The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

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

The crew discusses LM Wind Power’s dramatic layoff of 60% of remaining Danish staff, dropping from 90 to just 31 workers. What does this mean for thousands of wind farms with LM blades? Is government intervention possible? Who might acquire the struggling blade manufacturer? Plus, a preview of the Wind Energy O&M Australia 2026 conference in Melbourne this February. Learn more about CICNDT!Register for ORE Catapult’s UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight! 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!  If you haven’t downloaded your latest edition of PES Wind Magazine, now’s the time issue four for 2025. It’s the last issue for 2025 is out and I just received mine in the Royal Mail. I had a brief time to review some of the articles inside of this issue. Tremendous content, uh, for the end of the year. Uh, you wanna sit down and take a good long read. There’s plenty of articles that affect what you’re doing in your wind business, so it’s been a few moments. Go to peswind.com Download your free copy and read it today. 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. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy [00:01:00]Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ve got Yolanda Padron in Texas. Joel Saxon up in Wisconsin and Rosemary Barnes down under in Australia, and it has been a, a really odd Newsweek. There is a slow down happening in wind. Latest news from Ella Wind Power is they’re gonna lay off about 60% of their staff in Denmark. They’ve only have about 90 employees there at the moment. Which is a dramatic reduction of what that company once was. Uh, so they’re planning to lay off about 59 of the 90 workers that are still there. Uh, the Danish media is reporting. There’s a lot of Danish media reporting on this at the moment. Uh, there’s a letter that was put out by Ellen Windpower and it discusses that customers have canceled orders and are moving, uh, their blade production to internal factories. And I, I assume. That’s a [00:02:00] GE slash Siemens effort that is happening, uh, that’s affecting lm and customers are willing to pay prices that make it possible to run the LM business profitably. Uh, the company has also abandoned all efforts on large blades because I, I assume just because they don’t see a future in it for the time being now, everybody is wondering. How GE Renova is involved in this because they still do own LM wind power. It does seem like there’s two pieces to LM at the minute. One that serves GE Renova and then the another portion of the company that’s just serving outside customers. Uh, so far, if, if you look at what GE Renova paid for the company and what revenue has been brought in, GE Renova has lost about 8.3 billion croner, which is a little over a billion dollars since buying the company in 2017. So it’s never really been. Hugely profitable over that time. And remember a few months ago, maybe a month ago now, or two months ago, the CEO of LM [00:03:00] Windpower left the company. Uh, and I now everyone, I’m not sure what the future is for LM Windpower, uh, because it’s, it has really dramatically shrunk. It’s down to what, like 3000 total employees? I think they were up at one point to a little over when Rosie was there, about 14,000 employees. What has happened? Maybe Rosemary, you should start since you were working there at one point.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I dunno. It always makes me really sad and there’s still a few people that I used to work with that were there when I went to Denmark in May and caught up with a bunch of, um, my old colleagues and most of them had moved on because a lot of firing had already happened by that point. But there were still a few there, but the mood was pretty despondent and I think that they guessed that this was coming. But I just find it really hard to see how with the number, just the pure number of people that are left there. I, I find it really hard to see how they can even support what they’ve still [00:04:00] got in the field. Um. Let alone like obviously they cut way back on manufacturing. Okay. Cut Way back on developing new products. Okay. But you still do need some capabilities to work through warranty claims and um, you know, and any kind of serial issues. Yeah, I would be worried about things like, um, you know, from time to time you need a new, a new blade or a new set of blades produced. Maybe a lot of them, you know, if you discover an issue, there’s a serial defect that doesn’t, um, become obvious until 10 years into the turbine’s lifetime. You might need to replace a whole bunch of blades and are you gonna be able to, like, what’s, what is gonna happen to this huge number of assets that are out there with LM blades on there? Uh, I, yeah, I, I would really like to see some announcements about what they’re keeping, you know, what functionality they’re planning to keep and what they’re planning to excise.  Joel Saxum: But I mean, at the end of the day, if it’s, if [00:05:00] the business is not profitable to run that they have no. Legal standing to have to stay open? Rosemary Barnes: No, no, of course not. We all know that there, there’s, you know, especially like you go through California, there’s all sorts of coast turbines there that nobody knows how to maintain them anymore. Right. And, um, yeah, and, and around there was one in, um, in Texas as well with some weird kind of gearbox. I can’t remember what exactly, but yeah, like the company went bankrupt, no one knew what to do with them, so they just, you know, like fell into disrepair and couldn’t be used anymore. ’cause if you can’t. Operate them safely, then you can’t let no one, the government is not gonna let you just, you know, just. Try your luck, operate them until rotors start flying off. You know, like that’s not really how it works. So yeah, I do think that like you, you can’t just stay silent about, um, what you expect to happen because you know, like maybe I have just done some, a bit of catastrophizing and, you know, finding worst case scenarios, but that is where your mind naturally goes. And the absence of information about what you can expect, [00:06:00] then that’s what. People are naturally gonna do what I’ve just done and just think through, oh, you know, what, what could this mean for me? It might be really bad. So, um, yeah, it is a little bit, a little bit interesting.  Allen Hall: 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 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. Yolanda, what are asset managers [00:07:00] thinking about the LM changes as they proceed with orders and think about managing their LM Blade fleet over the next couple of years, knowing that LM is getting much smaller Quicker? Yolanda Padron: Yeah, and this all comes at a time when. A lot of projects are reaching the end of the full service agreements that they had with some of these OEMs, right? So you already know that your risk profile is increasing. You already know. I mean, like Rosie, you said worst case scenario, you have a few years left before you don’t know what to do with some of the issues that are being presented. Uh, because you don’t count with that first line of support that you typically would in this industry. It’s really important to be able to get a good mix of the technical and the commercial. Right? We’ve all seen it, and of course, we’re all a little bit biased because we’re all engineers, right? So we, to us it makes a lot of sense to go over the engineering route. But the pendulum swung, swung so [00:08:00] far towards the commercial for Ella, the ge, that it just, it. They were always thinking about, or it seemed from an outsider’s point of view, right, that they were always thinking about, how can I get the easiest dollar today without really thinking about, okay, five 10 steps in the future, what’s going to happen to my business model? Like, will this be sustainable? It did Just, I don’t know, it seems to me like just letting go of so many engineers and just going, I know Rosie, you mentioned a couple of podcasts ago about how they just kept on going from like Gen A to Gen B, to Gen C, D, and then it just, without really solving any problems initially. Like, it, it, it was just. It’s difficult for me to think that nobody in those leadership positions thought about what was gonna happen in the [00:09:00]future.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I think it was about day-to-day survival. ’cause I was definitely there like saying, you know, there’s too many, um, technical problems that Yeah. When I was saying that a hundred, a hundred of versions of me were all saying that, a lot of us were saying it. Just in the cafeteria amongst ourselves. And a lot of us, uh, you know, a bit more outspoken Danish people don’t really believe a lot in a strict hierarchy. So certainly people were saying it to directors and VPs and CEOs, but, um, yeah, it was, uh, I think it was more about like the commercial reality of today is that there won’t be a commercial. Tomorrow to experience these engineering problems if we don’t make these, um, decisions. Now, if, if that makes sense. As a really complicated way of saying we need to be able to sell this product, otherwise we’re not gonna sell anything. And then no one will be, no one will have a job in 10 years regardless. So. We’ll solve, you know, whatever quality problems that arise from doing too many new technologies at once, at [00:10:00] least we’ll be, the company will still exist to be able to have a go at solving them if we, you know, make these sales. Um, which it won’t if we don’t. So I think that that would be the, like the other point of view, like it’s really easy to say now, oh yeah, we should have, um, we shouldn’t have done that, but yeah, I, I’m pretty sure management’s gonna tell you why they did it is for the sales. Joel Saxum: This is an odd case being lm an ex Danish company now owned by GE Renova, which is a US based company.  Allen Hall: Global.  Joel Saxum: Global really. But yeah, but when we get into this, too big to fail type thing, right? So like Siemens cesa, having the German government back them up with a note, um, when they were having troubles a year and a half ago. Uh. Is there a award like the too big to fail in the United States where the government bailed out the auto worker or the auto manufacturers and stuff like that. I don’t see that happening here because the company’s too small. But at what level do governments [00:11:00] intervene? Right? So it’s, I know every government’s gonna be different and every, but there’s have their own criteria and there’s not a hard set, probably line or metric of like, oh, you have this much impact on society, so we must support you to make sure you survive. Well, when Rosemary, when you say like in, when you were there, you were there five years ago, 2020, right before COVID. Right. At that point in time, 20% of the world’s blades were LM blades of the global fleet. Well, if that’s was true still, that would be a hundred thousand plus turbines in the global fleet. That would be LM blades. And if we have. Issues with them and we can’t solve them. I think one, one of the, one of the things that we’re, that we’re probably thankful for is there is that many, so there has been a lot of independent engineering expertise that’s been able to fix some of them. A lot of independent ISPs, you know, out there, service companies, blade repair companies that have been able to figure out how to make these things even, you know, regardless of getting the layup pattern or layup designs or any kind of engineering information from, from Malam [00:12:00] or from the OEMs. Um, we have been able to maintain them, so that’s good. But is there a level where, I know Alan, you were shaking your head, but is there a level where anybody steps in from a government standpoint to save lm?  Allen Hall: I would almost bet that Renova has talked to the Danish government. Somebody at LM has, I would have to think that they have already. And has been, at least in the press, no response. And with this latest announcement, it doesn’t seem like the Danish government wants to be involved. So my, my take on it is they have an American stamp on ’em right now, and Denmark and the United States are not playing nice to one another. So why would I help ge? Why would I do that? And that’s not a bad response.  Rosemary Barnes: Potentially it wouldn’t even have to be necessarily the US or the Danish government that might have to get involved, because I know in Australia, and I’m, I can’t believe it’s different anywhere else. You have to be able to safely operate, uh, an asset like a, a wind turbine. And that’s, um, some, [00:13:00] a responsibility of both the asset owner and the operator, but also the manufacturer and so they can compel to provide the information that you need to operate safely. I’ve always wondered how, um, ’cause you know, all the OEMs not talking, uh, LM or GE specifically here, they, they don’t really give away enough information to, um, operate assets safely, in my opinion. So that is the key thing that you just, you can’t lose otherwise. You’re going to end up with blades that have to be scrapped or that you have to, you know, guess that it’s probably okay and then see how it goes. And, you know, that’s. Good a lot of the time, but it’s, it’s gonna make things less safe into the future. You would expect to see more blade failures if you saw that happening a lot. So, you know, I would at least wanna make sure that you’re keeping, keeping people, keeping those models and keeping the people that know how to run them. Enough of them around. [00:14:00] Or making them publicly available.  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, 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. How soon before ING Yang puts in an offer to buy LM and or TPI? That’s gonna happen in the next six months. It has to.  Joel Saxum: What about instead of buying the factory, what if someone rises from the ashes and just buys the molds?  Allen Hall: I think you have to eat the workers. I think that’s gonna be the trouble,  Joel Saxum: but I don’t think you want them. Allen Hall: Wow. That’s a hot take.  Joel Saxum: But honestly, like the quality coming out now, and I’ll, and I will caveat this as well, the [00:15:00] quality is not their, the quality is not all their fault. The quality of some respects is the way it was designed for manufacturing. But there is issues that we have seen and has been, have been uncovered that have been in the news, in the, in the free press that show that stuff happening in factories that shouldn’t be happening. So do you actually want that or do you, this is why I say someone rises from the ashes and, and or, and creates something with a bunch of inco, you know, like knowing the pitfalls and the, the, the things that have happened that are bad, the things that can go well that are good. You know, when we talk to some of the people in the industry that have been around blade manufacturing, and they, and they have told us, man, we’ve seen. Quality, uh, control mechanisms thrown on the shelves, even though we know they work just because people, defactor didn’t wanna use them for whatever reason. I don’t, you know, you don’t know, um, whether it’s inspection, whether it’s, you know, robotics this, or whether it’s [00:16:00] this solution here. Like there’s a possibility that we could do this way better. Maybe there’s this case right now where someone is like, you know what, robotics, let’s do this. Let’s try to make it happen. Let’s get rid of this incumbent knowledge of automated blades and start fresh from a. Scratch  Allen Hall: my other hot take was GE sells their wind business,  Joel Saxum: the entire wind business.  Allen Hall: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: To who  Allen Hall: Ing Yang or somebody? Anybody,  Rosemary Barnes: if they wanna do that, I’d recommend doing it in the, um, current administration would probably be the most likely to allow that to happen because I would imagine that, uh, another time that people might not be so happy that, uh, the US has therefore no wind turbine manufacturer.  Allen Hall: Does anybody else not think so that that’s a possibility. They’re not listening to offers right now.  Joel Saxum: I would say Mitsubishi maybe. I don’t think Ming Yang. I don’t think some, I don’t think a Chinese, no, but I do think a Korea and a Japanese, a German  Allen Hall: could do it.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. Well, that would entertain the offer. [00:17:00] Rosemary Barnes: What about one of the large ISPs buying, you know, the ability to, you know. Properly, properly service blades for, you know, many, many, many manufacturers. There’s a lot of knowledge that you’d get there. Um, the ability to replace blades, maybe it splits into two and there’s, you know, one company takes it for manufacturing into the future, and which case they’re probably just buying factories and not really worried about much else. And then somebody else buys molds and, um, knowledge. Models, those sorts of things  Joel Saxum: as a pitch for what exactly what you’re saying. So now let’s go back to, um, was it Larry Fink who said that they’re in investing in infrastructure, big time in the future, energy infrastructure is the future, da, da, da. And they, or like BlackRock’s been throwing money at everything, right? They’ve been just buying, buying, buying, buying, buying. If some, someone came to them with the right [00:18:00] plan, there’s where your capital could come from. Who is it? Right? You know, that there’s players out there that may not be in the ISP world, I think is, p is interesting, Rosemary, but like a, a next era that’s like this with GEs,  Allen Hall: Adani,  Joel Saxum: a Donny’s in too much hot water to to, to make a deal with that, to let the SEC allow that. Rosemary Barnes: Here’s my hot take. So LM started at the lm, it stands for lco Mills Fabric, which means, um, furniture manufacturer, right? So they started out making furniture, then they were making, um, caravans, I believe, and then there were, so that was all wood. Then they started making caravans outta fiberglass. Then they started making boats because those are also fiberglass and wood kind of things. Then they moved into wind turbine blades and became LM glass fiber. So now they’re only doing fiberglass things. And then it was LM wind power. They only were doing wind power. Maybe, you know, [00:19:00] are they gonna go into, I don’t know, making airplanes next, or, or rockets, or are they gonna take a step backwards and, you know, go back into furniture? Allen Hall: How do you put a value on a company that’s losing money?  Joel Saxum: That’s where I was going, Mr. Hall, October of 2016 when GE bought them, they paid one point. Six, 5 billion US dollars. I don’t think that that’s was probably a too wild of a price back then, but there’s no way that they’re worth that much now with what has has happened. That being said, say they’re worth, I don’t know, I’m just gonna throw a number out there. Say they’re worth 800 million, half of that. I don’t see that as like a crazy amount for someone else, like Rosemary said, that may be crossing industry silos to pick up. Some factories, some, some composites knowledge, some other things as well, as long as they get, get into it. With the understanding that this is a fire sale and [00:20:00] things need to be fixed,  Rosemary Barnes: isn’t, um, ozempic Danish? So there must be some, build, some Danish billionaires. Maybe there’s gonna be some national pride that that kicks in and makes somebody want to, you know, like Denmark is quite known for wind power. Um, if you combine, you know, the demise of LM with vest also. Announcing a whole lot of job cuts. I, it’s not such a fast stretch to think that some Danish billionaire is gonna be like, you know what, Denmark should still have wind industry and I’m gonna make sure it happens.  Allen Hall: No shot. I don’t see it. I, it would be awesome if they did  Joel Saxum: Maersk, lm,  Allen Hall: but Meers doesn’t wanna lose money. Why you, why would you invest in something that’s going to lose money for the next five years? Who’s doing that today?  Joel Saxum: Let’s just do a little comparison. So TPI claiming bankruptcy the other day when we looked at the Val, the market cap of them, they’re publicly traded. They were a hundred million, weren’t they? Like a couple, six months ago,  Allen Hall: [00:21:00] $1.5 million.  Joel Saxum: Oh my God. It’s 1.5 million. Do you mean you could buy TPI over 1.5 million?  Allen Hall: I can get a second mortgage and have a pretty good take of that business. It has no value because it’s not making money. You, you’ve, it’s EBITDA times X.  Yolanda Padron: It’d be really interesting to see like an is like them turning into an ISB. Like I will fix everything that I manufactured, gear, the molds, or like I will replace the parts.  Rosemary Barnes: It’s hard as well. I just make a few blades here or there. Um, because they only get cheap when you make thousands of them. But that said like sometimes people have to pay, at least in Australia, like it’s not uncommon that you need a new blade. You have to pay a million dollars for it. So in that case, you know, like that’s apparently, you know, TPI, you buy TPI for one and a half and you make two blades in your first year. Then you know,  Yolanda Padron: you make a blade set, you’re done.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. So they were worth a hundred million in market cap a year ago today. [00:22:00] So it’s like a 99.6% decrease since last year. Allen Hall: When you file bankruptcy, stuff like that happens. Here’s gonna be the rub. Whoever decides to do whatever with it, they’re gonna have to have a lot of cash because I guarantee you vendors have not been paid or. Or vendors are asking for money upfront before they make a delivery, and that’s not the way that GE likes to operate. GE likes to operate. I buy this thing and then six months later I pay you half and another six months later, I may pay the remaining half. They don’t like to pay things upfront and. It’s gonna be a problem.  Joel Saxum: Net 180, and then on day 179, they’re gonna find a magic error in your invoice and it resets the clock. Allen Hall: 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 [00:23:00] 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. So looking for something to do in February while America is in the middle of a winter snowstorm. You wanna go to Australia for? Wind O and M Australia 2026 and it is going to be February, what, Joel?  Joel Saxum: 17th and 18th at the Pullman on the park in sunny. Melbourne  Allen Hall: and Rosemary, what’s on the schedule for the event in Sunny Australia?  Rosemary Barnes: Well, it’s, uh, agenda just full of the topics that Australian operators are talking about at the moment. Um, there’s, you are gonna be [00:24:00] topics on compliance. Um, also training is a, a big thing. Training and resources to get workforce up to speed. Um, also some on big data and ai, they’re catchy. Uh, yeah, hyped up terms. But can you actually do something useful with it? I mean, you definitely can, but how do you, um, and then just heaps of stuff about just specific asset management problems that people are having be a lot of talking about problems. And there’s also gonna be a lot of talking about solutions. So that’s kind of the point. It’s the, it’s the place where you can get. Both sides. ’cause I think, yeah, both sides are very important.  Joel Saxum: I think one, one of the things that is was good about the event last year and we’re excited about this year as well, is we tried to fit in as many networking opportunities as we could. We’ve got a lot of coffee breaks. We’ve got breakfast, we’ve got a cocktail hour, we’ve got lunches, we’ve got all these things, and it’s kind of designed around keeping the whole crew together in one spot. So we’re able to share information, have those conversations. Oh, you have this asset. Oh, I [00:25:00] know this one. Um, operators, speaking to operators, speaking to ISPs about specialties fixes. What are you doing? Could we implement that in our fleet? Those kind of things, right? And that’s about the, we, we talk on the podcast and in our daily lives regularly. Everybody here in the podcast is about collaboration and sharing information and sharing knowledge, and that’s the way that we’re gonna forward the, uh, industry. So we’re really excited. Again, again, this is round two. We’re bringing this event down to Australia. Last year was great. I think we had basically every major operator represented, uh, at the event. And we’re gonna repeat that again this year.  Rosemary Barnes: I really like the size of it. Last year, I think we were about 170 or 180, which was our limit for that, that event, we did sell out this year. We, uh, increased that a little bit to 250. Um, but it’s a good size. It’s not like, I don’t know if there’s any other, um, introverts out there, but usually when I go to an event, I get so exhausted from just. Uh, I don’t know the, the pressure of if there’s [00:26:00] an exhibition hole that you’re supposed to wander around and, you know, like the last conference I went to had like probably 20 parallel streams and it’s just like, what am I supposed to see? Oh, these sessions all sound similar, which is gonna be the good one. Um, and then you’re trying to meet up with people as well. This event, it’s targeted enough. It’s one session. You’re gonna find probably at least 95% of the sessions interesting if you are working in wind energy, o and m in Australia. So you just go there, you sit down, you watch the interesting information, and every single person that you run into when you at lunch or coffee or whatever, every every single person is gonna be someone you can have an interesting conversation with. So it’s just. It’s a lot, uh, it’s a lot easier for someone who, I mean, you, Americans, you’re all, uh, it’s like national law, right? That you have to be extroverted. It’s not allowed to be any kind of other personality type in America. But in Australia, there’s a lot of, uh, a lot of introverts. And, uh, I would say that this is a much, much more introvert friendly event than [00:27:00] your typical big, big, broad conference. Allen Hall: Well, you won’t want to miss Wilma 2026. In order to get, what are those 250 seats, you need to register and you need to register now. So visit wma w om a 2020 six.com and. Get signed in, get registered, and we’ll see you in Australia in February. 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. Just reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation. Please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we’ll catch you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:28:00] Podcast.

Terra-Gen’s 238.5 MW project in Texas is now fully operational and the Philippines just awarded approvals for more than 10 GWs of renewables. Plus Nordex and Siemens Gamesa are optimistic about their future. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! There’s news from the wind industry this week. And for once… the headlines tell a story of growth. Down in Hidalgo County, Texas… something worth celebrating happened this week. Terra-Gen commissioned the Monte Cristo ONE Windpower Project. Two hundred thirty-eight-point-five megawatts. Fully operational. The wind facility will generate more than 850 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity every year. Enough to power roughly 81,000 homes. And the power? Already sold. Long-term purchase agreements with two corporate customers. Construction created about 280 jobs at peak activity. More than 490,000 work hours. Not one lost-time incident. They upgraded 11 miles of state roads. Twenty-five miles of county roads. Over its lifetime… the project will deliver more than 100 million dollars to the local community. Property taxes. Landowner payments. Other economic contributions. “It is an honor,” said John O’Connor, Chief Financial Officer for Terra-Gen, “to celebrate the hard work and dedication of the hundreds of men and women who made the commissioning of the Monte Cristo wind project possible.” Meanwhile… halfway around the world in the Philippines… the government just awarded approvals for more than 10 gigawatts of renewable power. That’s ten-point-two gigawatts, to be exact. One hundred twenty-three winning bidders. Solar. Storage. And wind. Onshore wind alone claimed two-point-five gigawatts of that capacity. Twenty-one projects. All set to deliver power by 2029. The Philippines is targeting 50 percent renewable generation by 2040. And they’re not waiting around. The “overwhelming response,” said the department of energy, “reflects the growing confidence of investors.” Back in Europe… in Germany… Nordex is making moves. The turbine manufacturer just secured orders for 123 megawatts from Denkerwulf. Twenty-five onshore wind turbines. Installation begins in 2027. Commissioning in 2028. And Nordex shares? They’re climbing. Hit a multi-year high this week. Trading at 28 euros and 2 cents. Denkerwulf’S orders for Nordex in 2025 now total nearly 144 megawatts. And last week… Mingyang signed a contract with ORE Catapult… a state-owned British test center. They’re going to test main bearings for Mingyangs offshore 18.5MW turbines in the United Kingdom. “A major milestone,” said Mingyang’S chief technology officer for Europe, Marc Sala. “A decisive breakthrough for our local operations.” Mingyang has big plans for Britain. One-point-five billion pounds in investments. Half for factories. Half for the offshore wind supply chain. Now… over at Siemens Gamesa… things are looking up. The wind business has been struggling. Over four fiscal years… losses totaled eight-point-six billion euros. But Chief Executive Officer Christian Bruch confirmed this week… they’re still targeting profitability by 2027. Break-even by 2026. Revenue for full-year 2025 rose 5 percent to ten-point-three-seven-five billion euros. Losses improved slightly. “The journey towards profitability is going to take time,” said Chief Financial Officer Maria Ferraro. “But I think the team is doing a great job.” They expect a positive fourth quarter in 2026. So there you have it. The wind industry is pushing forward. Two hundred thirty-eight-point-five megawatts commissioned in Texas. One hundred twenty-three projects approved in the Philippines. One hundred twenty-three megawatts ordered in Germany. Eighteen-point-five megawatt turbines heading to Britain for testing. And Siemens Gamesa … now seeing light at the end of the tunnel. The numbers tell the story. Things are beginning to stabilize – and there’s hope for the future. That’s the state of the wind industry on the 17th of November 2025. Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.

Morten Handberg, Principal Consultant at Wind Power LAB, joins the show to discuss the many variables within wind turbine blades that operators may not be aware of. From design to materials and operation, understanding your blades is crucial to making informed decisions in the field. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress Powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Morten, welcome back to the program.  Morten Handberg: Thank you so much, Allen. It’s fantastic to be back. It’s, uh, I really, really happy to be back on the show to discuss blades with you guys.  Allen Hall: So you’re a resident blade whisperer, and we wanted to talk about the differences between types of blades even within the same manufacturer, because I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding if I buy a specific OEM turbine that I’m getting the same design all the time, or even just the same basic materials are that are used. That’s not the case anymore.  Morten Handberg: No, I mean, there’s always been variations. Uh, so the B 90 is a very good example because initially was, was released with, uh, with the, with the glass fiber spark cap. [00:01:00] But at later iterations it was, then they then switched it to carbon fiber for, for, for larger, for larger turbines, for higher rated power. But it, it, but it sort of gave that you were not a hundred percent sure. When you initially looked at it, was this actually a ca a glass fiber, uh, beam or a carbon fiber was only when you started to learn the integral, you know, what, what to read in, in the naming convention that you could understand it. But it caused a little confusion about, you know, I’m looking at glass fiber blade or, or a carbon fiber blade. So it’s been there for a while, but we’re seeing it more and more pronounced with, um. Uh, OEMs changing to signs, uh, or OEMs merging together, but keeping their integral design for, for, for various purposes. And then for the, for the, for the people, not in, uh, not in the loop or not looking behind the curtain. They don’t, you don’t know, know, know the difference. So I think it’s really important that we, that we sort of highlight some of those things to make it easier for people to, to, to know, to know this. Allen Hall: There was a generational change. [00:02:00] Uh, even in the 1.5 megawatt class. There were some blades that were fiberglass and then they, there was a trend to move to carbon fiber to make them lighter, but then the designers got better and started putting fiberglass in, where now you have 70 meter blades that are fiberglass worth 35 meter blades, may have had carbon. Yeah, it’s hard to keep up with it.  Morten Handberg: You know, it’s really difficult to know. I mean, for, for, for the longer blades, it’s becoming more and more pronounced that they will be, uh, there will be carbon fiber reinforced. But a good, uh, example of where it doesn’t really apply is actually with, uh, with Siemens cesa. Because if you look at Siemens, Cade said, you know, it’s, it’s Siemens, uh, the original OEM Siemens at the original OEM Cade that merged. Quite a few years back, but you know, we still see the very sharp, uh, difference between the two different designs because whenever you install a Siemens Esso turbine offshore, it’s the Siemens integral blade, it will. And, and they kept that, [00:03:00] uh, and that blade is produced in one cast, it’s called the Integral Blade because that’s their inherited design. And there are no adhesive bond blinds in that. Uh, so all laminated is consolidated. It’s all cast in one go, and then whatever kings and small, uh, defects there, then repaired on factory before they ship offshore. These are pure glass fiber plate that has not changed at all. So that’s sort of the, uh, how do you say, uh, the one that, that, uh, that is outside the norm that we see today. But the Gaza part of it, they, they’ve kept for onshore purposes, they kept their design using, uh, adhered shells or adhered bond lines. So they would have two, uh, share webs and then two shells, uh, that are then, that are then, then, uh, glued together, uh, at the bond lines, on the share, on the trading edge, and on the leading edge. With carbon re, re reinforcement. Um, so that is a massive different design within one [00:04:00] OEM and often when people say, well, we have a problem with the Siemens commes blade, which one? Uh, so then it’s very, very important to understand, you know, what blade type, you know, what, what, what turbine model it is because then we can pretty easily drive it, or even for just know the wind farm because. If it’s offshore, we pretty much, you know, we can, we, we know already. We just need to know the what, what, what size of turbine is, and derive what blade type it is. Onshore becomes a bit more pro problematic because then you need to know, you know, at what, when was it erected, because then, you know, it can be both, but. If you don’t know, then it will just be presented as a Siemens cesa. So it’s really important to keep, uh, in check, uh, when, when, when, when, when looking at that. So that’s a, so that’s a very important distinction that, that we need, need to understand when the child, when determining blade damages,  Allen Hall: right, because the type of damage, the integral blade would suffer really completely different than the sort of the ESA bonded design. I was looking at blades in Oklahoma recently that were integral from like a two megawatt machine, and it, it [00:05:00] looks completely different when you walk up to that blade. You can tell that it’s cast in one piece. It’s very interesting to see, but that makes it, I think the, the thing about those blades is that it’s a little more manufacturing cost to, to make ’em that way, but. They are, uh, tend to be a little more rugged out in service, right?  Morten Handberg: Well, they’re, they’re definitely heavier because of the, the manufacturing process that they go through. Um, they’re more robust. We, I think we can, we can, we can see that from a track record, uh, in general. Um, but they’re, but the trade off is that they are a lot, they’re heavier. So that means that the, that the components that are used in the Drivetrain Tower Foundation, they’re equally heavier. So you pay the price in the, uh, in the cost of the turbine. But, uh, overall on the, on the mainland side, we do see less, at least some structural damages and if something really bad happens, so, uh, the trailing edge more often, not it’s kept to the, to the tip or on that part of the trailing edge. So, so, uh, so [00:06:00] the, the, the blade structure keeps together better, um, because of this consolidation of the laminates. Allen Hall: Right, and the, the traditional ESA design, I’ll call it, has been a bonded design for a long time. The issue with bond lines is there is no peel ply stoppage, so there’s no fasteners in it, in case it starts to come apart, it’ll continue to peel, and that’s what we typically call a banana peel when it really goes bad. The blade splits in two. Once it starts, it really doesn’t have a way to stop. And I think that’s why inspection is so important on those bonded blades. Right?  Morten Handberg: Yeah. Actually, 1, 1, 1 1, 1, 1 small thing. Uh, peel ply is actually something that’s used in laminate production to, uh, to you apply it when you’re casting, you laminate typically for repair. Then when you peel it off. The surface is fresh and clean, and then you can, you can continue working it, adding more, more mobilely or, or new coating. So it removes some, uh, lamination or some grinding process that will otherwise be needed, has no structural purpose in it, [00:07:00] uh, just to kill that myth of, but you’re right. Uh, when you have an adhere blade for any, for any manufacturer, for any purpose. If you have a, uh, if you have a deep bonding that starts, then it can, it can, depending on the location, it can grow really fast because you don’t have the same consolidation. You do have some bike layers that would add over, but it doesn’t have the same integral strength that you would see with the, uh, with the consolidated laminate. Allen Hall: So that’s a big difference. And if you’re looking at blades, and if you haven’t. Looked inside of a hub and looked inside the blade. You, you may not even know. And I think that does happen to a lot of engineers that they, because they, they’re dealing with a thousand blades a lot of times the blade engineers, it’s crazy what they’re asked to go do. You just can’t know all the details all the time. But just knowing these top level things can really help you suss out like where to start. And, and, and even on the inspection res regimes would on an integral blade type design, are you doing different kinds of inspections than you would do on a standard kind of. Mesa bonded up design?  Morten Handberg: I would [00:08:00] say not actually. I mean, you would still, you would still do, uh, you, you’ll still do internal inspections because, um, you can still have defect developing. They would be, uh, slower, uh, growing in general, um, compared to a, uh, to a more thin skin laminate, uh, type blade. But, but the inspection methodology is, is more, less the same. You would do an external inspection to check for lighting damages wearing of, uh, coating. So erosion. Any kind of structural damage in developing over the shell, uh, surfaces. And internally, you would check the bond lines, uh, because even though they’re consolidated, there is still, uh, they, they, they still have a, have a bonding, uh, an in laminate bonding. So you want to check if that is okay. Um, and you wanna see if there’s any, uh, any defects developing in the shoulder area from breathing or from, or any kind of manufacturing defect. So it’s not that. Not that you will. Yeah. That you will then, you know, set it up and then you can let it run forever without looking at it. You d do need to do maintenance, [00:09:00] um, but if you do proactive maintenance, you can then, then you, you will detect it in time and you can do more, uh, reactive repairs.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And what’s the difference in repair costs between a integral blade where it’s all cast at one time versus a, a bonded design? Does it tend to be a little less expensive because it’s maybe a little localized than a. Uh, a bonded type shear web design.  Morten Handberg: Well, if the damage affect multiple parts of shear web and, uh, and beam and shell, it will always be a very extreme, very costly repair, regardless of what, whatever blade type it is. Integral blades, I would say typically will likely be more expensive if you have a structural damage, but that’s just because of the sheer number of flies that will be affected because for a, for a thin skin laminate blade. While the damage can be, can be much larger, the amount of layers that you need to remove will be less. So I would, I would always, I, I would, I would consider it more likely that the repair costs for, for a, [00:10:00] uh, for adhesive bond line blade to have a lower repair cost for the same type of damage that we see an integral blade. But the integral plate will more, will, will, will have less of them, and you will also be able to detect them earlier. So the chance of preparing. Is higher on an integral plate is what I would normally that, that, that’s how I would normally, you know, pro think of it.  Allen Hall: Okay. That’s that’s good to know. Can we talk carbon protrusions and knowledge of them because it, it has seemed like over time there was, they were really hot in like the mid two thousands, into the 10 20, 10 20 12, 20 15 ish, and then it kinda went away for a little bit ’cause of the cost and now they’re coming back again because of the links. It’s really. Important that you know if your blades have carbon in them, correct?  Morten Handberg: Yes. Um, one because, uh, carbon is more rigid, um, than, than than glass fiber. It is, uh, it is, it is multiple the times, multiple times stronger than glass fiber. That’s also why it’s favorable to use, [00:11:00]because you can produce a, a longer blade while, um, minimizing the weight increase that you would have. Um, so that is a very, uh, that is a very appealing trait to have. The problem with carbon is two things. One, it is a, uh, conducted material, which means that it does, uh, create a, um, a mag, uh, how do you say, magnetic seal, if there’s any kind of, uh. Lightning activity if there’s any static develop, uh, uh, buildup inside the blade. So that can be, that can cause its own set of problems and something where you have to be very observant of what, what kind of LPS system you have and what, what kind of lightning conditions you have. The second part is. Carbon fiber is so rigid. Then that also means if you have any kind of manufacturing defect, the effect of it is multiplied. Um, because carbon fiber doesn’t, it doesn’t have the same elasticity. Glass fiber is very forgiving if you have a defect there. While it will develop over time [00:12:00] at some point for a large part of the time, they, because it’s so elastic, the loads they get distributed better. For carbon, it will centralize around the, the manufacturing defect and will just grow. And once it starts growing, then it will, it will expand rapidly. So that’s also why when we see a, a, um, a blade damage where the defect started in the carbon spot, the the blade is simply just cut off. It’s simply like someone just took. Took a, uh, took a hacksaw and then cut the, the blade, uh, blade, blade section off because the, the, because of the rapid growth of that defect. Um, so that, that’s sort of the, the trade off, but that’s also why we have to be even more observant. If an OEM is using carbon fiber to reinforce it, that they do NDT off their, um, off their blades before sending ’em out. And they do quality control off the protrusions when they receive them so that the owner doesn’t take over an inherited risk. So that, I would really say that if you have wind turbines with carbon fiber, [00:13:00] if you’re planning to build them. You should make sure that there, that NDT is done, because you cannot verify this by visual. It’s, you know, if you can see them, that’s great, but it, it’s not a guarantee that there is nothing there. Um, and the amount of defect that we see out there that does suggest that this is, this is not a, uh, a nice to have. It’s an absolute must to, must, must do to do NDT.  Allen Hall: Yeah, the carbon protrusions, if you looked at that process, it’s not a easy process, but they’re trying to orient the fiber in one direction all the time, and even slight variations can reduce the strength inside the protrusion. So it becomes critical that the quality of the protrusion is good and, and the reason they. Make protrusions is to lower the cost. So the protrusion itself is really set into this fiberglass shell. So you’re really, you have merging two technologies together, which always doesn’t always work as well as you would want it to work. But it has gotten, at least in my opinion, Morgan, and that’s why I’m asking you. Has it gotten better over time that we’ve gotten used to using [00:14:00]protrusions and are better at and applying them and in and maintaining them? At this point?  Morten Handberg: I think the OEMs are really good at using them in designs. I think they’ve done a really good job at using, utilizing the carbon fiber to its maximum potential, uh, to build blades that are plus a hundred meters. Uh, what we have to be make sure is that whatever we then do in manufacturing quality control, operation maintenance. That adheres to the, to the same standard that would apply in design. So, you know, that that’s sort of the, that, that, that’s sort of the crux of it. Because if you, if you, if you design something perfect and then you have more, you know, how do you say it more, you know, less, uh, pristine approach to when you’re manufacturing or when you’re servicing it, then you know it, then it causes problem down, problems down the line. Um, because. It will need maintenance, it will need very strict project control. So that’s why we have to be very vigilant.  Allen Hall: And I wanna talk about the difference between box beams and sort of standard [00:15:00] share. Web I beams, I’ll call ’em, that we typically see a lot more of today. There’s a number of blades, particularly early on that were box beam. And when I talk to operators of these terms that have box beams and I say, Hey, do you have a box beam? I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know. Uh, but those blades act uniquely different than sort of the blades we’re buying today, right?  Morten Handberg: Well, the B Beam is still in production. You can still acquire a turbine with a box beam in it. It’s a, uh, it’s a investor design. It’s something that they invented, that they’ve used for ages, uh, decades. Uh, uh, think that goes all the way back to some of the first way business space. So it’s a very, uh, it’s, it’s a very strong design that they’ve utilized for, for. For the history of Vestas. Um, and it was originally a carbon based spark cap in a box beam. There was a, it was a closed square that was a elongated. So, um, and then narrowing as you get further to the tip, uh, and then later on with the B [00:16:00] 90, they introduced carbon fiber protrusions instead of glass cyber in it to make it stronger and also enable building longer blades, but while keeping the low weight, because that’s really where they won a lot, is that they could keep extremely low blade weights. And thereby very light turbines. Uh. While still, uh, uh, uh, how do you say producing, uh, having the same rated power as an equivalent turbine from any other m So that was really a, a, a, a unique design that this they had or have. Um, so the, if you want to know, if you have a box beam blade or an SST blade, you simply just have to look inside the plate. It’s very easy. Uh, if you have a bucketing plate, all you will see is a, is a, is a square. Um, where at and, and you know, at, at a large tunnel and nothing else, if you have an I-beam with one or two share webs, if you look inside the blade, you will see, see these two share webs, but you also see the chamber and the trailing edge. And in the leading edge. And that’s because it’s an open design. [00:17:00] So it’s actually very easy to detect if you have one or the other. But they’re very different from each other, uh, in a lot of other senses. Um, the. The box beam design is inherently non-structural shells. The, the blade shells are really, really thin, also very easy to repair because they’re so thin, but they’re very thin because the, all the loads is taken up by the box beam. For the SST or the eye beam design, the loads are, while still thin skin relative is taken up more load. But, and, and in the design, they’re considered as being part of the load carrying structure. So you have to be more observant of maintaining the shell structure as well as the, as as the, the, how do you say, the low carrying structure on an, on an, uh, SST or I beam Blade. Then you had to on a, on a box beam. And a good example of this is that you sometimes see that blade shields coming apart, coming apart on, um, on, on, on blade damages. And what is unique for [00:18:00] the i, for, for the box beam is that the box beam will just stay in place. It doesn’t it? It’s. Basically the, the turbine doesn’t seem, seem to care if it’s there or not. It will just continue operating. Uh, so, so you can have, uh, shells, uh, part of the shell missing for a period of time. And the you, they only notice because, you know, you look up and then, hey, part of the, part of the blades look like it is looking like a, like a pine cone, a squirrel chew that, uh, because the part of the, the, uh, the shelves are missing and it, it’s quite weird. Um, but, but that, that is how it is.  Allen Hall: Box beams. SST, that all makes sense to me. Uh, one of the things that we’re running into more recently is as blades get longer and the costs go up and the risk goes up along with it, as the blades get longer, of course, uh, there’s there’s much more instrumentation going on to the blades in the manufacturing process. So now we’re seeing. Uh, thermal couples being applied during the manufacturing process to verify that [00:19:00] everything is cured out properly, which is a wonderful thing to do, honestly, in the manufacturing area, but. If they’re not removed, and I think more recently we have seen some thermocouples left in blades. It can become a problem later on in life.  Morten Handberg: Well, I mean, uh, it’s actually something that’s been used for, for quite a while. It is, uh, thermocouples is something you would use to verify that your adhesive have seen the right curing temperature to make sure that it has the right mechanical properties. Which makes a lot of sense. Um, obviously, you know, as an electrical engineers, you are, you know, you, you would know that, you know any, any, uh, conductive material. Whenever ex uh, and lighting expert, then when exposed to a lightning current will start to generate its own ma own magnetic fields that will, uh, that will on its own, uh, create a potential problem because then the, um, then, then they will start to react with each other. And that can cause, um, that can cause risk of flashover, uh, it can cause lighting attachment [00:20:00] on its own. And that really applies to any kind of conductive component that you would have in your plate. Including your carbon beams. Uh, it’s not something that is unique for, for cabling inside the blades. It’s actually also something that if you have sense installation that you have to be very concerned about, you know, if you’re installing it. How will it then, you know, react with the LPS system so that your census don’t start to become a flashover points that you introduce that. So that’s something that typically, uh, especially OEMs, they’re very concerned about, uh, that how will it interact with the LPS system and how will it interact with their carbon reinforcement? And I think that’s fair. Um, how widespread an issue it is that we see flashover, I don’t know that many cases, but again. We don’t want to just install a lot and then find out there was a problem later on. You know, that’s really what we as an industry cloud should start to move away from. So I think there’s lot of good sense if you want, you know, I’m a big proponent for condition monitoring, but I [00:21:00] also am a big opponent that we need to verify things and understand the risk before starting to instrument their left and right. Um. And for carbon fiber, fiber blades, you know, if they’re not integrated into the LPS system, that means that then they will, they will have their, they, they will create, create their own magnetic field during a lightning search. And that can then cause flash overs that we’ve seen with some, uh, historic and some, uh, current. Models. Um, but the problem is, is is there for any carbon blade if the LPS system is not designed with intent, that to handle any, um, any lightning issues in, in the carbon fibers.  Allen Hall: And I think it gets down to inspection and regimes and timing depending on what is inside of your blade or, and even how it’s constructed. In my opinion. I think what I see from operators is based upon their knowledge of what is happening in the blade. They’ll, uh, add a internal rover or drone, not internal, maybe sometimes internal drone, but usually a rover, [00:22:00] uh, will go inside the blade and start taking pictures. That has become more prevalent, I’d say in the last two years where you hear of full campaigns, and I know down in Brazil, earth, wind does them all the time down in Brazil because the, they have a capacity factor over 50%, so the blades are really getting used. Those internal inspections have been eye-opening in, in terms of. Detecting problems early, and is that, is that where we’re headed right now is that we just need to know visually what’s going on more because the, the blade variations, OEM to OEM and factory to factory, that we just need to have a little more monitoring for a while until we get into an alignment. Morten Handberg: I think that inspections is a symptom of not having the right tools to, to monitor. Not wanting the right tools to monitor because if we had condition monitoring and every blade, and every blade was fitted at with it from birth, we would know a lot more about what’s going on in the blades from day one. And that will also mean that we would know if [00:23:00] two or three or five blades in a, in a 15, uh, turbine wind farm had problems we could focus on inspection regime on that. So, but right now, because we don’t have that, then we need to, to roll out a very large, very complex, uh, inspection regimes that takes a lot of downtime, is very expensive because we don’t have the necessary dataset to, to, uh, to, to determine accurately which turbines are actually at risk. So I think it’s more of a symptom of, of the need for, for, for CMS. Um, I’m not, I’m not have nothing against rovers. I think they’re great for what they do, but I would prefer that we use them for these specific issues instead of having it as a, as a, as a major rollout over the entire wind farm.  Allen Hall: Oh, I, I agree with you there. I think CMS is getting utilized more and more and more, and, and in fact, uh, as we talked to operators this year, because of, of rule changes in the United States, a lot of operators in the United States are now moving to a CMS system that they previously probably wouldn’t have done, [00:24:00] uh, because of the lifetime of the blade. Right. So that, that’s something that I think. Uh, Denmark and Europe has done so much better. And Morton, you’re in the middle of all that, being based in Denmark, that CMS is a way of life, uh, on a lot of turbines in Europe and, but in the States and other places, even Australia, it, it may not be that widely used. Morten Handberg: Well, I would say for the Australian market where we’ve done some work, they are, uh, very positive towards CMS and we know, we know quite a few operators that are actively either looking into it or looking at it from the, from day one in their wind farms. Uh, operators in Europe, I would say we we’re still not there yet. Owners, there are some owners that are installing it, um, actively. It’s not something that, you know, we’re not seeing on the majority of the wind farm shed. It’s not, it’s not commonplace. It’s still, I would say, compared to the amount of turbines we have, it’s still a novelty. So our, I’m, I’m still, I’m, it’s still one of my, uh, my, uh, month, uh, how do you say my, uh, catchphrases [00:25:00] when I come out to onus and we’re talking about the problems, is that, you know, you can hand your blood damages, uh, on X, Y, and z. You know, going forward, if you want to catch ’em early on or you want to understand them better, how they affect your blade, you need to look into CMS. Um, and again, it’s, there are a lot of good CMS options out there. A lot of them have actually been, been verified and, uh. I would say, you know, some higher tier systems, they make a lot of sense. They give you a lot more data, but it’s, you know, something is better than nothing. I would say, let’s get some data in, let’s get started on the process. Let’s get some learnings, and then we can develop the technology. If we’re always waiting for the perfect system, then we’ll never get anywhere.  Allen Hall: I’m gonna bring up zero defects because I think this is all headed towards zero defects and we’ve, we’ve talked to a number of operators in the last six months who say to themselves. In my, uh, TSA, I had a serial defect clause, but we missed the window opportunity. Usually it’s a year or two and you have to show a certain percentage. It’s like 25% have this [00:26:00] problem. If you’re not measuring a turbine or blade or anything on your, you will never figure out if you have a serial defect, and, and particularly if you don’t know what the architecture of each blade is, you won’t be able to connect the dots of these blades made at a particular factory, have this issue. CMS becomes really vital in, in that aspect. As we’re putting billions of dollars into a farm, the value return is very high.  Morten Handberg: Yes, I would say so. The problem is that for a lot of operators then the operational margins, they’re very low. So if you don’t get it installed, uh, during CapEx, then to find budget for it during oex is something that’s really, is really hurting. Uh, the budget and, and, and, you know, with elec the electricity prices in a lot of places being really low, then there might be a need for it, but it’s really difficult for to, to find a, a budget for it, that, that can then send that investment unless there is some really something really critical where it says it’s a do or die [00:27:00] thing. Um. So, so I would, I would agree with you, yes. For, you know, it’s something that can help us identify if there is, uh, serial issues, because then the defect will develop and, you know, even if there is a serial issue, it can help us prevent the worst case scenario that the, that we see blade collapses, blades being replaced. So, so there’s a lot of, you know, downstream, uh, um, advantages of, uh, of installing CMS and I, I truly believe that it will help us with the green transition as well, because as you know, with the number of blades that we’re replacing right now, you know, you know, scrapping blades is not green transition. If we can prolong lives, if we can repair them in, in, in due time, that’s how we get to, to, uh, to a green transition where the, where wind industry becomes profitable and affordable and where it’s, it, you don’t create an issue for some part of the industries, uh, because it’s a big problem for owners. It’s a big problem for insurance [00:28:00] companies that we see this big turnover of blades because of, of catastrophic damages. So more, the more we can do to prolong life of blades. Prevent damages from happening or capture damages early on, and then get them repaired, will, will really help that, uh, uh, that move moving forward. Allen Hall: Wow. That’s why we love having you on Morton because you can explain the complex and simple terms, and I think you’re right. You, you’re moving the industry. Uh, you’re recommendations are, are being heard by operators and by OEMs. I think. The industry is changing, and that’s great to hear. Morton, how do people get ahold of you? Is it best to reach you on LinkedIn?  Morten Handberg: Well, either LinkedIn or you can also reach me on my, um, on my company email, MEH, at wind power app.com. Uh, that, that would be the, the far easiest way to get in. Hold me to, uh, uh, uh, where we can discuss any kind of late issues you might have. Always happy to, to support any owners or insurance insurers. Allen Hall: More than I love having you on. We gotta have you on sooner next time and, and keep talking to these issues because a lot of [00:29:00] operators are struggling and there’s so much technology being applied to blades. We need to have you back on pretty soon.  Morten Handberg: Absolutely. I would love to be on to, uh, uh, to, to explain more complex issues and to puncture more, more myths. Let, let’s do it.

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, Swedes, all under one king. This was a long time ago, but, so there’s that area of the world’s kind of all been playing together and, and if you know a little bit of the history too, all of that money that Norway has, so all the money that Einor has is Danish ex Danish land money. So the Danes gave away their rights to the North Sea, to the Norwegians for whatever reason, and that’s where all the oil was that made the Norwegians rich. That is the EOR pile of cash.  Rosemary Barnes: People talk about that frequently, like really frequently. In Denmark. I probably would’ve had a conversation like, I don’t know, at least once a month, maybe once a week about that topic. I remember one that sticks out in my mind. Um, I always said that Norwegian, like, I love the Norwegian [00:04:00] accent. It sounds like Danish, but they’re, they’re laughing. And I remember saying that to my boss one time, my Danish boss, and he says, yeah, they are laughing, they’re laughing all the way to the bank because they’ve got our oil. And, and every Danish person has a huge chip on their shoulder about it. Um, it, it was like the oil, the oil reservoirs weren’t well known when they did the divide up of who would get, you know, which bits of the ocean. It was mostly about fish. Um, and yeah, so they divided it where they divided it, everyone was happy with it at the time, and then not so long afterwards found out there was just heaps and heaps of, uh, oil under there. And yeah, Norway got quite rich off it. But you know what? I think that, um, Denmark hasn’t done so bad out of it because it kind of forced them to go all in on wind energy in a way that other, like other countries kind of, it’s like during the oil shock of, was it the 1970s? You know, everyone. Looked into wind energy a lot, but as soon as the price went down again, then they were just like, oh, don’t worry about wind energy. But [00:05:00] Denmark just, you know, kept on keeping on and they did have, you know, a few decades of just total world dominance in wind energy. Um, and it also kind of, you know, filtered through to other bits of the economy. It’s, it’s really nice kind of. Smart industry manufacturing. They, they really did train up a whole generation or so of, um, engineers that are, you know, really industrious and innovative and you see them in all sorts of other industries now. So I, I don’t think that Denmark should have a ship on their shoulder about it. I think that, you know, they should consider that they got some, some good out of it as well.  Joel Saxum: I, I completely agree. The, the last funny I’ll throw in there is, if you don’t know this, Ted used to be known as Dong Energy, which is Danish oil and natural gas. So they used to be an and not, that’s not too long ago. That’s only like 10, 12 years ago.  Rosemary Barnes: No, and I think it’s the only example of, um, any fossil fuel company that has flipped, like fully flipped to [00:06:00] renewables. I don’t think there’s another example. Um, maybe, you know, someone can email us and, and tell me I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure they’re the only ones. And so that’s why, like, I, I really like, I’m always going for them, you know, like I’m always cheering them, cheering them on. I want them to succeed because I want that to be something that can happen, you know, so much better if, um, oil and gas companies spend their energy transitioning to renewables and succeeding compared to if they spent their energy trying to, you know, um, stymie the renewable energy transition. So yeah, I, I think good for them.  Allen Hall: Ted is saying no chance of any sort of merger with Ecuador. In fact, there’s CFOs, total analysts, there are no merger plans, and the CEO of Ted is also basically saying we’re focused on our own plan. We, we we’re going to go ahead and get the company righted and we don’t really need a lot of Ecuador involvement. That’s gonna come to a head pretty soon though, if Orec [00:07:00] can’t get their stock back up. Like Joel has pointed out, the, the pressure from Ecuador will slightly diminish over time. And if Oreg can get really rolling, which analysts are saying now is somewhere in the 2030 region before they become, uh, self-sufficient in a, in a sense that, uh, until such time, EOR probably is gonna keep knocking on that door. It does lead to the question, and I think Rosemary, you brought it up, oh, probably six months ago or more, that Ecuador is starting to pull back from its renewables business and starting to focus a little more on the oil and gas side, but they have renewable sort of requirements that they’re going after are goals. And that stead could fulfill those goals, is that still likely to be the situation where EOR is gonna be in oil and gas and Orsa is gonna be in renewables and between the two of them, they satisfy, uh, both sides, Denmark [00:08:00] and Norway’s economic interest?  Rosemary Barnes: I, I think it’s very, very hard actually for, um, a company that’s used still oil and gas projects to move on to renewables. I mean, they’re not. That similar, you might like, you might think it’s one kind of energy, um, moving to another kind of energy. But I think that that totally misunderstands how the, the business, the actual business works, what kinds of, um, projects they do, how risky they are, how much return they require, and the only reason. Companies would do that as if they were kind of forced to.  Joel Saxum: That’s the ESG thing. Yeah.  Rosemary Barnes: Well, it’s not only ESG though, because I mean, eor they are kind of running out like, you know, started off with, um, stuff in Norway or in Norway’s waters. Right. And they’ve, to a certain extent, run out of good projects. I mean, that always happens with, um, with fossil fuels that, you know, the good sites get, um, uh, depleted and you have to find new sites that, that always happens. Um, aside from [00:09:00] public pressure. Legal pressure in some cases to not do this kind of extraction anymore. Like they are the, it is possible to run out of good sites and to think, okay, well now renewables is starting to look a bit better.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. I think make, I think if you, if you look at it this way too, like make no mistake about it, Einor is, is a major. In oil and gas, you have the two tiers at the top you have super, major, major. They’re a major bumping against super major. They’re active in, well, not in Australia anymore, ’cause they canceled that in 2020. Right. But Indi India, four or five different countries in Africa. They’re in Brazil, they’re in Argentina, they’re in. Guyana, they’re in Canada, like they’re everywhere drilling for oil and gas,  Allen Hall: Gulf, Mexico  Joel Saxum: and Yeah, in the us Yeah. So the UK Norway, that, that’s just one little part of it, right? They’re, they have, they’ve been drilling in Africa for 40 years. They’re, they’re a type of company, right? They’re the same thing as a BP or a Shell, or a Repsol. Which have, which have all said, we’re going into renewables. Wait a second. No, [00:10:00] we’re not. Right. They’re all kind of doing the same thing, uh, pulling back out. And I, but I think Eor, that’s their way of saying we are still a little bit environmentally conscious. We’re still trying a little bit, let’s put some money in stead. Um, because like you said, it’s just not their, their thing.  Allen Hall: So when does it hit the national government level since now you have CEO for Ecuador and or Ted, uh, having opposing views in the press and they’re very vocal about it. This is not your typical. Danish Norwegian discussion where there’s undertones and there’s not a lot of, uh, quotes in the press. This is right out in the press, very open right at the moment. At what point do you see the Danish government and the Norwegian government coming together and maybe making some of the decisions for both sides?  Joel Saxum: The Danish government owns 50.1% of Ted.  Allen Hall: That’s right.  Joel Saxum: And what’s the, the company’s named after an or a Danish physicist. Right. It was like Hans Christian, Ted or something. Right.  Rosemary Barnes: No, I just wanna say something that I’ve always, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it on the podcast, but it’s so funny because, [00:11:00]okay, so Danish, um, oil and natural gas. An acronym. That’s a bit weird because it’s in English, but for a Danish company, dong isn’t the best word in English. However, or, I mean, what do we say, Ted? It’s not like it’s, it’s the crossed out o and in in Danish, you should say that like, right. It’s got like the two hardest sounds hardest to say. The, uh, and the, the D is, you say in Danish, you say the D with like your tongue and your lower teeth. Like, ooh. And if you like, look like you’re about to throw up, then you know that you’re saying it, right? So it’s like they’ve gone from dong to URL and it’s like, why didn’t they pick a word that, like if they want it to be an international, um, like a, a word that makes sense internationally, then why not pick a word that anybody other, a Danish person can say? It’s, um. I, they’re gonna have to do another rebrand  Joel Saxum: because Lego was taken. Rosemary Barnes: Lego is a, Danish is a [00:12:00] Danish word. It comes from Lago, which means play well. So Le got, um, from the, the two parts of the, the word. So that one, yeah. Perfect. No notes. I did that really well. It’s Danish, but it makes sense. Uh, internationally, well done. They, I don’t know whoever came up with, uh, that the Lego founder needed to be involved in. Dongs rebranding and have chosen something other than Ural.  Joel Saxum: We need to get someone on the podcast just to discuss that with us, like what happened here, why it has to be a Danish person that has some history with stead. Maybe  Rosemary Barnes: I don’t. The concept is cool. I like the concept. I just, um, it just, it and annoys me because. You know, like I learned, I, I, I worked really hard at being able to say those Danish sounds in a way that meant Danish people could understand me, but now I’m supposed to say Ted. Um, and that bothers me. So, you know, I’m, yeah, feel personally victimized by this, uh, this name change and they should do something about it. For my, for my personal preference,  Joel Saxum: as a person who was once the only American in a [00:13:00]mainly Danish company. I got made fun of regularly for my inability to pronounce any Danish words.  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 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. Well, a a Danish company is bringing wind turbine manufacturing jobs to of all places. Colorado Jupiter, Bach, [00:14:00] which is the Danish specialist in the cells and spinner covers for a lot of the OEMs, announced it’s opening a new assembly plant in Brighton, Colorado. It will assemble in the cell covers, which are obviously, as we all know, the outer shells of wind turbines. Now, Joel, what’s in Colorado, who’s making wind turbines in Colorado at the moment?  Joel Saxum: ERs  Rosemary Barnes: Envision has, um, has a big office there also. I don’t think they manufacture there  Joel Saxum: in right outta Boulder. I think it’s, it was, isn’t there, didn’t we do an article not too long ago about a tower manufacturer, like in Pueblo,  Allen Hall: wasn’t it Cs? Joel Saxum: Yeah, you’re sitting on the I 25 corridor, so Brighton is actually on I 70, which is heading east off the I 25 corridor, but that I 25 corridor runs from Montana down into New Mexico and it everything branches off at I 70 branches off at I 80 branches off at, so that everything covers, like to me, I’ve always said Denver, which is Brighton, is a suburb of an eastern suburb of Denver, is a great [00:15:00] place for wind energy companies because you’re a day drive from like 50,000 turbines. You’re right there in the center of you have good airports, you’ve got good transit, there’s good rail there, there’s good highways there. Um, and you have a workforce there, right? You’re sitting outside of Denver. So I think it’s a great spot. Uh, happy to have Jupiter Bach joining the, or expanding there in Colorado. I think it’s, I think it’s a good plan. Good move.  Allen Hall: Well, we had their CEO, Andreas Kiker on the podcast six months ago, maybe a year ago, and they were, uh, going to have a big expansion down in Florida. I think that still happened because they support a lot of the ge uh, production down there in Pensacola. But this is the. I think this is a second plant. They have a facility up in, around, uh, Schenectady, New York, also supporting, uh, GEs assemblies, uh, up there. So I guess this would be actually factory three in the us. And this makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it, in terms of avoiding tariffs and having to ship things from other places [00:16:00] that they’re gonna build it. Sort of next door to the OEMs manufacturing facility.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. Let me ask you a question about that one. ’cause I don’t know the answer to this. Everything we’ve talked about with the IRA bill basically getting canceled, one big, beautiful bill, all this stuff we’ve been talking about, wind turbine development and construction and all this good jazz. However, as a part of that, IRA bill, there was the ITC credits, the in invest investment tax credits that would go towards something like this. I don’t have the answer to it. Do, do you think this, this. Still qualify or would qualify for some ITC tax credits for them to build manufacturing capabilities. Allen Hall: Just getting started, isn’t that usually how this works? They’re only gonna have about 15 employees there when they get started, which makes me think the Pensacola facility has a lot of employees and eventually they’re gonna get up to that level. But just planting your steak in the ground, I think would qualify. Isn that that’s how most of the IRA bill events [00:17:00] happen. Like you, you gotta start. Once you start, then it triggers more in the future, I would assume this is something similar.  Joel Saxum: Well, the ITC tax credits was like, that was like step one, right? But it was like 30 per 30% or something. Like if you build a new facility, we’ll give you a 30% tax break on your capital spent to build that new facility. I’m, I wouldn’t be surprised as well if the state of Colorado is not helping ’em out because they did a lot of things with Vestas and that that tower manufacturing company, when they were bringing them in, like, Hey, come and come and put an office in here. We’ll give you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like much like most states will put a package together for big manufacturing things. Allen Hall: So that leads to a broader question because when, when I read the Jupiter Bar article the other day, I thought, oh, that’s really interesting. There’s some investment going on in the US and overall. If you look at, uh, renewables in the United States, they are a good investment that, that some of the renewable energy companies and some of the second, what I’ll call secondary renewable energy companies that are associated are [00:18:00] seeing valuations go up. And there’s been a lot of sales, most recently of wind farms and renewable assets in the United States. That leads to the question of, is it gonna be like an underground, in a sense, an underground expansion of renewable energy in some of these low level? Get the shovel in the ground to get ready for the, the push that’s gonna happen over the next couple of years. I see that happening. So even though the, the OEMs are still struggling a little bit and, uh, some of the large operators are realigning, there’s still a lot of money being spread around. Joel, what was the acquisition? That just happened.  Joel Saxum: CBRE bought peer services for $1.2 billion. Now that’s a lot of money, but that’s not just for their win business. Right? That is peer services was into telecoms and all kinds of stuff, so, but that’s four, 4,000 employees or whatever. But a thousand of those, last I knew, a thousand or so of [00:19:00] those 4,000 people were in wind. So $1.2 billion is a hell of an acquisition for a service company.  Allen Hall: Joel and I have been down to Pierce’s training facility outside of Dallas, and it was new and massive and really impressive, and the amount of effort going into training new employees was going full bore, $1.2 billion. Joel and Yolanda, that’s a lot of money to pay for that kind of company. You, you know what I mean? It, it does seem like that was a, a pretty penny and there’s a lot more activity I think we’re not paying attention to just because it doesn’t necessarily reach the level of national press where, uh, there’s buying and selling happening in renewables. Joel Saxum: Yeah. I mean, from, from sitting in in my chair, which some days can be command Central on the cell phone and on the, on the laptop. There’s a lot of m and a activity happening in wind right now. Uh, especially on the service side. You’re seeing. Companies that have, some companies that have used the last few years of a boom to grow. [00:20:00] In personnel, growing revenue, signed contracts, all this great stuff. And then you’re seeing some consolidation happening now, uh, of these companies getting brought into others, others trying to bolt on services. You know, like, Hey, we do service, but we’d like to have blades and we’d like to have, uh, construction or some cranes or whatever. So you’re seeing people strategically bolt on because, and if you’re a good company, your customers are asking you, right? Hey, I know you did our. Borescope inspections, but can you do some blade inspections or can you do this? Can you do that? Yeah. And then once that gets to a, a fever pitch, then what do you do? It’s hard to, it’s hard to find that person and just, here’s an example, right? Blades. It’s hard to find the person to run the blade company. It’s hard to find the engineers to be the back end of the belly company. It’s hard to find the technicians to staff the blade company. So what do you do? You just go buy one, go find one that’s got 30 people in it already buy it. That’s happening quite. Uh, there’s, there’s a ha a large handful of that happening,  Allen Hall: and my concern about it is that [00:21:00] because there’s so much shuffling happening and money changing hands, I’m a little concerned about the 2026 blade season in the US and actually globally, you know, Onda, you’re a little closer to that in terms of blade activity and repairs that are going on. What does 26 look like? Are they gonna be fewer? I ISPs? And are they just going to be larger or there’s still gonna be new entrants into the ISP world?  Yolanda Padron: We’ve talked about the fact that nobody wants to be the Guinea pig a lot of times, right? Nobody wants to beat the Guinea pig for these ISPs either. You get into the idea that some, um, really great operators like EDF where they can track. The techs that are going on each team, and they have a way of, of mitigating their risk that way. Right. But not everybody has done that and not everybody has the capabilities to, to control exactly who has been on their site and who will be on their site aside from. These [00:22:00] particular companies, right? So as these companies grow, um, I think it’ll, it’ll definitely be having a lot more blade work going on and having to have these blades last a very long time. But I don’t see a lot of new people coming into the market. I don’t know if, if you guys have seen anything different.  Allen Hall: So it’s become a smokestack industry. Is that where we’re gonna go? It’s gonna be vertically integrated.  Joel Saxum: Well, I think what you’re, you’re, you, you have here as well is. You, you may see, okay, so let’s, let’s, let’s separate it from field operations and business, right? So while you may see businesses changing hands, this, that, the other thing, one of the reasons that that can happen is, is to be honest with you in the field, if a psych supervisor at a wind farm likes a certain team and a certain but of people, he doesn’t care what logo comes at the top of the invoice. He, she, whatever it may be, right? So if the, if this person, say, Yolanda runs a wind farm and she likes [00:23:00] team one, team two, team three from company X, Y, Z. If that company X, Y, Z now is company A, B, C, Yolanda doesn’t care anymore, she still wants team one, team two, and team three. Okay? Then you’re in procurement. Now payments go to a different place. You’re making money elsewhere. I don’t care. I just want those technicians. So I think that you’ll see some of that. At our, you know, the high level looking in and going, oh, this company was bought by this company. This company’s bought by this company. The MSAs go with usually when there’s a purchase. And if the people, like the people and the people are jumping around, they still are working with the same wind farms a lot. Um, I mean that’s I guess my, my take from the field. Maybe Yolanda, you have a different visual vision of that.  Yolanda Padron: If you’re growing the, the scope of this blade work great that you’re having, ’cause you want the blades to last as long as possible. You also have a, oftentimes you have a site that runs really lean internally, right? As the owner, as the operator. You don’t wanna have to manage a lot of different [00:24:00] teams. So you mentioned team one, team two, team three coming in from company X, Y, Z. If they can trust that company, X, Y, Z will get the job done, regardless of how many teams is on there, they’d rather have. Company X, Y, Z, then have company A, B, C, and D, E, F, and X, Y, Z, and having a lot of points of contacts that they have to come in and manage and add even more to their plate on top of their day-to-day operations, which is already so much for a lot of these site teams.  Joel Saxum: And I think that that’s the advantage that you’re seeing here of the consolidation, right? Oh, we’re here on your site doing service. Well now we’re doing BOP, and now we can offer you blades, and now we can offer this. So now you’ve got one. One company contact and then we can take care of your. Stuff. And that’s, and I think that’s where a lot of these acquisitions are going.  Allen Hall: Don’t miss the UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight 2025 in Edinburg on December 11th. Over 550 [00:25:00] delegates and 100 exhibitors will be at this game changing event. 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. So if you haven’t visited Australia, you need to visit Australia. And the perfect time to be in Australia is February 17th and 18th because that’s when we’re holding the Wind Operation and Maintenance Australia event in of all places. And I’m gonna mispronounce this Melbourne. It was terrible, right, Rosemary? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. We just went through this it.  Allen Hall: So the website is live for Woma 2026. You can actually click the link register now. It’s $950 Australian, which is about Joel’s $700 us, [00:26:00]which is the cheapest, most returned for your investment conference in Australia. You’re not gonna find anything else anywhere near that price with. All the great content about how to operate and maintain your wind turbines in a really, really tough environment, which is Australia. What are some of the highlights, Rosemary, that we’re gonna see on February 17th and 18th and next year?  Rosemary Barnes: Well, we have, um, got a few because the event was quite successful last year and we’re a bit more confident on numbers for this year. We have actually set aside some budget to bring some speakers from overseas on topics that I know that Australians struggle with. So one of them is bringing somebody to talk about contracts because, uh, yeah, in Australia there’s a lot of these full service agreements and you know, the, it really matters the wording of your contract. Like, just to give one example. What is a serial defect for one person, it might mean 20%. Um, of your blades or towers [00:27:00] or whatever have this defect within the first five years of operation. For somebody else, it might be 30% in two years, and so that really affects whether you’re gonna be able to claim for those kinds of things. So any number of little details like that, we’ll go through. Um, and then who are the other international people? We’re, we’re bringing some, um, people with experience, sort of operations experience with large, large, large fleets.  Joel Saxum: LEP.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Leading edge protection.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. We’re talking to quite a few people, uh, that do run large fleets in, uh, and I’m talking large fleets, like eight, 10, 15,000 turbines in one company. And the reason that we’re doing that and trying to bring those people over is they have had personally. A hand in the holistic management of. Specific engineering aspects of that operations and maintenance wise. So blades, uh, gear boxes, whatever it may be. They’ve looked at the problems. They’ve figured out a way to manage those problems for that massive size of a fleet. So coming to a [00:28:00] place like Australia where there’s, yeah, 4,500, 5,000 turbines. Um, that, like, that whole entire portfolio would fit inside their company. So they can really give some advice as this is how we’ve done things, this is how we’ve, what we’ve found, this is a good way to manage it. Um, here’s some of the tools we use. Um, we’re really excited for that.  Rosemary Barnes: One other thing is kind of the opposite of that is the really Australian specific part because the longer that I work in this space on Australian projects, um, on a lot of, yeah, maintenance and operations, mostly for me to do with wind turbine blades. I just see certain issues recurring over and over again that are really different to what happens overseas. So, you know, it’s to do with, um, yeah, leading edge, erosion, ocean. Um, it’s a global problem, but it, these products fail differently in Australia than elsewhere. So, you know, you do see, you wanna replace, sometimes you wanna replace your leading edge protection after just one or two [00:29:00] years, but then if you replace it with a, the incorrect product. You’ll be doing it again in another year or two. And to be honest, I’m not, I’m not totally certain that a really ideal product exists in that space. And then there’s also some issues around with, um, operating in high temperatures, the high uv, um, lightning we’re seeing, we’re getting some good lightning results from some of the, um, sensors that have been installed around Australia recently. Seeing that lightning is really different here. Um, yeah, so many of those things, it’s not. Purely about people talking about solutions. It’s as much about understanding the problem properly so that then solutions can develop that really suit Australia rather than suiting Europe or North America. Allen Hall: Absolutely. It’s an exchange of ideas. It’s it’s exchange of knowledge. It’s not, it’s Danish American. Europeans come to Australia to tell a story what to do. It is an exchange, and I learned way more last year at this conference than I’ve [00:30:00] learned in conferences in the US over the last three or four years. It was incredible, just in a day and a half. And this conference will be about two days. It’ll be at the Pullman, Melbourne on the park, a beautiful, beautiful city. The thing about February 17th and anything, there’s a lot going on in Australia, so if you want to attend this, you need to be thinking about getting your airline tickets settled right now. Because like we’re doing, we wanna make sure we’re there for this conference and all of us on the Uptime podcast will be there, including Rosie. She will drive up in her Cadillac and show up and talk to the conference for five minutes and jet off wherever else she’s going. But it’ll be a really fun time. It will be a really fun time.  Joel Saxum: I do wanna touch on one other thing that’s been a theme for us here as of late. Like we’ve been to Allen and I’ve been to a couple conferences in the last, uh, month or so, and connecting with people, and one of the really important things that we loved about this event last year was the networking opportunities [00:31:00] that we kind of built into it with coffee breaks and the cocktail hours and the whatever you want to call it. Very, very laid back. But the conver, the conversations that happen at those networking opportunities, that’s where the real meat is because the people that have the solutions and the problems are meeting each other and, you know, swapping stories. And I don’t know how many times I’ve just seen cards go back and forth or contact information of, and it’s not a sales process, it’s just like, Hey, you got an issue, we can connect on it. Let’s help, let’s do this, let’s do that. And that’s really what we wanna make this about because as we always say on the kind of the, the uptime. Podcast is a rising waters floats all boats. So we’re just here to help each other.  Allen Hall: Amen. So please go to woma WOMA 2020 six.com and get registered. There are only 250 seats and they are selling very quickly. So if, if you plan to attend, get on WMA 2020 six.com and register today. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind [00:32:00] Energy Podcast. Thanks for joining us as we explore the latest. 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 any of 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 really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we’ll catch you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Vestas continues to make headwinds in the US, despite the current administration’s disdain for wind energy. 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! Vestas is making headway in America. Despite a president who has a dim view of their product. Despite the administration halting offshore wind projects across the country. Despite tariffs climbing over one hundred percent. Vestas delivered more than sixty percent MORE to America in the third quarter of this year. Vestas delivered ONSHORE wind turbines. One point four gigawatts [GIG-uh-wahts]. Enough to power more than four hundred thousand homes. Every third turbine they delivered worldwide went to the US – that Danish wind turbine manufacturer – has a chief executive named HENRIK ANDERSEN. VESTAS Chief Executive HENRIK ANDERSEN.Andersen said something remarkable recently: “We are pleased with what we see.” Now you might wonder how. How does a wind company GROW when the White House opposes wind turbines? How do orders INCREASE when the administration halts offshore wind development? How does business boom when tariffs make everything more expensive? Here’s what VESTAS figured out two decades ago. They built blade factories in Colorado. Nacelle factories too. More than twelve hundred American companies are in their supply chain. Creating jobs. Creating trust. Creating roots too deep to pull up. And here’s the thing about electricity in America today: The demand is so HIGH – from factories, from those hungry data centers powering artificial intelligence – that customers will buy power REGARDLESS of tariffs. As Andersen puts it: “Electricity is in such high demand that orders will actually be fulfilled.” Some customers ARE waiting for clarity on those tariffs. VESTAS admits it would have gotten even MORE orders without them. And yes, offshore wind orders? Zero. Not a single megawatt in the third quarter. The administration saw to that. Despite everything – the politics, the tariffs, the offshore freeze – wind remains the most cost-effective electricity source available. ONSHORE wind. Seven to nine percent annual growth expected through twenty thirty. And VESTAS? They’re so confident they just announced a one hundred fifty million EURO share buyback program. That’s money they’re returning to shareholders. You don’t do that unless you believe in what’s coming next. Twenty-five hundred megawatts ordered for the Americas in just one quarter. The US and Germany – driving their order book right now. Now Andersen won’t predict WHEN all those waiting customers will place their orders. “It’s simply too difficult to predict,” he says. But he adds this: “We take the orders we can get” And there’s something else worth knowing. Those rising electricity prices everyone’s feeling? In parts of America, wholesale power costs jumped as much as two hundred sixty-seven percent in just five years. Baltimore. Los Angeles. Minneapolis. Cities far from data centers paying more because the grid serves everyone. VESTAS is betting that when power bills climb, wind becomes MORE attractive. Not less. The cheapest electron wins. And right now, even WITH tariffs, wind is delivering the most affordable power in America. So while Washington halts offshore projects and debates tariffs, this Danish company just keeps building ONSHORE. Keeps hiring. Keeps delivering. One point four gigawatts at a time. The administration froze offshore wind. But VESTAS found another way.

The CDC is investigating offshore wind farms and Virginia Wind has paused blade installations, while the rest of the world installs and benefits from offshore wind. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! There’s trouble brewing off America’s Atlantic coast. But it’s not coming from beneath the waves. A few weeks ago, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JUNIOR issued unusual marching orders. He directed the CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL to investigate offshore wind farms. The reason? Alleged threats to whales and fishing businesses. The investigation would focus on electromagnetic frequencies from undersea cables. Wind proponents say these frequencies are harmless. But KENNEDY had his concerns. KENNEDY met personally with National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health director JOHN HOWARD. He provided a list of specific experts to contact. The mission: complete the investigation within two months. Now, you might wonder why a health secretary would suddenly become concerned about wind turbines. KENNEDY, once a prominent environmental lawyer, fought for years against a wind project off the coast of MASSACHUSETTS. That project just happened to be near the Kenendy family’s compound. During the twenty twenty-four presidential campaign, he called offshore wind quote “a catastrophe.” If you haven’t heard, the US administration has halted billions of dollars worth of offshore wind projects.  But here’s what the administration didn’t mention. Wildlife veterinarian JENNIFER BLOODGOOD performs whale necropsies for NEW YORK STATE and CORNELL WILDLIFE HEALTH LAB. In her experience, about half the humpback whales in good enough condition to examine show signs of vessel strikes or human interaction. The minke whales? They’re dying from a common infection called brucella [brew-SELL-uh]. “There is currently no evidence that wind energy is influencing whale strandings,” BLOODGOOD reports. Three active mortality events are happening for whales in the Atlantic. But these events involve clusters of deaths that experts consider unusual for reasons that have nothing to do with turbines. The scientific consensus is clear: no evidence links wind farms to whale deaths. BLOODGOOD has even examined dolphin ear bones under microscopes and CT scans, looking for trauma from surveying sound waves. She found nothing. “When a whale strands, there’s a huge effort that goes into responding and figuring out why it died,” she explains. “Many people’s job is to go out and figure out what’s happening.” While AMERICA retreats from offshore wind, CHINA is doubling down. The nation aims to add at least one hundred twenty gigawatts of new wind power capacity annually from twenty twenty-six to twenty thirty. That’s more than twice AMERICA’s goal from twenty twenty. CHINA’s total installed wind power capacity targets one point three terawatts by twenty thirty and at least two terawatts by twenty thirty-five. At DOMINION ENERGY’s Virginia wind project, there’s a different kind of delay. The CHARYBDIS [kuh-RIB-dis], a massive twenty-three-thousand-ton ship that took five years and seven hundred million dollars to build, sits at the PORTSMOUTH MARINE TERMINAL. It can’t begin installing turbine blades yet. Quality assurance items need addressing. The one hundred seventy-six turbine project off the coast of VIRGINIA BEACH would power six hundred sixty thousand homes. Its cost has risen to eleven point two billion dollars, up from nine point eight billion, partly due to tariffs. So while AMERICA investigates phantom threats, the CHARYBDIS waits at the dock. CHINA races ahead with ambitious targets. And whales continue dying from boat strikes and fishing gear entanglement, just as they have for decades. The US administration canceled funding for two programs that used aerial surveys and underwater listening devices to track whale populations. The very programs that could definitively show what’s really happening to these magnificent creatures.

Allen and Joel are joined by Matthew Stead, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of EOLIGIX-PING, at the SkySpecs Customer Forum 2025. They discuss the biggest takeaways from the forum, new developments at EOLOGIX-PING, and the upcoming Wind Energy O&M Australia event. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall, and I’m with Joel Saxon. And we are in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Matthew Stead, chief Product Officer. And co-founder of eLog Ping and he is traveled all the way from Australia to be here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We are at the Skys Specs customer Forum 2025. We’ve been spending the last couple of days with most of the operators in the United States, uh, learning about what issues they are having and how they’re using Skys specs to reduce their overall operational costs. Boy, Matthew, it, it is been a really interesting couple of days hearing where customers are struggling and where they are trying to attack lost revenue. Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think it’s [00:01:00] been amazing. I’m so pleased to be here. And, you know, it was great to get the invitation, uh, from Skyspace. I, I think, um, really the things that I’ve been hearing is the data and pulling data together, uh, to getting those insights as to what’s going wrong and then, and then fixing it and getting the money back. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Yeah. The, the big thing here, we’re talking about the one big beautiful build, and it’s followed on the industry.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Right. So the, the theme of the event is prevent, perform, or prevent, prevent, predict, perform, I’m gonna get it wrong again.  Allen Hall: There’s three Ps,  Joel Saxum: three very important ps. But what we’re looking at is, is how, how can digitalization, how can the next generation of op intelligent asset management change the way we do things? Because you can’t do things reactively like we were in the past anymore.  Matthew Stead: Yeah,  Joel Saxum: right. Even when budgets were tight before they’re gonna get even tighter. We’re gonna, and we’re gonna have to make sure that these assets are running. And that’s where like your smarter, smarter, smarter, smarter, right? Yeah. Your solutions come into play. The Skys specs team. The, the, the conversations in the sessions. The [00:02:00] conversations around the sessions, the conversations over a beer.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah.  Joel Saxum: They have all been about the same concepts, right? About how can we do this better, more efficiently. And one of the reasons I really like events. Like this is, like you said, Allen, you have all these operators. Yeah. You have all of these engine. It’s a, it’s a room full of 50 engineers that probably control man, 60 to 70% of the  Allen Hall: Oh yeah.  Matthew Stead: The US  Joel Saxum: fleet. In the US fleet. Right. So you have so much knowledge, so much sharing, and it’s an open forum. You have people p piping up, Hey, we use this strategy. Hey, we do this. I heard some really cool things this week.  Matthew Stead: Yeah, I, I, at breakfast this morning, I was sitting to two guys, one from Canada, one from the US and they were talking about Repowering. One guy’s got GE turbines. He didn’t know that he could put a vestas in a cell on a G turbine.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Matthew Stead: And so these guys have exchanged details. Ban.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Matthew Stead: That was beautiful to watch together.  Allen Hall: Well, yeah, we’ve, Joel and I have been hosting a number of panels, uh, during the Sky Specs event. If [00:03:00] those have been eyeopening, uh, I hosted one earlier yesterday and it, uh, the panelists, I don’t get too deep about who the panelists were because a lot of this is obviously. It’s just be kept in house. But some of the approaches, uh, to the one big beautiful bill act mm-hmm. Were unique. The insights there that a lot of operators were planning for since last year.  Joel Saxum: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: Mm-hmm. And that they felt like this where we are today was likely to happen and they were making adjustments way back in October, November of last year. So the repowering issues that we talk about a lot, and you hear smaller operators really struggling with bigger operators. Already had a plan of attack.  Joel Saxum: Safe harbor. Safe harbor. Safe harbor. Yeah. I’ve heard that word a lot. Right. And that was a, it was a plan from some of those, those, those big operators, uh, their senior leadership that shared some of their strategy, which I was surprised they did. It was fantastic. But, um, if you haven’t been safe harboring, uh, or in, in contact with some good tax lawyers to understand the fall of these things and what it means to your [00:04:00] operation, do that now. Mm-hmm. Um, because you have, we have this cliff coming July 4th next year, and then at the end of the year after that. Allen Hall: Yeah. So the, the amount of planet assets is going to, uh, go down and I think everybody in the industry has been. Talking about that. You see a lot of news reports about the number of wind turbines that will likely, uh, be repowered is gonna drop down. However, uh, a lot of operators have 10 year plans and those plans have not really changed all that much. They, they weren’t super aggressive. They knew that during the Biden administration, this was just an extension mm-hmm. Of the Obama administration, but eventually it was going to end. Mm-hmm. That’s say they were preparing for the end anyway. And you hear that in their operational strategy.  Joel Saxum: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: You hear about how they’re trying to reduce their overall spend every year. They’re trying to reduce their o and m budgets by a percent or two, even though the fleet’s getting bigger.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. An interesting conversation I had this morning was right around that was we’re, it was, this was not the same operator you and I talked to, but a different one saying that, Hey, we’re good through 28, 29. Now [00:05:00] what happens with the next administration changes things. But then another person at the table, this was breakfast again, um, said, uh. That being said, what does the job market look like for engineers? My take on it was engineering staffs are being changed. However, if you’re an SME, that’s where, that’s where it lies. And this person at the table was like, that’s awesome to hear, because my new boss just asked me to be the SME for blades in our company. It’s like  Matthew Stead: burn  Joel Saxum: chase it. Yes. The bonus that raised today. Yeah,  Matthew Stead: I, I, two things struck me. One was the, first of all that actually having the bill. Is clarity. I mean it’s actually good. So I mean, that struck me as a real positive that actually there can be  Joel Saxum: getting outta the gray area.  Matthew Stead: There is some optimism there. And the other thing I heard, um, many people were talking about, not necessarily repowering, they were talking about. Whole of life, you know, o and m strategies, right? And then if Repowering happens. So that was a bit of a, a lesson learned for me.  Allen Hall: Well, because a lot of operators that are in the United States have [00:06:00] a European branch, or they were, or European base, or they came  Matthew Stead: from  Allen Hall: there, right? So, and that’s a just completely different model than what we’ve been talking about in the United States and what has been offered in the United States. But that stra, that European strategy has. Transferred over. And so it’s always  Matthew Stead: been,  Allen Hall: yeah. And the plans are there now. Yeah. And, and because they started several months ago, practically a year ago now. Mm-hmm. They have some sanity looking forward. Mm-hmm. They’re not panicking. And I was expecting to hear a little more cautiousness, a little more panic. No. Mm-hmm. Not really.  Joel Saxum: It’s the same conversation that we’ve been having on the podcast for, for, since the follow out of this thing back in July of. This is going to change operational strategies, but being here we’re only what, three months removed from that?  Allen Hall: Mm-hmm.  Joel Saxum: And it seems like the strategies are already there. Allen Hall: It was,  Joel Saxum: right. They’re already like, yeah, we’re we’re moving. Yeah. They’re big companies,  Allen Hall: right? Shore is different. Yeah. I think, I think offshore is where they got a little broadsided.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Allen Hall: Onshore not so much. And because [00:07:00] every operator pretty much has. Some level of solar, some level of battery. They just see, all right, if, if wind’s gonna get pummeled for a few months, we’re gonna put in a bunch of solar and we’re the plans, were already in place to do it anyway. So we’re gonna do the solars, we’re gonna do the batteries, we’re gonna make the grid more resilient regardless of what happens to wind, which is great. I, in my opinion, some of the discussions happening in Skys specs this week, were the grid’s gonna get more resilient. We’re gonna handle the AI data power increase, and here’s how we’re gonna do it. Joel Saxum: I heard this morning in another major operator, five to one solar farms to wind farms.  Matthew Stead: Yeah, yeah. That they’re  Joel Saxum: installing.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. More and more it’s wind, solar, battery, and in the same sentence.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And, and solar has always been falling way behind. And wind. Wind is way out in front of solar. And now solar’s finally catching up. And it needed to be that way. This is what’s happening in Australia. You have to have a balance. You can’t have all solar, no wind. All wind and no solar, you have to have both. Plus a little bit of battery.  Matthew Stead: Definitely. In Australia, solar has [00:08:00] been above wind for a while,  Allen Hall: right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. And you’re now, you’re now it’s, it’s swinging the other way. Right? There’s a lot of wind development going on  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Allen Hall: In Australia and a lot of battery going on in Australia. So that balance is needed. And, uh, as we go forward, I think especially when we learn more about what happened, uh, in the Iberian Peninsula over the past spring, we’re gonna realize more solar, more wind to balance it out. Then we’re also gonna need more battery to level it out. Yeah. Inia stability is gonna be tremendous. Way better than it was 10 years ago.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Allen Hall: And that’s unique. Now, one of the things that was announced today was the partnership between OGs Ping and Skys spec. So Matthew, would you like to. Talk to that. Matthew Stead: Yeah, I mean, sky Skys specs have a great name in the industry and you know, I think the missing piece for them has been sensors, um, and lightning sensors. You know, the event Lightning sensor that we offer is perfect into their business model. So it ties in with the, you know, there’s an event, there’s an inspection, then there can be some actions you can get dealt with really [00:09:00] super quickly. You know, maybe strike. Struck tape as well, necessary, of course. Um, but yeah, I’m super pleased this one’s been a little bit of, um, in the making. But yeah, super pleased that, um, sky Spec’s announced that this morning.  Allen Hall: Well, and Joel and I look at Sky Spec’s, drone images and internal inspections all the time. Bring in regards to lightning. And every time I see a listing of damages on a wind farm, probably 30 to 60%. Depends on where you are. Of the damages are from Lightning. So it makes sense for Sky Specs to give everybody an alert if, if lightning is that important to the operational performance. Knowing you’ve been struck is the first thing. Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Allen Hall: You should know.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. And was, you know, the, wasn’t the, the email from Intel store last week with, you know, lightning damage up there near the top.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Well, and, and the way Skys spec runs their operation as far as their. Very graduated on workflows and this is how this mm-hmm. This is how this plan works. This is how this plan works. When they debuted it this morning, uh, it [00:10:00] was very clear to this is how it’s gonna work. Here’s how the workflow is lightning, bang, bang, bang. And then it was documentation. If you’re an under F, SA for your OE em, yeah. It was documentation. If you have an insurance claim and or their tech enabled insights, Hey, here’s what the damage looks like. Do you need a repair? And then repair vendor management. Yeah. And the whole thing fits together. At the same time conversations about if there’s, if you’re in a heavy prone lightning area, now we have more and more data, accurate data to make decisions on. It’s up to, you need a strike tape or something of that sort? Yeah,  Allen Hall: yeah, absolutely. Because the problem you see today is when they have lightning damage, they have to do an RC. A RCA takes anywhere between, say, at a minimum four weeks to. 20 weeks to get produced in that RCA process of trying to figure out when the lightning strike occurred, how big was it, all these other details. And if you knew immediately that a lightning strike had occurred and you had done the inspection in according to Sky Specs mm-hmm. You would have all that data and you’d be, you would be able to have an RCA done in seven days.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Allen Hall: Which is [00:11:00] brilliant because that’s where you go back to the insurance or the FSA agreement and go. Alright, we need to get something done.  Matthew Stead: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was talking to an insurer and their biggest bug bear was actually the time taken to resolve the matter.  Joel Saxum: Yes.  Matthew Stead: Because they’re paying for a daily whatever. Yes.  Joel Saxum: A business interruption.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Regularly. Nine grand a day, 12 grand a day,  Joel Saxum: which is regularly in the insurance world. Three to one cost of property damage.  Matthew Stead: Exactly. So they’d be super keen to get this resolved quickly. No, no arguments.  Allen Hall: Get the, get the repair made. If it has to be made, get the turbine back operating. Start producing. So the business interruption. Yeah. Payments stop.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. If you’re a skys specs customer and you’re already getting inspections done regularly, so depending on your model, you might be doing ’em quarterly. You have other headaches if that’s going on. Um, but uh, you have an big  Matthew Stead: bond.  Joel Saxum: Yeah, sorry. But you have a health record, right? So you know what the status of that turbine was. Then there’s a strike at a certain time. You go back to the last inspection, there was no damage. New inspection, there is damage. Okay, now we have a reality. We know what the strike was. We know where the damage is. Here’s a PDF boom. That’s [00:12:00] proof.  Allen Hall: Mm-hmm. And there’s so much happening at eLog Ping at the moment. And we’re a lightning base ’cause we’re a lightning company, so we’re looking usually at the tip. But eLog Ping has been doing a lot of work at the root of the blade more recently because of the root bushing issue and some of the ways that we need to monitor that. You usually, basically an existing device, uh, that has been primarily used for icing detection because it has, but it has this magic IME inside of it. Exactly. So it can detect. Blade motion that is now being applied for root bushing. Debos  Matthew Stead: Exactly.  Allen Hall: Which is a, a really smart move.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. I think it was probably about six months ago, one of the largest operators in the US um, was asked, what, what is one of their biggest problems? And it was Route Debo. And so we sort of shifted our focus a bit. And since then we’ve been monitoring. Yeah, exactly. Like you say, our on blade, you know, eye sensor, um, was repurposed to measure vibration, what the blades are doing. And so we’ve got [00:13:00] some really cool stuff going on there. Um, and so we’ve also repurposed that for measuring root, deb bond, um, and actually. Yesterday I received this, the best plot ever. A big beautiful plot. One,  Joel Saxum: one big, beautiful plot.  Matthew Stead: Um, showing the results so we can measure, um, root de bond. So yeah, we’re now looking for a bit of a wait list for customers, um, that wanna take up this service ’cause we know it’s a pain.  Joel Saxum: What does deployment look like? Matthew Stead: Um, sensor on the front. Sensor on the back from the hub. On the outside.  Joel Saxum: Okay, so stood on the blade at the root, right?  Matthew Stead: Yeah. At the root, yeah. Okay. So you climb out, get on top of the hub, slap it on the front, the back, each blade and a comms box.  Joel Saxum: That’s it. Comms box goes in then to sell?  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Wireless. Just power and Yeah. Communicates itself.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Beautiful.  Matthew Stead: Easy. Easy. Well, that’s easy. Okay.  Joel Saxum: I said that’s at half a day a tower.  Allen Hall: Yeah. Oh, with that? Yeah. I  Matthew Stead: could do it.[00:14:00] Allen Hall: Yeah. Well, I think that because the root bushing issue hasn’t been solved the, at the OEM level. Yeah. And because of there’s so many state harbor blades, and Joel, you pointed out like there’s just a couple years of safe harbor blades out there. That ru bushing issue has been sitting in the field for the last two years, and now we’re gonna deploy these blades because we’re in a rush to do it. The root bushing issue, if, you know what model number is susceptible to it, you could actually install the OGs pink system on the ground.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Uh, yeah. It would take  Allen Hall: 10 minutes to do it.  Matthew Stead: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Um, and I think probably the big thing that we’ve been sort of realizing is that the, the whole industry is cost constrained. And so what we’ve been trying to do is look at, well, what is a business case? And so there’s no point in developing a product unless there’s. A really clear return. So we really tried to optimize the cost of our system time for installation so that the customers [00:15:00] absolutely get a return on investment. Allen Hall: Well, and the, the cost of any installation for a product is one third of the cost of the product. Two third, the cost of installation typically. Yeah.  Matthew Stead: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Allen Hall: Exactly right. So doing it on the ground’s gonna save you two thirds of the cost typically. Yeah. And that’s where it should be done.  Joel Saxum: Well, I think that’s something that we, we, Alan, you and I. On a podcast or off the podcast harp on all the time for everybody in wind. Yeah. It’s an industry thing, but a clear business case.  Matthew Stead: Mm.  Joel Saxum: Thank you.  Matthew Stead: Be smart.  Joel Saxum: Thank you.  Matthew Stead: Be smart. Be smart. Can I just do a little segue? Yeah. Um, this is another one of my favorite topics. Um, so we’ve sort of released a, like a technology enabled service, um, function now, which is actually using our hardware to delve into problems. Um, and the first customer we had on that was Blade Twist. So we instrumented a long-ish blade. I can’t say how long. A hundred meters greater than a hundred meters around.  Allen Hall: Okay.  Matthew Stead: Um, [00:16:00] around, um, and we instrumented at the root, uh, 50%, 70%. Mm-hmm. And we’re able to measure the blade. The blade twisting in operation. Allen Hall: Okay.  Matthew Stead: And the how much is twisting and how much is twisting can be compared against the design. And there’s a whole lot of standards around this topic, which, um, I think is an industry issue coming up.  Allen Hall: It’s very difficult to, to test.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Portion. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s not even in the standard necessarily. Not right  Allen Hall: now, no.  Matthew Stead: The  Joel Saxum: EMS are sort  Matthew Stead: of doing it. Yeah. So this is one of my favorite projects  Joel Saxum: and there’s a lot  Matthew Stead: of late twist,  Joel Saxum: there’s a lot of engineers that will say. This twists, this doesn’t field people saying it actually. Like what’s the Siemens model that does the active pitch?  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah.  Joel Saxum: That they say it doesn’t actually have torsion on it, but some people say in the field it does. Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Allen Hall: Yes.  Matthew Stead: So it’s all about the life. It’s all about the life, I mean, right. Yeah. Really, if you, you want 20, 30, whatever years you need to know, you gotta be careful.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. At the end of the day, is  Matthew Stead: it behaving?  Joel Saxum: Yeah. So that was, that’s an interesting conversation we talked about earlier. I think it was yesterday, of digital [00:17:00] twins with composites. Because comp, the tough thing with that is a composite’s always changing.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Right. So there’s always a fatigue life and there’s the strength of it and the amount of twist and those, those things are gonna change throughout its life. So to, to develop a digital twin is very difficult.  Allen Hall: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Right. So you can sense things. Yes. And that’s what you guys are doing. Yeah.  Allen Hall: Yeah, yeah.  Joel Saxum: But developing a actual digital twin that you can, you know, a hundred percent rely on, is difficult.  Allen Hall: And I think the torsion question changes based upon where you are in the world. And northern colder climates. I think the torsion issue is a little bit different than you get closer to the equator and it’s warmer. Matthew Stead: Yeah. The turbulence and Yeah. Yeah.  Allen Hall: And throw in turbulence.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Allen Hall: Right. So not, it’s not a one size fits all solution there. You need to understand what’s happening on your site. In particular in regards to torsion and a number of other things, vibrational modes  Matthew Stead: and,  Allen Hall: and root bushing’s, the same thing. I think some of the root bushing issues that I’m hearing about are where it’s a little bit hot, warmer. Matthew Stead: [00:18:00] Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: Right. Where we were seeing some issues there because of the temperature and maybe humidity, but So you can’t always take the data from Denmark and apply it worldwide. Yeah. You can’t apply that necessarily to Australia. You need to put some sensors on it and monitor it, even if you’re monitoring on a sampling basis. On a tur you don’t have any experience on, at least you know  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Allen Hall: What is likely to happen and then you can do some prediction.  Joel Saxum: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: Have a little bit of a model of what five years out looks like.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. You and I walked through a case one time with, uh, with a guest on the podcast about the same exact turbine model, like serial numbers that were real close to each other. Yeah. Deployed in Sweden and deployed in Thailand.  Matthew Stead: Ah, cool.  Joel Saxum: And the ones in Thailand had way more of the same serial issue. And the ones in Sweden had like one. Wow. The ones in Thailand had like a hundred.  Matthew Stead: Interesting,  Joel Saxum: but they’re, they equated it to heat and humidity in the effecting the maintenance layup. Matthew Stead: It’s a lot. We don’t know.  Joel Saxum: Yeah,  Allen Hall: there’s a lot We don’t know because,  Joel Saxum: because that we don’t need sensors for  Allen Hall: Exactly. We, the sensor part has been the missing link of saving operators millions of dollars a [00:19:00] year. We are literally talking about those numbers. A lot of the big savings have already happened. Now we’re looking f when I say big savings. Operators are pretty smart about cutting $10 million out of a budget because that’s what they do for a living. You got a lot of smart people in the room trying to do that. Now we’re looking for million dollar grabs as as many places as we can. Sensors are gonna be that million dollar grab. Mm-hmm.  Joel Saxum: Well, I think the sensor thing, and, and this is a, a macro comment about blade sensing technology, when I first got into the wind industry full time, 2019. If there was you guys were around. Yeah, right. There was blade sensing products around and IOT products for Blades around, but it was like every, even up 21, 22, 23, you had panels that sessions going like, yeah, we know there’s stuff out there. All these operators saying, hmm eh. But it really seems in the last year, and with the one big beautiful bill here that people are actually listening. They’re seeing the technology, they’re deploying it more. Um, I mean, you guys are, you’ve got 2000 systems out in the field.  Matthew Stead: Two and a half,  Joel Saxum: two and a half thousand systems of different, all different products. [00:20:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. For different solutions and. You’re seeing more people say, seeing the value in it, adopting it. Mm-hmm. Looking at doing things more intelligently. That to me is very promising.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. And I think, um, also at this, um, event, we announced some of the results of the study that we did now with you guys as well around the nearly 3000, uh, lightning events. We’ve, we’ve been measuring over the last 12 years. Uh, 12 months, sorry. In 12 years. 12 months. 12 years. Feels like lot of good data in 12 years. Like 12 years.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Matthew Stead: Um, and so we’ve got some really good data about, um, this ties into the risk factor, you know? Mm-hmm. Which, which turbines are being struck more, which ones need to be, you know, more attention and so. You know, 3000 strikes. Um, so I think, you know, in the next 12 months, we’ll get 6,000 when we get more units out. So data, data, data feeding back into reducing risk.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. So data reducing risk through like showing realities.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Right. So, um, to anybody listening here, if you, you’re interested in what the latest we’ve seen in ground truthing lightning strike data to lightning location services to what’s [00:21:00] actually happening in the field. Get ahold of us. Get ahold of a myself, Matthew. We’ll hop on a call, walk you through what this data looks like. It’s eye-opening.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Upward strikes.  Joel Saxum: Upward strikes.  Allen Hall: Yeah. Upward strikes are, were really prevalent this year in the United States. Yeah. We’ve been tracking it pretty closely. And uh, Matthew, I think you threw a number out like 20%. Matthew Stead: Yeah,  Allen Hall: definitely. Of wind turbine strikes or upward strikes.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Or more. I mean, that’s, or more that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s for the full 12 months.  Allen Hall: Right.  Matthew Stead: So when you look at winter.  Allen Hall: Oh, it goes up by, yeah, yeah. Substantially. Yeah. Yeah. So it varies by season. All this is leading to an event that’s gonna happen in February in Melbourne, Australia. So we’ve been working hard behind the scenes on Wind Energy O and M Australia, 2026. Last year we had about 180 people, 200 people, uh, 72. Yeah. So it, it was a big size crowd. We, we, we had to close the door at point. We  Matthew Stead: plan for 80. [00:22:00] Allen Hall: Yeah. Yeah. We plan for half of that and to double it. And, and this year the response has been fantastic. Everybody’s starting to register already. What is the website right now? Just so I don’t forget it.  Matthew Stead: Uh, wind. Sorry, WMA 2020 six.com.  Allen Hall: WOMA, 2020 six.com. Com. You can go and register there if you’re interested, interested in being a presenter, uh, or being on a panel. You, you can also, yeah, put in your information there. It is gonna be for  Joel Saxum: or sponsor.  Allen Hall: Or a sponsor, right? So looking  Joel Saxum: for a  Allen Hall: couple of sponsors. We have a lot of sponsors. If you had a lot of sponsors already sign up and, and commit, especially a number from last year. Signed up again this year because it’s a transfer of knowledge. You’re bringing people together that are experts in their field to talk to other experts about how they’re running their assets. That is what you need. If you’re an operator, you want to put your engineers in that room and you’re in asset managers in that room to get to the best configuration. The best setup for Turbine [00:23:00] in Australia, turbines in America. Turbines in Brazil.  Intro: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: That’s where everybody’s gonna be coming together in Melbourne in February. Is a lot better weather than anything in the United States for sure. Unless you’re in Miami, maybe. But Melbourne is a beautiful city. It’s easy to get around in. It’s an easy airport in and out of flights all the time. It is a simple place to get to, even though it is a long distance from the United States. It’s easy. Yeah, that’s one of the things I enjoyed the most was pleasant weather. Great restaurants, a lot of. Really, really good presentations and panels. Mm-hmm. And I walked out with a lot more knowledge than when I walked out.  Matthew Stead: Mm-hmm. Uh, I think Joel’s, uh, line was by engineers for engineers.  Allen Hall: Mm.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. So I think that helped a lot. And I think the other thing that this is very clearly a not-for-profit event and it, so it is really about the knowledge and knowledge sharing rather than Yeah. Salesy stuff.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. It, at that event, it’s much like the conversations we were talking about at [00:24:00] the beginning of this, this, uh, little episode that’s happening here right now. Where we are is it’s engineers talking to engineers, people that don’t know each other. Oh, you work for this operator? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s exchange information because you can help me.  Allen Hall: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Joel Saxum: That, that, at that conference last year, it was basically all of the major operators that probably 90 to 95% of the install capacity of wind were represented there. Plus the, the limited amount of ISPs that started to grow that market started to change a little bit. Mm-hmm. We took some feedback from the event last year and adjusted it this year to be a little bit, we’re gonna do some round tables that are based on case studies, real things that happened, real value, this is how much money was saved, this is how much time was saved, this is how the solution was implemented. Uh, again, like we said, going in there and walking away with something that’s tangible. Yeah. That you can bring back to your operation and say, Hey, I learned this. We should try this.  Allen Hall: Yeah, that’s gonna be the, the great thing about it. And we’re only a couple months away, so if you’re interested in going to Wind Energy o and m [00:25:00] Australia 2026, you need to get to the website WMA, and register WMA 2020 six.com. Matthew, it’s so great to connect. We, we rarely are in the same place at the same time. We’re always in different continents.  Joel Saxum: That’s because this guy travels too much.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And Matthew’s actually heading to Japan here. Tomorrow.  Joel Saxum: Yes.  Allen Hall: Uh, to do some installations in Japan, because eLog is exploded worldwide. There’s, there’s so many deployments going on simultaneously. It’s, it’s really hard to keep up with. Every time I talk to you, I’m going to a different place. You’re putting more sensors on, like, wow, that’s pretty good.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Allen Hall: It’s about time. Right. Good to go  Matthew Stead: on side.  Allen Hall: The industry is moving towards more knowledge. Yeah. And that’s great. So Matthew, thank you so much for, for being here. If anybody needs to get a hold of you, Matthew, how do they do that?  Matthew Stead: Uh, through my LinkedIn profile. Might be the easiest. Um, Matthew said. Yeah. OGs Ping. Go for it. Alright, great. Thank you, Matthew. Thanks, Alan. Thanks Joel. Good to be [00:26:00] here.

Allen and Yolanda discuss operational shifts driven by the IRA bill, focusing on the importance of long-term operational strategies, collaboration, and advanced monitoring solutions. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here’s your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina, and I have. Yolanda Padron in Austin, Texas, and Yolanda has been out at a site in West Texas last several days working out some strike tape installations because the, the blade season of Texas is so long and the repair season is so long. Everybody’s really making work and, and maybe even spending a little more money than they thought they were gonna spend this year. Just to get their turbines righted because it is for us at Weather Guard, it’s still lightning season. There are a lot of storms and the amount [00:01:00] of rain in West Texas is crazy. Flooded roads, uh, on highways still days after rainstorms. That tells you that the amount of rain. It has been a little bit of an unusual year on the, on the wind production side because of the weather. Right?  Yolanda Padron: Yeah. It’s, it’s been high production for, for a lot of the, that area. It’s definitely, it’s, you start getting all of those drone inspections in and everything. Sometimes I think it’s, it’s worked out pretty great for some of the operators that maybe didn’t have a lot of, uh, planning capabilities in the past. So then they’re able to come in and actually. Books, some teams to do work even, even though the traditional blade season has passed.  Allen Hall: Oh yeah. Is there gonna be a traditional blade season from here on out? And I think this is where a lot of operators are rethinking, uh, the changes to the IRA bill and the one big beautiful bill aspects is, you know, with the, with the production tax credits sort of waning and, and [00:02:00] wrapping up. They are going to be putting more emphasis on o and m. And in fact, when we were at Skys specs forums, and I keep bringing this up ’cause it’s such a monumental thing that we were at in Ann Arbor a couple weeks ago. The emphasis has moved from definitely from development to more of operations. But the, the level of complexity there has changed. Even talking to operators today, and you and I talked to what, 3, 4, 5 different operators in one day. CMS is huge. You, you’re seeing a, just a complete flip on CMS. Everybody’s willing to try something, which is unique, right?  Yolanda Padron: Yeah. I think nobody loves being a Guinea pig, right? Nobody likes staying behind either. And especially now that you really do need to make sure these blades don’t just last you 10 years before you can repower. They, the team seem to really be focusing a lot more on long-term solutions rather than short term solutions. So it be that, you know, installing Light Lightning diverters be [00:03:00] that installing even just a, a long-term leading edge protection solution instead of a short-term one teams, she seemed to be really looking into. What the overall opex impact is going to be in the very long term for as long as they can keep the site on, as long as they can keep the permits in, instead of having it be something where you can keep the cost low, low, low, low, low, and then you get another investment and you can repower, and then just keep the cost low, low, low, low, and barely keep the site running. Allen Hall: We were one of the sites that had probably one of the highest production in, in terms of this particular operator’s fleet, and, and you could actually see that when you were there. But it does come with a consequence, right? Is that when you run turbines as much as you can possibly maintain them, there is some wear and tear that will happen because of the rougher environments that they’re in. So in order to get that increased capacity factor. You’re gonna have some issues you need to be thinking a little bit broader on. And right now, just because we’ve talked to so many [00:04:00] operators recently, I, I, what are you hearing for like the top three? What are, what are the top three things that operators are doing right now or going after and what should they be doing? Yolanda Padron: I think something that the operator operators seem to be looking into right now. Mainly what are the main issues that’s going on at my site, you know, and how can I quantify them? How can I make sure that whatever impact they have, I can get rid of it now or as soon as possible. Um, they’re really looking into like what the ROI of a specific solution is. Um, it like the short-term ROI of a specific solution and the long-term ROI, I think. We were talking about this the other day, right? And having how sometimes you, the pendulum swings a little more towards the financial right. And sometimes the pendulum swings a little bit more towards the engineering. And I think right now we’re, it seems like we’re being caught in a, in a very strange place where [00:05:00] a lot of the, the engineering emphasis that maybe wasn’t there as much in the past is starting to, to ramp up a little, because you, you need to have that. Information to be able to back up your, your financial, uh, decisions. Allen Hall: Yeah. The, the business case is being made more and more by engineering and maybe engineering, just getting smarter about it for the longest time. Engineers in wind, in my opinion. Just watch it get from the outside. Would say, technically we need to fix these blades, or technically we need to go after these gear boxes. Or technically we need to look at these aspects of the generators or inverters, whatever the, whatever the case may be for a particular site. Transformers, yeah, it’s another one. But all of them were more of a technical thing like, yeah, we’re not really getting our maximum out of this piece of equipment and here’s how we make it better. And the asset managers would really look at that a little. Sideways and say, well, okay, all that’s great technically, but what does it mean to me dollar wise? Now, it seems [00:06:00] like there’s a a lot more asset managers listening to engineering and engineering, translating technical speak into dollars. And I see the pendulum really swinging it back where the asset manager, which do still control the purse strings and rightly so, ’cause engineers are not the best place for that. However, do, do you, don’t you see that kind of shift to engineering having to look at the numbers and are starting to get the numbers from a variety of sources because they have more data to put together a business case and say, yes, if I spend a hundred thousand here, I’m gonna keep a million later. That’s a pretty good business case.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, we mentioned that there’s been a lot of layoffs everywhere. We’ve had a lot of cutting of engineering teams, so you have these people. Who have to really maximize the resources that they have and the time that they invest in specific issues. Right? So if I have a hundred million dollars issue here and a [00:07:00] $5 million solution here, and then I have a. $1 million issue here with a $1 million solution over here, I’m going to start focusing on that $5 million solution.  Allen Hall: Yeah. Because it really comes down to production at the end of the day. Uh, I know we don’t like to think of it that way, but tournaments need to run. They need to run as long as they can and be as efficient as they can. So you’re right. I think you think we’re seeing a huge shift in, in that aspect. Here’s, here’s what I see in terms of. Where everybody is putting emphasis and we could tell, ’cause we do talk to the people who sell products in these areas. Leading edge erosion, a lot of leading edge erosion salespeople going around the United States at the minute, I assume worldwide and offering their solutions and, and right now, Yolanda, I mean you see all this, what are your top two or three leading edge solutions that you’re hearing about?  Yolanda Padron: I think the top solutions I’m hearing of onshore are the L Polytech [00:08:00] tape or role, uh, the Armor Edge, uh, and Han Tech Technos, the Pan on Solutions. Allen Hall: Yeah, the Pan on Solutions seems to be the incumbent in, in ec uh, having more distribution this year through soccer More. Making great strides there. Uh, the, the shells, uh, are always, especially offshore, but onshore, they’re, they’re tending to get a little more traction than they have. And then the LI, I’ve run into a number of operators this year that were putting on the L from Polytech Tape, which is sort of a. Onshore solution, uh, to erosion A lot of times in the states where there’s dirt and debris around farms where it can be a little bit rough. Those three, all of those, so far I’ve heard, I’ve heard really good things from  Yolanda Padron: no, I’ve, I’ve heard things as, I’ve heard great things as well about those. I’ve seen great things in the field. It, I’ve [00:09:00] seen, uh. People within the field really leaning towards one or the other depending on what exactly is in their farm. So a lot of these wind farms have have crop dusting right around there because. Of where it’s built, right? So you have very strong, toxic, toxic chemicals like going into your blades and hitting them at very high wind speeds, or very high tip speeds, right? And so you have to really take into consideration a more robust solution like the Armour Edge or some sort of shell going into that. In other places, you have a, a pretty good gel coat. You have. Really anything you, you really need and maybe a pain on every once in a while just to make sure you get protected is the only solution you, you’ll really need. So I think it’s not just a, a site by site, but it’s, you know, you really have to map these out and make sure you get the correct solutions for. [00:10:00] For that specific turbine, depending on where it is in the site.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And the engineers on staff and a lot of these operators have a pretty good sense of what’s causing the erosion. They’ve had enough sky specs inspections to, to go back and go, uh, that looks like some sort of contamination. Or, yes, we’re next to a farm field and they’re plowing every three or four months. And yeah, it, it, it shows up there and the solutions do vary. Right. And I, I think that’s one of the, there’s not one universal solution. That’s what operators are telling me. They’re saying. There are some solutions that are great for dirt. There’s some solutions that are great for rain. There’s some solutions that are great for a semens turbine but may not so great for a GE turbine. It does seem to be very specific to turbine model and location,  Yolanda Padron: turbine model, location, what site team you have, and whether that team is. Worked with your turbine model before, I think are really important things to take into consideration when you’re planning your next campaign.  Allen Hall: And we just talked to some operators going back on the repair scenarios and what you’re gonna be focused on that are looking at root bushings [00:11:00] and the inserts, uh, that are tending to slide around. And, and obviously we’ve, we’ve talked to Onyx about their solution, which is really good and, and golf. When technology is done in Louisiana, has a solution, and CNC onsite has a solution and we foresee a, a solution. So there’s a couple of good solutions out in the field and I, it looks like operators are, are taking advantage of the technology that’s been developed over the last six months to two years that they’re trialing it or maybe just not even trialing it. In some cases, they’re making sort of a larger deployment to see. If those technologies can help them save blades, because buying a new blade set is crazy expensive right now.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah, crazy expensive. And the downtime that you get from buying a new blade is also insane. A lot of these OEMs really don’t make turbine blades to keep in storage until somebody needs them. Right. And so you really, you’re faced with a, a very large [00:12:00] downtime end. Pretty much, I mean, not anything, but a lot of things are a lot cheaper than having to sink in millions of dollars to replace a blade that you could have caught the issue from. From a simple sensor installation.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And then that rolls into general CMSI think, uh, obviously there’s been a lot of CMS solutions. GE has one out of the factory. Siemens, it sounds like they’re gonna be headed towards one vest just has different things that they do. But the, the amount of CMS going in from the gearbox and drivetrain. That’s becoming almost universally accepted. The question right now I think is with a lot of operators, it leads to a lot of data. There’s just a flood of data. A lot of that’s going into like a horizon where they can manage that data, but it still, there’s still a lot of data and with the reduction in engineering staff, you have to have some way to go look and address it because a lot of times, at least listening to [00:13:00] engineers complain and if, if you spend a long enough time. Talking to engineers, they’ll always find a pain point. Like the, the, the question about CMS is, is it telling me the truth all the time? If it sets off an alarm, do I believe it or do I just reset it and keep moving? Are you seeing the same thing from your experience on the operations side? Like there’s just a lot of CMS and it’s great, but with reduced engineering staff, we’re not sure how we’re gonna manage it. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, definitely. I think it’s a, it’s, it’s a sad issue that’s, that’s facing a lot of the teams. Um. But it is something, you know, you get innovation from struggling, right? So I’m sure a lot of these teams who are running really thin right now, they have so many things that they have to accomplish. They’re going to have to find a way to, to be able to, to actually read all of this data and see what it means and see what it translates to. In the field and see what if there’s a specific alarm, like what’s the [00:14:00]probability of that alarm actually meaning something important. And I think something that all we’ve talked about a lot is having, it’s going to have to be some sort of collaboration between all these operators, between these OEMs. Something where everyone just does it for the benefit of the industry. And just kind of put the, the commercial side a little bit. The commercial aspect a little bit to the side and just collaborate with each other, uh, to make sure that, that these things can really be done  Allen Hall: well. I, I want to break right here ’cause I wanna talk about that after we come back. There does seem to be a shift from OEM technology leading the industry to. Operations operators and owners leading the industry and going after solutions and then telling the OEMs what they want to go do. So after the break, let’s discuss that. Are you worried about unexpected blade root failures and the high cost of repairs?[00:15:00] Meet eco Pitch by Onyx Insight. The standard in blade root monitoring. Onyx state-of-the-art sensor tracks blade root movement in real time, delivering continuous data to keep your wind farm running smoothly and efficiently. With Eco Pitch, you can catch problems early, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Field tested on over 3000 blades. It’s proven reliability at your fingertips. Choose eco Pitch for peace of mind. Contact Onyx Insight today. To schedule your demo of Eco Pitch and experience the future of blade monitoring. So, Yolanda, we’ve had so many discussions with operators and I, I would say over the last month we’ve talked to more operators than we have in the last year, and I think just because of the IRA bill change, all the operators are looking for an advantage and trying to learn from the industry. The problem though, I think, is that. There are organizations in the United States and, and broader [00:16:00] world that are focused on operations, but they don’t necessarily bring in outside help. And I’ll, I don’t wanna name them because I don’t want to call ’em out, but there are some that, uh, are very internally focused. So you as Yolanda, as an operator, and say, I’m an operator. We can go to a conference, we can talk about, we have these problems, but we may not have a solution. Now it does seem like the barriers that were between operators are starting to break down and they’re starting to call one another and find out how operator A fixed this problem so that me operator B can implement it. Are you seeing more of that now that maybe you saw a year or two ago? Yeah,  Yolanda Padron: definitely. I think, I mean as as small of an industry as this can feel, sometimes there’s always. An opportunity to interact with a lot of the same people. Right. And you, I think there, there was a a point in time where maybe you, you [00:17:00] saw everybody else as, as a competition or everybody in another company as sort of your competition to your company. But with all of these teams, again running a little bit more lean, you really have no other way out of your problem sometimes than to just. Talking to each other and collaborating and making sure you, you together, you can find a solution to get you to the end of the line instead of just solving everything in a vacuum in the way you can. You just don’t have any time to do that anymore.  Allen Hall: I think it’s one of the things about the podcast, we always find out when we’re talking to operators and they’ll, they’ll mention a problem they’re having and we’ll say, Hey, go back in the archives. We’ve talked to somebody who has a solution for that. Like, oh, really? That’s interesting. And then they, you know, they can make the connection and, and start to help out their fleet. But now I think that would happen less in terms of, unless Joel and I were actually initiating that conversation, [00:18:00] uh, but now it seems a little more proactive, right. That, uh. If there is money to spend, it does seem like the, the purse strings have loosened a little bit in terms of getting the fleet up and, and that, and that’s sort of twofold. One is that you hear a lot of operators selling assets to investment groups. That that seems to be a really smart move at this point to try to get a little cash in the bank, uh, uh, if you want, develop more. And, and two, like, well, if I’m gonna keep this asset. I wanted to run as efficiently I can and, and maybe some day somebody will throw me an offer. You know, mark Zuckerberg will show up and wanna build a data center at my site. So I, I ought to be able to get as, maximize my value out of this thing. That’s really changing the dynamic in, in terms of whether an operator reaches out to somebody. Right. And I, and I wanna hear your thoughts of like how in internally, ’cause you’ve been on the other side of the wall, you, you’ve seen the, the good side, not the, not the supply side. Uh. Is there restrictions within an, an organization where you couldn’t call [00:19:00] your quote unquote developer competitor? Or is it like, Hey, if I see my competitor at a conference, we can, uh, have a donut together, a coffee together? It’s not a big deal. Where, where were we six months ago, a year ago, and where do you think we are now? Yolanda Padron: A year ago or so? There was a lot of emphasis on, you know, give people the information they need to know both internally. Externally. Right. And so everyone is a little bit siloed. It was great for some reasons, it wasn’t great for some other reasons, right? But it really didn’t foster the innovation that we’re seeing now, and I, it really didn’t give you the opportunity to go out or even. Think about going out and talking to your next door neighbor to, to see if, if that was an issue, at least not on, like, outside of the site level. Now, I think there, there were a few months, at least in the States, [00:20:00] right, where we just didn’t know what was going to happen. And everybody was a little bit stalled because you didn’t know what direction to run to. And I think now, like you said, a lot of people living towards the data centers, the investor groups and everything, you’re able to see that first off, teams are getting a little bit, a lot smarter, right? Like the investor groups are getting a lot smarter and asking the right questions. Now that maybe they wouldn’t be asking three years ago. And second of all, you’re, you’re starting to see just, just the idea that we all want this industry to survive and we we’re all here, we all believe in it. So getting us all to, to just talk about the very common issues that we’re seeing because there’s, as with everything, right, there’s always going to be something and. Even if you, if you have a large fleet, if you have a small fleet, there’s a lot of issues that are common [00:21:00] within the same operators, within the same blade type. And so you, you’re able to just by talking to the guy next door, you’re able to see. What a, a solution actually looks like. So what’s been tried before, what hasn’t been tried before, you can really brainstorm ideas with each other and it’s, it’s honestly really exciting as an engineer to see that just come to fruition in the, these past few months. Allen Hall: So in light of that, and as we get to conference mode and so. November, December, kinda get into December, then went into, uh, the winter time, whether in February, March tend to be big conference times. I, I, 1:00 AM questioning whether a lot of engineers and operators are gonna show up to these things in force and that like they just don’t have the money to do it. And they’re gonna put travel [00:22:00] restrictions on. The mother thought is that, well, they need to go find solutions. Where are they gonna find solutions at? I mean, obviously you can use AI and go through the uptime database on YouTube. You can pretty much find any solution. But if you wanna show up at a conference and talk to somebody in person, you’re going to have to travel. So I’m really curious what you think the the, the, the late winter early spring conferences are gonna be filled with. Is it gonna be operators or is it gonna be just suppliers looking at one another?  Yolanda Padron: I think it’ll be a little bit of a, of a mix of both. Right. You know, you’re trying to save money as an operator, right? And sometimes you might not get the approval to go and spend money and travel to a conference, but you also have a host of issues that sometimes that’s the only way, that’s the only way that you’re going to be able to find someone who can solve them, right? There’s great groups online like e-cig where operators can talk to each [00:23:00] other and it’s, it’s great. But it’s, it’s also great to actually be able to, to talk to some of the experts that may, sure, they may be trying to sell you a solution, but they can also be really great consultants for the problem that you are having, regardless of whether your solution fits in with them or not.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And I, I’ve noticed, uh, a little bit of a shift here, uh, maybe just because we’re in that supplier business to wind and aerospace, is that. The unique vendor items that would help wind operators operate more efficiently, that have been around a couple years, have been vetted and, but there’s still a lot of newcomers to the marketplace. And I could name five of them off the top of my head. Uh, but at this point it’s kind of a little bit too late, right? And so if, if you don’t have case studies, if you don’t have, uh, operators that would swear by your system, whatever that is. It’s gonna be really hard to [00:24:00] penetrate that market. And in some ways I think that’s good because now when an operator talks to somebody, they should go, do you have a case study? Do have you, what’s the business case for this? Who’s, who else has done it? And if the, that this lowers the threshold in which you can act, particularly with asset managers. The asset managers first gonna ask you is. Well, who else has done it? We don’t wanna be the Guinea pig. The Guinea pig days are over. I, I think. And, but at the same token, there’s still a lot of big players that are trying to push into certain marketplaces, sensing that there’s, uh, maybe a little bit of blood in the water, uh, that they could gain market share. Where do you think that sits right now and having a lot of vendors come to your door and try to sell you things over the last couple of years? If  Yolanda Padron: your face is solving a whole host of issues, you don’t have enough money to solve most of them. And so the last thing I wanna do as an operator is give somebody the opportunity to mess up on my watch. [00:25:00] Right? And so by having those case studies, by having somebody else already be the Guinea pig, by being, by being able to show me that you’ve solved this, you’ve. Gotten a solution for the problem I have in the environment that I have. It is key for me to say, okay, perfect. You’ve got this. I can work on something else. Allen Hall: That’s, that’s interesting. So are you looking more, if obviously you work for a large operator, are you looking for someone to sort of project manage, uh, and upgrade to your project? So let, let me, lemme just give you the example. So if I have a CMS system and I, uh. Proven operators who love my thing, but I I’m gonna go sell it to another operator to de-risk it. Is it now, unlike in the past, in the past, you give it to an operator, and operator to project manage it, and they would oversee it. Do you think that we’ve transitioned away from that now because the operators have less [00:26:00]engineering staff, they have less capability to do it, that now they’re asking the, the supplier, the vendor. To not only provide the technology, but to project manage it and to show that it actually works and maybe have to eat some of the cost to install it and to do that oversight that they wouldn’t have done a year ago.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah, definitely. Especially for something as on a trial basis. I think you, you don’t, I mentioned whole host of issues, not a lot of money, not a lot of time, right. Not a lot of staff. If I am. Sitting at an office in Austin and I know I have an issue and I can hire somebody to, to do a trial and solve that issue. I really don’t want to also have to go and project, manage the, the trial and sit at the site and try to get signal while I’m, I’m doing something else and just multitasking and not really doing anything perfectly, you know? And so. [00:27:00] As an an aftermarket product provider, I think it’s really important to also be able to project manage your solution or the installation of your solution in the time that it’s being trialed to. Of course, it’s really important to give the operator much visibility as they want to see, uh, because you, you don’t wanna be left in the dark either. You’re not going to just. Hand the keys to the kingdom of, to whoever knocks on your door. Right? But it’s, it’s really important to be able to, to, to be someone that the operator can trust.  Allen Hall: And I wanna take this to another segment, uh, after the break because I think that same approach is happening with full service agreements. Said, operators are now getting more project management oversight of what actually is happening in the full surface agreement, so let’s talk about that when we get back. Don’t let blade damage catch you off guard OGs. Ping sensors [00:28:00] detect issues before they become expensive, time consuming problems. From ice buildup and lightning strikes to pitch misalignment in internal blade cracks. eLog Ping has you covered The cutting edge sensors are easy to install, giving you the power to stop damage before it’s too late. Visit eLog ping.com and take control of your turbine’s health today. Okay, Yoland. Full service agreements. And we have talked to countless numbers of operators more recently that have full service agreements. And maybe that was the preference over the last couple of years. ’cause the farms seem to be obviously less than five years old. And, and they’re also at the moment talking about extending those full service agreements, so maybe going another five years. But the, the hands-off approach to the FSA is changing. I, I, we had talked to. Just today, at least two operators that are saying we need to have shadow monitoring, or [00:29:00] we need to be looking into RCAs that have been published, or we need to go dig into the manuals for the wind turbine. It’s not it, it’s not just a trust but verify anymore. It’s like verify, verify, verify. Maybe a little bit of trust if it works. Uh, are you sensing the same thing and, and what’s really driving that?  Yolanda Padron: I think. Initially when a lot of these full service agreements, long-term service agreements were signed on, it was with the idea that we have this site, we’ll keep it on for 10 years, we’ll repower it, everything will be perfect. It doesn’t matter what they do because we have these contractual limits to how much money they go over. They go under production will be protected. The business case is there. It’s great. At the end of the full service agreement, we’ll repower, we’ll just sign another one on and it’ll be fine. Hands off. The OEM knows what they’re doing. I think [00:30:00] now that we’re reaching a lot of the end of these full service agreements and we’re reaching the end of the PTCs, and we know that we’re going to have to keep these projects on for longer. And have them be in a good enough shape to still generate money and not just lose money to everybody in the short and long term. It’s you. You really have to start picking out the different contractual obligations to be able to see, okay, well do I actually as. An operator know what this means, and if I do, are they complying contractually with what they’re supposed to be complying with? Right. And then taking it a step further now that we talked about how everybody’s entering a little bit into a more collaborative state, you’re noticing a lot of the problems that people are having and you’re able to see that it’s okay, so here’s all of the contractual obligations, but here are all of the [00:31:00] other things that we need to make sure. Our turbines are taken care of to be able to get through that threshold and to be able to make these projects last and generate money or generate energy as long as, as long as possible.  Allen Hall: Well, and this came up when a Slack discussion between Rosemary and I the other day, which is kind of an odd thing because we caught on a little bit of a Slack rant, but it had to do with resistance checks of the LPS, and you think, well, that’s. You know, that’s really the basic thing, right? How hard is that? You just, it’s an ome or check. Uh, but rosemary is pointing out like the, the, the manuals for the turbine say in some turbines, this is a specific turbine, so you need to measure the resistance of the LPS every two years and under a full service agreement. The OEM wasn’t doing. Yet when they had problems, it was on the operator to go fix it. So it, it turned into this really odd [00:32:00] discussion of, well, wait a minute, if the full service agreement means that the operator is taking control of it and they’re not even following their own instructions, how is the operator responsible for that? That doesn’t, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. But I, I think that has been the case for a number of years. And today we were talking to another operator in a sort of a similar field saying. We’re gonna hit maximum payout for, from the O eem on on the full service agreement. So we’re gonna keep capping that every year, and the OEM is fine with it. So we, we always hit those max limits, you know, what do you do after that?  Yolanda Padron: And it’s tricky from a site level, right? Because you have these full service agreements, you don’t necessarily have the staff to actually be able to. Climb the tower with these OEMs and make sure that they do everything they’re supposed to be doing. And in some of these contracts, you won’t even have a stipulation that says, give me the reports to, in that case, the, the LPS testing. [00:33:00] Right. And so it, it becomes a, a tricky, a tricky environment. ’cause you, you have these. You have this relationship within OEM, right? And you have to, to, you have to keep that relationship going, especially for the sake of your projects. But it’s also a bit of a, of a strange point to find yourself where it’s like, I don’t distrust you, but please give me a reason to trust you. You know? Um, and so it does become really tricky when it’s something that’s. Both when it’s something that’s stated in the contract explicitly and they don’t have any documentation for, so it gives you a bit of a reason to, to distrust them, but also when it’s an a very known issue that they either didn’t flag or they flagged and while burying it into something else, and so you don’t [00:34:00] necessarily. Have a, a good understanding of, okay, well if we’re managing this together, you know, if we’re in this together, why wouldn’t I want to know about this potential issue that’s going on in my turbine?  Allen Hall: Is this going to change turbine supply agreements and FSA contracts? Because the more I talk to Yolanda’s of the world. The more I realize they become contract lawyers and less engineers that they’re searching through. And maybe that’s the, the advantage of AI is they can kind of be a contract lawyer with some help from ai, but to, to help understand what their, um, the operator has to do or what they’re obligated to go look for, to check the boxes so they could get a payout from the OEM. In relationship to, uh, you know, just maximizing profits. And, and on some level, some of that’s gonna come from the OEM. Are we turning engineers into contract lawyers?  Yolanda Padron: [00:35:00] We’re definitely upholding a, a, a stronger relationship between the engineers and the legal teams within the operators, right? And so I think I’ve, I definitely noticed a lot more questions coming over from the legal teams. While, while I was on that side, right? And so it was a lot of, okay, what can we do in the long term for new contracts? And what can we do to make sure that this is explicitly stated or what can we negotiate? But I am also noticing a lot of pushback from the OEMs. And it doesn’t just happen in when, um, but a lot of pushback from the OEMs and maybe shortening that period from which they’re, they’re liable. And so instead of having it be a 20 year, 15 year full service agreement, maybe shortening it to, to 10 years, to five years, doing it little by little, which is also another, another point of [00:36:00] distrust, right. Unfortunately,  Allen Hall: it, it is become a little more combative, I think, and the contracts are gonna get thicker over the next six. Months to a year, uh, because the engineers are getting smarter and they know what to ask. And because development and operation and maintenance are getting closer and closer together, they’re probably sharing an office right now where they weren’t even in the same building. And consolidation forces, uh, new neighbors to occur. But I, I, I don’t see the industry necessarily, uh, being tanked. Right? So I think this all gets back to where is the industry growing right now? Since you’ve been out on site and much closer to it than I have. Uh, my feeling, my feeling is, is like, yeah, we’re going this through this little rough patch and everybody is, there’s a lot of good engineers here. Be careful because you put good engineers, you put ’em under stress, things happen and all of a sudden wind energy gets even better. Are you seen as sort of the same thing or you, or you is just like all, all hands on deck? [00:37:00]We’re in crisis mode.  Yolanda Padron: I think we were definitely in crisis mode earlier this year. Uh, you know, but now I think a lot of, a lot of teams, and I’m seeing it, we’re seeing it through different operators, large and small. It’s a lot more, it’s just a lot more collaborative. If, if you’re looking at the repair teams coming in, you’re looking at the owners, the operators, you’re looking at the asset managers, the engineers. Everyone just really wants to make it work and find a solution and, you know. Just work on everything together. I think there’s definitely been a lot more open discussions than I saw in the past and a lot more availability of teams to talk and, and, and teams really wanting to find solutions to a lot of these issues. Like you said, a group of engineers sometimes can be a little bit dangerous in the sense that. [00:38:00] They’re, they’re going to find a, a very creative solution to an issue. Um, but that’s, I don’t know. It’s a, it’s an exciting time, I think, to, to be in this industry and, and just to, to see how we can all work together. Allen Hall: Yeah. If you can survive the adversity, you get honed, having been through a number of aerospace ups and downs over the years, one thing that we’ve learned is that. Um, the reliability of airplanes. I know people will disagree with me with this, but the reliability of airplanes have gone up quite a bit, and the reliability of turbines is about to do the same thing. You’re gonna see fewer models being built. You’re gonna see a lot more focus on the design and the certification and validation phase of turbines along with operators checking. Uh, and, and one of those happened today where an operator said We’re, we’re checking blades as they show up on site. Yeah, two years ago that was unheard of. You couldn’t convince [00:39:00] anybody to do that. And it was a, the unique operator, typically European that would do that, and Americans didn’t wanna do that at all. But we’re, we’re seeing this really dynamic shift. So, although I am panicked and truly I am, because I think the industry. Is going to be, uh, you know, it’s gonna make or break right? It’s renewables. Solar and wind plus battery are gonna be the future. Already are the future in sort of a sense. Once you get over this little bit of rough patch and get organized, look out, I, I think wind and solar and battery are going to be going gangbusters. The economy’s got a, in interest, rates have to come down a little bit to make it a little more profitable. But man, I think the future looks great.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I agree. It’s a really exciting time to be here.  Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas. We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe. So if you never miss an episode, [00:40:00] and if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we will see you here. Next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Alex Fournier, General Manager at Enerteck Wind Services, returns to the spotlight to discuss the company’s growth from specialized blade repair into a full-service wind maintenance provider. Fournier shares how Enerteck is positioning itself to support Quebec’s ambitious wind expansion plans while navigating the unique challenges of Canada’s shortened repair seasons. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Alex, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much guys for having me. It sounds like we had a busy blade season with Enerteck up in Canada. It’s just a different environment up there. What kind of, uh, repairs have you been working on this year?  Alex Fournier: Uh, really busy. Been some, uh, doing some transfer crack, open window and lighting damage, VGs, installation, polytech, erosion, uh, all that kind of stuff from road access on platform. Um, so we been pretty busy. Yeah. What parts of Canada are you focused on right now? Uh, at the beginning of the season we trying to focus on Quebec ’cause the temperature is getting colder faster. Um, so usually we start with Quebec and then we’re making our way up west. So right now our blade season is pretty much done in Quebec, [00:01:00] so now we’re focusing in Ontario. Uh, Ontario have way better, uh, temperature right now in Quebec. It might be around 15 to 20 degrees up north. Versus in Ontario that right now it’s around 22, 25 degrees Celsius.  Joel Saxum: Celsius being the big thing there. Right. For our, for our US listeners, it’s 25 degrees is really cold to us, but very nice to you. Yeah. Thanks. It’s pretty cold.  Allen Hall: Yeah. I think for a lot of listeners, they don’t realize how short the blade repair season is in Canada. How many days do you really have it? It depends where you are, right? There’s some  Alex Fournier: site that, there’s still some snow in May. Um, but, uh, if, if, if we’re in a. Nice area. It can be from, uh, April, may to September, October, November. You’re really pushing it. I think if, if you want to do, uh, blade work in November and que back, you need to have like a 360 platform with the heater and uh, and closed platform. Which we don’t have yet,  Joel Saxum: but yet, [00:02:00] yet is an interesting concept there. You say we don’t have that platform yet, but that kind of points to the eTech. Uh, I mean, of course. Congratulations. A new, new role over there I think, clue us in on that. What is the new role?  Alex Fournier: So it’s general manager, so right now I’m taking care of the whole company, which is either composite or maintenance. Um, I’m doing boat. Um, so if you have any requests either on composite or maintenance and Quebec or candidate, just let me know. But yeah, when I first started I was, uh, director of composite operation and then, uh. Climbing at the ladder to turn on Azure. Now  Joel Saxum: what it makes sense is eTech is, uh, expanding, you know, strategically expanding services. Right? So you guys, uh, of course when we were talking with you and you joined the team there, you had a composite. So we, they just, this is your first big blade season. Sounds like it’s gone very well. Um, but the eTech is a company does a lot more than that. You off air, you’re clueing us in on some of the really cool things you guys are doing. Some, some stuff we’ve never actually really dealt with or heard too much of and wind, [00:03:00] but, um. Yeah, share some of the new things and, uh, areas you guys are expanding into.  Alex Fournier: Yeah, for sure. Well, one of the big thing is Rob access. Um, coming from a Rob access background and as a level three, I really wanted to, uh, break that in, which can help us too with composite, but it can help us with other, uh, maintenance and a turbine like tire cleaning, uh, deck, both removal, all this stuff that you can access in the ladder, we can access by rope. So. That was a big thing for us. Uh, also we’re doing now touring, tensioning, um, constriction as well. Uh, in Quebec there’s a lot of constriction sites coming up. Um, so we got our constriction license with inner deck so we can participate to construction. So. Composite is a big thing, but also everything related to maintenance. Uh, we can do it as well and we’re about to do it.  Allen Hall: What is a construction environment in Canada? We’ve been most recently seeing a lot of good news from Canada regarding [00:04:00] offshore wind, and that is maybe a big push of putting gigawatts out off the coast of Nova Scotia. But what’s happening onshore in Canada, Quebec right now is pretty busy,  Alex Fournier: um, from last year to this year and ongoing year. Um, there’s seven new sites coming up. Um, so we’re pretty busy. Um, and also the, the views of Quebec is to have 10,000, uh, megawatt by 2035. Hydro Quebec is signing big contracts, um, by operating and developing their own site too. Um, they just announced a site, I think it’s a thousand or 2000 megawatt that they wanna build, um, around, uh, second area that, that, that is up north. So with all that, uh, I think Quebec’s gonna be really busy in the next, uh, couple years,  Allen Hall: and Antech is helping those new construction projects. How, because, but so many different phases from scooping the dirt, pouring the concrete. Uh, getting the towers up, getting the cells on, getting the [00:05:00]blades installed, all the pre-inspection, post inspection things that have to happen. And then all the, uh, ohs that they see as they’re putting the towers together. Where are, are you guys focused? At our  Alex Fournier: side, we’re focusing on, uh, more quality control, more or less. Um, and pre-inspection and deliveries. Um, so when pieces come to site, inspect them. If there’s something wrong with them, we will let engineering know and, uh, they can do some action about it. Um, receiving tool, uh, component blade, you know, uh, sometimes they get a little bit messy on the train or the boat, so we’re there to inspect them and repair them. If, if there’s something. Um, air quality control is a big thing, Joel.  Allen Hall: That’s what we’ve been talking about for years. It sounds like Alex is actually doing it. That’s fantastic. How much work is that on a new site right now? What are you seeing as, uh, blades are offloaded from the trains or the trucks? I mean,  Alex Fournier: it’s, uh, it’s not all the time that the blade get banged up, but when it does, we’re at least we’re [00:06:00] there to, uh, repair it. But normally it’s, it’s pretty slow. Um. It doesn’t happen too often, but when it happen, at least they have the manpower to, to repair it. And as of quality control, I mean, uh, in Quebec there’s the union too that is taking care of building the sites. Um, so we’re just there to help the union, uh, making sure that everything is, is made right.  Joel Saxum: I think that’s a good strategic initiative though, because you hear about, or, or Alan, like you said, our conversation we’ve been having, we should be inspecting these things properly when they arrive at site, da, da dah. We, we talk about this and, and people will say, oh, we do that. Oh. Um, but for many times, like in the States, what I’ve seen is, is the person doing the receiving inspection is like what their training is. They’re trained to take the straps off, and that’s about it. And then they’re like, yeah, there’s a big white thing here. Check, like, um, you know, to have an, to have an actual, uh, trained technician, trained subject matter expert, doing those qa QC inspections when they, [00:07:00] when those components arrive on site, is huge. And if I’m an operator, I’m, I want that, that’s what I want. I don’t want. Uh, a warm body telling me that it arrived. Yeah, I know that. Um, but to have some, and then having the capabilities of it’s say, say it’s an Enerteck person, right? And they, and they’ve been around the, they’ve been around blades. They may be a blade repair technician, uh, accepting the blades at site and they go, we can fix this. This is how we can do this. And then you have that continuity there, um, to make sure that these things are done right. They’ve been accepted. They’re good to go up tower, so you’re not. Uh, having delays in trying to mobilize a repair crew or, that’s a big thing. I know because sometimes people just don’t want to, they’re like, we’re not gonna repair this one because we need to get this thing hung so we’re not gonna deal with it. You run into that stuff,  Alex Fournier: it’s not too bad. ’cause since we have experts that know what they’re doing, we can tell people like, look, you shall not, let’s say crane that blade like this, he should already repair it. Normally, like people, you know, they’re not that, uh, outta wrench that they will say, oh, let’s just do it anyway. Um. [00:08:00] So it’s, it’s not too bad, but definitely having someone that know what they’re doing, it’s definitely a, an advantage there.  Allen Hall: One of the things we’ve been talking about also recently, and it seems to be a, a bigger and bigger issue, is, uh, icing systems or de-icing systems. And I’m really curious where Canada is heading in that realm. Are new turbines arriving on site in Quebec? It seems like they would have to have anti-icing systems. What kind of systems are they? Getting, what are they thinking about? How are they planning ahead for some of the winters? Hey, Quebec, at  Alex Fournier: least it’s the power utility company. I drew Quebec that said you’re not putting a tower there if there’s no active, the icing system. Um, so a paint doesn’t work ’cause it needs to be active, the icing system. Um, so yeah, the, the only two companies that was able to, uh, accomplish the mission of having turbine with the deicing system was STOs and Nordex. So big, uh, big shout out to them. Um, but what I heard that the are getting [00:09:00] is ema um, so I think Nordex and Vestus are equipped with ema  Allen Hall: and you’re coming up on, uh, winter season Really quickly, what’s the outlook like over the next couple of months and what are, what are customers asking you to go do? Um, so in the winter for us  Alex Fournier: it’s pretty slow, at least in Quebec because I, Quebec have actually like a rolling that you’re not supposed to stop turbine, uh, in the winter. So. Unless it’s something major, um, you’re not supposed to stop a turbine. So that’s why we’re doing all the preventive maintenance in the summer. Um, so when the winter gets here, we, we don’t need to stop the turbines. Um, obviously if it’s, if the turbine just shut down ’cause there’s a problem, like a pitcher or something, it’s okay to go, uh, troubleshoot it. But, uh, you’re not supposed to stop a turbine if it’s not supposed to be stopped.  Joel Saxum: So no planned outage is all winter long. Yeah. What do the boys do then? They go ice fishing, is it, is that, is that what the plan is?  Alex Fournier: Well, first of all, the turbines are getting, uh, they’re pretty icy, [00:10:00] uh, coming from, uh, ice background. Uh, I seen some turbines in the winter and, and they get pretty messy. Um, so most of the time people cannot even access the turbine ’cause it’s too ice, ice tea. Um. So, yeah, we’re, I guess it’s pretty, uh, pretty chill in the winter  Joel Saxum: for us. I wanna, I wanna rewind a little bit back to the, talking about icing and de-icing systems. Uh, Canada being, uh, its own kind of special market like that, right? Like the Scandinavian countries have the same issues and problems for the most part. But if Nordex investors were the only two OEMs to qualify for the big hydro Quebec deal, ’cause that Hydro Quebec basically controls the power output in Quebec. Right. So they get to kind of put their stamp on things. So Nordex, I know Nordex has a, uh, uh, not a want, but like a strategic direction to be more like boutiquey. Like, if you wanna change something, we’ll help, we’ll work with you to change it, to make it, you know, good for your locale. So, [00:11:00] and Vestas, I don’t know exactly what their active heating system is because I know that they have the operations with ICE kind of thing that they do, the algorithmic changes and whatnot. But if an active heating system. Are they putting this on or will they be putting it on from the factory, or would it be put on, on, on site? Like, and if it’s active, if it’s, if it’s like a thermoelectric heating mat in the leading edge, or what does that look like?  Alex Fournier: Um, yeah, the, the both or them are coming straight from the factory with it. Um, they don’t, I don’t think they want to do like, retrofit thread on site. So yeah, both of them are coming straight from the factory with it. Um, and yeah, from what I heard and seen, it’s uh, about, uh, I, uh. Speed in Matt. Um, so yeah, we’ll be in the leading edge a little bit, like, uh, a good friend at Wet Tech, a little bit the same, uh, technology. And also I think Intercon have, Intercon has some DING system as well, so they qualified also, but. From what we’ve seen from the RFP coming out, it’s mostly Vestus and Nordex that will be [00:12:00] installed there. And Quebec,  Allen Hall: I wanna hop onto to the lightning question ’cause we’re a lightning company and I’m always curious what’s happening up in Canada? What kind of lightning season has it been up in Canada? Honestly, it was not too bad.  Alex Fournier: Well, at least on the site that I was working at, uh, it was really good. Um, we, I know last year and the year before it was really rainy. Um, and this summer was actually like pretty good. So as of lightning, honestly, we didn’t have too much standby ’cause of lightning. So it was, it was pretty good. Uh, when it was popping off though. It was popping off  Allen Hall: and the, and the wildfires. There’s been a number of wildfires up in Canada again this year. We were recently up in North Dakota at a site in, there was just an immense amount of smoke coming down from Canada. Are you experiencing difficulties with that in the wind area? Dealing with some of the, the wildfires and the after effects of that in Canada we’re getting  Alex Fournier: affected in wildfires mostly, um, in the west. So BC I know they had a lot of [00:13:00] trouble a couple years ago with wildfires. Um. So far this year, I didn’t hear anything too bad at the beginning of the season. We had some co of fires in Quebec, but it didn’t really affect us. No.  Allen Hall: Well, I’m wondering because one of the things when we were in North Dakota was there’s just a lot of partic in the air, and that tends to lead to leading edge erosion issues. Are you seeing more leading edge erosion issues up in Canada? Just in general, it depends where you are.  Alex Fournier: Um, and I talked with this with Polytech, uh, couple, couple months ago. Um, but what I’ve seen from my side is, uh, a lot of farming area. I don’t know if it’s because when they, they put the machine in the field, like there’s a lot of dusts coming up. Uh, but every time that I’ve been working on farms that are closed to farming, uh, field, uh, we’re gonna see more erosion.  Joel Saxum: Yeah, we see that too. Allen Hall: We were talking to some operators who said that, uh, aerial spraying may have something to do with some of the erosion issues, that the [00:14:00] chemicals that are being distributed over the farms may have some sort of impact on the leading edge protection. Do you notice that too? Or is that something that’s just, uh, lore old live tale? Alex Fournier: Yeah, I don’t know. It’ll be a wild dead to, uh, to say that, uh, ’cause actually, like, I don’t know what, what the chemical is that they use. Maybe it can have an impact on, on it. My idea is that, uh, it will come from dust, uh. Some experts saying that it’s caused by the rain too, which I agree. Like, uh, when there’s heavy rain in place, that heavy rain, it will probably cause erosion. But I think from my side that uh, the dust will, uh, have an impact on it.  Allen Hall: Is there anything being done to try to minimize that impact? Uh, you, you said you’re putting on some leaning edge protection. Is it working?  Alex Fournier: Yeah. Uh, the Polytech, I will say that is one of the best. Um, I, I, I love Polytech from the start, so shout out to the team at, at Polytech. But, uh, yeah, they’re shells. They have the shells, um, that works pretty well. It’s [00:15:00] like you put on your blade and it’s good for 20, 30 years. Um, and also there new product, uh, Polytech, l onshore, like the, the tape, um, I think you put on your brain’s good for like 20 years, 15 to 20 years. So. It works pretty well. And also the customer that we are working with right now has been a big fan from Polytech from a couple of years. He’s only putting that up and uh, it’s been working really good for him. So,  Allen Hall: so both shells and the, the film are working The difficulty or the, the amount of time it takes to install it? It’s, I’ve run across a couple of crews this year that have been. Doing both those things. What is your experience on the install times and how they apply? Uh, install time is  Alex Fournier: not too bad. Um, I would say if, if you just need to do basic, uh, preparation, like sending and filling. Um, a day, a deeper blade. So three days per turbine can be easily, uh, doable. So it’s not too long though. Allen Hall: Oh, okay. Yeah, so we, that’s [00:16:00] been my experience is it goes on pretty quick, but it really depends on how much blade damage there is before you start putting on any kind coating or protection. Right. Uh, and. Generally, what are you seeing when you get on site to some of these, uh, wind turbines? Are you seeing a lot of erosion before these they put protection on or are they trying to catch it early where it’s less expensive to do? Alex Fournier: Um, some of them are trying to catch it early. I know some of the blades now are coming out with, um, leading edge protection already from the factory, so that’s good. Um, but what I’ve been seeing, it’s. Some of them are pretty aggressive. Uh, some of them you’ll need to do blade repair before you apply the air, the, the tape. Um, but what I’ve been seeing is most of the customer will, will prevent it and, you know, before it gets too bad and they’ll say, okay, well, we’ll put a solution on the blade so we don’t need to do that every other year.  Allen Hall: Oh, wow. Okay. That’s a, that’s a quite a different approach. And what are the things you’re seeing happening? Up north that we should know about in terms of [00:17:00] operations, maintenance, preventative maintenance in particular. Where is Canada heading? Where is Canada heading? That’s a good question.  Alex Fournier: We’re heading the same way as usual. Um, but like I said, I think, uh, what we do as actually in Quebec like that, we, we do pre all preventive maintenance in the summer. So then in the winter when the winds are strong, uh, we can actually make more money. Um, I don’t know if it’s the same way in other province, but us in Quebec, uh, that’s how we do it. Preventive maintenance. In the summer we try to do everything. Substation, blade, uh, turbine maintenance, everything in the summer. First of all, it’s more enjoyable to work. Um, I. Second, the, the wind is stronger in the winter. So that’s, I think that’s where they’re making a big box. It’s in the winter.  Allen Hall: The power production in cold weather is always really good. And the PPA prices in Canada are also pretty good, aren’t they? Pretty good. But it’s fixed price. If  Alex Fournier: you compare to Europe that it’s like spot price. Um, and Quebec’s not too [00:18:00] good. They negotiate for a couple of years. Um, but yeah, I think, uh, that’s what we were talking about when I was, uh, in the deicing market. It was that like. In Europe with, you know, at deicing system they will be bulletproof because when they need power and the turbine all icy, the spot price go up so they can actually de ice and make the turbine run and make a bunch of money. But that’s, uh,  Allen Hall: I dunno, it seems a no brainer to me. Secondarily to that, there’s, there’s an availability issue. Are you seeing more emphasis on the availability? For turbines, particularly as you get into the winter, winter months, that they expect a 96, 90 7% availability number. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, with, like  Alex Fournier: I said, with the preventive maintenance that they’re shooting, like big score with, uh, the availability. Um, but of course, like, like I said, if some, some place, you know, they don’t have a deicing system or whatever. So if you have your turbine down for three months. Uh, [00:19:00] you’re probably not gonna shoot for availability, but I mean, it, it’s not, uh, it’s not all site that we’ll have turbine down for a while, but I mean, uh, until the weather gets, uh, warm again, it, it could take some times. As you guys seen in Texas when the big ice storm come in, there was like, for two weeks everything was shut down until the sun is warm against sun.  Allen Hall: Yeah. And I’m wondering in Canada, because you’re so far ahead of things that are happening in the states, in a lot of aspects. The use of these anti-icing coatings, these sort of spray on rub on coatings, that getting a lot more activity around and seeing more and more and more places. Have you had experience with that? Are you, are they trialing that up in Canada and what is the outcome of that? Uh, yes they do. Uh,  Alex Fournier: another farmer trying it, uh, my experience with it, uh, I had the chance to install it a couple years ago. Um. But at the same time, uh, [00:20:00]it will be, um, if you install it in a place that have a lot of erosion, uh, well then you’ll, you’ll apply your paint and then after a couple of, uh, summer, and then you’ll need to reapply again. So if, if someone is okay to have people coming to reapply. Every year, every two years. Um, I mean, that, that’s good. But if, uh, if I was in charge of a wind farm, it will go for a more, uh, a more bulletproof approach. So we don’t need to come back every year. ’cause I mean, yeah, you need to mobilize team, you need to buy more product. You, I would need to check the numbers. Uh, but, uh, on my side it’s, I, I see it as the same thing as when you buy a tent and you put some, uh, spree on it to make it, uh, water repealing. I mean, it will work for a couple of weeks, and then you’ll wake up with your feet wet. If there’s some farm owners that have different, uh, opinion and they, they apply it and it, it works for them, that’s awesome.[00:21:00] Uh, but from my background, I think, uh, that, that will be the, uh, I’ll go for more like, uh. A better approach than paying.  Allen Hall: Well, I know having good Blade people up in Canada is really critical and Enerteck is a place to get them. What does your spring look like? Are you starting to get booked up already? Uh, spring is still pretty busy. Alex Fournier: Spring is still pretty busy. Uh, but yeah, we’re starting to receive some bookings from next year, for next year, so that’s really good. Um, this year it’s been pretty late, like people were reaching to, uh, reaching out to us in like March. Um, but now I think that we made our name and, uh, we’ve been putting some stuff out there, so people are now reaching out, uh, right now to have some, uh, people for next year. So that’s, that’s good.  Allen Hall: And you’re gonna be at some of the conferences up in Canada and around the world at least I see. In us once in a while. Where, where are you gonna be for  Alex Fournier: this winter? I’ll try to pass by, uh, [00:22:00] OMS, um, from ECP. And, uh, proud of the American clean power. And, uh, by the end, well, we’re already planning the end of next year, but, uh, we’re gonna be at Hamburg too. Wow, that’s terrific. Yeah, from what I’ve seen is that European are always a low nudge in advance than, uh, everyone. So. We’re trying to go there to see all we can bring back, uh, that knowledge in Canada.  Allen Hall: So you’re everywhere. Well, that’s good. And if, if, if someone wants to connect with you and try to get scheduled for the springtime and get some blade repair or other work done with their turbines. What’s the best way to reach you? LinkedIn is the best way. I’m always  Alex Fournier: on it. I’m a big fan. Uh, I I love it. So just, uh, shoot a text on LinkedIn and I will send you my email and we can get in touch.  Allen Hall: Yeah, so reach out to Alex Forney on LinkedIn, but you can also reach out to Enerteck on the web. What’s the web address? Uh, enter take.ca, E-N-E-R-T-E-C-K and up in [00:23:00] Canada. Alex, we love having you on the program. It’s great to connect like this and I hope to see you soon in person. Oh yeah. That would be awesome. Well, thank you guys again for  Alex Fournier: having me, and it’s always a pleasure to be there and uh, I will see you guys soon.