good to see you in person. Oh, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s exciting when we are actually on the same continent. Uh, it doesn’t happen very often. And Morton, it’s great to see you too, Yolanda. I see you every day pretty much. So she’s part of our team, so I, it’s great to see you out. This is actually the first time, me and Rosie, we have seen each other. We’ve, we’ve known each other for years. Yeah. Yeah. The first time we actually, uh, been, been, yeah. Within, uh, yeah. [00:32:00] Same room. Yep. And same continent. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s been awesome. And also it’s my first time meeting Yolanda in person too. So yeah, that’s our first time. And same. So thanks so much for everybody that attended, uh, woma 2026. We’ll see you at Woma 2027 and uh, check us out next week for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Recorded live at the Wind Operation and Maintenance Australia 2026 conference, Allen, Rosemary, Matthew, and Yolanda are joined by Thomas Schlegl for a panel discussion on where the Australian wind industry is headed over the next five years. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Alright, let’s get started. This is the, the final event of this three day marathon. Uh, where will we be in five years? And I have, uh, pretty much everybody from the Uptime podcast and Thomas Schlagel from eLog Ping. Uh. Uh, Rosie and I had a big argument before we all came about what we were going to be in five years, and Rosie’s and my opinion differed quite a bit just on, that’s, uh, that’s what led to me suggesting the personality test because yes, and that was, that’s actually a really good suggestion. So I know something about myself now, but, uh, I, I think talking to people here, watching the presentations. And having an American slash European perspective on it. I think every, everybody can chime in here. Australia’s probably on a better pathway than a lot of places. Yeah. Well, I know I’ve been back in Australia for about [00:01:00] five years, five years. Before that I was in Denmark. I left Australia. Because I was so like in despair about the state of renewables and also manufacturing and just doing smart engineering in Australia. Um, so yeah, when I came back five years ago, I was a bit shocked at how different things were in Australia. And I was also, you know, like I will say that it, we were, we were behind like way less mature than other, um, markets in terms of how we operated our wind energy assets. Um, and it’s changed so much in five years, so like a half day, if I’m making predictions for where we’ll be in five years time, I have to, you know, like use that as a, it, it’s probably gonna be more than you would think in five years, just based on how far we’ve already come in, in five years. Um, so yeah, I think that five years ago people were trusting a lot more in the full service agreements. Um, definitely there’s very few people who are still naive that that’s just, you know, um, a set and forget kind of thing that you [00:02:00] can do and not worry about it. Everybody’s now aware that you need to know, um, about your assets and we’re already to the point where there are like a lot of asset managers know so much, um, and, you know, have become real experts and really wasn’t, wasn’t the case five years ago. So. I’m hopeful for that. Um, you know, that it, it will continue and yeah, probably at a faster pace than, um, what we see elsewhere. I think Australia is a really attractive market, not just for developing new wind projects, but also for developing all of the kinds of supporting technologies, which is, you know, like a lot of the people here either using or developing those kind of technologies. And some of our challenges here make it the perfect place to, yeah, develop new text because. Things are, it’s really expensive to do repairs here. Um, the operating conditions are harsh and so things wear out and it just means that it’s, you can put together a positive business case for a new tech here much sooner than you could overseas. So I’m really [00:03:00] hopeful that we see, you know, like a whole lot of innovation, um, in, in those kinds of technologies that are gonna help wind energy get a lot more mature. And even hearing some of the answers from last year to this year, you see that shift. Uh, I was really shocked last year how much reliance there was on. The FSA and now I hearing a lot more discussion about, all right, we need to be shadow monitoring. We need to be looking at the, the, the data coming off, trying to hack, break into the passwords to get to the SCADA system, which was new, but I feel like very Australian thing to do. Matthew, you’ve been in the small business in Australia for, for several years in the wind business. What do you see? I mean, you’ve been in it like for five years now. Plus actually more than that, uh, I actually did my first wind farm around 20 oh 2001. Okay. Or 2002. Um, that was from a noise perspective. So I, I’ve seen things, you know, the full cycle. Um, you know, there were many years of [00:04:00]despair, the whole, um, stop these, stop these things. I’m actually featured, I was featured on Stop these things. So, um, don’t, don’t Google it. It was pretty horrible. So, um, we did a lot of work around infrasound and noise impacts and so there was many years which were, were pretty horrible. Um. Over that time, I sort of relate to my daughter. My daughter’s turning 21 soon. She is a beautiful girl, turning into an adult, a wonderful adult, and it’s, I think the wind industry is really growing, maturing, growing up, and you know, is wonderful to see. And I think we are, we’re only gonna get better, stronger. And I think one may, one note I made here is that now they’ve got wind, solar batteries. I just think it’s unstoppable, so I’m super optimistic that we’re only gonna keep, you know, raising that bar. Well, if you look at where Australia is compared to a lot of the places on the [00:05:00] planet, way ahead, in terms of renewable energy. I mean, you’ve got basically $0 in electricity for, because of how much solar there is, plus the batteries are coming in and, and the transmission’s coming online. And I’m talking to some people about, uh, what these new developments look like. If you’re trying to develop some of these projects in the United States, you’re not gonna be able to do them. There’s, there’s too many regulatory hurdles, and it seems like Australia has at least opened some of the doors to explore. Uh, people in America, the companies in Europe are gonna be watching Australia, I think in, in terms of where we go next. Because if Australia can pull off pretty much a renewable grid, which is where you’re headed, others will follow because it’s just a lower cost way of running a, running an electricity grid system. Yeah. Now I need to perform my, um, regular role of being a Debbie Downer. Um, I, I think that there’s, there’s big challenges and it’s definitely not, um, a case of [00:06:00] the status quo now is good enough to carry us through to a hundred percent renewables. Um, there are some big, big problems that need to be solved. Like, uh, solar plus batteries in Australia is, is going amazing and it’s gonna do a lot. It’s not gonna, it will be incredibly hard to get to, you know, a fully renewable grid that way. The problem with wind is at the moment, I mean, it’s getting more expensive to install wind now and we don’t only need to install new wind farms, we’ve also got existing wind farms that are retiring. So we need to either extend those or we need to, um, you know, build new wind farms in their place. So we do need to get better there. And then I think that the new technologies, like, you know, I’m the blades person and the bigger blades are bigger problems like, like dramatically. I don’t think that your average, um, wind farm owner or wannabe wind farm owner is aware, like actually how many more problems there are with big blades compared to smaller ones and. I think that, like I said earlier, I [00:07:00] think Australia’s a great place to get those technologies, um, you know, developed. But we, we need to do that. That’s not like a nice to have and oh, everything will be a little bit better, but if we can’t maintain our assets better and get more out of them, um, we also need improvements with manufacturing. But it’s not really an o and m thing. I won’t talk too much about it. But yeah, I think that like we can’t be remotely complacent. Well, I think in, in Europe, uh, Thomas, you actually spent several months in Australia, and you’re obviously from Austria, so it’s an Austria Australian connection. Do you see the differences between the Austrian market, the German market, and what’s happening here in Australia? What, what do you think of the comparison between the two? So, what I, what really was fascinating from was the speed of, um, improvements we see here in Australia. It. Um, just for me, wind industry in my young industry, sorry, was always rather slow in Europe and [00:08:00] like not really adopting. Um, and here, sorry. For example, last year you asked the question how many. Of the audience to use sensors for shadow monitoring and no hand was raised right. It was zero silence. And uh, this year we even had a few percentage on, on sensors on the, on the cido. So you see only within a year like this gradually graduated, improvements are happening and I think that makes such a, um, speed in, in improvements and that will. Close to the rescue again. Thank you. And that, um, that will bring Australia to a big advantage. Um, especially I think overtaking, uh, at a certain point, and it would be great to see in five years from now, um, maybe Europeans, Austrians, uh, coming to Australia to. [00:09:00] To learn and not the other way around. Yeah, and, and especially with Yolanda working for the biggest energy company in Denmark, uh, in America, you see how Americans react to change and, and the reluctance to move forward on some of the things we talked about this week, which are, do seem to be moving a little bit quicker. There is more an acceptance of CMS systems here. And on in the States, it seems like you have to really fight. A lot of times to get anybody to listen, to do something because it’s all, it’s financially driven in some aspects, but it’s sort of like, we don’t do that here, so we’re not gonna listen to it. What’s been your experience being on a, this is your first time in Australia, what, what has been your experience this week and what have you learned? I was very pleasantly surprised by just the amount of collaboration that everybody really wants to have here and the openness to, to do so, and to learn from each [00:10:00] other, um, and to accept just, you know, if you’ve seen an issue and or someone else has seen an issue, then you can really learn from each other. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to silo yourself as much as, as you typically do in the United States. I mean, it is a different culture, right? And so it’s just. Honestly, hats off to, to Australians for, for being able to, to work with each other, so, so well, yeah. The discussions out at the lunchtime and the coffee area were uniquely different than what we generally will see in the United States. And Matthew, you’ve been around a lot of that too, where it kinda gets a little clique. But here, I mean, obviously, I mean, not just human nature, but on some level I felt like, oh, there’s a lot of interaction happening and it’s really loud. So people are engaging with one another and trying to learn from one another, or at least connect. And I, I think in a lot of times in Europe, there’s not a lot of the connection until the, the drinking starts, you know, at about 10. Uh, but. Uh, Matthew, did you see that too? [00:11:00] Like I was really pleasantly surprised. That was a good thing to see here. Yeah. And in my former life as a consultant, I dealt with, you know, construction, uh, road rail, you know, I mining a whole range of industries. And, um, one of the reasons why I’ve stayed in wind is ’cause I, you know, I love the people, you know, I love you all. So, or, um, but no, I think, um, the. The collaboration, the willingness to talk, um, the willingness to share ideas. And I think, I think I’ve been super, super, super happy about the way the panels have run, you know, everyone’s willing to share. Um, yeah, I’m, I’m just stoked. Yeah, Rosie, this is all your fault, honestly, because Rosie was always the, the contrary opinion. So I would say something and Rosie would feel obligated to say something as the opposite. But when, when we all started this discussion about, uh, a, a wind turbine conference, you had been to a bad wind turbine conference in Australia and I had been to a really bad one in the States and we were just, okay, that’s enough. And the movement [00:12:00] toward, let’s get some information, let’s everybody interact with one another. Let’s, we will give all the presentations to people at the end of this so you can access data. You’re not spending a ton of money to come. That was a, a big part of the discussion, like, I’m spending $5,000 to listen to sales presentations for three days. I don’t want to do that anymore. We try to avoid that in this conference. Hopefully, if you notice that and, and, and. I guess the conference board is up here right now. Are we gonna do Woma 2027? Are we gonna decide that today? Or. Yes, yes, the website is live. Um, I also wanna take this opportunity to, um, thank the, the sponsors of the event. And I hope that you’ve noticed that it’s not like these aren’t the sponsors of normal events where they’re like, okay, we’ll give you a bunch of money and then we’re gonna stand up and talk at you for half an hour about our new product launch or whatever. Like these sponsors haven’t, they haven’t got back [00:13:00] in the traditional way that you, you would with a kind of, um, event. So I’m really grateful for the very high quality sponsors that we’ve got. And, um, yeah, I just, I, I dunno if I’m allowed to share a little bit about the, the economics of this event. Um, if we didn’t have the sponsors tickets would cost twice as much. So, um, that’s one thing. But then the other key thing that we. Really couldn’t do it without sponsors is that we didn’t, our event didn’t break even until about a week ago because everyone buys their tickets late. Um, so yeah, the, the, we would’ve been having heart attacks, um, months ago about our potential, you know, bankruptcy from running the event if it wasn’t for, um, yeah, the, the great sponsors. So thanks to everybody that did that. Um, and everybody that attended consider buying a ticket earlier next time. Um, I, I’m the worst. I often buy my ticket the day of, of, of an event. So it’s, you know, like it’s a pot calling the kettle black. But, um, yeah, that’s just a bit of the, [00:14:00] the reality. And we have a number of poll questions. Uh, let’s get producer Claire back there to throw ’em up on the screen. So while we’re doing that, we should really thank Claire. Claire has been amazing. Yeah. Thank you, Claire. So the emojis are from Claire. Claire, clearly here. Uh, how do you feel about the, the current state of the wind industry? Hopefully there’s more smiley faces after this week. Well, alright, we’re a hundred percent rosemary. We had to put the one with the, yeah. And for me personally, um, I used to feel a lot more optimistic when I worked in design and manufacturing. And then when I come into operations, that like automatically makes you feel a bit more pessimistic. And then me specifically, like I only get involved when really bad things are happening. And so sometimes for me, like it’s easy to think. [00:15:00] When technology is just not good enough and, you know, I need to find a new industry to move into. So, uh, it is good to talk, talk to other people and, you know, like bring my reality back to a kind of a midpoint. And I, I just like to say, I, I think, I mean maybe there’s been a bit of OE em bashing here maybe. Um. Um, however, we need really strong OEMs, so I just wanna put a shout out to the OEMs and say, yeah, we absolutely need you. So just keep doing it. You will keep doing better, so thank you. Yeah, it’s a difficult industry to be in and we put a lot of demands on them and they, they’re pushing limits, so yeah, they’re gonna run into problems. That’s fine. Let’s just find solutions for them. Alright, uh, next question, producer Claire. What is the best thing you learned at Woma? This is not multiple choice. You can write whatever you want. Stealing passwords. [00:16:00] Did any of us learn anything? Unexpected contracting? Oh yeah. Get the contract right? Oh yeah. Yeah. Dan was really good. Yeah, Dan was great about contracting, looking on the other side of that fence. Cybersecurity is not that big of an issue in Australia. That’s some big thing in Europe, so yeah, it is. I was surprised by the environmental factor in Australia. I was surprised about the birds. Yeah. Everyone who wasn’t in the birds workshop yesterday, Alan was freaking out about, about how Australian wind farms have to manage birds and um, you have to freeze a bird for 12 months. I don’t, where do you have to freeze it for a bird? I don’t know. But that, it just is a little odd, I would say. Yeah. All right, Rosemary, you gotta take away Rosemary’s phone. Alan’s personality test. Yeah, there we go. That was not me. Wind farm toilets was a good one. Thank you, Liz, for, for raising that. [00:17:00] Yeah, I know when I worked in, um, Europe and Canadian wind farms, I would have to strategize my liquid intake for the day. Balancing out tea will help keep me warm, but on the other hand. Did everybody meet up with someone who had a solution? That was part of the goal here is to put people with solutions in the room with people with problems and let you all sort it out. So hopefully that was one of the things that happened this week. Or if you haven’t connected here, be able to connect with over LinkedIn or over coffee later. And the networking on the app and networking page on the website. Right. So you can actually use that now that’s all live. Yeah. So you can, you can connect through there if you’ve selected to. To keep your contact information open. Yep. You can connect through there so it’s easy to, if you need somebody to find my or Matthew’s email, you can just find it right there and we’ll upload the presentations, as you said. Right. The presentations we uploaded. But you have to select into that, Matthew, is that right? Also, the speakers [00:18:00] have to approve them as well. Right. And the, and all the speakers, you know who you are. Can let us know if we can use your slide decks to public size them. I didn’t see anything there that looked highly classified, so I think that would be fine. Alright. This is really interesting. Convince OEMs to install better pitch bearings. That’s very true. Okay, thanks you for that. Claire, what’s the next one? What do you wish you learned more about? So Matthew did a tour before the conference several months ago. And, and went to a lot of the operators and said, what would you like to hear about? So the things that were, uh, the seminar or the different workshops and all that were the result of talking to each of the operators about what you would like to see. So hopefully we covered most of them. Uh, obvious There. There’s some new things. Gear boxes. Yeah. I figured that one was coming. Tower retrofits. Okay. Good, good, [00:19:00] good. ISPs? Yeah. Life extension. Yeah. A lot of life extension. I agree. Well, we’re gonna run into that to the United States also. Asbestos. I’ve read some things about that in Australia. Okay. Which leading protection work by name. I do, I do have, well, lemme see. I do know that answer, but you’re gonna have to talk to Rosemary to get the, the key to the vault there. I I also think that you can’t assume that it’s gonna work in Australia. I think that, that like really seriously, I, I wouldn’t, um. I wouldn’t replace my entire wind farms leading edge protection based on what worked well in Europe and America. So, um, I would highly suggest, um, getting in touch with me and or bigger to get involved in a trial if you, that’s a problem for you. Yeah, definitely get involved in the trial. Uh, more data is better and if you do join that trial, you will have the keys to the castle. They will tell you how all the other pro uh, blades went. Uh, trainings and [00:20:00] skills, obviously that’s a, that’s a international one. When does ROI really happen? Yeah. Yep. We hear that quite a bit. Needs have proven good products for leading edge erosion. Yep. Okay. Yeah. So the que I guess one of the questions is, is that we did not on purpose, did not have any vendor things. I haven’t mentioned my product once this week. I, because I don’t want to, you know, that’s not the point of this conference, but should we. I don’t know. I mean, that’s a, should we have people standing up and I don’t know if it’s standing out there, but able to, to trial things. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree with what. I, I don’t, I don’t want that. Oh, yeah. No, I don’t want that. But it’s not my conference. Right. It’s, it’s everybody who c comes and wants to participate. What do you wanna see? Do you wanna see 10 leading edge products out in the hallway or, I didn’t mind that people were putting like stickers and like little knickknacks out on [00:21:00] tables. That was fun. Rosemary’s got a, a satchel full of them. Alright, Claire, is that the last one? There’s one more. All right. Hang on for one more. What’s your biggest takeaway from Woma? That you’re gonna buy your tickets early for WMA 2027, hopefully, and you’re gonna sponsor. I had a lot of people come up to me and say they would like to sponsor next year. And that’s wonderful. That will really keep the, the cost down because we’re not making anything off of this. I’m losing money to be here, which is totally fine ’cause I think this is a noble effort. Uh, but we will keep the cost as low as we can. We have an upgraded venue from last year. If you attend last year we were at the library, which was also a very nice facility, but this is just another level. Mm. Um, and the website has the ability to register interest in sponsorship. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve already got, uh, Jeremy’s already shook my hand. He’s already committed. Yeah. [00:22:00] Uh, I think we’ll have a lot of three pizzas on, on sponsorship for next year, and that’s good. Uh, that tells you there’s some value to be here and, and, uh, connect stickers, Rosemary stickers. There you go. I like whoever put calories up there. That’s funny. Yeah. You know the thing about, uh, this city is you can eat and it’s so dang good. You can’t do that in the states. You can’t just walk around in a random. Downtown like Detroit, Chicago. There are places you can eat there, but every place you walk into in this city is really good food. It’s crazy. Yeah. It’s, it’s uh, sort of addictive. I’m gonna have to go home on Saturday or not gonna fit in my seat. Um, alright. This is great. Yeah. We really love, um, constructive feedback. I think we’re all, or at least. Vast majority of us are engineers. We like to know about problems and fix them. So, um, most of us can’t have our feelings hurt easily. So, you [00:23:00] know, be very, very direct with your feedback. And, um, yeah, I mean the event should be different every year, right? Like, we don’t wanna do the exact same thing every year, so, um, it will change. Yeah. Yeah. And there is a survey going out as well, so Georgina will send out a survey. All right. So those surveys go to who? Matthew, are they going to you or are they going to all attendees and go? I think it goes back to Georgina, but we’ll, okay. Yeah. Great. So if you do get a, a form to fill out, please fill it out. That helps us for next year. Are we gonna be back in the same city? I say Yes. Yes. Yeah, this place is great. Sydney is also lovely. I spent an hour there at the airport. It was quite nice, but it was long enough. As I learned from people from Melbourne that Sydney is not their favorite place to go. So I guess we’re, we’re here next year. Is there anything else we need to talk about? Um, no. I mean, I’ve just been, uh, my favorite thing about this event is like the, the size of it and that people, uh, like very closely related in what we’re interested in that. It’s not like a, [00:24:00] you can put any two random people together and then we’ll have an interesting conversation. So I’ve really enjoyed all of the, you know, dozens of conversations that I’ve had this week. And, um, yeah. So thank you everybody for showing up with a open and collaborative, um, yeah. Frame of mind. It’s, yeah, couldn’t be done without everybody here. We do have a little bit of an award ceremony here for Rosemary, so we actually put together. A collage of videos over the last, um, five years. Uh, this is news to me. What? Yeah. Surprise. All right. Let it roll. Claire. Champion Rosie Barnes is here. Everybody. Climate change is a problem that our politicians don’t seem to be trying. Particularly hard to solve. This used to frustrate me until I realized that as an engineer, I have the power to [00:25:00] change the world, and unlike some politicians, I choose to use my powers for good. So I made a gingerbread wind turbine, I mean, a functional gingerbread, wind turbine, functional and edible. Everything except for the generator is edible. Alan, what were some of your takeaways from our talk with, uh, with Rosie? Well, I just like the way she thinks she thinks in terms of systems, not in terms of components. And I, I think that’s a, for an engineer is a good way to think about bigger problems. On today’s episode, we’ve got, well, some exciting news. Number one. Rosemary, uh, Barnes will be joining us here today as our co our new co-host. Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much for having me. So, you know, one wind turbine with, um, wooden 80 meter long wooden blades. Yeah. Like, that’s so cool. What a great engineering challenge or, you know, craftsmanship challenge, um, there, but, you know, I’d like to see one [00:26:00]wooden wind turbine blade, but not, not more than that. It’s a, it’s a cool, it’s a cool novelty. And then burn it, right? If you burn it, then you’ll catch the carbon. We need someone within the Australian wind industry to start up a, a better conference. Um, you know, it should be allowing you to kind of put your finger on the pulse and figure out, you know, what, what’s the vibe of wind energy in Australia at the moment? Um, what are the big problems people are having and then, you know, some potential solutions, some people talking about things that are coming up that you might not have heard about yet. I just think that it’s much easier to get a good value conference from a, like a, a small organization that is really dedicated to the, um, topic of the, of the conference. So as part of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, Rosemary, the YouTube ci, these little gold plaques. So this is actually, this is your first gold plaque, but you have two [00:27:00] silver plaques also. ’cause engineering with Rosie reached a 100,000 subscribers. Uh, the uptime also reached a hundred thousand subscribers a while ago, but we reached 1 million. This is the first time I, we’ve been in person, but I could actually hand you this award. So congratulations Zi. Very, very well done. Thank you. This is treasured and, um. Yeah, added in. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before, so I’m bit overwhelmed. I, I’m interested to know, we got that Wheel of Fortune footage from, ’cause I thought that was lost. Lost forever. It’s over. It’s on YouTube. Sadly. It is. It’s 24. All the episodes Rosemary competed in the Wheel of Fortune. She was on four times. Six times. Six times. Sorry. There’s only four available on the internet. You may have white scrub tube. I wanna massaging Lazy Boy. Is that your husband? He made me get rid of it. He is like, that thing is hideous. And [00:28:00] it was, yeah. Thank, thank you so much. And I mean, yeah, this is the, the uptime wind energy. Um. Yeah, podcast achievement. It’s, um, it’s crazy how, how popular that, um, it’s in insanely popular since we crossed the 1 million mark that was a while ago. We’re up to 1.6 million right now. We’ll cross 2 million this year. I know it’s, it’s clear Claire’s reason. It mostly clear and it honestly is. Uh, but wind energy is a big part of the energy future, and as I’m realizing now, uh, when you start to reach out to people, you realize how important it is for the planet and for individual countries that wind energy is part of their electricity grid. So the, the information we exchange here this week is very valuable and reach out to others. I think that’s part of this wind industry and Matthew’s pointed out many times, is that we share. So unlike other places, uh. Wind energy likes to work together. And that’s great to hear and it’s great to participate in. So I wanna thank everybody here for attending, uh, this conference. Thank you to all the sponsors. Uh, you [00:29:00] made this thing possible. Uh, as Matthew has pointed out, we’ll be at WMA 2027. The website is live. So, uh, listen to Rosie. Please register now. Uh, and uh, yeah. Thank you so much for, for being with us. And we’ll see you in February right here. Thank you.

Allen, Rosemary, and Yolanda discuss Ming Yang’s proposed $1.5 billion factory in Scotland and why the UK government is hesitating. Plus the challenges of reviving wind turbine manufacturing in Australia, how quickly a blade factory can be stood up, and whether advanced manufacturing methods could give Australia a competitive edge in the next generation of wind energy. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” 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.  Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host Allen Hall, and I’m here with Yolanda Padron and Rosemary Barnes, and we’re all in Australia at the same time. We’re getting ready for Woma 2026, which is going to happen when this release is, will be through the first day. Uh, it’ll, it’s gonna be a big conference and right now. We’re so close to, to selling it out within a couple of people, so it’ll be a great event. So those of you listening to this podcast, hopefully you’re at Wilma 2026 and we’ll see, see you there. Uh, the news for this week, there’s a number of, of big, uh, country versus country situations going on. Uh, the one at the moment is [00:01:00] ING Yang in Scotland, and as we know, uh, Scotland. It has been offered by Ming Yang, uh, to build a factory there. They’re put about one and a half billion pounds into Scotland, uh, that is not going so well. So, so they’re talking about 3000 jobs, 1.5 billion in investment and then. Building, uh, offshore turbines for Britain and the larger Europe, but the UK government is hesitating and they have not approved it yet. And Scotland’s kind of caught in the middle. Ming Yang is supposedly looking elsewhere that they’re tired of waiting and figure they can probably get another factory somewhere in Europe. I don’t think this is gonna end well. Everyone. I think Bing Yang is obviously being pushed by the Chinese, uh, government to, to explore Scotland and try to get into Scotland and the Scottish government and leaders in the Scottish government have been meeting with, uh, [00:02:00] Chinese officials for a year or two. From what I can tell, if this doesn’t end with the factory in Scotland. Is China gonna take it out on the uk? And are they gonna build, is is me gonna be able to build a factory in Europe? Europe at the minute is looking into the Chinese investments into their wind turbine infrastructure in, in terms of basically tax support and, and funding and grants of that, uh, uh, aspect to, to see if China is undercutting prices artificially. Uh, which I think the answer is gonna be. Yes. So where does this go? It seems like a real impasse. At a moment when the UK in particular, and Europe, uh, the greater Europe are talking about more than a hundred gigawatts of offshore wind,  Yolanda Padron: I mean, just with the, the business that you mentioned that’s coming into to the uk, right? Will they have without Min Yang the ability to, to reach their goals?  Allen Hall: So you have the Siemens [00:03:00] factory in hall. They have a Vestus factory in Hollow White on the sort of the bottom of the country. Right. Then Vestus has had a facility there for a long time and the UK just threw about 20 million pounds into reopening the onshore blade portion of that factory ’cause it had been mothballed several months ago. It does seem like maybe there’s an alternative plan within the UK to stand up its own blade manufacturing and turbine manufacturing facilities, uh, to do a lot of things in country. Who I don’t think we know. Is it Siemens? Is it ge? Is it Vestus or is it something completely British? Maybe all the above. Rosemary. You know, being inside of a Blade factory for a long time with lm, it’s pretty hard to stand up a Blade factory quickly. How many years would it take you if you wanted to start today? Before you would actually produce a a hundred meter long offshore blade,  Rosemary Barnes: I reckon you could do it in a year if you had like real, real strong motivation [00:04:00] Allen Hall: really. Rosemary Barnes: I think so. I mean, it’s a big shed and like, it, it would be, most of the delays would be like regulatory and, you know, hiring, getting enough people hired and trained and that sort of thing. But, um, if you had good. Support from the, the government and not too much red tape to deal with. Then, uh, you know, if you’ve got lots of manufacturing capability elsewhere, then you can move people. Like usually when, um, when I worked at LM there were a few new factories opened while I was working there, and I’m sure that they took longer than, than a year in terms of like when it was first thought of. But, um, you know, once the decision was made, I, I actually dunno how long, how long it took. So it is a guess, but it didn’t, it didn’t take. As long as you would think it wasn’t. It wasn’t years and years, that’s for sure. Um, and what they would do is they don’t, you know, hire a whole new workforce and train them up right from the start. And then once they’re ready to go, then they start operating. What they’ll do to start with is they’ve got, you know, like a bunch [00:05:00] of really good people from the global factories, like all around, um, who will go, um, you know, from all roles. And I’m not talking just management at all, like it will include technicians, um, you know, every, every role in the factory, they’ll get people from another factory to go over. And, um, you know, they do some of the work. They’re training up local people so you know, there’s more of a gradual handover. And also so that you know, the best practices, um, get spread from factory to factory and make a good global culture. ’cause obviously like you’ve got the same design everywhere. You want the same quality coming out everywhere. Um, there is, as much as you try and document everything should be documented in work instructions. That should make it, you know, impossible to do things wrong. However, you never quite get to that standard and, um. There is a lot, a lot to be said for just the know-how and the culture of the people doing the um, yeah, doing the work.  Allen Hall: So the infrastructure would take about a year to build, but the people would have to come from the broader Europe then at [00:06:00] least temporarily.  Rosemary Barnes: That, that would be the fastest and safest way to do it. Like if it’s a brand new company that has never made a wind turbine before and someone just got a few, you know, I don’t know, a billion dollars, and um, said, let’s start a wind turbine factory, then I think it’s gonna be a few years and there’s gonna be some learning curve before it starts making blades fast enough. And. With the correct quality. Um, yeah. But if you’re just talking about one more factory from a company that already has half a dozen or a dozen wind turbine blade factories elsewhere in the world, then that’s where I think it can be done fast.  Allen Hall: This, uh, type of situation actually pops up a lot in aerospace, uh, power plants, engines. The jet engines on a lot of aircraft are kind of a combined effort from. Big multinational companies. So if they want to build something in country, they’ll hook up with a GE or a, a Honeywell or somebody who makes Jet engines and they’ll create this division and they’ll [00:07:00] stand this, this, uh, plant up. Maybe it’s gonna be something like that where GB energy is in the middle, uh, providing the funding and some of the resources, but they bring in another company, like a Siemens, like a Vestas, like a GE or a Nordex even to come in and to. Do the operational aspects and maybe some of the training pieces. But, uh, there’s a, there’s a funding arm and a technical arm, and they create a standalone, uh, British company to go manufacture towers to go manufacture in the cells to manufacture blades. Is that where you think this goes?  Rosemary Barnes: It depends also what kind of, um, component you’re talking about. Like if you’re talking about, I, I was talking a specific example of wind turbine blades, which are a mediumly complex thing to make, I would say, um. Yeah. And then if you go on the simpler side, when turbine towers, most countries would have the. Rough expertise needed, um, to, to do that. Nearly all towers at the moment come out of [00:08:00] China, um, or out of Asia. And with China being the, the vast bulk of those. Um, and it’s because they’ve got, aside from having very, very cheap steel, um, they also have just got huge factories that are set up with assembly lines so that, you know, there’s not very much moving of things back and forth. So they have the exact right bit of equipment to do. The exact right kind of, you know, like rolling and welding and they’re not moving tower sections around a lot. That makes it really hard for, um, for other countries to compete. But it’s not because they couldn’t make towers, it’s because they would struggle to make them cheap enough. Um, so yeah, if you set up a factory, you know, say you set up a wind turbine, um, factory in, uh, wind turbine tower factory in Australia, you, you could buy the equipment that you needed for, you know, a few hundred million dollars and, um. You could make it, but unless you have enough orders to keep that factory busy, you know, with the, the volume that you need to keep all of that [00:09:00] modern equipment, uh, operating just absolutely around the clock, your towers are gonna be expensive out of that facility. So that’s kind of the, that it’s cost is the main barrier when it comes to towers  Allen Hall: with Vestus in Mitsubishi recently having a partnership and then ending that partnership. It would seem like Vestus has the most experience in putting large corporations together to work on a, an advanced wind turbine project is they would, it would make sense to me if, if, if Vestus was involved because Vestus also has facilities in the uk. Are they the leading choice you think just because they have that experience with Mitsubishi and they have something in country or you think it’s somebody else? Is it a ge  Rosemary Barnes: My instinct is saying Vestas. Yes,  Allen Hall: me too. Okay.  Rosemary Barnes: Ge. It’s wind turbine Manufacturing seems to be in a bit of a, more of an ebb rather than a flow right now, so I [00:10:00] mean that’s, that’s probably as much as what it’s based on. Um, and then yes, like the location of, of factories, there are already some vest, uh, factories, vest people in the uk so that would make it easier. : Delamination and bottomline failures and blades are difficult problems to detect 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 into 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.[00:11:00] Allen Hall: Can you build a renewable energy future on someone else’s supply chain? Well, in Australia, the last domestic wind tower manufacturers are down. Last year, after losing a 15 year battle against cheaper imports from China, now the Albanese government wants to try again, launching a consultation to revive local manufacturing. Meanwhile, giant turbines are rising in Western Australia’s. Largest wind farms soon to power 164,000 homes. Uh, the steel towers, blades and the cells, they all arrive on ships. And the question is whether that’s going to change anytime soon. Rosemary?  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s a topic I’ve thought about a lot and done a fair bit of work on as well, local manufacturing and whether you should or shouldn’t, the Australian government does try to support local manufacturing in. General, um, and in particular for renewables, but they focused much more on solar and [00:12:00] batteries. Um, with their manufacturing support, Australian government and agencies like a uh, arena, Australian Renewable Energy Agency have not traditionally supported wind like at all. It bothers me because actually Australia is a fantastic place to be developing some of these supporting technologies for wind energy and even the next generation of wind energy. Um, technologies, we, not any manufacturing. There are heaps of, um, things that would make it more suitable Australia, like just actually a really natural place to develop that. The thing about Australian projects is that they are. Big. Right. That makes it really attractive to developers because like in Europe where they’re, you know, still building wind, but you know, an onshore wind farm in Europe is like a couple of turbines here or there, maybe five, like a big wind farm would be 10, 10 turbines over there. Um, in Australia it’s like a hundred, 200 turbines at a time. Um, for onshore also choosing. Really big turbines. Australians, for some reason, Australian developers really like to [00:13:00] choose the latest technologies. And then if we think about some of the, um, you know, like new supporting technologies for existing wind turbines, like, you know, let’s, um, talk about. O and m there’s a whole lot of, um, o and m technologies, and Australia’s a great place for that too because as Australia wind farms spend so much on o and m compared to other countries. So a technology provider that can improve some of those pain points can much quicker get like a positive, um, return on investment in Australia than they would be able to in somewhere like America or, or Europe. So I think it makes sense to develop here  Allen Hall: with the number of wind farms. Rosie, I, I completely agree with you and. When we were talking about the war Dge wind Farm, which is the Western Australian wind farm that’s gonna expand, they’re adding 30 turbines to provide 283 megawatts. That’s like a nine and a half megawatt machine. Those are big turbines. Those are new turbines, right? That’s not something that’s been around for a couple years. They’ve been around for a couple of months in, in terms of the lifespan of, of wind [00:14:00] turbines. So if Australia’s gonna go down the pathway of larger turbines, the, the most advanced turbines. It has to make sense that some of this has, has to be developed in country just because you need to have the knowledge to go repair, modify, improve, adjust, figure out what the next generation is, right? I don’t know how you, this happens.  Rosemary Barnes: We see some examples of that. Right. And I think that Fortescue is the best example of, um, companies that are trying to think forward to what they’re going to need to make their, you know, they’ve got ambitious plans for putting in some big wind farms with. Big wind turbines in really remote locations. So they’ve got a lot of, um, it’s a lot of obvious challenges there. Um, and I know that they’re thinking ahead and working through that. And so, you know, we saw their investment in, um, nbra wind, the Spanish company and in particular their nbra lift. The bit of the tower that attaches to the rotor. It looks [00:15:00] pretty normal. Um, but then they make it taller by, um, slotting in like a lattice framework. Um, and then they jack it up and slot in another one underneath and jack it up and slot in another one underneath. So they don’t need a gigantic crane and they don’t need, um, I mean, it’s still a huge crane, but they don’t, they don’t, it doesn’t need to be as, as big because, you know, the rotor starts, starts off already on there by the time that the tower gets su to its full height. So, um, yeah, it’s a lot. That’s an innovative solution, I think, and it would, I would be very surprised if they weren’t also looking at every other technology that they’re gonna need in these turbines.  Allen Hall: If Australia’s gonna go down the pathway of large turbines on shore, then the manufacturing needs to happen in country. There’s no other way to do it. And you could have manufacturing facilities in Western Australia or Victoria and still get massive turbine blades shipped or trucked either way. To [00:16:00] wherever they needed it to go. In country, it would, it’s not that hard to get around Australia and unlike other countries like, like Germany was a lot of mountains and you had bridges and narrow roads and all that, and it, it’s, it’s much more expansive in Australia where you can move big projects around. And obviously with all the, the mining that happens in Australia, it’s pretty much normal. So I, I just trying to get over the hurdle of where the Albanese government is having an issue of sort of pushing this forward. It seems like it’s a simple thing because the Australian infrastructure is already ready. Someone need to flip the switch and say go.  Rosemary Barnes: I don’t know if I’d say that we’re we’re ready. ’cause Australia doesn’t have a whole lot of manufacturing of anything at the moment. It’s not true that we have no manufacturing. That’s what Australians like to say. We don’t manufacture anything and that’s not true. We do manufacture. We have some pretty good advanced manufacturing. If you just look at the hard economics of wind turbine manufacturing in Australia of solar panel manufacturing, battery manufacturing. Any of that, it is cheaper to just get it from China, not least [00:17:00] because some of the, um, those components are subsidized by the, the Chinese government. If you start saying, okay, we’re gonna have local manufacturing, like, you can either, you can achieve that either by supporting the local manufacturing industry, you know, like giving subsidies to our manufacturing. Or you could, um, make a local content requirement. Um, say things, you know, if you want project approval for this, then it has to have so much local content. You have to do it really carefully because if you get the settings wrong, then you just end up with very, very expensive, um, renewable energy. And at the moment, especially wind is. Expensive, and I think it’s still getting more expensive in Australia. It has been since, basically since the pandemic. If you then said, we’ve gotta also make it in Australia, then you add a bunch more costs and we would just probably not have wind energy then, so, uh, or new, new wind energy. So there needs to be that balance. But I think that like, even though you can say, okay, cheapest is best, it is also not good to rely on. [00:18:00] Exclusively on other countries, and especially not on just one other country to give you all of your energy infrastructure. If it was up to me, I would be much more supporting the next wave of, um, technologies. I would really love to see, you know, a new Australian. Wind turbine blade manufacturing method. Like at some point in the next decade, we’re going to start getting, uh, advanced manufacturing is gonna make it into wind turbine blades. It’s already there in some of the other components.  Allen Hall: Wait, so you just said if we were gonna build a factory in Scotland, it would take about a year. Why would it take 10 years to do it in Australia? Australia’s a nice place to live.  Rosemary Barnes: No, I didn’t say that. It would, it would take teens. I said in, sometime in the next decade around the world, wind turbine blades are basically handmade, right? They, you know, there are some, um, machines that are helping people, but you know, you have a look at a picture of a wind turbine blade factor and there’s, you know, there’s 20 people walking over, walking over a blade, smoothing down glass. And at some point we’re gonna start using advanced manufacturing methods. I [00:19:00] mean, there are really advanced composite manufacturing methods. Um, you know, with, um, individual fiber placement and 3D printing with, um, continuous fibers. And that’s being used for like aerospace components a lot. It’s early days for that technology and there is no barrier to the technologies to being able to put them, you know, like say on a GaN gantry that just, you know, like ran down the length of a whole blade like that, that could be done. If it was economic, that’s the kind of technology that Australia should be supporting before that’s the mainstream, and everybody else has already done it, right? You need to find the next thing, and ideally not just one next thing, but several next things because you’re not gonna, you don’t know ahead of time, um, which is gonna be the winner. Allen Hall: That hasn’t been the tack that China has taken, that the latest technology in batteries is not something that China is producing today. They’re producing a generation prior, but they’re doing it at scale. At some point they, the Chinese just said, we’re stopping here and we’re gonna do this, this kind of [00:20:00] battery, and that’s it. And away we go. If we keep waiting until the next generation of blade techniques come out, I think we’re gonna be waiting forever.  Rosemary Barnes: I don’t think why I think. Do, you know, make the next generation of, of blade bio technologies?  Yolanda Padron: I think it makes sense for someplace like Australia, right? Because we, we’ve talked about the fact that like here, you, you have to consider a lot of factors in operation that you don’t have to consider in other places, especially for blades, right? So if you can eliminate all of those issues, for the most part that are happening in the factory at manufacturing, then that can really help boost. The next operational projects.  Allen Hall: So then what you’re saying is that. There are new technologies, but what stage are they at? Are they TRL two, TRL five, TRL seven. How close is this technology because I’d hate for Australia to miss out on this big opportunity.  Rosemary Barnes: Frown Hoffer has actually just published an article recently, uh, [00:21:00] about some, I can’t remember if it was fiber, um, tape placement or if it was printed, small wind turbine blades. Small wind is a nice, like, it’s a, a nice bite-sized kind of thing that you can master a lot quicker than you can, you know, you can make a thousand small wind turbines and learn a lot more than making 100 meter long blade. That would probably be bad because it’s your first one and you didn’t realize all of the downsides to the new technology yet. Um, so I, I think it is kind of promising, but. In terms of, yeah, like a major, like in terms of let’s say a hundred meter long blade that was made with 3D printing, that would be terra, L one. Like it’s an idea now. Nobody has actually made one or, um, done, done too much. Um, as far as I know. I think you could get, could get to nine over the next year. Like I said, like I think sometime in the next decade will be when that, when that comes.  Allen Hall: Okay. If you, you didn’t get to a nine that quickly. No, it is possible. Yeah. You gotta put some money into it.  Rosemary Barnes: If someone wants to give me, [00:22:00] you know, enough money, then I’ll make it. I’ll make it happen. I’ll, I would, I would absolutely be able to make that happen, but I don’t know when it’s gonna be cheap enough.  Allen Hall: I would just love to see it. If, if, if you’ve got a, if you’ve got a, a factory, you got squirreled away somewhere in the. Inland of Australia that is making blades at quantity or has the technology to do that. I would love to see it because that would be amazing.  Rosemary Barnes: Technologies don’t just fall out of the sky, you know, like they, you, you, you force them into existence. That’s what you, that’s what you do. You know what this comes down to? Have you ever done the, is it Myers-Briggs where you get the, like letters of your personality? You and I are in opposite corners inside some ways.  Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, and it surely should, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn, particularly Rosie, so it’s Rosemary Barnes on LinkedIn. Don’t forget to subscribe to who you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind [00:23:00] energy professionals discover the show. For Rosie and Yolanda, I am Alan Hall, and we’ll see here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Allen and Joel are joined by Will Howell from Armour Edge in Edinburgh, Scotland. They discuss how Armour Edge’s semi-rigid polymer shields protect against leading edge erosion in harsh environments, the simplified installation process designed for rope access technicians, and the company’s expansion into North American manufacturing ahead of the 2026 blade season. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Allen Hall: Will welcome back to the program.  Will Howell: Thanks so much for having me guys. Nice to see you.  Allen Hall: So Edinborough is the home of Armor Edge.  Will Howell: Yes, indeed.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And we went to visit your facility a couple of days ago. Really impressive. There’s a lot going on there. Will Howell: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So the, we’ve been in the facility for, um, a couple of years now, and it’s really just all part of our expansion as we continue to. To, uh, grow as a business?  Allen Hall: Uh, well the thing that struck me first was efficiency. If you’re gonna be in wind, do you need to be efficient?  Will Howell: Yeah,  Allen Hall: exactly. You have  Will Howell: to  be,  Will Howell: look, we know that we are a, a relatively small team, but we’re, we are, we are very reactive and we are gonna be always responding to the, the requests. The, the market drive for us internationally now is where we are really focusing. And even though we’ve got our small base from there, we’re exporting internationally around the world. And so. Yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m glad you guys came by and kind of saw what we’re up to.  Joel Saxum: If we could ask one thing, this is what we would ask. Turn up the heat. Turn down the wind. Turn off the rain.  Will Howell: Yeah, I’m [00:01:00] sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah, it’s, uh, there’s not much we can do about that at the moment.  Joel Saxum: Well, I’ll tell you what, if, if you’re talking leading Edge protection products, leading edge protection shield. Born from an area that’s rainy, that has heavy rain erosion, that understands,  Will Howell: we know, we know rain. We know rain. Yes. Look, we’ve been out in the North Sea now for over, over, over five years. These things are just being abused by Mother Nature out there and, you know, but we’ve, we are, we’re getting really good results consistently. Um, the products lasting really well against that, against that weather. And I think what’s interesting for us as well is it’s, it’s not just the Scottish rain and the ice and the snow. We’re, we’re getting good results out in the. The planes in the Midwest as well now. Yeah. And yeah, so yeah, very uh, universal products, we hope,  Joel Saxum: I mean, so this is one of the things we always talk about. When you talk wind turbine blades and you listen to the manufacturers, a lot of them sit in Denmark where the problem is mist in the air, it is rain, it is droplet size. It’s all the conversation you hear. But where we [00:02:00] see wind is dust, bugs, those kind of things. Like, it’s, it’s different stuff, right? So like I’m, I live in Texas. One of the things that’s beautiful about my home in Austin is when I look to the west in the, at, in the evening, it’s bright red skies all the time. Well, that means there’s dust in the air.  Will Howell: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Right. And that’s, and when I look west, what am I looking at? 23,000 turbines out in West Texas. Right. So everything out there is getting beat up where we look at, um, inspections of turbines and we see turbines that are 1, 2, 3 years old that look like they’ve been in operation for 15 years. Will Howell: Yeah. Yeah.  Joel Saxum: There’s nothing left of them.  Will Howell: I know. And. You know, people use analogies like, oh, it looks like it’s been sand sandblasted. But it it has, it has, it is sandblasted, you know, we’ve, we’ve now conducted testing where we have literally taken kind of aerospace level testing and blasted sand at these shields, and they’re super resilient. But it has to be that universal products of resisting the water droplet that the mist, that side [00:03:00] of the, of the erosion problem, but also the particulate matter in the air. And there’ve been some of the. Places that we’ve installed. There was actually one site where they had a local, um, open cast mining nearby, and there was like marble particulate matter in the air. And these machines were getting trash in a couple couple of seasons. And again, we’ve been on there now for, I think now is our third year in that particular site. And again, really good results.  Joel Saxum: Well, I think, um, I mean, we did take some B roll when we were at your facility. And again, thanks for welcoming Sam. We love doing those. It’s, uh, but you showed us your installation methodology, and maybe we’ll show some of that with our producer Claire on mm-hmm. On this video. Uh, but the, the way you guys design your installation methodology to be simple and robust, easy for the technicians to make sure they can’t get it wrong in the field because they got enough other things to worry about. Will Howell: Uh, you know, I think, I think that’s been a big part of our, of our kind of design ethos since the, since the early days in the, in the r and d phase, it wasn’t only finding a robust material for the LEP Shields, a robust. [00:04:00]Adhesive to bond them on, but it’s the, it’s the kind of higher level. How do you actually get that onto a blade in the field by a rope or standing in a platform up in the, up in the winds And so, yeah, understanding what the technicians are having to go through in order to install this stuff. And that then feeds into your quality. ’cause you can have the best lab results in the world from your perfect installation sitting in a factory somewhere. But actually it’s the guys on ropes that are doing the, doing the hard work out there.  Joel Saxum: We see that all the time with our, like with our lightning protection products like. People, can you give us this lab test? Like we can, we’ll stack you up with lab tests. Mm-hmm. But what we really wanna show you is the test from the field.  Will Howell: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Joel Saxum: The test that where it’s been sitting, soaking, getting hit by lightning. Mm-hmm. All of these things for years and years and years. Yeah. That’s the results we wanna show you. ’cause those are real.  Will Howell: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes  Allen Hall: the demo you gave us to install the shields and it’s basically a series of shields that go along the leading edge of the blade, sort of two parts of that one. Obviously you’re trying to recover the lost power, the a EP, that’s, that tends to be the big thing, [00:05:00] except in some locations, like Joel’s pointed out, it’s not that the leading edge is just kind of lightly beat up. It’s really beat up.  Will Howell: Yeah. Yeah.  Allen Hall: And you’re trying to prevent that from happening or to just to provide some protection, uh, if you’re just sort of category three, and I, I wanna walk through that for a minute because the demo you did was really interesting and I. It, it made sense once you watch the process happen. Mm-hmm. It’s really clear, but you’re able to take sort of cat three damage on the leading edge and not have to go back and do a lot of repair to it, which is where the vast majority of the funds are used to sort of get the blade to a point you can apply leading product. Oh yeah. Yeah. With Armor Edge, you don’t really need to do that. Will Howell: Yeah. And I think that that that really comes into the. Into the value proposition of the, of the whole, of the whole process. If the labor costs and the downtime of the machines, there’s so much value in that. And so if you can reduce the repair time or just remove it completely, because you can install [00:06:00] directly on top of existing erosion, you’ve really saved some significant cost out of the, out of the job. And that’s really only just by function of the design of the shields. We are a, a semi rigid polymer material, so we don’t conform to the existing erosion that’s on the surface. So. Yes. If you, if you have a cap four or five and you have some structural glass repair that needs to happen to maintain the integrity of the blades, you still need to complete that repair. You don’t need to go any further. So if you’ve only got a one, two, or three, you’re talking the fillers, the putties on, on the surface. You don’t need to, to replace those. Just apply our high build adhesive, get the shield on top, and you’re finished.  Allen Hall: And so you start at the tip with a, a tip. Shield and then you work your way, kind of Lego wise up up the leading edge of the blade. Yeah,  Will Howell: yeah, yeah.  Allen Hall: It’s really straightforward and, and the, the system you’re using, the adhesives you’re using, and the techniques are really adapted for the technician. What I watched you do, I’m like, oh, wow, this is really [00:07:00] slick because there’s been a lot of thought going into this. You have done this. Hundreds of times yourself before you’ve shipped it out to  Will Howell: the world. Yeah, exactly. And, and that was, that was a big part of the, part of the r and d process is to, again, as I said, it’s, it’s not just affecting these applications in a lab environment. It’s saying, how does this feel up on a rope? How does it feel strapped into your work, into your work position? You’re handling stuff with your gear off your belt, and it’s a, it’s a, it’s a very difficult position to be installing any bit of, any bit of kit on. And if we can. Make that as an intuitive and as simpler process as possible, that’s gonna lead to quality installations down down the line.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. One of the things I really liked when you were showing us the installation was the fact that you had your own tools that you developed for it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And it wasn’t, we’re not talking $10,000 tools here, but, but it was something that was. Specific, your scraper that you use to spread things around. Mm-hmm. That makes sense for that application. That helps the technician in the field.  Will Howell: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: And that was from  Will Howell: direct market feedback. Absolutely. [00:08:00] And so you’re not only getting feedback from the technicians every season. And we are, we are, we are really careful to get these, to get that feedback, have these washup meetings, you know, maybe a bit of constructive criticism. Criticism in the early days and build that into your design revs. Yeah. But as you say, hands, tools or processes, it’s all just. Quality steps. As we, as we, as we kind of move on.  Joel Saxum: I do, I do wanna make sure for anybody listening or watching this on YouTube, that that, that they know that this is not the actual final problem. These are trade show things. It’s not a bunch of little shells like this. You’re about a meter long. They’re about meter  Will Howell: long. Yeah. Yeah. Full size. And again, even the, even the length is optimized for, um, kind of rope access. We feel a meter is about as long as you can handle as a, as a kind of single, single piece. The. Adhesive is kind of curing during the time that you’re installing the shields. So a meter is good, you just just move on. Depending on what the customer’s looking for, that can be 10, maybe even 15 shields on [00:09:00] longer. Yeah, installations. Look, blades are getting bigger. The leading edge, erosion problems getting worse. So yeah, up about 15, 15 shields is probably about a maximum length that we tend to do in the field. Joel Saxum: So let’s you, you, you mentioned customers we’re talking about what they wanna see. Let’s talk customers a little bit. What does the geographic footprint look like for you guys commercially going into next year? Where, where do the installs go and what’s your focus?  Will Howell: Well, at the moment we are, we are spread internationally. Uh, obviously we are based here in Edinburgh and starting our out in the, out in the North Sea. Um, but over the past few seasons, our, our biggest market has been, has been North America. Um, so we’ve, we’ve really started to expand out there and that. I, I think even this season, again, it’s gonna be our biggest, our biggest market. Um, Joel Saxum: wha wha  Will Howell: okay. So yeah, the North American market’s gonna continue to be our biggest, um, installation base. So, um, this year we are probably on another thousand blades [00:10:00] or so, last season, um, this, this year significantly more, more than that. It’s been interesting for us to see the. The continued growth of the market, but also the, a bit of additional interest early on in this season or even pre, pre-season Now, we’re only coming up to Christmas as we record this. Um, so the big step for us is gonna be not only expanding our European operation that you guys have seen, um, here from, from Edinburg to, to support the market here, but also looking at the manufacturing in America. So in North America, we’re gonna have. A couple of different manufacturing sites. We’re able to supply customers locally, which is not only gonna be reducing lead times, but also removing the the tariff burden, the import cost, any additional additional steps so we’re able to respond quicker to our customers over there. Joel Saxum: Thanks for bringing the jobs to the states too.  Will Howell: Oh, there we go. Love those.  Allen Hall: There’s a lot of variety of wind turbines in the US and around the world, and you’re actively scanning blaze [00:11:00] because the shields are specifically molded for each different blade type. How many models do you have already scanned and ready to go? Will Howell: So at the moment, um, I believe the database sits about 45 designs or so. Um, so obviously there, there are more designs than that out there, out there in the wild. But we’ve, we’ve made a big effort to try and focus on the really key, key OEMs, the really key blades types that are particularly, particularly prevalent. Um, so yeah, we’ve got a lot of designs. We’ve got a lot of existing tooling, so we can make part. Very quickly. Again, trying to be as reactive as we, as we can to, to our, to our customer base. But as you say, that database is continually growing. So we have maybe some of the, the less popular blade models that we haven’t yet got to some of the out, the kind of fringe shoulder, shoulder models. Um, we’ll be trying to scan a few more of those. This, this coming season, just to keep on building up that, that kind of knowledge, knowledge base.  Allen Hall: So what does that look like now that you have this large database and. Uh, the sort of the [00:12:00] molds to make the product. Mm-hmm. You can do things at scale, I assume now you’re, you’re talking about thousands of blades for this upcoming season. Will Howell: Yeah, I mean, it’s, uh, when we, when we approach our manufacturing partners, obviously what we’re talking about are individual tools and then making plastic polymer parts from those, from those tools. And so when we start talking about wind farms with just a few hundred machines, then that’s maybe a few thousand parts. But for these, for these manufacturers, that is small fry. So our ability to scale from the point of having those tools is very rapid. So our approach to the market and our ease of scaling very quickly has just, it’s, again, it is part of our, it’s part of our model. That’s why we can engage now in local manufacturer, like in North America to, to support the market there. And it’s not only North Americas, we start to grow in, [00:13:00] um, in Europe here and as well as some of other target target markets. We’ve got some, some smaller in stores in India and in Australia. These are also targets where potentially we could start Manu Manufacturing as well in the future to assist in our scale up. Allen Hall: What, what is your lead time right now That’s from, from, from the point of, I call up will say, well, I’ve got a GE 62 2. I probably have 500 of them. What does that lead time look like?  Will Howell: So, uh, 6 2 2 is a very good example. It’s a very prevalent blade. Um, we’ve, we’ve had a number of projects for this, so we’ve got tooling ready to, ready to go. You’re probably talking around four to six weeks to get that. That’s fast material out. Yeah. Um, if it was a new design, it would be, it would be longer, but still you’re only up at 10 to 12 weeks for a new, a new design. So, yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, you know, as you guys have seen it, it’s quite an involved process. We’ve had a lot of. Design evolution to get here, but we’re quite a finesse process now.  Joel Saxum: Yeah, that was the exact question I was gonna ask because it’s one we get asked all the time too, right? What? What? Hey, and now it’s, we’re, [00:14:00] we’re sitting at the end of the year coming into the new year and in the United States, our blade season in the southern part of the states. Right. You’re south Texas, you’re starting in the next two months, right? Oh yeah. You’re starting end of January, beginning of February, and then that starts to roll north as we go. And by May we’re in full swing Absolutely. Across North America. So. If you’re a manufacturer listening to this, or a manufacturer, if you’re an operator listening to this and, um, you’re thinking, Hey, maybe, maybe I’d like to, if I don’t wanna roll it all out, maybe I’d like to try a couple. We’re gonna do an LEP campaign. Let’s get this stuff out there and see what it looks like. Um, you need to get ahold of will.  Allen Hall: Oh, you should, and you should try it. I think a lot of the operators haven’t dabbled too much. They’ve seen a lot of products on the market, a lot of sort of, uh, chemical mixing apply. A polymer to the leading edge tapes, products, tapes, paint, yeah. All, all of that. And the, the, the harder products haven’t seen as much favor, but the, the issue is, is that all the softer products, I’ll call them, wear easy or particularly with [00:15:00] dirt.  Joel Saxum: To me this is set it and forget it. Right. So this is a, this is an uptime podcast consultant type thing. I have always felt in the last, I don’t know, four or five years of my career that I get access to a lot of the. Subject matter experts and the products and solutions that are like top tier, right? These are the ones that I would, yeah, so I think a lot of times like, man, if I wasn’t, if I, Joel Saxon owned a wind farm and I was an operator, I would do this. I would do that. I would, you know, I’d have Pete Andrews from me both here on here earlier today and I’d be doing these kind, but I would put a product like your under the armor edge shields on simply because to me, this is set it and forget it. Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna do it once and I’m done.  Will Howell: That’s it. You know, and we’ve got, we’ve got the initial lab test to kind of validate the really long lifetime of our products. But again, now we have the field data to back that up as there are many, many happy, happy customers in varying conditions. And, and yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s performing well. Interesting what you’re saying though, about. The lead time of the, um, products. You know, we’ve, we’ve really tried to [00:16:00] drive that down as much as, as much as possible. And look, we know the, the planning world out there is not, is not a perfect science, and there’s always gonna be people coming to us with super short, short lead times. But as we’ve scaled, that’s another, another issue that we’re trying to combat. So now that we have many years under our belt, our stock holding is increasing. We can do small projects, pretty much X stock. So we have. A stock of parts now that are available within a few days to ship out. It might just be a few, a few, a few machines. It could be a, a spot repair or a trial. Right, right, right. But we’ve got those, we’ve got those parts ready to go. So yeah, if anyone’s interested, even in a very short, short time scale, contact us. I mean, we may be able to help you out very, very quickly.  Joel Saxum: We’ve all heard about product. Disappearing outta the back of technician pickups in hotel parking lots too. Sometimes you just need an extra turbines worth the kit while you’re on site.  Allen Hall: That is for sure. And will I, if you, people haven’t heard of Armor Edge, which is hard to believe, [00:17:00] but I do run across them occasionally. Where should they go to learn more? How did they get ahold of you to, to set up a 2026 trial?  Will Howell: Yeah, so, um, I mean, our. Our, our website@armedge.com and that’s the, the UK spelling of arm edge with you in there. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, please come to the, come to the website. You can contact us through there. Um, I’m available on, on LinkedIn. Um, yeah, you can contact us anytime. Anytime. We, we do travel between, uh, the uk. Again, our US is a big, big market, so if you’re gonna be at any of the trade shows, you can come and come and say, Hey, and arrange a, arrange a time to. Time to talk. Yeah. Which, which of the trade shows are gonna be at this year? So we’ve got, um, blades, uh, the end of end of February, uh, in the US we’ve got, uh, the A-C-P-O-O and M event, um, event. And that’s the start of the start of March. Just before that, we’ll be, um, we’ve got one of our representatives in Australia at the Woma, [00:18:00] um, show as well. So, yeah. Yeah, it’s, uh, that’s the kind of the start, the start of the year as we move on. Um. Again, there’s gonna be a lot of, uh, interaction with customers and suppliers. So even outside the shows you, you might be able to get a hold of us, look out for us. Um, but I think coming up to the summer, we’ve then got the clean power event. We like to visit, visit that for a bit more of a higher, higher level view of what’s, uh, going on in, in the industry as well. Allen Hall: Well, will thank you so much for allowing us to get behind the scenes and. See the, the shop and see the, uh, demonstration of the installation of the shields. It was wonderful to see that. And thank you for joining us today.  Will Howell: No, great. Thank you very much for your time again. Appreciate it.

Allen, Rosemary, and Yolanda, joined by Matthew Stead, discuss Vestas’ Q4 earnings beating competitors but disappointing investors, and the latest on the Wind Energy O&M Australia 2026 conference in Melbourne. Plus the European Commission opens a subsidy investigation into Goldwind, Texas sues over 3,000 dumped wind turbine blades, and Muehlhan Wind Service acquires Canadian AC883. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by StrikeTape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strike tape.com. And now your hosts.  Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host Alan Hall, and I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, Yolanda Padron. Matthew Stead down in Australia. So welcome Matthew.  Matthew Stead: Great to be here. Thank you, Alan.  Allen Hall: We have a number of articles and interesting topics this week. Top of the list is Vestus. Vestus announced their Q4 numbers, and although the the revenue is great, uh, they, they had a profit of about 580 million euros. It was below what analysts expected, so the shares dropped about 6% on the news. But the CEO of Vestus is saying, uh, full speed ahead. They’re, they’re willing to make some concessions. Vestus, as it sounds like, in terms [00:01:00] of thinning out the company a little bit, which I, that’s been a, a, a complaint from investors for a little while. But in, in terms of, uh, going forward in renewable energy, Vestus is still going to pursue that. The offshore wind business looks like it’s gonna be profitable in 2027. And as we all know, and we, we see wind turbine prices, uh, quite a bit in each of our positions. Vestas is the most expensive one on the block, but they’re still winning a whole bunch of orders. And, and Matthew, uh, Vestas globally. I would say is the leader right now, if you look at Siemens GAA and GE Vestas is really winning a lot of the orders. Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think a very strong reputation for quality. Um, I have to say, I’ve got some Vestas turbines behind me, so, um, all paid for by myself. They’ve always been well regarded for their, um, you know, quality of [00:02:00] product. And when I first got into wind, um, you know, probably 15 years ago, you know, they were, they were the leaders at that point in time. And so, you know, quality. Reduces future o and m cost. I think  Rosemary Barnes: it’s not just about like the simple o and m, either it’s the risk that something really bad goes wrong and you’re just stuck with, you know, like a, a whole a hundred turbines that can’t be fixed or, you know, at least a large, a large chunk of them. The more that I work in, in o and m, the more you see, like on occasion when you do have those serial issues that mean, you know, like. Sometimes all the blades in the wind farm have to be replaced or sometimes all the generators or you know, even if it’s not replaced, if you’ve gotta take them all out and do something and put ’em back in, it is just such a massive cost. And, um, reducing the chance that that’s gonna happen is actually really valuable for insurance. And yeah, all sorts of other financial reasons.  Yolanda Padron: And even as an FSA customer, I feel like Vestus has a lot more transparency as to what actually is going on, [00:03:00] on site and more able to, to collaborate on, on like a site to site basis, which is very obviously helping them in getting a lot of return customers. Allen Hall: Yeah. One of the key revenues for Vestus has been the FSA, where almost every project I’ve seen over the last couple of years has had a 2030 year FSA attached to it. Rarely do you see. Order without that, and that’s a long-term revenue stream. The, the thing about Vestus and the complaints that are happening, uh, around vestus are odd because if you look at Siemens Cab Mesa, they’re really struggling to be profitable. And then GE Renova, which is really, really struggling to be profitable and they’re losing several hundred millions of dollars a year. Vestas is bringing in a profit, and, and yet the investors are wanting even more. I, I guess, is, is this just a relationship to the. Where you can invest money today. The stock market going up so high, gold and silver prices are at record highs. Rosemary Barnes: Haven’t they just [00:04:00] crushed?  Allen Hall: They have a little bit. They’ve, they’ve rescinded some, but they’re still at really high numbers, right? So Gold Cross, what? $5,000 and ounce and then, uh, it was it 2000 a year ago? So the, the rise in the value of, of, uh, rear metals is crazy. Is there a plan you think Vestas is changing the way they’re gonna operate? ’cause uh, they’re talking about thinning out the ranks and they do seem to be becoming more vertically integrated with the acquisition of the TPI factories down in Mexico. GPI in India  Rosemary Barnes: before we make it sound too much like a paid segment from investors, I have to say I disagree that they’re like just crushing it with the, the FSAs. I think that the full service agreements are across the board. Perform badly in Australia, at least I think it’s different elsewhere. Um, maybe it’s a good segue into, uh, talk about our event that we’ve got coming up to talk [00:05:00] about, um, the difficult operating conditions in Australia. But I, I think that best as, like everybody else has been surprised at how many things can go wrong in an Australia and wind farm. And, um, I don’t, I I would’ve put them up on a pedestal for. Particularly noteworthy, um, brilliant service with the FSAs. I think, yeah, across the board everyone’s doing a little bit less than they should be, and I have no doubt that they’re also making a whole lot less money on those agreements than what they spent or spending a lot more than what they’re expecting. So I don’t wanna be too harsh in my judgment.  Yolanda Padron: That’s fair. The bar is very low.  Rosemary Barnes: But what I do notice when I go to international events, um, and I, you know, I talk to, I’ve got a lot of ex-colleagues that’s still working in the industry and vest. Stands out as still investing a lot in r and d. And that doesn’t mean like crushing out a new platform every single year or every two years. It’s not that. But they are investing in a lot of new technologies that are more incremental. They’re [00:06:00] looking at bigger technology leaps and um, you know, still investigating stuff like that. Like I think if I was to go back working for an OEM, that’s the kind of work I’d like to do. And investors does seem like it’s the main company that’s still doing a whole lot of that. With the exception of, of the Chinese manufacturers, which are obviously doing like tons and tons of new development. But, um, I don’t have the insight into them like I do with the European ones.  Allen Hall: As you’re listening to this podcast, most of the people on this podcast are traveling to Melbourne, Australia for Woma 26. That’s Wind Energy and M Australia. Big event. Matthew, the numbers are impressive. I’m getting a little bit scared. Run out of food and uh, seats because there is a massive influx in the last 24, 48 hours, which is great to see, but wind energy in Australia. Is huge, and the o and m aspect is one of those key pain points. Matthew Stead: Yeah. I think, uh, thanks to Rosie and Alan, your argument, [00:07:00] um, a little while ago, your argument, which spurred the whole, um, the reason for the conference. Um, you know, the, the lack of, uh, Australian content, the lack of, um, poor. Conferences in Australia. I think unless you’d have that argument, um, this event wouldn’t, wouldn’t be there. Allen Hall: Rosie did bring up that she had been to a number of conferences and so had I that were pretty much useless in terms of take home. What could we be able to use in the world and, and make the world just slightly better from our knowledge and. With all the policy talk and uh, discussion about sort of global warming things that it’s not really useful necessarily in making your operations run more efficiently. And this was what Woma is all about is. Sharing information. Not everybody runs their operations the same. And you can learn from that of the way, uh, others do it. And at the same time, we’re bringing in experts from around the world to talk about some of [00:08:00] those really critical issues. One of them being leading edge erosion. And Rosie’s been doing a lot of work in Australia on leading edge erosion and the complexities around that. Rosie, the leading edge erosion discussion and the panel involved in the people are gonna be on the panel are impressive. What are you looking forward to?  Rosemary Barnes: I’m looking forward to, um, getting the international perspective because leading edge erosion, I mean, there’s heaps of aspects of wind turbine operation that I think are just dramatically different in Australia, but I think leading edge erosion is the one that like really, really jumped out at me. When I was, um, when I moved back to Australia and started looking at inspection reports for wind farms that were like one or two years old, and you see 90, 99% of turbines that have significant erosion like within a couple of years. It’s like, this is, this is not. Like, I’ve never, I’ve never seen this before. It’s clear that no one is designing these products that are gonna peel off [00:09:00] within a couple of years. Um, and so that was what kind of got me thinking, you know what, like Australia is really different. Climatically and in terms of the weather. Um, and so we need to start not just getting our information from overseas, but also relating it back to Australia. So I think that that’s what we’re trying really hard with the conference to do, is to like really ground it on Australian problems and solutions that have worked in Australia, but then draw on, you know, we don’t need to invent every single new product ourselves. Although there will also be. I, I’m very confident that, that we do need new products developed specifically for Australia. Um, but you know, there are a lot of things out there we can really accelerate how quickly we can solve our Australian problems if we know what’s worked overseas in, you know, different places and just get ideas about how things work. So I think that’s a really good mix of, of local and international. Matthew Stead: Yeah, as [00:10:00] we were talking before about, um, registrations, so we had. Definitely over 200 now. Um, and, um, I, I think we just need to warn people that we might need to cap it out. Um, so the venue’s told us two 50 maximum, so getting in quick  Allen Hall: and if you haven’t registered, you need to do so today. Go to WMA 2020 six.com. It’s very easy to do. It’s an inexpensive conference and full of great information. And the one thing you wanna register for also when you’re there is the free Lightning workshop. On the Monday, so this, it will be February 16th. It’s a lightning workshop in the afternoon, and then the, the full event begins Tuesday the 17th, and running through Wednesday the 18th. So you have two and a half full days of o and m. Knowledge sharing.  Matthew Stead: Don’t, don’t forget the workshops. There are two sessions of workshops with three, um, parallel sessions. And also don’t forget the chance to catch up with your buddies. So, uh, on the Monday [00:11:00] night, um, after the Lightning Masterclass, there’s, um, an event, you know, food and wine and drinks, et cetera. And then also on the, the Tuesday after the first day, there’s also a chance to catch up  Allen Hall: and you’ll go to Wilma 2026. Com and register. Now.  Speaker: 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 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 WM 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: the European Commission [00:12:00] has a message for Chinese wind turbine manufacturers. We are watching. Uh, Brussels just opened an in-depth investigation into Goldwind, that’s one of China’s biggest turbine makers. The concern is really straightforward. European regulators believe Goldwin may have received government subsidies that given it unfair advantage. Over European competitors such as Vestus and Siemens, GOMESA, Nordics, and others, grants preferential tax treatment and below market loans are all on the table. And if confirmed, the EU could impose corrective measures under its foreign subsidies regulation, which is a tool designed to keep the playing field level for everyone doing business in Europe. This has led to a number of heated exchanges in the press between China and the eu. China has, uh, said, Hey, eu, calm down. It’s not that big of a deal. We, and we don’t really do this. And if you wanna point [00:13:00] fingers, uh, the EU has given a lot of money and resources to the wind turbine operations in the eu. So it’s a, a, a bunch of back and forth, which is an odd thing at the moment because China is really trying to penetrate the EU market and the UK market for that matter, offshore in particular. Uh, Matthew, when you watch this go on and, and China obviously being the largest player in wind turbines, uh, there is some. Protection isn’t going into this. China has protected themselves from European manufactured turbines for the most part. Uh, it does seem like the EU has a leg to stand on and saying, Hey, if you’re gonna protect your borders, we’re gonna protect our borders. How does this end up? Does this end up with, uh, China making turbines or getting turbines shipped into EU or. There’s just gonna be a prohibition.  Matthew Stead: Uh, actually, I’m a little bit surprised that this hasn’t happened already. [00:14:00] I mean, there’s obviously plenty of European investigations and I’m a little bit surprised it didn’t happen earlier. Um, I, I guess my expectation is that, you know, this will be done and dusted and we can just move, move forward. Um, you know, my, my guesstimate is that it’ll be showing that, you know, this is all fine and, uh, yeah, just continue as per normal. Um, yep. Maybe, maybe critically. Um, I actually think a bit more competition in the industry is a good thing. Um, and so I think the whole, you know, global industry can, can, can benefit.  Allen Hall: And when we’re talking about, uh, the construction of wind farms in the eu, the Chinese manufacturers always come up because they tend to be somewhere between 30 and 40% less expensive than the European counterparts for basically the same turbine. What is the, the real linchpin there, because it does seem like operators and sted uh, evidently had a project going on where they’re looking at Chinese [00:15:00] turbines, but hasn’t made any decisions about it. There’s not a lot of history on the Chinese turbines. You can’t go back and pull, uh, o and m records. You can’t see reliability rates. You can’t see what their insurance rates have been. And Rosie, I think you’ve talked about this quite a bit. It does seem like the manufacturing capability in China is quite good, but then we see things on LinkedIn quite often. We’re uh, there has been some really massive failures there. How is the EU thinking about this? Is it really a competitive issue at this point, or is it a technology issue? What is the real. Uh, linchpin that it, it is, it everybody is trying to get at.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Well I think Europe would be crazy to not support their wind industry because China is so big and has, um, you know, so many wind turbine manufacturers now that if Europe doesn’t specifically try to, you know, compete and survive, then I can [00:16:00] imagine no. non-Chinese manufacturers in 10 years time, um, or you know, at least 20, which I think would be a shame because there is a huge, long history of really good engineering, um, in Europe. Yes. Uh, every country supports their manufacturers. China do it in many, maybe most of their export industries. Everybody knows that. Chinese solar panels are subsidized most countries and regions, except that steel is heavily subsidized in, um, in China. And so there are in many countries restrictions on Chinese made wind turbine towers or tariffs on them. Because of that reason, it’s like pretty. It is pretty uncontroversial. Like it’s pretty obvious, right? That um, if you don’t fight, then um, you say, yeah, we’ll accept all these cheap products then, um, you know, because that’s beneficial for our economy to have them cheap. That’s like a short term thing. It’s [00:17:00] a lot easier in a country like Australia where we don’t have competing industries for many of these, um, many of these products, it’s a bit easier to say, yes, we would love cheap solar panels and cheap wind turbines and cheap electric vehicles and cheap batteries. But I mean, even Australia is trying to regain some of some of that, um, manufacturing capability.  Matthew Stead: But Rosie to, I guess Rosie to challenge you there. I mean, it won’t, it to improve the world’s, you know, position if we, you know, continue to drive prices down and drive a bit of innovation.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. If we drive prices down, but not if we drive, um, all competition out of business. And then you’re left with just one country that controls the supply chain for absolutely everything, which they’re already very largely. Do in terms of, you know, like, yeah, batteries, EVs, uh, solar panels, um, heaps of the raw materials, you know, like rare earths and a lot of other critical, um, critical [00:18:00] minerals. But I do think it’s a little bit different for Europe with wind because, um, if that, if that dies, it’s a big chunk of, um, just engineering knowledge that will just. Die with it. I would definitely, especially the countries like Denmark, where it is a, a significant industry for them, I have been a little bit surprised that they haven’t been supporting more the industry through some hard patches. But yeah, let’s, um. It’ll be an interesting next few years. Speaker 6: Delamination and bottomline failures and blades are difficult problems to detect 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 [00:19:00] 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. Allen Hall: Well, occasionally the wind industry has a recycling problem and down in Texas this has come to a head, uh, an Attorney General Ken Paxton. We as the Attorney General of Texas has sued global fiberglass solutions and affiliated companies for illegally dumping more than 3000 wind turbine blades in Sweetwater, Texas. Uh, the company was hired to break down and recycle the blades many years ago. Instead, it stockpiled them at two unpermitted disposal sites. The attorney General is seeking civil [00:20:00] penalties, complete removal of the waste and full cleanup costs paid to the state. And Yolanda, you have seen this facility, I’ve seen this facility down by Sweetwater. It is not a small site. It is massively large and has been there for a number of years. I, I guess there hasn’t been anybody willing to do it, and Global Fiberglass Solutions hasn’t stepped up to even start from what I understand. To take care of the problem. Is there a happy outcome of this? Does anybody else step into the, the fray and, and try to clean up these 3000 blades? Yolanda Padron: We were talking a little bit about this offline, but Rosie you mentioned there’s so many companies that can recycle in general, right? We know just in Texas, there’s a lot of smaller companies. That could take on at least part of, of what’s going on here. And I think, I mean, it’s, it’s something that is [00:21:00] affecting the people that are living there. It’s not just an eyesore. I mean, it’s just, I mean, nobody wants their home to be just this big dumping ground. It’s like a graveyard for blades. And it’s so sad to see that this is really affecting people and just their, how they view wind in the area because. Texas does really, really well with wind in general and that area gets a lot of money in. It’s very oftentimes rural areas that don’t get a lot of funding that are getting a lot of funding for schools are getting a lot of funding for hospitals are, are making sure that their roads are paved. Just in general, a lot of jobs are coming into town and it’s, it should be a really great win-win and it’s just really sad to know that it’s come to this point after years and years where it just, all of the pros are outweighed by a huge calm that is a [00:22:00] huge dumping site in the middle of people. General homes,  Rosemary Barnes: are they saying that it’s they’re storing the blades or did they just pretend that they recycled them and actually landfill them? What’s the Or? It’s unclear.  Allen Hall: They didn’t landfill them. I mean, in a sense, they didn’t bury them. They’re just sitting on the surface.  Yolanda Padron: Piled up.  Rosemary Barnes: I think a lot of this comes down to what, what does recycling mean? What’s your definition of it? Um, and it, depending on what your definition is, there absolutely are plenty of, um, companies, you know, like all over. And I’m sure that there are many more in Texas than there would be in, um, yeah, in the Australian regions I’ve looked at. But there’ll be companies that. Um, already a shredding waste of, from multiple sources and putting it into products like concrete for non-structural applications like, um, footpaths or sidewalks, stuff like that. Um, asphalt is another one. And then a little bit more high tech. You get, um, plastic products that [00:23:00] again, aren’t super duper structurally, um, demanding. So like, um. Decking materials or outdoor furniture, or even I saw one company who’s using recycled material in, um, rainwater tanks. I just really feel like any decent project manager could actually given enough money, like I’m, I’m not saying it’s an economic thing to do, like it’ll always be cheaper to landfill them, um, than to do something with them. But if you’ve been given money to recycle them enough money. Any decent project manager could make that happen?  Allen Hall: Well, just down the road is ever Point Services. And Rosemary, I don’t know if I’ve introduced you to ever Point Services, Tyler Goodell, Candace Woods, uh, they are recycling blades in a totally different way. They’re, they’re grinding them down, but they’re end use product is totally different than anything you have seen and all, although that is just getting ramped up from what I understand so far. The product they’re delivering has a [00:24:00] decent commercial value. It’s helping out in other industries. So it’s not just getting mixed with asphalt necessarily. Those 3000 turbine blades have value. They really do. And ever point, I think if they were involved, would turn them into something really useful. So there is the opportunity to recycle these blades by grinding them down in different, in different ways. But there are new markets. For this product and I’m, I’m just a little shocked that no one’s really stepped forward to say, Hey, I, I’ll take those blazes, but because it’s in a lawsuit, I assume that’s the problem. No wants to walk into there and say. Take responsibility for this thing that’s been hanging around for several years at this point.  Rosemary Barnes: I don’t know. I think I would disagree when, when you say those blades have value, I would be highly surprised if someone would just take them and make a profit from them. I would expect if I had 3000 blades in my backyard, I would expect to pay somebody to take them off my hands. Um. That should have been covered by the fee that they were paid for this [00:25:00] recycling, right? So if that money’s gone now, then there is gonna be a challenge in, um, doing something with it. Because I just want to you reiterate that like recycling is not the economic thing to do with wind turbine blades. Now it’s not even the best thing to do in terms of an energy or environmental or climate change, um, consideration. But if you are sure that you don’t want, um, to deal with the physicality of 3000 blades, um, then. You know, you and you’re prepared to pay to get rid of them, then there are definitely things that you can do.  Matthew Stead: Uh, I think this makes me like super angry because really if we look at it more from a social perspective, um, this is. These pictures are shown all over the world, and whenever I talk to someone and say, Hey, yeah, I’m in the wind industry, they say, oh yeah, what about all those blades in Yeah, and the, the stockpile, blah, blah, blah. So really this, this incident has really screwed up the whole global industry. So it may have destroyed parts of Texas, but it’s also destroyed part of [00:26:00] the global industry. Rosemary Barnes: I agree and it’s, it’s crazy because wind turbine blade waste is five to 10% of global composite waste. So the boats and cars and airplanes, um, and other composites are. They’re not piled up in a recognizable form. And so nobody is absolutely outraged that people are, you know, um, disposing of fiberglass boats every year. Um, so yeah, I mean, that, that, that es me too. I have, um, I’ve spent a long time being annoyed about that fact, and I’ve kind of come around to the, the fact that universally people absolutely hate. Wind turbine blades to be wasted and it just needs to be solved. For that reason, it’s not, it doesn’t need to be solved because of the economics. It doesn’t need to be solved because of the environment. It doesn’t need to be solved because of climate change, but it does really need to be solved because of the social perception.  Allen Hall: Well, as North American Wind Farms age, the companies that keep them running. Keep getting bigger. [00:27:00] And Mohan Wind Service, which if you haven’t worked with them, is a Danish turbine service provider. Uh, and they’ve acquired the operating assets of Canada based AC 8 83. And our friends at AC 8 83 have been evidently working behind the scenes to make that deal go through, which is. Awesome. Actually, uh, the deal gives Mulan a local platform for blade repair and turbine services across Canada and the United States, uh, with more than three. Thousand certified technicians in over 35 countries. Muhan says it is confident the long-term growth in North American market will, uh, continue to prosper. So Muhan come in and saying to AC 83 and others, uh, that they’re, uh, gonna be a, a real powerhouse in terms of a service provider in Canada and the United States and acquiring AC 83 is, is one of the good moves. And we know Lars Benson, [00:28:00] who’s run that business, and Yannick Benson who operates that business today. This is a big deal for both of them and the company.  Matthew Stead: Yeah, I mean, uh, Lars is a great guy and I, I think this is wonderful that you get more economies of scale by, you know, these companies growing and it has to be, has to be great for the industry. O obviously, you know, it’s a good thing for, for Lars and, um, Yanick. Um, but yeah. Yeah. Good on them for, for doing this. And you, we need more companies that are larger and able to operate across different industries. I know the seasonality might, might play into it. I don’t know. Maybe not. Um, but, and the more that companies can work across different regions, the better. Allen Hall: Well, it just gives a C 83 a lot of operating power. So as a sort of a small, medium sized business, that’s one of the problems that you try to scale is just a lot of detail. Human resources, all the legal aspects, and. Uh, international travel people coming back and forth all the time. It is just a lot to operate. Muhan gives them all that infrastructure support. So, [00:29:00] uh, the brain powers that lie at AC 8 83 to do great work can do that work. And they have the muhan to come underneath and provide the support and the, the financial stability. Matthew, as you point out, the season is pretty short up in Canada, uh, to make this thing go. So this is really great news and we’re, I think we’re gonna see more. Of this type of structure happen where the companies that have grown and have shown value to the wind industry, regardless of where they’re located at, are gonna become prized possessions and, and larger companies are gonna want to come in and, and acquire them to expand their portfolio at the same time. And there’s value there. I, I think a lot of ISPs around the world have shown themselves to be profitable, even in some really tough economic times. Uh, they’ve had. Done a good job. And it does seem like the industry is rewarding. Those companies that have put the effort in and have shown themselves to be the professionals that AC 83 is. So this, [00:30:00] this is a really great development. And do we see this happening, uh, through 26 and 27? Because I think, I think that’s where the industry’s headed. But I talk to a lot of my counterparts who say, oh, there is no. Everything’s gloomy and doomy, and none of this is gonna happen, and these companies are gonna just fade away. Where do you think this is headed at Matthew?  Matthew Stead: I think, um, we, we’ve done a little bit of work and we’ve been looking at the industry and I think, uh, if you compare it to, you know, construction or, you know, automotive or whatever, I, I think the, there is a, a strong opportunity for the industry to have some consolidation amongst companies. So I think, um, you know, the industry is still a bit of a baby. You know, maybe whatever, 30 years there is still opportunity, um, for consolidation. You know, much like a few of the other more mature industries, like I said. Um, so I, I, I think there’ll be more of this, um, going on the next few years.  Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s [00:31:00] 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 for Rosie, Yolanda and Matthew. I’m Alan Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Allen, Joel, Rosemary, and Yolanda cover major offshore wind developments on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, Ørsted’s Revolution Wind won a court victory allowing construction to resume after the Trump administration’s suspension. Meanwhile, the UK awarded contracts for 8.4 gigawatts of new offshore capacity in the largest auction in European history, with RWE securing nearly 7 gigawatts. Plus Canada’s Nova Scotia announces ambitious 40 gigawatt offshore wind plans, and the crew discusses the ongoing Denmark-Greenland tensions with the US administration. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” 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 Podcast. I’m Allen Hall, along with Yolanda, Joel and Rosie. Boy, a lot of action in the US courts. And as you know, for weeks, American offshore wind has been holding its breath and a lot of people’s jobs are at stake right now. The Trump administration suspended, uh, five major projects on December 22nd, and still they’re still citing national security concerns. Billions of dollars are really in balance here. Construction vessels for most of these. Sites are just doing nothing at the minute, but the courts are stepping in and Sted won a [00:01:00] key victory when the federal judge allowed its revolution wind project off the coast of Rhode Island to resume construction immediately. So everybody’s excited there and it does sound like Osted is trying to finish that project as fast as they can. And Ecuador and Dominion Energy, which are two of the other bigger projects, are fighting similar battles. Ecuador is supposed to hear in the next couple of days as we’re recording. Uh, but the message is pretty clear from developers. They have invested too much to walk away, and if they get an opportunity to wrap these projects up quickly. They are going to do it now. Joel, before the show, we were talking about vineyard wind and vineyard. Wind was on hold, and I think it, it may not even be on hold right now, I have to go back and look. But when they were put on hold, uh, the question was, the turbines that were operating, were they able to continue operating? And the answer initially I thought was no. But it was yes, the, the turbines that were [00:02:00] producing power. We’re allowed to continue to produce powers. What was in the balance were the remaining turbines that were still being installed or, uh, being upgraded. So there’s, there’s a lot going on right now, but it does seem like, and back to your earlier point, Joel, before we start talking and maybe you can discuss this, we, there is an offshore wind farm called Block Island really closely all these other wind farms, and it’s been there for four or five years at this point. No one’s said anything about that wind farm.  Speaker: I think it’s been there, to be honest with you, since like 2016 or 17. It’s been there a long time. Is it that old? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we were talk, when we’ve been talking through and it gets lost in the shuffle and it shouldn’t, because that’s really the first offshore wind farm in the United States. We keep talking about all these big, you know, utility scale massive things, but that is a utility scale wind farm as well. There’s fi, correct me if I’m wrong, Yolanda, is it five turbos or six? It’s five. Their decent sized turbines are sitting on jackets. They’re just, uh, they’re, they’re only a couple miles offshore. They’re not way offshore. But throughout all of these issues that we’ve had, um, with [00:03:00] these injunctions and stopping construction and stopping this and reviewing permits and all these things, block Island has just been spinning, producing power, uh, for the locals there off the coast of Rhode Island. So we. What were our, the question was is, okay, all these other wind farms that are partially constructed, have they been spinning? Are they producing power? And my mind goes to this, um, as a risk reduction effort. I wonder if, uh, the cable, if the cable lay timelines were what they were. Right. So would you now, I guess as a risk reduction effort, and this seems really silly to have to think about this. If you have your offshore substation, was the, was the main export cable connected to some of these like revolution wind where they have the injunction right now? Was that export cable connected and were the inter array cables regularly connected to turbines and them coming online? Do, do, do, do, do. Like, it wasn’t like a COD, we turned the switch and we had to wait for all 62 turbines. Right. So to our [00:04:00] knowledge and, and, uh, please reach out to any of us on LinkedIn or an email or whatever to our knowledge. The turbines that are in production have still have been spinning. It’s the construction activities that have been stopped, but now. Hey, revolution wind is 90% complete and they’re back out and running, uh, on construction activities as of today. Speaker 2: It was in the last 48 hours. So this, this is a good sign because I think as the other wind farms go through the courts, they’re gonna essentially run through this, this same judge I that. Tends to happen because they have done all the research already. So you, you likely get the same outcome for all the other wind farms, although they have to go through the process. You can’t do like a class action, at least that’s doesn’t appear to be in play at the minute. Uh, they’re all gonna have to go through this little bit of a process. But what the judge is saying essentially is the concern from the Department of War, and then the Department of Interior is. [00:05:00] Make believe. I, I don’t wanna frame it. It’s not framed that way, the way it’s written. There’s a lot more legalistic terms about it. But it basically, they’re saying they tried to stop it before they didn’t get the result they wanted. The Trump administration didn’t get the result they wanted. So the Trump administration ramped it up by saying it was something that was classified in, in part of the Department of War. The judge isn’t buying it. So the, the, the early action. I think what we initially talked about this, everybody, I think the early feeling was they’re trying to stop it, but the fact that they’re trying to stop it just because, and just start pulling permits is not gonna stand outta the court. And when they want to come back and do it again, they’re not likely to win. If they would. Kept their ammunition dry and just from the beginning said it’s something classified as something defense related that Trump administration probably would’ve had a better shot at this. But now it just seems like everything’s just gonna lead down the pathway where all these projects get finished. Speaker: Yeah, I think that specific judge probably was listening to the [00:06:00] Uptime podcast last week for his research. Um, listen to, to our opinions that we talked about here, saying that this is kind of all bs. It’s not gonna fly. Uh, but what we’re sitting at here is like Revolution Wind was, had the injunction against it. Uh, empire Wind had an injunction again, but they were awaiting a similar ruling. So hopefully that’s actually supposed to go down today. That’s Wednesday. Uh, this is, so we’re recording this on Wednesday. Um, and then Dominion is, has, is suing as well, and their, uh, hearing is on Friday. In two, two days from now. And I would expect, I mean, it’s the same, same judge, same piece of papers, like it’s going to be the same result. Some numbers to throw at this thing. Now, just so the listeners know the impact of this, uh, dominion for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, they say that their pause in construction is costing them $5 million a day, and that is. That’s a pretty round number. It’s a conservative number to be honest with you. For officer operations, how many vessels and how much stuff is out there? That makes sense. Yep. [00:07:00] 5 million. So $5 million a day. And that’s one of the wind farms. Uh, coastal, Virginia Wind Farm is an $11 billion project. With, uh, it’s like 176 turbines. I think something to that, like it’s, it’s got enough power, it’s gonna have enough production out there to power up, like, uh, like 650,000 homes when it’s done. So there’s five projects suspended right now. I’m continuing with the numbers. Um, well, five, there’s four now. Revolution’s back running, right? So five and there’s four. Uh, four still stopped. And of those five is 28. Billion dollars in combined capital at risk, right? So you can understand why some of these companies are worried, right? They’re this is, this is not peanuts. Um, so you saw a little bump in like Ted stock in the markets when this, this, uh, revolution wind, uh, injunction was stopped. Uh, but. You also see that, uh, Moody’s is a credit [00:08:00] rating. They’ve lowered ORs, Ted’s um, rating from stable to negative, given that political risk.  Speaker 2: Well, if you haven’t been paying attention, wind energy O and m Australia 2026 is happening relatively soon. It’s gonna be February 17th and 18th. It’s gonna be at the Pullman Hotel downtown Melbourne. And we are all looking forward to it. The, the roster and the agenda is, is nearly assembled at this point. Uh, we have a, a couple of last minute speakers, but uh, I’m looking at the agenda and like, wow, if you work in o and m or even are around wind turbines, this is the place to be in February. From my  Speaker: seat. It’s pretty, it’s, it’s, it’s shaping up for pretty fun. My phone has just been inundated with text message and WhatsApp of when are you traveling? What are your dates looking forward to, and I wanna say this right, Rosie. Looking forward to Melvin. Did I get it? Did I do it okay.  Speaker 3: You know how to say it.  Speaker: So, so we’re, we’re really looking forward to, we’ve got a bunch of people traveling from around the [00:09:00] world, uh, to come and share their collective knowledge, uh, and learn from the Australians about how they’re doing things, what the, what the risks are, what the problems are, uh, really looking forward to the environment down there, like we had last year was very. Collaborative, the conversations are flowing. Um, so we’re looking forward to it, uh, in a big way from our seats. Over here,  Speaker 2: we are announcing a lightning workshop, and that workshop will be answering all your lightning questions in regards to your turbines Now. Typically when we do this, it’s about $10,000 per seat, and this will be free as part of WMA 2026. We’re gonna talk about some of the lightning physics, what’s actually happening in the field versus what the OEMs are saying and what the IEC specification indicates. And the big one is force majeure. A lot of operators are paying for damages that are well within the IEC specification, and we’ll explain.[00:10:00] What that is all about and what you can do to save yourself literally millions of dollars. But that is only possible if you go to Woma 2020 six.com and register today because we’re running outta seats. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. But this is a great opportunity to get your lightning questions answered. And Rosemary promised me that we’re gonna talk about Vestus turbines. Siemens turbines. GE Renova turbines. Nordex turbines. So if you have Nordex turbines, Sulan turbines, bring the turbine. Type, we’ll talk about it. We’ll get your questions answered, and the goal is that everybody at at Wilma 2026 is gonna go home and save themselves millions of dollars in 26 and millions of dollars in 27 and all the years after, because this Lightning workshop is going to take care of those really frustrating lightning questions that just don’t get answered. We’re gonna do it right there. Sign up today.  Speaker 3: [00:11:00] You know what, I’m really looking forward to that session and especially ’cause I’ve got a couple of new staff or new-ish staff at, it’s a great way to get them up to speed on lightning. And I think that actually like the majority of people, even if you are struggling with lightning problems every day, I bet that there is a whole bunch that you could learn about the underlying physics of lightning. And there’s not so many places to find that in the world. I have looked, um, for my staff training, where is the course that I can send them to, to understand all about lightning? I know when I started atm, I had a, an intro session, one-on-one with the, you know, chief Lightning guy there. That’s not so easy to come by, and this is the opportunity where you can get that and better because it’s information about every, every OEM and a bit of a better understanding about how it works so that you can, you know, one of the things that I find working with Lightning is a lot of force MA mature claims. And then, um, the OEMs, they try and bamboozle you with this like scientific sounding talk. If you understand better, then you’ll be able to do better in those discussions. [00:12:00] So I would highly recommend attending if you can swing the Monday as well.  Speaker: If you wanna attend now and you’re coming to the events. Reach out to, you can reach out to me directly because what we want to do now is collect, uh, as much information as possible about the specific turbine types of the, that the people in the room are gonna be responsible for. So we can tailor those messages, um, to help you out directly. So feel free to reach out to me, joel.saxo, SAXU m@wglightning.com and uh, we’ll be squared away and ready to roll on Monday. I think that’s Monday the 16th.  Speaker 2: So while American offshore wind fights for survival in the courts, British offshore wind just had its biggest day ever. The United Kingdom awarded contracts for 8.4 gigawatts. That’s right. 8.4 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity, the largest auction in European history. Holy smokes guys. The price came in at about 91 pounds per megawatt hour, and that’s 2024 pounds. [00:13:00] Uh, and that’s roughly 40% cheaper than building a new. Gas plant Energy Secretary Ed Milliband called it a monumental step towards the country’s 2030 clean power goals and that it is, uh, critics say that prices are still higher than previous auctions, and one that the government faces challenges connecting all this new capacity to the grid, and they do, uh, transmission is a limiting factor here, but in terms of where the UK is headed. Putting in gigawatts of offshore wind is going to disconnect them from a lot of need on the gas supply and other energy sources. It’s a massive auction round. This was way above what I remember being, uh. Talked about when we were in Scotland just a couple of weeks ago, Joel.  Speaker: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. You know, when we were, when we were up with the, or E Catapult event, and we talked to a lot of the different organizations of their OWGP and um, you know, the course, the or e Catapult folks and, and, and a [00:14:00] few others, they were really excited about AR seven. They were like, oh, we’re, we’re so excited. It’s gonna come down, it’s gonna be great. I didn’t expect these kind of numbers to come out of this thing. Right? ’cause we know that, um, they’ve got about, uh, the UK currently has about. 16 and a half or so gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, um, with, you know, they got a bunch under construction, it’s like 11 under construction, but their goal is to have 43 gigawatts by 2030. So,  Speaker 2: man.  Speaker: Yeah. And, and when 2030, put this into Conte Con context now. This is one of our first podcasts of the new year. That’s only four years away. Right. It’s soon. And, and to, to be able to do that. So you’re saying they got 16, they go some round numbers. They got 16 now. Pro producing 11 in the pipe, 11 being constructed. So get that to 27. That’s another 16 gigawatts of wind. They want, they that are not under construction today that they want to have completed in the next four years. That is a monumental effort now. We know that there’s some grid grid complications and connection [00:15:00] requirements and things that will slow that down, but just thinking about remove the grid idea, just thinking about the amount of effort to get those kind of large capital projects done in that short of timeline. Kudos to the UK ’cause they’re unlocking a lot of, um, a lot of private investment, a lot of effort to get these things, but they’re literally doing the inverse of what we’re doing in the United States right now.  Speaker 2: There would be about a total of 550, 615 ish megawatt turbines in the water. That does seem doable though. The big question is who’s gonna be providing those turbines? That’s a. Massive order. Whoever the salesperson is involved in that transaction is gonna be very happy. Well, the interesting thing here  Speaker: too is the global context of assets to be able to deliver this. We just got done talking about the troubles at these wind farms in the United States. As soon as these. Wind farms are finished. There’s not more of them coming to construction phase shortly, right? So all of these assets, all these jack up vessels, these installation vessels, these specialized cable lay vessels, they [00:16:00]can, they can fuel up and freaking head right across, back across the Atlantic and start working on these things. If the pre all of the engineering and, and the turbine deliveries are ready to roll the vessels, uh, ’cause that you, that, you know, two years ago that was a problem. We were all. Forecasting. Oh, we have this forecasted problem of a shortage of vessels and assets to be able to do installs. And now with the US kind of, basically, once we’re done with the wind farms, we’re working on offshore, now we’re shutting it down. It frees those back up, right? So the vessels will be there, be ready to roll. You’ll have people coming off of construction projects that know what’s going on, right? That, that know how to, to work these things. So the, the people, the vessels that will be ready to roll it is just, can we get the cables, the mono piles, the turbines and the cells, the blades, all done in time, uh, to make this happen And, and. I know I’m rambling now, but after leaving that or e Catapult event and talking to some of the people, um, that are supporting those [00:17:00] funds over there, uh, being injected from the, uh, the government, I think that they’ve got  Speaker 2: the, the money flowing over there to get it done too. The big winner in the auction round was RWE and they. Almost seven gigawatts. So that was a larger share of the 8.4 gigawatts. RWE obviously has a relationship with Vestus. Is that where this is gonna go? They’re gonna be, uh, installing vestus turbines. And where were those tur turbines? As I was informed by Scottish gentlemen, I won’t name names. Uh, will those turbines be built in the uk? Speaker 3: It’s a lot. It’s a, it’s one of the biggest challenges with, um, the supply chain for wind energy is that it just is so lumpy. So, you know, you get, um, uh. You get huge eight gigawatts all at once and then you have years of, you know, just not much. Not much, not much going on. I mean, for sure they’re not gonna be just building [00:18:00] eight gigawatts worth of, um, wind turbines in the UK in the next couple of years because they would also have to build the capacity to manufacture that and, and then would wanna be building cocks every couple of years for, you know, the next 10 or 20 years. So, yeah, of course they’re gonna be manufacturing. At facilities around the world and, and transporting them. But, um, yeah, I just, I don’t know. It’s one of the things that I just. Constantly shake my head about is like, how come, especially when projects are government supported, when plans are government supported, why, why can’t we do a better job of smoothing things out so that you can have, you know, for example, local manufacturing because everyone knows that they’ve got a secure pipeline. It’s just when the government’s involved, it should be possible.  Speaker 2: At least the UK has been putting forth some. Pretty big numbers to support a local supply chain. When we were over in Scotland, they announced 300 million pounds, and that was just one of several. That’s gonna happen over the next year. There will be a [00:19:00] near a billion pounds be put into the supply chain, which will make a dramatic difference. But I think you’re right. Also, it’s, they’re gonna ramp up and then they, it’s gonna ramp down. They have to find a way to feed the global marketplace at some point, be because the technology and the people are there. It’s a question of. How do you sustain it for a 20, 30 year period? That’s a different question. Speaker 3: I do agree that the UK is doing a better job than probably anybody else. Um, it it’s just that they, the way that they have chosen to organize these auctions and the government support and the planning just means that they have that, that this is the perfect conditions to, you know. Make a smooth rollout and you know, take care of all this. And so I just a bit frustrated that they’re not doing more. But you are right that they’re doing the best probably  Speaker 4: once all of these are in service though, aren’t there quite a bit of aftermarket products that are available in the UK  Speaker: on the service then? I think there’s more.  Speaker 4: Which, I mean, that’s good. A good part of it, right? Speaker: If we’re talking Vestas, so, so let’s just round this [00:20:00] up too. If we’re talking vest’s production for blades in Europe, you have two facilities in Denmark that build V 2 36 blades. You have one facility in Italy that builds V 2 36 blades, Taiwan, but they build them for the APAC market. Of course. Um, Poland had a, has one on hold right now, V 2 36 as well. Well, they just bought that factory from LM up in Poland also. That’s, but I think that’s for onshore term, onshore blades. Oh, yes, sure. And then Scotland has, they have the proposed facility in, in Laith. That there, that’s kind of on hold as well. So if that one’s proposed, I’m sure, hey, if we get a big order, they’ll spin that up quick because they’ll get, I am, I would imagine someone o you know, one of the, one of the funds to spool up a little bit of money, boom, boom, boom. ’cause they’re turning into local jobs. Local supply  Speaker 2: chain does this then create the condition where a lot of wind turbines, like when we were in Scotland, a lot of those wind turbines are. Gonna reach 20 years old, maybe a little bit older here over the next five years where they will [00:21:00] need to be repowered upgraded, whatever’s gonna happen there. If you had internal manufacturing. In country that would, you’d think lower the price to go do that. That will be a big effort just like it is in Spain right now.  Speaker: The trouble there though too, is if you’re using local content in, in the uk, the labor prices are so much  Speaker 2: higher. I’m gonna go back to Rosie’s point about sort of the way energy is sold worldwide. UK has high energy prices, mostly because they are buying energy from other countries and it’s expensive to get it in country. So yes, they can have higher labor prices and still be lower cost compared to the alternatives. It, it’s not the same equation in the US versus uk. It’s, it’s totally different economics, but. If they get enough power generation, which I think the UK will, they’re gonna offload that and they’re already doing it now. So you can send power to France, send power up [00:22:00] north. There’s ways to sell that extra power and help pay for the system you built. That would make a a lot of sense. It’s very similar to what the Saudis have done for. Dang near 80 years, which is fill tankers full of oil and sell it. This is a little bit different that we’re just sending electrons through the water to adjacent European countries. It does seem like a plan. I hope they’re sending ’em through a cable in the water and not just into the water. Well, here’s the thing that was concerning early on. They’re gonna turn it into hydrogen and put it on a ship and send it over to France. Like that didn’t make any sense at all. Uh. Cable’s on the way to do it. Right.  Speaker: And actually, Alan, you and I did have a conversation with someone not too long ago about that triage market and how the project where they put that, that that trans, that HVDC cable next to the tunnel it, and it made and it like paid for itself in a year or something. Was that like, that they didn’t wanna really tell us like, yeah, it paid for itself in a year. Like it was a, the ROI was like on a, like a $500 million [00:23:00]project or something. That’s crazy. Um, but yeah, that’s the same. That’s, that is, I would say part of the big push in the uk there is, uh, then they can triage that power and send it, send it back across. Um, like I think Nord Link is the, the cable between Peterhead and Norway, right? So you have, you have a triage market going across to the Scandinavian countries. You have the triage market going to mainland eu. Um, and in when they have big time wind, they’re gonna be able to do it. So when you have an RWE. Looking at seven gigawatts of, uh, possibility that they just, uh, just procured. Game on. I love it. I think it’s gonna be cool. I’m, I’m happy to see it blow  Speaker 2: up. Canada is getting serious about offshore wind and international developers are paying attention. Q Energy, France and its South Korean partner. Hawa Ocean have submitted applications to develop wind projects off Nova Scotia’s Coast. The province has big ambitions. Premier, Tim Houston wants to license enough. Offshore [00:24:00] wind to produce 40 gigawatts of power far more than Nova Scotia would ever need. Uh, the extra electricity could supply more than a quarter of Canada’s total demand. If all goes according to plan, the first turbines could be spinning by 2035. Now, Joel. Yeah, some of this power will go to Canada, but there’s a huge market in the United States also for this power and the capacity factor up in Nova Scotia offshore is really good. Yeah. It’s uh, it  Speaker: is simply, it’s stellar, right? Uh, that whole No, Nova Scotia, new Brunswick, Newfoundland, that whole e even Maritimes of Canada. The wind, the wind never stops blowing, right? Like I, I go up there every once in a while ’cause my wife is from up there and, uh, it’s miserable sometimes even in the middle of summer. Um, so the, the wind resource is fantastic. The, it, it is a boom or will be a boom for the Canadian market, right? There’re always [00:25:00] that maritime community, they’re always looking for, for, uh, new jobs. New jobs, new jobs. And this is gonna bring them to them. Um, one thing I wanna flag here is when I know this, when this announcement came out. And I reached out to Tim Houston’s office to try to get him on the podcast, and I haven’t gotten a response yet. Nova Scotia. So if someone that’s listening can get ahold of Tim Houston, we’d love to talk to him about the plans for Nova Scotia. Um, but, but we see that just like we see over overseas, the triage market of we’re making power, we can sell it. You know, we balance out the prices, we can sell it to other places. From our seats here we’ve been talking about. The electricity demand on the east coast of the United States for, for years and how it is just climbing, climbing, climbing, especially AI data centers. Virginia is a hub of this, right? They need power and we’re shooting ourselves in the foot, foot for offshore wind, plus also canceling pipelines and like there’s no extra generation going on there except for some solar plants where you can squeeze ’em in down in the Carolinas and whatnot. [00:26:00] There is a massive play here for the Canadians to be able to HVD see some power down to us. Speaker 2: The offshore conditions off the coast of Nova Scotia are pretty rough, and the capacity factor being so high makes me think of some of the Brazilian wind farms where the capacity factor is over 50%. It’s amazing down there, but one of the outcomes of that has been early turbine problems. And I’m wondering if the Nova Scotia market is going to demand a different kind of turbine that is specifically built for those conditions. It’s cold, really cold. It’s really windy. There’s a lot of moisture in the air, right? So the salt is gonna be bad. Uh, and then the sea life too, right? There’s a lot of, uh, sea life off the coast of the Nova Scotia, which everybody’s gonna be concerned about. Obviously, as this gets rolling. How do we think about this? And who’s gonna be the manufacturer of turbines for Canada? Is it gonna be Nordics? Well,  Speaker: let’s start from the ground up there. So from the or ground up, it’s, how about sea [00:27:00] floor up? Let’s start from there. There is a lot of really, really, if you’ve ever worked in the offshore world, the o offshore, maritime Canadian universities that focus on the, on offshore construction, they produce some of the best engineers for those markets, right? So if you go down to Houston, Texas where there’s offshore oil and gas companies and engineering companies everywhere, you run into Canadians from the Maritimes all over the place ’cause they’re really good at what they do. Um, they are developing or they have developed offshore oil and gas platforms. Off of the coast of Newfoundland and up, up in that area. And there’s some crazy stuff you have to compete with, right? So you have icebergs up there. There’s no icebergs in the North Atlantic that like, you know, horn seats, internet cruising through horn C3 with icebergs. So they’ve, they’ve engineered and created foundations and things that can deal with that, those situations up there. But you also have to remember that you’re in the Canadian Shield, which is, um, the Canadian Shield is a geotechnical formation, right? So it’s very rocky. Um, and it’s not [00:28:00] like, uh, the other places where we’re putting fixed bottom wind in where you just pound the piles into the sand. That’s not how it’s going to go, uh, up in Canada there. So there’s some different engineering that’s going to have to take place for the foundations, but like you said, Alan Turbine specific. It blows up there. Right. And we have seen onshore, even in the United States, when you get to areas that have high capacity burning out main bearings, burning out generators prematurely because the capacity factor is so high and those turbines are just churning. Um, I, I don’t know if any of the offshore wind turbine manufacturers are adjusting any designs specifically for any markets. I, I just don’t know that. Um, but they may run into some. Some tough stuff up there, right? You might run into some, some overspeeding main bearings and some maintenance issues, specifically in the wintertime ’cause it is nasty up there. Speaker 2: Well, if you have 40 gigawatts of capacity, you have several thousand turbines, you wanna make sure really [00:29:00] sure that the blade design is right, that the gearbox is right if you have a gearbox, and that everything is essentially over-designed, heated. You can have deicing systems on it, I would assume that would be something you would be thinking about. You do the same thing for the monopoles. The whole assembly’s gotta be, have a, just a different thought process than a turbine. You would stick off the coast of Germany. Still rough conditions at times, but not like Nova Scotia.  Speaker: One, one other thing there to think about too that we haven’t dealt with, um. In such extreme levels is the, the off the coast of No. Nova Scotia is the Bay of Fundee. If you know anything about the Bay of Fundee, it is the highest tide swings in the world. So the tide swings at certain times of the year, can be upwards of 10 meters in a 12 hour period in this area of, of the ocean. And that comes with it. Different time, different types of, um, one of the difficult things for tide swings is it creates subsid currents. [00:30:00] Subsid currents are, are really, really, really bad, nasty. Against rocks and for any kind of cable lay activities and longevity of cable lay scour protection around turbines and stuff like that. So that’s another thing that subsea that we really haven’t spoke about.  Speaker 3: You know, I knew when you say Bay Bay of funding, I’m like, I know that I have heard that place before and it’s when I was researching for. Tidal power videos for Tidal Stream. It’s like the best place to, to generate electricity from. Yeah, from Tidal Stream. So I guess if you are gonna be whacking wind turbines in there anyway, maybe you can share some infrastructure and Yeah. Eca a little bit, a little bit more from your, your project.  Speaker 2: 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 For Rosie, Yolanda and Joel, I’m Alan Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime [00:36:00] Wind Energy Podcast.

Allen, Joel, Rosemary, and Yolanda break down the TPI Composites bankruptcy fallout. Vestas is acquiring TPI’s Mexico and India operations while a UAE company picks up the Turkish factories. That leaves GE in a tough spot with no clear path to blade manufacturing. Plus the crew discusses blade scarcity, FSA availability floors, and whether a new blade manufacturer could emerge. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Allen Hall: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall. I’ve got Yolanda Padron and Joel Saxum in Texas. And Rosemary Barnes is back from her long Vacation in Australia and TPI. Composites is big in the news this week, everybody, because they’re in bankruptcy hearings and they are selling off parts of the business. Vestas is, at least according to News Reports positioned to acquire. A couple of the LLCs down in Mexico. So there’s uh, two of them, TPI in Mexico, five LLC, and TPI in Mexico, six LLC. There are other LLCs, of course involved with this down in Mexico. So they’re buying, not sure exactly what the assets are, but probably a couple of the factories in which their blades were being manufactured in. Uh, this. Is occurring because Vestas stepped in. They were trying to have an auction and Vestas stepped forward and just ended up buying these two LLCs. [00:01:00] Other things that are happening here, Joel, is that, uh, TPI evidently sold their Turkish division. Do you recall to who they sold? That, uh, part of the Joel Saxum: business too, two companies involved in that, that were TPI Turkey, uh, and that was bought by a company called XCS composites. Uh, and they are out of the United Arab Emirates, so I believe they’re either going to be Abu Dhabi or Dubai based. Uh, but they took over the tube wind blade manufacturing plants in Isme, uh, also a field service and inspection repair business. And around 2,700 employees, uh, from the Turkish operation. So that happened just, just after, I mean, it was a couple weeks after the bankruptcy claim, uh, went through here in August, uh, in the States. So it went August bankruptcy for TPI, September, all the Turkish operations were bought and now we’ve got Vestas swooping in and uh, taking a bunch of the Mexican operations. Allen Hall: Right. And [00:02:00] Vestas is also taking TPI composites India. Which is a part of the business that is not in bankruptcy, uh, that’s a, a separate business, a separate, basically LLC incorporation Over in India, the Vestus is going to acquire, so they’re gonna acquire three separate things in this transaction. The question everybody’s asking today after seeing this Vestus move is, what is GE doing? Because, uh, GE Renova has a lot of blades manufactured by TPI down in Mexico. No word on that. And you would think if, if TPI is auctioning off assets that GE renova would be at the front of the line, but that’s not what we’re hearing on the ground. Joel Saxum: Yeah, I mean it’s, the interesting part of this thing is for Vestas, TPI was about 35% of their blade capacity for manufacturing in 2024. If their 30, if, if Vestas was 35%, then GE had to be 50%. There [00:03:00] demand 60. So Vesta is making a really smart move here by basically saying, uh, we’ve gotta lock down our supply chain for blades. We gotta do something. So we need to do this. GE is gonna be the odd man out because, I mean, I think it would be a, a cold day in Denmark if Vestas was gonna manufacture blades for ge. Allen Hall: Will the sale price that Vest has paid for this asset show up in the bankruptcy? Hearings or disclosures? I think that it would, I haven’t seen it yet, but eventually it’ll, it must show up, right? All, all the bankruptcy hearings and transactions are, they have an overseer essentially, what happens to, so TPI can’t purchase or sell anything without an, um, getting approved by the courts, so that’ll eventually be disclosed. Uh, the Turkish sale will be, I would assume, would be disclosed. Also really curious to see what the asset value. Was for those factories. Joel Saxum: So the Turkish sale is actually public knowledge right now, and [00:04:00] that is, lemme get the number here to make sure I get it right. 92.9 million Euros. Uh, but of, of course TPI laden with a bunch of non-convertible and convertible debt. So a ton of that money went right down to debt. Uh, but to be able to purchase that. They had to assu, uh, XCS composites in Turkey, had to assume debt as is, uh, under the bankruptcy kind of proceedings. So I would assume that Vestas is gonna have to do the same thing, is assume the debt as is to take these assets over and, uh, and assets. We don’t know what it is yet. We don’t know if it’s employees, if it’s operations, if it’s ip, if it’s just factories. We don’t know what’s all involved in it. Um, but like you said, because. TPI being a publicly traded company in the United States, they have to file all this stuff with SEC. Allen Hall: Well, they’ll, they’re be delisted off of. Was it, they were Joel Saxum: in Nasdaq? Is that where they were listed? The India stuff that could be private. You may ne we may not ever hear about what happened. Valuation there. Allen Hall: Okay, so what is the, the [00:05:00] future then for wind blade production? ’cause TPI was doing a substantial part of it for the world. I mean, outside of China, it’s TPI. And LM a little bit, right? LM didn’t have the capacity, I don’t think TPI that TPI does or did. It puts Joel Saxum: specifically GE in a tight spot, right? Because GEs, most of their blades were if it was built to spec or built to print. Built to spec was designed, uh, by LM and built by lm. But now LM as we have seen in the past months year, has basically relinquished themselves of all of their good engineering, uh, and ability to iterate going forward. So that’s kind of like dwindling to an end. TPI also a big side of who makes blades for ge if Vestas is gonna own the majority of their capacity, Vestas isn’t gonna make blades for ge. So GEs going to be looking at what can we, what can we still build with lm? And then you have the kind of the, the odd ducks there. You have the Aris, [00:06:00] you have the MFG, um, I mean Sonoma is out there. This XCS factory is there still in Turkey. Um, you may see some new players pop up. Uh, I don’t know. Um, we’ll see. I mean, uh, Rosemary, what’s, what’s your take? Uh, you guys are starting to really ramp up down in Australia right now and are gonna be in the need of blades in general with this kind of shakeup. Rosemary Barnes: What do we say? My main concern is. Around the service of the blades that we’ve already got. Um, and when I talk to people that I know at LM or XLM, my understanding is that those parts of the organization are still mostly intact. So I actually don’t expect any big changes there. Not to say that the status quo. Good enough. It’s not like, like every single OEM whose, um, FSAs that I work with, uh, support is never good enough. But, um, [00:07:00] it shouldn’t get any worse anyway. And then for upcoming projects, yeah, I, I don’t know. I mean, I guess it’s gonna be on a case by case basis. Uh, I mean, it always was when you got a new, a new project, you need a whole bunch of blades. It was always a matter of figuring out which factory they were going to come from and if they had capacity. It’ll be the same. It’s just that then instead of, you know, half a dozen factories to choose from, there’s like, what, like one or two. So, um, yeah, I, that’s, that’s my expectation of what’s gonna happen. I presumably ge aren’t selling turbines that they have no capability to make blades for. Um, so I, I guess they’re just gonna have a lot less sales. That’s the only real way I can make it work. Allen Hall: GE has never run a Blade factory by themselves. They’ve always had LM or somebody do it, uh, down in Brazil or TPI in Mexico or wherever. Uh, are we thinking that GE Renova is not gonna run a Blade Factory? Is that the thought, or, or is [00:08:00] that’s not in the cards either. Rosemary Barnes: I don’t think it’s that easy to just, just start running a Blade Factory. I mean, I know that GE had blade design capabilities. I used to design the blades that TPI would make. So, um, that part of it. Sure. Um, they can, they can still do that, but it’s not, yeah, it’s, it’s not like you just buy a Blade factory and like press start on the factory and then the, you know, production line just starts off and blades come out the other end. Like there is a lot of a, a lot of knowhow needed if that was something that they wanted to do. That should have been what they started doing from day one after they bought lm. You know, that was the opportunity that they had to become, you know, a Blade factory owner. They could have started to, you know, make, um, have GE. Take up full ownership of the, the blade factories and how that all worked. But instead, they kept on operating like pretty autonomously without that many [00:09:00] changes at the factory level. Like if they were to now say, oh, you know, hey, it’s, uh, we really want to. Have our own blade factories and make blades. It’s just like, what the hell were you doing for the last, was it like seven years or something? Like you, you could easily have done what? And now you haven’t made it as hard for yourselves as possible. So like I’m not ruling out that that’s what they’re gonna try and do, because like I said, I don’t think it’s been like executed well, but. My God, it’s like even stupid of the whole situation. If that’s where we end up with them now scrambling to build from scratch blade, um, manufacturing capability because there’s Yolanda Padron: already a blade scarcity, right? Like at least in the us I don’t know if you guys are seeing it in, in Australia as well, but there’s a blade scarcity for these GE blades, right? So you’re, they kind of put themselves in an even more tough spot by just now. You, you don’t have access to a lot of these TPI factories written in theory. From what we’re seeing. You mean to get like replacement blades? Yeah. So like for, for issues? Yeah. New [00:10:00] construction issues under FSA, that, Rosemary Barnes: yeah. I mean, we’ve always waited a, a long time for new blades. Like it’s never great. If you need a new blade, you’re always gonna be waiting six months, maybe 12 months. So that’s always been the case, but now we are seeing delays of that. Maybe, maybe sometimes longer, but also it’s like, oh well. We can’t replace, like, for like, you’re gonna be getting a, a different kind of blade. Um, that will work. Um, but you know, so that is fine, except for that, that means you can’t do a single blade replacement anymore. Now, what should have been a single blade replacement might be a full set replacement. And so it does start to really, um, yeah. Mess things up and like, yeah, it’s covered by the FSA, like that’s on them to buy the three blades instead of one, but. It does matter because, you know, if they’re losing money on, um, managing your wind farm, then it, it is gonna lead to worse outcomes for you because, you know, they’re gonna have to skimp and scrape where they [00:11:00] can to, you know, like, um, minimize their losses. So I, I don’t think it’s, it’s, it’s Yolanda Padron: not great. Yeah. And if you’re running a wind farm, you have other stakeholders too, right? It’s not like you’re running it just for yourself. So having all that downtime from towers down for a year. Because you can’t get blades on your site. Like it’s just really not great. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, and I mean, there’s flaws on there. Like they’ve got an availability guarantee. Then, you know, below that they do have to, um, pay for that, those losses. But there’s a flaw on that. So once you know, you, you blast through the floor of your availability, then you know, that is on the owner. Now it’s not on the, um, service provider. So it’s definitely. Something that, yeah, there’s lots of things where you might think, oh, I don’t have to worry about my blades ’cause I’ve got an F, SA, but you know, that’s just one example where, okay, you will, you will start worrying if they, they yeah. Fall through the floor of their availability guarantee. Joel Saxum: Two questions that pop up in my mind from this one, the first one, the first one is [00:12:00] directly from Alan. You and I did a webinar, we do so many of ’em yesterday, and it was about, it was in the nor in North America, ferc, so. They have new icing readiness, uh, reporting you, so, so basically like if you’re on the, if you’re connected to the grid, you’re a wind farm or solar farm and you have an icing event, you need to explain to them why you had an outage, um, and why, what you’re doing about it. Or if you’re not doing something about it, you have to justify it. You have to do all these things to say. Hey, some electrons weren’t flowing into the grid. There’s certain levels. It’s much more complicated than this, but electrons weren’t flowing into the grid because of an issue. We now have to report to FERC about this. So is there a stage when a FERC or uh, some other regulatory agency starts stepping into the wind industry saying like, someone’s gotta secure a supply chain here. ’cause they’re already looking at things when electrons are on the grid. Someone’s got a secure supply chain here so we can ensure that [00:13:00]these electrons are gonna get on the grid. Could, can something like that happen or was, I mean, I mean, of course that’s, to me, in my opinion, that’s a lot of governmental overreach, but could we see that start to come down the line like, Hey, we see from an agency’s perspective, we see some problems here. What are you doing to shore this up? Allen Hall: Oh, totally. Right. I, I think the industry in general has an issue. This is not an OEM specific problem. At the minute, if this is a industry-wide problem, there seems to be more dispersed. Manufacturers are gonna be popping up. And when we were in Scotland, uh, we learned a lot more about that. Right, Joel? So the industry has more diversification. I, I, here’s, here’s my concern at the minute, so. For all these blade manufacturers that we would otherwise know off the top of our heads. Right. Uh, lm, TPI, uh, Aris down in Brazil. The Vestus manufacturing facilities, the Siemens manufacturing [00:14:00] facilities. Right. You, you’re, you’re in this place where. You know, everybody’s kind of connected up the chain, uh, to a large OEM and all this made sense. You know, who was rebuilding your blades next year and the year down, two years down the road. Today you don’t, so you don’t know who owns that company. You don’t know how the manager’s gonna respond. Are you negotiating with a company that you can trust’s? Gonna be there in two or three years because you may have to wait that long to get blades delivered. I don’t know. I think that it, it put a lot of investment, uh, companies in a real quandary of whether they wanna proceed or not based upon the, what they is, what they would perceive to be the stability of these blade companies. That’s what I would think. I, I, Vestas is probably the best suited at the minute, besides Siemens. You know, Vestas is probably best suited to have the most perceived reliability capability. Control, Joel Saxum: but they have their own [00:15:00] blade factories already, right? So if they buy the TPI ones, they’re just kind of like they can do some copy pasting to get the the things in place. And to be honest with you, Vesta right now makes the best blades out there, in my opinion, least amount of serial defects. Remove one, remove one big issue from the last couple Allen Hall: years. But I think all the OEMs have problems. It’s a question of how widely known those problems are. I, I don’t think it’s that. I think the, the, the. When you talk to operators and, and they do a lot of shopping on wind turbines, what they’ll tell you generally is vestus is about somewhere around 20% higher in terms of cost to purchase a turbine from them. And Vestus is gonna put on a, a full service agreement of some sort that’s gonna run roughly 30 years. So there’s a lot of overhead that comes with buying a, a Vestas turbine. Yes. You, you get the quality. Yes. You get the name. Yes, you get the full service agreement, which you may or [00:16:00] may not really want over time. Uh, that’s a huge decision. But as pieces are being removed from the board of what you can possibly do, there’s it, it’s getting narrow or narrow by the minute. So it, it’s either a vestus in, in today’s world, like right today, I think we should talk about this, but it’s either Vestus or Nordic. Those are the two that are being decided upon. Mostly by a lot of the operators today. Joel Saxum: That’s true. We’re, and we just saw Nordex, just inked a one gigawatt deal with Alliant Energy, uh, just last week. And that’s new because Alliant has traditionally been a GE buyer. Right. They have five or six ge, two X wind farms in the, in the middle of the United States, and now they’ve secured a deal with Nordex for a gigawatt. Same thing we saw up at Hydro Quebec. Right. Vestas and Nordex are the only ones that qualify for that big, and that’s supposed to be like a 10 gigawatt tender over time. Right. But the, so it brings me to my, I guess my other question, I was thinking about this be [00:17:00] after the FERC thing was, does do, will we see a new blade manufacturer Allen Hall: pop Joel Saxum: up? Allen Hall: No, I don’t think you see a new one. I think you see an acquisition, uh, a transfer of assets to somebody else to run it, but that is really insecure. I, I always think when you’re buying distressed assets and you think you’re gonna run it better than the next guy that. Is rare in industry to do that. Think about the times you’ve seen that happen and it doesn’t work out probably more than 75% of the time. It doesn’t work out. It lasts a year or two or three, and they had the same problems they had when the original company was there. You got the same people inside the same building, building the same product, what do you think is magically gonna change? Right? You have this culture problem or a a already established culture, you’re not likely to change that unless you’re willing to fire, you know, a third of the staff to, to make changes. I don’t see anybody here doing that at the minute because. Finding wind blade technicians, manufacturing people is [00:18:00] extremely hard to do, to find people that are qualified. So you don’t wanna lose them. Joel Saxum: So this is why I say, this is why I pose the question, because in my mind, in in recent wind history, the perfect storm for a new blade manufacturer is happening right now. And the, and the why I say this is there is good engineers on the streets available. Now washing them of their old bad habits and the cultures and those things, that’s a monumental task. That’s not possible. Allen Hall: Rosemary worked at a large blade manufacturer and it has a culture to it. That culture really didn’t change even after they were acquired by a large OEM. The culture basically Rosemary Barnes: remained, they bizarrely didn’t try and change that culture, like they didn’t try to make it a GE company so that it wasn’t dur, it was wasn’t durable. You know, they, they could have. Used that as a shortcut to gaining, um, blade manufacturing capabilities and they didn’t. And that was a, I think it was a choice. I don’t think it’s an inevitability. It’s never easy to go in and change a, a culture, [00:19:00] but it is possible to at least, you know, get parts of it. Um, the, the knowledge should, you should be able to transfer and then get rid of the old culture once you’ve done that, you know, like, uh. Yeah, like you, you bring it in and suck out all the good stuff and spit out the rest. They didn’t do that. Joel Saxum: The opportunity here is, is that you’ve got a, you’ve got people, there’s gonna be a shortage of blade capacity, right? So if you are, if you are going to start up a blade manufacturing facility, you, if you’re clever enough, you may be able to get the backlog of a bunch of orders to get running without having to try to figure it out as you go. Yolanda Padron: I feel like I’d almost make the case that like the blade repair versus replace gap or the business cases is getting larger and larger now, right? So I feel like there’s more of a market for like some sort of holistic maintenance team to come in and say, Hey, I know this OEM hasn’t been taking care of your blades really well, but here are these retrofits that have proven to be [00:20:00]to work on your blades and solve these issues and we’ll get you up and running. Rosemary Barnes: We are seeing more and more of of that. The thing that makes it hard for that to be a really great solution is that they don’t have the information that they need. They have to reverse engineer everything, and that is. Very challenging because like you can reverse engineer what a blade is, but it doesn’t mean that, you know, um, exactly like, because a, the blade that you end up with is not an optimized blade in every location, right? There’s some parts that are overbuilt and um, sometimes some parts that are underbuilt, which gives you, um, you know, serial issues. But, so reverse engineering isn’t necessarily gonna make it safe, and so that does mean that yeah, like anyone coming in with a really big, significant repair that doesn’t go through the OEM, it’s a, it’s a risk. It, it’s always a risk that they have, you know, like there’s certain repairs where you can reverse engineer enough to know that you’re safe. But any really big [00:21:00] one, um, or anything that involves multiple components, um, is. Is a bit of a gamble if it doesn’t go through the OEM. Joel Saxum: No, but so between, I guess between the comments there, Yolanda and Rosemary, are we then entering the the golden age of opportunity for in independent engineering experts? Rosemary Barnes: I believe so. I’m staking, staking my whole business on it. Allen Hall: I think you have to be careful here, everybody, because the problem is gonna be Chinese blade manufacturers. If you wanna try to establish yourself as a blade manufacturer and you’re taking an existing factory, say, say you bought a TPI factory in Turkey or somewhere, and you thought, okay, I, I know how to do this better than everybody else. That could be totally true. However, the OEMs are not committed to buying blades from you and your competition isn’t the Blade Factory in Denmark or in Colorado or North Dakota, or in Mexico or Canada, Spain, wherever your competition is when, [00:22:00] uh, the OEM says, I can buy these blades for 20 to 30% less money in China, and that’s what you’re gonna be held as, as a standard. That is what’s gonna kill most of these things with a 25% tariff on top. Right? Exactly. But still they’re still bringing Joel Saxum: blades in. That’s why I’m saying a local blade manufacturer, Rosemary Barnes: I think it’s less the case. That everyone thinks about China, although maybe a little bit unconventional opinion a about China, they certainly can manufacture blades with, uh, as good a quality as anyone. I mean, obviously all of the, um, Danish, uh, American manufacturers have factories in China that are putting out excellent quality blades. So I’m not trying to say that they dunno how to make a good blade, but with their. New designs, you know, and the really cheap ones. There’s a couple of, um, there’s a couple of reasons for that that mean that I don’t think that it just slots really well into just replacing all of the rest of the world’s, um, wind turbines. The first is that there are a lot of [00:23:00] subsidies in China. Surely there can only continue so long as their economy is strong. You know, like if their economy slows down, like to what extent are they gonna be able to continue to, um, continue with these subsidies? I would be a little bit nervous about buying an asset that I needed support for the next 30 years from a company like. That ecosystem. Then the other thing is that, um, that development, they move really fast because they take some shortcuts. There’s no judgment there. In fact, from a develop product development point of view, that is absolutely the best way to move really fast and get to a really good product fast. It will be pervasive all the way through every aspect of it. Um, non-Chinese companies are just working to a different standard, which slows them down. But also means that along the way, like I would be much happier with a half developed, um, product from a non-Chinese manufacturer than a half developed product from a Chinese manufacturer. The end point, like if China can keep on going long enough with this, [00:24:00] you know, like just really move fast, make bold decisions, learn everything you can. If they can continue with that long enough to get to a mature product, then absolutely they will just smash the rest of the world to pieces. So for me, it’s a matter of, um, does their economy stay strong enough to support that level of, uh, competition? Allen Hall: Well, no, that’s a really good take. It’s an engineering take, and I think the decision is made in the procurement offices of the OEMs and when they start looking at the numbers and trying to determine profitability. That extra 20% savings they can get on blades made in China comes into play quite often. This is why they’re having such a large discussion about Chinese manufacturers coming into the eu. More broadly is the the Vestas and the Siemens CAAs and even the GE Re Novas. No, it’s big time trouble because the cost structure is lower. It just is, and I. [00:25:00] As much as I would love to see Vestas and Siemens and GE Renova compete on a global stage, they can’t at the moment. That’s evident. I don’t think it’s a great time to be opening any new Blade Factory. If you’re not an already established company, it’s gonna be extremely difficult. Wind Energy O and M Australia is back February 17th and 18th at Melbourne’s Pullman on the park. Which is a great hotel. We built this year’s agenda directly from the conversations we’ve had in 2025 and tackling serial defects, insurance pressures, blade repairs, and the operational challenges that keeps everybody up at night around the world. So we have two days of technical sessions, interactive roundtables and networking that actually moves the industry for. Forward. And if you’re interested in attending this, you need to go to WMA 2020 six.com. It’s WOMA 2020 six.com. Rosemary, a lot of, uh, great events gonna happen at. W 2026. Why don’t [00:26:00] you give us a little highlight. Parlet iss gonna be there. Rosemary Barnes: Parlow is gonna be there. I mean, a highlight for me is always getting together with the, the group. And also, I mean, I just really love the size of the event that uh, every single person who’s there is interested in the same types of things that you are interested in. So the highlight for me is, uh, the conversations that I don’t know that I’m gonna have yet. So looking forward to that. But we are also. Making sure that we’ve got a really great program. We’ve got a good mix of Australian speakers and a few people bringing international experience as well. There’s also a few side events that are being organized, like there’s an operators only forum, which unfortunately none of us will be able to enter because we’re not operators, but that is gonna be really great for. For all of them to be able to get together and talk about issues that they have with no, nobody else in the room. So if, if you are an operator and you’re not aware of that, then get in touch and we’ll pass on your details to make sure you can join. Um, yeah, and people just, you know, [00:27:00] taking the opportunities to catch up with clients, you know, for paddle load. Most or all of our clients are, are gonna be there. So it is nice to get off Zoom and um, yeah, actually sit face to face and discuss things in person. So definitely encourage everyone to try and arrange those sorts of things while they’re there. Joel Saxum: You know, one of the things I think is really important about this event is that, uh, we’re, we’re continuing the conversation from last year, but a piece of feedback last year was. Fantastic job with the conversation and helping people with o and m issues and giving us things we can take back and actually integrate into our operations right away. But then a week or two or three weeks after the event, we had those things, but the conversation stopped. So this year we’re putting some things in place. One of ’em being like Rosemary was talking about the private operator forum. Where there’s a couple of operators that have actually taken the reins with this thing and they wanna put this, they wanna make this group a thing where they’re want to have quarterly meetings and they want to continue this conversation and knowledge share and boost that whole Australian market in the wind [00:28:00]side up right? Rising waters floats all boats, and we’re gonna really take that to the next level this year at Allen Hall: WMA down in Melbourne. That’s why I need a register now at Wilma 2020 six.com because the industry needs solutions. Speeches. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate all the feedback and support we received from the wind industry. If today’s discussion sparked any questions 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’d never miss an episode. For Joel Rosemary and Yolanda, I’m Allen Hall. We’ll catch you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Il y a une génération de femmes qui a grandi avec l'idée qu'on pouvait tout mener de front. Carrière, amour, liberté, projets.Ce qu'on nous a moins dit, c'est que le corps ne suit pas toujours le même tempo.Dans cet épisode, Dounia Boutaleb partage un parcours riche, lucide et profondément engagé.Entre entrepreneuriat, maternité, liberté et féminisme concret, elle raconte pourquoi et comment elle a cofondé WoMA Health, une plateforme pensée pour redonner aux femmes du temps, de l'information et du choix autour de leur fertilité.

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.

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, 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.

The crew discusses Equinor's significant investment in Ørsted, while Ørsted denies plans to merge. They also cover Jupiter Bach's new plant in Colorado and the upcoming Wind Operation and Maintenance Australia 2026 event. Register for ORE Catapult's UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight!Learn more about Composite Inspection and Consulting! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now, here's your hosts. Allen Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Welcome back to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall in the queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. I have Rosemary Barnes in Australia who has, uh, been doing a little bit of travel. Joel is back in Austin, Texas. Man, I feel like everybody's been traveling a lot and so is Yolanda. The Yolanda has been on the road quite a bit and we have a really interesting week in wind energy. Particularly over in Denmark and Norway, and if you've been following the news there, uh, as we all know, Ecuador had a pretty big investment into Sted several months ago where they put in about two and a half [00:01:00] billion dollars to buy 10% of Sted to help write the ship a little bit, and then. A c basically last month, right Joel? It was about last month where they, they spent about a billion dollars for the right rights issue, uh, to keep that stock moving, right, and or, and need more cash. And that's how they raised it. That's a total investment, about three and a half billion dollars. That's a lot of money for anybody to be spending at this moment, and Ecuador is thinking this is a pretty good bet. That's great and they wanna work closer with Ted. And the talk is that Ecuador wants a boar seat with Ted Joel. Is there any chance that is going to happen?  Joel Saxum: Well, it was, it's interesting that they brought that up as well, right? Because the initial buy-in, you know, back I think six, nine months ago or whatever it was, they specifically said in their press release, we are not trying to get a board seat. We don't want to have [00:02:00] control over this, yada, yada, yada. But then when the rights issue came out, and I think it was the, the TED stock dropped like 30% or something that day. Um, they threw more cash in, they got a little bit more power. But it's like anything, right? Once, once you've got, uh, quite a bit of money invested and you have a, have pretty heavy percentage of us of whatever that investment may be, it can be. Half ownership in a car, I don't care. You want to have a little bit more say about what happens with your money and what the results can be based on strategic decisions. And if you've, you know, been watching Ted's decisions. Now they've been at the, the whim of government policies and stuff for the last few years, but they've also mistepped a little bit on a couple of them. Uh, so you can see EOR wanting to get in there to protect their investment a little bit. The, in the funny thing to me here, and, um, Rosie, you spent a ton of time up in Denmark, is the, the, the back and forth between the Norwegians and the Danes about, oh, you're, you're just our [00:03:00] little brother. You're our, oh, you're our distant cousin, da da da da. How they were kind of all at one point in time, a lot, you know, a lot closer. There was what was called the, um, the calmer Union, I think it was. And that was the Danes, Norwegians,

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

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #237 Erica Chin WOMA's Amateurs & Experts Podcast   Heading into SHOT Show season last year, I got an email from someone I didn't know asking me to be on their show at SHOT. Of course, I'm going to say yes. The email was from Erica Chin. She's the co-host of the Women's Outdoor Media Association's podcast called Amateurs & Experts. The other host is Jess Andrich.They talk to people in the firearm and hunting, fishing, outdoor community. We recorded the show at the Otis Technology booth, where they host a number of podcasts, including the shows Matt Mallory and I did during SHOT 2025.    Since becoming friends with the ladies, we keep in touch. Erica said she was coming to NRA AM in Atlanta and I said we should film a show despite Jess not being there. She is a SHOT pro, but this was her first time at NRA AM. We actually started the day off by Erica calling me and going to an award ceremony, where Anne Mauro (RSWC #146) received an award for the NRA Women's Golden Bullseye Award for “Industry Woman of the Year.” Erica was also able to meet with her show's sponsors.    Growing up in a household run by her father who was a police officer, she was surrounded by firearms, hunting, and the shooting sports. Yet he didn't ask her to join him at the range. The first time she shot was in training to be a probation officer. The training started off with a week of shooting and handling. After the initial training, it went to quarterly range sessions with one magazine for them to shoot.    After being married, she found out her husband was into shooting and wanted to get back into it. This move slowly got her into shooting competitions, but mostly it was some social time for her, she wasn't concerned with her score. Her husband said she was more concerned with clothes and snacks at the range and suggested, maybe, she should practice as much as she's concerned about those items. Then he signed her up for 3-gun match at Babes With Bullets, which is hosted with Deb Ferns, (RSWC #204) and Kay and Jerry Miculek. Yeah, she went right to the top tier of competitive shooting!   The first 3-gun match set her on a new trajectory. She became a range safety officer just to be able to help at Babe With Bullets in the future. Being around Deb “sucks you in” and Erica went in with both feet. She took a trip from Utah to Montana and went off grid for a while. Eventually, she realized and remembered she has responsibilities at home with a family and she's been more selective of the events she goes to.    Erica shares some hunting stories and experiences she's had with BWB & WOMA. She's not afraid to get into the field dressing of the beasts she harvests.    With an interest in new things to explore, she and Jess have the gift of gab and were a natural to host the WOMA podcast. They're both fun, up for new adventures, and great with everyone. They've got great chemistry together. They settled with Amateurs & Experts for the name of the podcast because they talk with all kinds of experts in the outdoor community and want to reach the amateurs. Their second season of pod is dropping now, so find them on your favorite podcast outlets.    Besides being an RSO with BWB, and a probation officer, she's trained to drive Code 3, which means she can drive with lights and sirens. Being a person who enjoys expanding her horizon, she became a massage therapist so she could give massages at BWB. She's also taken classes for funeral science. There's a lot going on with her!   Favorite quotes: “Once you meet Deb Ferns, you drink the Kool-Aid.” “As a female it's tough to find places where we fit into hunting, where we fit into shooting sports, where we fit into fishing, and WOMA really encourages women to get out there.” “I went to school for funeral science.” “The last thing you can give someone is dignity in their death.”   WOMA https://www.thewoma.org/   WOMA Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheWOMA/   WOMA Instagram https://www.instagram.com/womensoutdoormediaassociation/   WOMA LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-woma/   WOMA X https://x.com/WOMA_the   Amateurs & Experts Podcast https://www.thewoma.org/podcast   Amateurs & Experts Podcast Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7yZEor7j1SFBuB9LhWWHVm   Babes With Bullets Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BabesWithBullets/   WOMA's She Never Quit Charity https://www.thewoma.org/snq Second Amendment Foundation https://secure.anedot.com/saf/donate?sc=RidingShotgun    Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms https://www.ccrkba.org/     Please support the Riding Shotgun With Charlie sponsors and supporters.    Self Defense Radio Network http://sdrn.us/   US Law Shield Legal Defense for Self Defense. Use "RSWC" as the discount code and get 2 months for free! https://www.uslawshield.com/   Patriot Mobile Use this link and get one month for free! https://patriotmobile.com/partners/rswc   Or listen on: iTunes/Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/riding-shotgun-with-charlie/id1275691565

Trap Talk Reptile Network Presents:David Levinson Reptile Podcast w/ Brett "Benny" Bender & William Filipek JOIN TRAP TALK FAMILY HERE: https://bit.ly/311x4gxHOST: Dave Levinson   / customscalesllc 

This week, I'm riding solo to review Smile 2 in a non-spoiler and spoiler feature review. Before sharing my thoughts on romance-horror-comedy, Your Monster in a non-spoiler secondary review. I also share some thoughts on some movie news, run down what's playing this week in Indianapolis theaters, and share micro reviews of Another Happy Day, My Old Ass, and Wolfs.   Timestamps Show Start - 00:28 Playing in Indianapolis - 06:00 News - 10:15   Feature Review Smile 2 - 15:55 Letterboxd Rant - 46:17 Spoiler - 51:42   Secondary Review Your Monster - 1:15:27    Potpourri Another Happy Day (2024) - 1:42:44 My Old Ass (2024) - 1:46:41 Wolfs (2024) - 1:52:35   Closing the Ep - 1:58:18 Patreon Clip - 2:00:00   Related Links Start Your Podcast with Libsyn Using Promo Code OBSESS Shudder Officially Announces ‘V/H/S/8' for 2025 Release! Martin Lawrence And Sony Reunite On ‘Blue Streak' Sequel   Indianapolis Theaters Alamo Drafthouse Indy Alamo Drafthouse: WIN FREE MOVIES FOR A YEAR Kan-Kan  Living Room Theaters Keystone Art  Flix Brewhouse Historic Artcraft Theatre Heartland Film Indy Film Fest Screeners Wanted! Cereal Cinema Presents: Anastasia   Friends of the Podcast Midwest Film Journal No Sleep October: The Silent Night, Deadly Night Franchise - Nick Rogers No Sleep October: The Wishmaster Franchise - Mitch Ringenberg  Gimme Toro: Nightmare Alley - Nick Rogers Gimme Toro: Pappy McPoyle - Evan Dossey Gimme Toro: Blade II - Sam Watermeier  Gimme Toro: The Devil's Backbone - Brent Leuthold  Odd Trilogies The Odd Wolf Man Trilogy Terrifier 3 - written review by Andy Look Back - written review by Logan Awake in the Dark  Smile 2 Woma n of the Hour Joker: Folie à Deux   My 2024 Podcast and Writing Archive One Year of Criterion Channel - Dec 24, 2023 - Dec 23, 2024 Movies I Own But Haven't Watched/Rated Yet   Follow Us on Social Media My Letterboxd | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter/X Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | TikTok | Tiny's Letterboxd   Subscribe to the Podcast Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Audible   Support Us on Patreon for Exclusive Content Official OV Merch  Obsessive Viewer Obsessive Viewer Presents: Anthology Obsessive Viewer Presents: Tower Junkies As Good As It Gets - Linktree   Mic Info Matt: ElectroVoice RE20 into RØDEcaster Pro II (Firmware: 1.3.4)   Episode Homepage: ObsessiveViewer.com/OV448   Next Week on the Podcast OV449 - Here (2024) & We Live in Time (2024) OV450 - Bonus Ep - It Ends With Us   

Trap Talk Reptile Network Presents Kush's Korner Ep.22 w/ Brett Bender of Filedstone Herpetoculture  FOLLOW & SUPPORT THE GUEST:https://www.instagram.com/fieldstone_herpetoculture/HOST: Steven Kushhttps://www.instagram.com/scrubshepherd/JOIN TRAP TALK PATREON HERE: https://bit.ly/311x4gxSUPPORT USARK: https://usark.org/MORPH MARKET STORE: https://www.morphmarket.com/stores/exoticscartal/SUBSCRIBE TO THE TRAP TALK PODCAST: https://bit.ly/39kZBkZSUBSCRIBE TO TRAP TALK CLIPS:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA40BzRi5eeTRPmwY6XSdVASUBSCRIBE TO THE TRAP VLOGS:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKxLByAE_Kt06XayYFOxHqSUPPORT USARK: https://usark.org/memberships/Follow On IG: The Trap Exotics https://bit.ly/3hthAZuTrap Talk Reptile Podcast https://bit.ly/2WLXL7w Listen On Apple:Trap Talk With MJ https://bit.ly/2CVW9Bd Unfiltered Reptiles Podcast https://bit.ly/3jySnhV Listen On Spotify:Trap Talk With MJ https://bit.ly/2WMcKOO Unfiltered Reptiles Podcast https://bit.ly/2ZQ2JCbTrap Talk Reptile Podcast Sponsors:THE CHIPPER COCO https://cocodude.com/MARC BAILEY REPTILES https://www.morphmarket.com/stores/marcbailey/SUNDOWN REPTILEShttps://www.sundownreptiles.com/BLAKES EXOTIC FEEDERShttps://www.instagram.com/blakesexoticfeeders/TX CHONDROShttps://www.texaschondros.com/FOCUS CUBED HABITAT https://www.instagram.com/focuscubedhabitats/TOFAUTI ROYALS OF AFRICA https://www.instagram.com/tofauti_royals/GS REPTILES https://www.instagram.com/gs.reptiles/https://www.youtube.com/@gsreptiles5606JUGGERNAUT REPTILEShttps://www.instagram.com/juggernautreptiles/https://www.youtube.com/@juggernautreptilesRARE GENETICS INChttps://www.raregeneticsinc.com/https://www.instagram.com/raregeneticsinc/https://www.youtube.com/@raregeneticsinc8166 CLTCHhttps://cltch.io/https://www.instagram.com/cltch/THE REPTILE SUPER SHOWhttps://reptilesupershow.com/#fyp #reptiles #coolestreptilepodcastintheworld

Sarah Boone case: Florida woma who allegedly put boyfriend in suitcase accuses her lawyer of lying plus more news

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #204 Deb Ferns Women's Outdoor Media Association The “Olympic Rings” of the gun community are alive and well. At SHOT Show 2024, I was supposed to help Brooke Cheney (RSWC #075) film some video with Deb Ferns. Brooke was able to talk Deb into filming an RSWC with me. But I failed Brooke and got very busy and couldn't help Brooke. I ended up running around on my last day and making the connection with Matt Mallory to borrow his rental vehicle. (Thanks, Matt!  RSWC #096 & 201)   Deb is an interesting and busy woman! She didn't get involved in the shooting sports until she was 45 years old and an empty nester. Her first excursion was with International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA). A couple years into it, she connected with Lisa Monson, who is a world class competitive shooter. Lisa offered some help with just about everything Deb was doing. Lisa offered to help Deb at the home range of Kay and Jerry Miculek! That particular weekend, Kay was in the middle of practicing for the World Handgun Shoot. At the end of the weekend, Deb was overwhelmed and didn't want to leave. She talked with Lisa and Kay and wondered how to get their training out to more female shooters. They told Deb she needed to start a camp and they would teach there. Deb's background as a corporate meeting planner came in very handy.    Brainstorming with others at events like the NRA Annual Meetings, Deb was able to get Sandy Froman to write the foreword for her book, “Babes with Bullets”. Babes With Bullets is the name of the camp where they train women in all aspects of gun ownership. The camps have been empowering women for nearly 20 years!  Not only that, the women would go back to their home ranges and pay it forward. They would spread the message to new female shooters. Thousands of women have done this. This is how gun owners get more people involved.    Ted and Shemane Nugent reached out to Deb and wanted to host her camp in Michigan. At Ted's encouragement, he said if she wanted to do something for women, she needed to do it herself. In 2009, she started Women's Outdoor Media Association (WOMA). Their mission is to train women in shooting, fishing, archery, and hunting. When we filmed the show, Deb was scheduled to go on a hunt with some female veterans. WOMA has a weekend in April where they train women in all the disciplines and they raise money. She said they've raised over $300,000 for various groups.    Another part of the group's mission is reaching out to other media to be guests on shows and let people know about WOMA  and their doing for female first responders and veterans. Deb tells a story about being interviewed by someone from CNN. The host was trying to get Deb to say something she didn't want to say. She knew from her media training that they were trying to trip her and she didn't fall for it.     Deb has also been a sponsored shooter with Fiocchi and they sent her to be a Super Senior at the Heavy Metal Three Gun, meaning that she's shooting .308, 12 gauge, and .45 ACP in competition. She's the only female in the 65+ age group. For this competition, she had Jerry & Kay as her “roadies” lugging all of her gear. She's got a great relationship with the Miculeks. At the events, she claims Jerry is her sister, but he denies it. She knows she's lucky to have them as friends. But most gun owners are great people, willing to help out, and give to others. Maybe let them use some gear if something breaks down.    Deb has had lots of great opportunities. She's made opportunities, too. She's got Babes With Bullets, WOMA, and she's empowering and influencing women by the thousands to learn about guns & shooting, fishing & hunting, and all things outdoors related. You've got to love and appreciate that.  Favorite quotes: “It was amazing to train with all these world female champions.” “What can I do besides Babes with Bullets?” “It was never my intention to be Joan of Arc.” “I felt very blessed that I got to do things that other people didn't get a chance to do, but I'm more than willing to share those experiences and that knowledge.”   Women's Outdoor Media Association https://www.thewoma.org/   WOMA Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheWOMA/   WOMA Instagram https://www.instagram.com/womensoutdoormediaassociation/   WOMA Twitter/X https://twitter.com/WOMA_the Second Amendment Foundation https://secure.anedot.com/saf/donate?sc=RidingShotgun    Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms https://www.ccrkba.org/     Please support the Riding Shotgun With Charlie sponsors and supporters.    Buy RSWC & GunGram shirts & hoodies, stickers & patches, and mugs at the store! http://ridingshotgunwithcharlie.com/rswc-shop/   Dennis McCurdy Author, Speaker, Firewalker http://www.find-away.com/   Self Defense Radio Network http://sdrn.us/   Buy a Powertac Flashlight, use RSWC as the discount code and save 15% www.powertac.com/RSWC   SABRE Red Pepper Spray  https://lddy.no/1iq1n  

ECW HCTV 145 & 146: Jan 30 & Feb 6, 1996 Original Release Date: January 23, 2023 This week Mike Pru & JV will be covering ECW Hardcore TV Episodes 145 & 146 from January 30 & February 6, 1996! Matches & Segments are from the January 27, 1996 ECW Arena show & The Big Apple Blizzard Blast from February 3, 1996 in Queens, NY. The Quality Control Center w/ Rick Beebe (Travel Lodge, Finishers, & RVD) The Pitbulls vs. The Gangstas (01/27/96) The Dudleys vs. Axl Rotten & JT Smith (01/27/96) Rob Van Dam vs. Sabu (ECW Arena 01/27/96) ECW Tag Team Championship Match - Tommy Dreamer & Mystery Partner (Shane Douglas) vs. Cactus Jack & Mikey Whipwreck (01/27/96) ECW World Heavyweight Championship Match - The Sandman vs. Raven  (01/27/96) Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera (Queens, NY 02/03/96) ECW Tag Team Championship Match - Cactus Jack & Mikey Whipwreck vs. The Eliminators (Queens, NY 02/03/96) Promos from Shane Douglas, Raven & Kimono, The Sandman & Woma, Cactus Jack & Mikey Whipwreck, The Eliminators & Francin, The Gangstas, Tommy Dreamer & Beulah, JT Smith, Taz & Fonzie, & Too Cold Scorpio Please remember to send us feedback and thoughts on the show to the twitter feeds listed below or email bookingtheterritory@gmail.com Follow the ECW LiveCast host at: @MPRU83  @JOHNVANDAMAGE @ExtremeCast Also check out The Bottom Line Wrestling Cast @bottomlinecast Listen to the Bottom Line Cast right here: https://bottomlinecast.pinecast.co/ Find out more at https://ecwlivecast.pinecast.co Send us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/ecwlivecast/ce10bb4e-cd79-4bec-9135-093441a50105 This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Ever wondered what distinguishes successful entrepreneurs from those who falter? What if the key to remarkable success lies in a willingness to fail, and to learn from it? In this episode, we take you on a journey through the defeats and victories of some little-known, and some surprising, entrepreneurial figures, unearthing precious insights on how failure and success are intimately intertwined.  We delve into the lessons failure can teach us and how to pivot from it positively. After listening, you may want to shift your perspective about the roadblocks you face, to see them not as a deterrents but as interesting detours on the road to success. Thanks for listening! Let's stay connected!We love hearing your feedback! Leave or speak your message here.If you haven't already, please connect with us on Facebook!Pick out a fun gift for a budding entrepreneur over on our merch page. Business success strategies are in the works. Come have a listen!By the end of this episode, you'll learn: How perseverance can pay off... big time. We don't always know the struggles that came before someone's success.Why you shouldn't immediately judge an unexpected outcome as a failure.Lessons learned from painful comebacks so you don't make the same mistakes.Just a few of the many key points Lori and Nola are sharing in this episode:11:02  The story of the struggling girl who got fired and came out on top.17:49  This entertainer said the wrong thing at the wrong time and shares her refreshing perspective about that big snafu.27:35 What Nola and Lori have learned from failures.35:45 Lessons Tim Ferris learned about failure and success. ... and more fascinating stories of setbacks turned comebacks. ResourcesSign up  for “News You Can Use” at Sticky Brand LabSubscribe to Lori and Nola's show  on Apple Podcasts,  Audible, or wherever you listen to podcasts.ConvertKit: Our #1 Favorite Email Marketing Platform   (This is an affiliate link)Podcast Transcript

In this week's Team Never Quit Podcast, Marcus welcomes Martha Petrie Sue, a prominent figure in the world of outdoor media and an inspiring leader as the Chair of the Women's Outdoor Media Association (WOMA) – a 501c3 raising money for Foundation for Women Warriors and other groups. As the Chair of WOMA, Martha plays a pivotal role in fostering a community where women in outdoor media can connect, collaborate, and thrive. She champions the voices of women, breaking barriers in an industry traditionally dominated by men. Martha was also appointed Arizona Game & Fish Commissioner. Martha is not just an advocate for outdoor activities; she's a trailblazer, carving a path for women in the outdoor media landscape. With a passion for adventure and a deep appreciation for the outdoors, Martha has seamlessly merged her love for nature with her career, creating a powerful impact along the way. She shares insights into her personal journey and the milestones that led her to become a prominent figure in the outdoor media landscape. Martha Petrie Sue's journey is a testament to the transformative power of passion and perseverance. As the Chair of WOMA, she continues to inspire and empower women to embrace their love for the outdoors and make their mark in the world of media. Join us for a riveting conversation that explores the intersection of adventure, advocacy, and media with the remarkable Martha Petrie Sue. Tune in and be inspired!  In this episode you will hear: • I had a practice husband for 11 years. (4:50) • 31 years later [in my marriage] here I am Commissioner for Arizona Game & Fish; sitting on the executive committee of NRA Women's Leadership Forum; I sit on the Arizona Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation Board, I'm involved with the Women's Outdoor Media Association, supporting foundation for women warriors. I do a lot of hunting with wounded warriors and females from that group and do a lot of outdoor experiences for all associations here in Arizona. (7:44). • 50% of gun sales have been new gun sales to women. I think it's fantastic, but you gotta get training, and once you get training, you can't get stale, you have to keep training. (9:28) • When you [Melanie] and Deb and I started the She Never Quit down at your beautiful ranch in Texas, we had women who had never seen a gun. To teach them not only how to shoot, but the safety behind it is critically important. (9:43) • A woman came up and she says “We just have to get rid of all these guns in the world.” I said so what you're saying is I don't have the right to keep myself safe, is that what I'm hearing you say? “Well no, that's not what I mean.” Well that's what you're saying when you say that. (12:03) • Some people will never have an open mind. (16:12) • There's some people that just will not, and won't know, and don't know how to listen. (16:23) • {Marcus] “You know how bad I wanna fly the space Shuttle?” (17:01) • You teach the woman, you teach the family (18:40) • Kids don't understand the consequence of doing something anymore. And there's no core of morality it seems to me. (22:08) • [Melanie] Our leaders act like divorced husband and wife; they argue in front of us, whether that's our President or Congress. (23:14) • How do you teach the parents and the teachers how they're basically ruining these kids' lives? Where do we start? (24:34) • We make contracts through Arizona Game & Fish with the ranchers, and we will go out and take out the barbed wire on the fence and put in smooth wire 18” high because the Pronghorn actually go under a fence. They rarely will go over a fence. (27:35) • [Marcus] Humans, by nature, like to see things get destroyed & beat up. (37:44)

Geçtiğimiz hafta Bakü'deydim. Türk Devletleri Teşkilatı'nın tarım ve hayvancılık alanlarındaki işbirlikleri için düzenlediği toplantıları takip ettim. Kulislerin ve genel olarak Bakü'nün gündemi Karabağ'daki terör operasyon-larının etkileriydi. Ermenistan bir kez daha ve 24 saat içinde pes etmişti. ‘Bundan sonra neler olur?' sorusuna yanıt aradım. Bakü'de temkinli bir hava vardı. Şunu açıkça ifade etmek istiyorum; her kesimden görüştüğüm tüm Azerbaycanlılar, intikam duygusuyla değil de aklıselimle konuşuyorlardı. Hankendi'deki Ermenilerin göç etmesini izliyorlardı. Bir taksici, 30 yıl önceki Hocalı katliamına dahli olanlar hariç sivil halka üzüldüğünü söyledi. Yerinden yurdundan olmayı en iyi de 1992'de Hocalı'dan tehcir edilen 1 milyon Azerbaycanlı ve onların çocukları, torunları bilir zaten. Taksici, “Onların bize yaptıklarını asla unutmayacağız. Ama onlar gibi de yapmayacağız. Bizim dinimiz de milliyetimiz de buna izin vermiyor” dedi. Gözler bir yandan da Nahçıvan'daki Erdoğan-Aliyev zirvesindeydi. İki lider, Iğdır-Nahçıvan Doğal Gaz Boru Hattı'nın temelini attılar ama aslında bu görüşme dünyaya verilen bir mesajdı. Neyin mesajı olduğunu ise şu günlerde daha net anlamış olduk. Nahçıvan dönüşü verdiği röportajda Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, “Güney Kafkasya'da istikrar, barış ve refahın tesis edilmesi için Azerbaycan'la birlikte çalışmayı sürdüreceğiz” dedi. Türkiye'nin tavrı, duruşu, iradesi ortada... Bölgeye barış ve huzuru sadece Azerbaycan'ın getirmesi mümkün değil. Erdoğan bir süredir, Ermenistan'ı Azerbaycan ile masaya oturtmaya ve Ermenistan Başbakanı Nikol Paşinyan'ı “prangalarından” kurtulmaya zorluyordu. Aslında Azerbaycan'ın son antiterör harekâtı da Paşinyan'ın elini güçlendirecek ve otorite kuramadığı çeteci Ermenileri bölgeden temizleyen bir hamleydi. Ancak Batı dünyası, Paşinyan'ın siyaset yapmasına, kendi diplomasisini geliştirmesine ve Ermenistan'ın gerçekten bağımsız bir devlet olmasına bir kez daha müsaade etmedi. Hem Paşinyan'a yeni ve çok sıkı prangalar takıldı hem de bölgeyi uzun yıllar kaosa mahkûm edecek yeni bir terör örgütü hamlesiyle karşı karşıyayız. Fransa, ASALA'dan sonra Ermenistan'a yeni bir terör örgütü kuruyor. Hedefleri ise Karabağ. Azerbaycan'ın geri aldığı topraklarda Ermeni terör devleti kurarak Güney Kafkasya'yı coğrafyanın yeni Kuzey Irak'ı, Suriye'si yapmanın peşindeler. Belli ki, Türk dünyasını birleştirecek toprakları çatışma alanlarına çevirerek Zengezur Koridoru'nun açılmasını önlemek istiyorlar. Tüm dünya ve başta da Erivan artık kabullenmeli ki, böyle bir oyunbozanlık için en kullanışlı millet Ermeniler. Ünlü giyim markası Gucci'nin “dünyanın en çirkin mankeni” olarak dünyaya akredite ettiği Ermeni manken Armine Harutyunyan'ın yeni kurulan terör örgütü Woma'ya katılması ve aldığı silahlı eğitim görüntülerinin servis edilmesi magazin malzemesi haline getirilmek isteniyor. Bu tuzağa asla düşmemeliyiz.

www.goodluckgabe.life   Yo, check it, fam. Human reproduction, that's how we make more little homies, right? So, here's the lowdown in ghetto slang: Meet and Greet: First, a guy and a girl gotta meet, vibe together, and get close, you feel me? Like, they start dating or whatever. Gettin' Busy: When they ready to take it to the next level, they get busy, you know, they do the grown-up stuff. That's where the magic happens. Fertilizin' the Seed: Inside the girl's body, there's this thing called an egg, and the guy's got these little swimmers called sperm. When they meet up, it's like a race to the finish line, trying to make a baby. Nine Months Hustle: If one of them little swimmers wins the race and gets to the egg, boom, you got a baby on the way. It takes about nine months for that baby to cook up and get ready to join the world. Welcome to the Hood: When the baby's all set and ready, it's time for them to make their grand entrance into the world, and that's how a new member of the hood is born, my G. So, that's the deal with human reproduction, ghetto style. It's all about making new generations and keeping the hood rollin'.   "Cock and balls torture, in the archaic vernacular of yore, was a peculiar practice whereby an individual subjected the male genitalia, that is, the phallus and testicles, to various forms of torment and anguish. This ritualistic ordeal, while perplexing to modern sensibilities, was believed to serve esoteric purposes or deviant desires, often involving implements such as ropes, clamps, or other instruments of discomfort. It is important to note that discussing such matters in detail is neither decorous nor conducive to a wholesome discourse."   U-Um, if it's okay with you, I can try to explain the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Among Us terms.

In episode #530, we are joined by Lucas Lee of Centralian Exotics, and we are talking about woma pythons. For anyone that knows Lucas, he has an amazing collection of Woma pythons and had an amazing season with Woma pythons.  Check out Cold Blooded Caffeine'sThey are a fantastic coffee company that has a love for reptiles. $1 Of Every Bag Sold Is Donated To Wildlife Conservation In Coffee Producing Countries.We now have a referral link https://coldbloodedcaffeine.com/?ref=9wLRgXGdAnd if you use the code MPR to get 10% off your order.Follow us @MPR Network:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQWebsite: https://www.moreliapythonradio.netEmail: Info@moreliapythonradio.comSwag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

FAMILY! FAMILY! Coming back at you live with love, another dope episode and your favorite people. We HAVE to expand on the burnout topic, but the best part about this episode is we have a MAJOR surprise to drop on y'all. WE HOPE YALL ARE LOCKED IN FOR TOMORROWS SHOW!!! The conversation will definitely be a Hot Topic. So bring the transparency, cause the heavy hitters will be in the building.  The team is expanding and you all wouldn't believe who else is officially apart of the UNPOPULAR CELEBRITY SQUAD!!Support the show

Phenomenal Woman... Beginning a journey of healing after being in a toxic and narcissistic abusive relationship is not easy. But this healing journey will prove to you how worthy you are to live a life you deserve. Tune in for more. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/angel-broome/message

Chris Swainhart is the Executive Producer of GunStuff TV and the award-winning cinematographer who has filmed all over the world, producing hundreds of commercial film projects for companies worldwide. Chris's work with Deb Ferns, the Founder of The Women's Outdoor Media Association (WOMA) caused him to be involved with the 2021 She Never Quit (SNQ) Event which is an annual charity event that fosters community and leadership encouraging and promoting women who are, and who want to become, active in the shooting sports, archery, fishing, and hunting through social and mass media. The annual SNQ is organized by WOMA and is a collaboration of women who publicize, promote these activities through their involvement in print, social, and educational media. Founded in 2009 by Deb Ferns, WOMA continues to highlight and encourage women in outdoor sports. The 2021 SNQ brings together women of every skill level from all across the nation to enjoy camaraderie and the outdoor sports in a safe and fun environment with world-class trainers.

Sara Stilwell is the Founder of HerWildLife.Org , an organization that women serving past and present as Military, Law Enforcement and First Responders could have outdoor events at which they feel safe, find comraderie and gain opportunities for mentorship. Sara's passion to serve others caused her to be involved with the 2021 She Never Quit (SNQ) Event which is an annual charity event that fosters community and leadership encouraging and promoting women who are, and who want to become, active in the shooting sports, archery, fishing, and hunting through social and mass media. The annual SNQ is organized by The Women's Outdoor Media Association (WOMA) is a collaboration of women who publicize, promote these activities through their involvement in print, social, and educational media. Founded in 2009 by Deb Ferns, WOMA continues to highlight and encourage women in outdoor sports. The 2021 SNQ brings together women of every skill level from all across the nation to enjoy camaraderie and the outdoor sports in a safe and fun environment with world-class trainers. Sara's passion to serve others caused her to be involved with the 2021 She Never Quit (SNQ) Event which is an annual charity event that fosters community and leadership encouraging and promoting women who are, and who want to become, active in the shooting sports, archery, fishing, and hunting through social and mass media. The annual SNQ is organized by The Women's Outdoor Media Association (WOMA) is a collaboration of women who publicize, promote these activities through their involvement in print, social, and educational media. Founded in 2009 by Deb Ferns, WOMA continues to highlight and encourage women in outdoor sports. The 2021 SNQ brings together women of every skill level from all across the nation to enjoy camaraderie and the outdoor sports in a safe and fun environment with world-class trainers.

Carolina Sizemore grew up in Texas and always had a familiarity with hunting, fishing and the outdoors as a natural way of life. However, she has just recently experienced the transforming mindset of safely and confidently handling firearms. Recognizing that fear in any area of life holds you back from pursuing your dreams she spends her life coaching and mentoring women to identify and overcome those fears. Her connection to the non-profit TrinityOaks.org caused her to be involved with the 2021 She Never Quit (SNQ) Event which is an annual charity event that fosters community and leadership encouraging and promoting women who are, and who want to become, active in the shooting sports, archery, fishing, and hunting through social and mass media. The annual SNQ is organized by The Women's Outdoor Media Association (WOMA) is a collaboration of women who publicize, promote these activities through their involvement in print, social, and educational media. Founded in 2009 by Deb Ferns, WOMA continues to highlight and encourage women in outdoor sports. The 2021 SNQ brings together women of every skill level from all across the nation to enjoy camaraderie and the outdoor sports in a safe and fun environment with world-class trainers.

Daphane Cassidy is on the Board of Directors of the Women's Outdoor Media Association (WOMA) and works as a Digital Media Specialist for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearm industry trade association, where she produces and maintains content for NSSFs websites, e-newsletters and other online communications.  As a Director of WOMA, Daphne helped to organize the 2021 She Never Quit (SNQ) Event which is an annual charity event that fosters community and leadership encouraging and promoting women who are, and who want to become, active in the shooting sports, archery, fishing, and hunting through social and mass media. The annual SNQ is organized by The Women's Outdoor Media Association (WOMA) is a collaboration of women who publicize, promote these activities through their involvement in print, social, and educational media. Founded in 2009 by Deb Ferns, WOMA continues to highlight and encourage women in outdoor sports. The 2021 SNQ brings together women of every skill level from all across the nation to enjoy camaraderie and the outdoor sports in a safe and fun environment with world-class trainers.

Lucas Lee is the owner and operator of Centralian Exotics and one of the hosts on the Carpets and Coffee Podcast on the MPR Network. In this episode, we discuss Lucas' background with reptiles, his current role as a field biologist, and his healthy obsession with Australian python species including Woma, Blackhead, and Centralian Carpet pythons. Lucas also tells us about the Master's Degree study he is currently working on which investigates the difference between maternal and artificial incubation. SHOW NOTES: https://www.animalsathomenetwork.com/99-lucas-lee/

A quote by Pastor Adeboye got us talking this morning. "“Questioning God is only a waste of time and an insult to the Most High.” TOLA shared why the fact that a song has gospel lyrics does not guarantee it is of best quality, and why gospel artists must shun mediocrity A family drama culled from a viral video was discussed, with possible lessons to take home from it. We played host to music artist E-Wonda as she shared with us about her new single "Victorious" Host: TOLA Omoniyi Co-hosts: Omotoyosi Shittu, Nessa Obaje, Olufunke Aderogba

She's NEVER Quitting! Marsha Petrie Sue Represents The Woman's Outdoor Media AssociationWho are the members of the WOMA? We are media/industry women & men focused on increasing media attention for women in the outdoors, especially women in the fields of shooting, hunting, fishing, and archery! We are very passionate about our mission! Season 1, Episode 10

durée : 00:02:42 - Esprit sport - il s’appelle le "WoMa", le musée de World Athletics, la fédération internationale d’athlétisme. Et c’est le tout premier musée sportif 100% virtuel.

Our guest today is Deb Ferns. Deb is the author of Babes with Bullets and Founder of the Women’s Outdoor Media Association (theWOMA.org). Deb shot a handgun for the first time at age 45 and was instantly “hooked” on shooting a variety of handgun competitions. And now mentors other women to help them discover their own passion and journey. 1) Why would a gal start shooting at age 45 and then start at national women’s shooting program at age 50? 2) Back in 2004 what was the “temperature” like for starting a women’s shooting program? From the industry, from the ranges, etc. 3) What kinds of changes and improvements in the Industry have you seen in the 17 years you’ve been involved in shooting sports? 4) When you started the WOMA, the Women’s Outdoor Media association, was there something specific that sparked it? 5) What is waiting in the future for Babes with Bullets going forward and the Women’s Outdoor Media Association going forward?

In this episode, we are joined by Lucas Lee of Centralian Exotics. We discuss his collection, future projects, youtube, and much more. Check us out : Morelia Python Radio Check out our Merch: T-spring store Check out Lucas: Centralian exotics      

Have you been looking for a good laugh? Do you love animals? Are you as weird as I am? Are you an adult? Hopefully all your answers were YES!In the first episode of Weird Animal Facts: Explicit, you get to join me, zookeeper Deidre, as we take a comedic look at how the American Black Bears go about their love making (or as my inner scientist would say: reproduction and mating). By the way, that then leads to BABIES, sometimes, as you'll learn why fat and fatty foods are important for black bear babies. And did someone say snakes? Not just any snake but the the weird Australian snake: woma python. This hunky chunk snake has a lot going for it...and I mean A LOT. No its not a boa, but a python. And it really is strange as it is missing one organ that helps out other snakes such as the "normal" pythons and boas. Here are the scientific names that I CAN easily read aloud... alright maybe not.American Black Bear: Ursus americanusWoma python or Ramsay's python or sand python: Aspidites ramsayiPlease rate, review and subscribe from anywhere you listen. Thanks for listening! Follow Weird Animal Facts @wafpodcast on Instagram.

We discuss the woma python (Aspidites ramsayi).

"No momento em que não temos uma imprensa livre, tudo pode acontecer" - Hanna Arendt.⁣ Em meio à pandemia, à crise política e ao crescente debate envolvendo fake news, a imprensa se mostra cada dia mais essencial. Peça fundamental em toda democracia, uma imprensa livre e comprometida com a verdade não apenas informa as pessoas como também introduz debates e discussões fundamentais. ⁣ No episódio de hoje, as nossas hosts @astridlacerda e @julietamorais conversam com o jornalista e repórter @pedromeletti sobre a importância e o dia a dia do jornalismo. ⁣ A equipe da WOMA agradece ao incansável trabalho desses que estão na linha de frente do combate à pandemia e à desinformação.

Nicole explores the women empowerment movement and her journey of working with woman to accept and love themselves throughout all stages of their life. In today's world, there are more choices than ever before and also more overwhelm. With an inner struggle and outer societal expectations, it's no wonder women are struggling with who they are and what they really want. She helps to take that power back and celebrate who you really are! Lisa explains how you can achieve living your best life by bringing gratitude into each day, and understanding the importance of our energy and how we can create a ripple effect in our lives and those we interact with at home, work and each day. There are many benefits to having a side gig and how it can help you discover your happiness and true purpose, says Lisa. She also talks about dealing with the loss of two partners in the last 10 years and how it has allowed her to truly appreciate life and all the simple things that matter.

In 1914, Nellie McClung took part in a mock Women's Parliament playing the role of the Conservative Premier of Manitoba. Spoken by Chloé Godard, these are her words. / Find more info on It's Personal at http://www.itspersonalonstage.com/ / Intro and Ad Music provided by BenSound.com / Logo Art by Lauren Cierzan / Join the Conversation! thebitcheryofhistory.com / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Max: @QuirkyTitle Allison: @AHPowell91 / The Team: Janette Danielson (@Neddie94) Sydney Tannenbaum (@sydneyxmastree) Jess Lee (@jessmlee)

docomo wants in on mobile payments, mineo wants in on iPhones and we all want in on the kotatsu! Plus, THE SOUND of Panasonic, retro games are new again and how to get to Tokyo for cheap! All this, with 20% fewer idols, on this week’s #ZettaiGeekDayo! As always, if you have any comments, questions, concerns, topics or you just wanna chat, I'd love to hear from you. Please tweet them at me on Twitter @kayleedayo with the hashtag #ZettaiGeekDayo so I can find them. PlatypusPodcasts.com @kayleedayo (English) @purplefuku (Japanese) @ZettaiGeekDayo Tech News in Japan Tokyo's most famous landmarks are even more beautiful after heaviest snowfall in years【Photos】 mineo (Japanese) 格安SIMのmineo、iPhone 7とiPhone 7 Plusの日本SIMフリー版を2月15日発売 ドコモがQRコード決済「d払い」4月開始、ローソン・マツキヨも対応予定 パナソニック、スピーカー内蔵LEDシーリングライト「AIR PANEL LED THE SOUND」発売 Japanese movie theater with kotatsu seating looks like it's the best cinematic experience ever セガ サターン パッドがBluetooth対応で復活、まさかの実機用アダプタも。メガドラ・ドリキャス版も展示 Retro-bit brought brand-new Sega accessories to CES New Bluetooth Dreamcast Controllers From Retro-bit Revealed Main Stories VIP Liner (Japanese) VIP Liner (English [Auto Translated]) Momoiro Clover Z & Nangoku Peanuts = ♡♡ I mean, I sure wanna go see his dinner show, don’t you? Momoiro Clover – Rough Style Momoiro Clover – Ano Sora e Mukatte / Towards That Blue Sky Fun Stuff がなぜか突然アップデートされ「懐かしい！」「遊んでた！」と話題に NextFrame – Tanaka_U's Flash Game Website (Japanese) Kanpou Shageki (“Naval Gunfire”) PLAY! TETRIS® TOWERをお楽しみください 【動画レポート】PLAY! TETRIS®TOWER – YouTube Japanese cram school gives students permission to smash window, break into building on test day 25歳女性が常磐線車内で出産　JR東日本「記録も記憶もない」 Woma...

              We are out of November completely, but that happened Friday, which was the 1st of the month for December, and we are getting closer to 2018, only 27 more days and it will be a new year, but in a lot of people's lives – the same old drama.  When do you plan your new year's resolutions?  Do you still have Thanksgiving dinner residuals in your refrigerator?  How many gifts have you purchased from local or Black merchants?  Will 2018 be the same for most of us, and will we make it to 2018? KINGS IN THE MORNING – right here, right now!