The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

In this Uptime Spotlight, Joel Saxum discusses the C1 Wedge Connection with Managing Director of C1 Connections, Jasper Winkes. They explore how this innovative wind turbine foundation interface addresses challenges in the expanding offshore wind industry, especially for larger turbines. The design benefits include structural enhancements, faster installation, lower maintenance needs, and possible cost savings for both offshore and onshore wind projects. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Joel Saxum: I’m Joel Saxum filling in Allen Hall’s shoes as your host for this innovation focused guest episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. Today we’re talking about wind turbines and massively important connections in between the towers and transition pieces. Bolted L flange have been used for decades to connect steel cylindrical structures. We know this. However, as the wind industry continues to push structural engineering limits with increased capacity for these behemoth wind turbines, specifically offshore, a need for new tech to solve the loading problems has emerged. Enter stage the C1 Wedge Connection. With over seven years of development and two years in the field Jasper Winkes and team have developed the next generation of steel structure connections. Jasper, welcome to the show. Jasper Winkes: Thank you very much for having me. Joel Saxum: Great. So we, you and I talked a little bit off air about kind of the technology where it’s been, where it’s coming, where it’s going, but it’s driven by offshore industry trends, right? We’ve all seen, if you look in the North sea, small turbine big, Bigger, all of a sudden now we’re 15 megawatts and some people around the world are talking about what could be the next generation. What are those trends that are driving your technology? Jasper Winkes: Yes, indeed. As you mentioned, we’ve seen a massive growth in turbine size over the years. And on one hand, that’s of course the growth of the rotor. And they always say the rotor is the motor. So you need large rotors to extract energy from the wind. But of course, large rotors also require tall towers. So we see that there’s an exponential increase in overturning moments over the past years whereby essentially the bolted L flange has now reached the point where it is already struggling to deal with the loads and soon will no longer be able to take the loads. And of course, where that point lies is really project specific but it’s an issue that has been flagged by many industry experts for years already. That L flange has been used since we started putting steel together hundreds of years ago, so in, but in a turbine, you see the L flange in between every tower section in even up in the tower, some places, right on, in a cell on blades, whatever. But what we’re focused on is tower connections and even the transition piece and some of that monopile interface. So where, and what are the issues that these, the traditional L flange technology, you explained it to me, maybe you can explain it here to our listeners. Yeah indeed, we see that the heavy loaded connections, and of course, the more down the substructure, the heavier loaded the connection is, because you’ve got a longer lever arm to where the rotor is pushing on the structure itself. You see there are overturning moments which are already approaching one giga newton meter. For people to put it in perspective, that’s a 50 kilometer long stick, and then you lift a Tesla at the very end. So it’s massive loads that need to be transferred through these interfaces. And the problems that companies are having is, first of all, there’s a limited number of bolts that you can put on a certain circumference. So for a bolt at L flange to scale up further, at a certain moment, you cannot fit any more bolts on the circumference. So then the next logical step would be to grow in bolt size. But for a long time, the M72, so a metric dimension stud size was the largest stud in the industry. But we now see a massive base where some companies are considering M80 and even M90. And that basically brings you into a field where on one hand also your flanges are growing massively in size. But also the tools that you need to handle. We’re talking about tools that can easily weigh 70, 80 or maybe even more kilos. So there’s a real challenge in getting those connections made and then on top of that everything of course needs to be done under time pressure. Because there’s this expensive installation vessel that needs to wait for either the transition piece or the tower to be connected to the foundation. And we want to solve that issue. Joel Saxum: Yeah, so the other, you go bigger in bolt size or you need more bolts so then all of a sudden your tower would just start increasing in diameter to a point where it doesn’t, the cost efficiency isn’t there anymore in the tower. Jasper Winkes: Yeah, so at a certain moment you would have to increase your base diameter, but of course a larger base is exactly in the splash zone attracts more wave loading, which results in more fatigue damage in your foundation. So The optimum is basically not having to increase your interface diameter that much, but still being able to connect it properly. And our connection technology allows that because you have a higher ultimate capacity, a much higher fatigue capacity, and we can enable both safer and faster installation. Joel Saxum: Okay, so let’s dive into the technology itself now. I’ve looked online and I’ve checked out some of your white papers and this stuff and it looks to me, you guys have done a great job of marketing the thing because. From someone who is not a structural engineer, I can look at it and go, okay, that makes sense. But maybe you can explain in better words than that. Jasper Winkes: Let’s kick off with the reference. The reference is the the L flange, which is essentially two flange bodies, which are connected to a tower and foundation. So let’s focus on that interface for now. They’re welded at the factories and offshore they need to be connected. So it’s basically a flange that’s protruding inwards into the tower and they are sticking studs in. But it also means that the stud or the bolt is not in the line of the, where the load is transferred. So it’s an eccentric connection by default. What we have is we also have a flange connection. However, the flanges are different. We have a fork shaped upper flange and a shaft shaped lower flange, which are welded to both the tower and the foundation. And they slide into each other. And then we have a fastener that is radially inserted from the inside of the tower in that fork shaft combination, and thereby pulls the shaft on top of the fork. And it’s essentially a preloaded connection, with the main difference being that it’s not eccentric. So we have a centric connection, so it’s directly in line with the load transfer path. But we are generating a very high preload with a stud which is basically perpendicular to the load introduction. And we are increasing the load by the means of wedges. So we are pulling two wedges together that essentially force two bodies apart. And that way people can see it, of course, online how that generates a symmetric preloaded connection. Joel Saxum: Okay. So I think the, one of the most important things here when I look at this is, okay, if I’m a traditional flange connection, it’s literally on my desk here, I have two coffee cups. It’s like setting two coffee cups on top of each other. And then the crane has to hold the top piece and you got to figure out how to get the studs or the bolts in and make it all line up, or maybe put some pins in or something. So you have this. this moment or this time during construction or during connection that is I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a highly critical moment. All hands on deck. Make sure this thing goes perfectly right because you’re not only trying to put load down, but you’re trying to align it to get into the holes correctly. But your technology and like the way you weld the flange on is the way the flanges are designed. You remove that critical moment where once it sets, it’s. It’s in place. Jasper Winkes: Yes, indeed. So Indeed, current installation of L flanges has this time critical also safety critical moment where you’re trying to land two flanges and with some kind of pins, they try to line up the holes. We’ve taken that in into consideration when we designed our connection. So essentially when the upper flange, which is then part of the tower is lowered onto the foundation, there are several guides and bumpers that align the tower directly in the right orientation. Such that the moment that the flanges connect, we have a quick connection system that directly connects the tower to the foundation. And once that connection has been made, the crane can directly disconnect the tower from the yeah, the tower can be directly released and you can start lifting, for example, your nacelle. So you can save significant amount of time. Joel Saxum: The safety part of this is a big thing. Talking. To many people in the industry and you watch you see these photos and stuff of a couple of technicians up inside of a tower section and the cranes coming down with a piece and they’re trying to line things up it just seems like We should be more advanced than that as a, as an industry. And I take from my subsea oil and gas background, right? So subsea oil and gas, almost every single thing that gets connected in the subsea world is connected in the manner that you guys are proposing and when, what your technology is. There’s guide basically, A lot of times it’s as simple as a piece of angle iron. That’s a guide that brings things on, but there’s a lot of cone, like convex, concave. They all go, they fit together because you don’t have the capability of having people down there or other methods of support. You just have to make sure that when you land the top side or the top piece into the bottom piece, it has to align physically correctly and it has to mate and make a good connection. So that, idea is what you, it’s not what you’re based on. I’m just trying to put two and two together here. That same concept is exactly what you guys are doing, which you’re increasing speed. So efficiency and installation, you’re decreasing the HSE risk by having this thing basically locked down when it gets there. And I, and putting less people at risk, I think is the big thing. Jasper Winkes: Yeah, it’s indeed a, it’s a big thing, which is part of our design by default. Everyone, of course, says that’s yeah, safety is important, but very few people in the end are willing to pay for it. But I think the benefit of our connection is that on one hand, it’s also a lot lighter than a traditional Elf Lounge. So we’re typically 50 percent lighter and it also allows for significant savings on both the tower as well as the foundation. So in the yeah, basically the total investment is expected to be significantly lower and then If that would also enable much safer installation, it should be a no brainer. Joel Saxum: Yeah absolutely. So one of the things that you had mentioned to me off air was that when you set that first, or when you set the top piece on, because of the way the connection is, you’re, you have a quick connect method where it’s four bolts and you’re moving on to the next piece. Jasper Winkes: Indeed. So it’s an X number of of blocks that we insert into the into the flanges that essentially prevent the flanges from from separating again. It’s a little bit like a remotely operated shackle as you probably know from oil and gas. Joel Saxum: All right. So let’s get into some of the benefits of the technology itself. First one being reduction of LCOE. And you touched on that a little bit, but it goes a little bit deeper than just the installation phase. Jasper Winkes: Yeah, so there’s several savings possible. The first one, of course, if you look at design, in MPTP design, we expect significant savings can be made. We’re also working on a large joint industry project that allow a lot of developers to basically learn about those potential savings. Another point where significant money can be saved is in the maintenance. Because our connection is less sensitive to a preload loss we basically enable in the future for the connection to be fully maintenance free and that I think is the holy grail of connections. So designing something that is very robust and also enables some maintenance free installation. Joel Saxum: Yeah, because right now you guys this C1 wedge connection is DNV certified, right? But as it sits right now, you guys are still doing, because it’s a new technology, right? It’s been in the field for two years. It doesn’t have the L flange 60 year history as we know. But you, DNV has stated in this certifying right now that you still are visiting it every so often to make sure that all the connections are in place. Yeah, so DNV, Jasper Winkes: Takes a precautious stand, which is good because in the end people rely on their expertise which basically indicates that initially you want to do some basically inspections that indeed the connection behaves as it should. But they also understand and they also approve that in the longterm, if indeed the connection behaves as we all expect. That it can be maintenance free. Yes. Joel Saxum: Yeah, that’s fantastic because classically, it’s difficult enough onshore to go and do your torque and tensioning, 10 percent or, marking, like going every turbine, going to every flange and checking every bolt to make sure everything is good, that’s difficult enough onshore, now go offshore and you have to get all that tooling, all those people from a sea, from a CTV up onto the transition piece up into the tower, that’s a difficult and very expensive project offshore. So if in the future. That part of O& M maintenance can be eliminated? Man, Jasper Winkes: that’s huge. There’s there’s definitely large potential savings to be made there, yeah. Joel Saxum: Okay, cool. So then we’ll get a little bit deeper into the technology part of this thing and the engineering, the structural engineering part of it. Higher ultimate capacity and high fatigue capacity Can you walk us through those concepts with the project? Yeah Jasper Winkes: Typically our connections are ULS based, meaning that if we have a load set for a specific turbine what is most governing for our design are the extreme loads. So when we know those extreme loads, we know the dimensions of the connection. We have built a tool that also takes all kind of imperfections to account and we can make a design in a matter of seconds. And what we typically see, that because our design is ULS governed that very same design then basically only needs to go through all the fatigue checks. And we typically see that fatigue is not governing the design, which is unlike a bolted L flange connection, where it’s continuously a battle between ultimate and fatigue capacity. And now and then companies even need to take shortcuts whereby they have to go towards mailing flanges in order for yeah, the connection to survive the fatigue life. To me, it Joel Saxum: just makes sense. I think that the future of the wind industry needs innovation like this, right? There’s, there hasn’t been very many step changes in innovation offshore in from what I’ve seen now. Of course, I’m, I don’t see every corner of the market or everything everybody’s doing. But every turbine, say even the ones that are being installed in the United States right now, and the ones that are being installed in Taiwan, the ones in the North Sea, everything kind of looks the same. The vessels are the same, but this is something different. So let me rewind a little bit and ask you. How did you come up with this problem statement? Why did this project start? Where did C1 Wedge Connection come from? Jasper Winkes: Yeah I was visiting conferences, which were about foundations. And at those conferences, there was continuously discussion about the issues around the Bolt at Elf Lodge. So that sort of planted a seed towards potential improvements, and in the end led to to to this connection being developed. We’ve worked very close together with one of the largest offshore OEMs. We also have a very close collaboration with Delft University here in the Netherlands and I have a great team working with me on this on this solution. So over the years we’ve spent. Tens of thousands of hours engineering and testing this solution. And it is very convincing and we also get that as feedback from the market. But of course there’s a large investment, which is placed and relies on the structural integrity of this connection. So we are basically being scrutinized to an extreme detail. You could even say the level of scrutiny is significantly higher than flange because that was already the state of the art. But it’s okay. I fully understand it. And so far we’re only getting very positive Joel Saxum: reactions. Oh, fantastic. So what we’ve seen is seven years of development, two years in the field. So what does the future look like for the C1 wedge connection? Jasper Winkes: We have several projects upcoming that will also be announced in the media once we are allowed to to say something about it. But it’s quite clear that larger turbines require heavy capacity connections, high capacity connections and that’s exactly what we can deliver. And for us, it’s a matter of convincing all those developers that have joined our joint industry project of the structural integrity by actually delivering a full scale connection, showing how fast we can make that connection, how easy it is. And also of course, show the cost savings that can be obtained by using this kind of connection and all that will basically yeah, pave the route for implementation. I love it. Joel Saxum: So we’re talking cheaper, which is always good. High capacity, faster installations, safer installations and less O& M spend in the future. To me that sounds like a home run for an innovation for offshore wind. So Jasper, if someone wants to get a hold of you guys in the C one Connections team, how do they do it? Jasper Winkes: You can go to our website, so it’s www.c1connections.com. And you can contact us through the website. Also if there are any developers interested in the joint industry project, we’d be happy to inform you. Yeah, and in general the technology directly allows these kind of savings, but also for certain onshore projects. If you, for example, have locations where you have limitations in terms of tower diameter this connection allows you to basically hold on to that slender tower that still passes under the bridges and doesn’t require a T flange at a height of 20, 30 meters up in the air. So it’s both offshore and onshore that we’re focusing on. Joel Saxum: Oh, that’s fantastic. Yeah, in the onshore world some of these wind farms that are like, we talked about the Sunzea wind farm that’s going up in the United States right now. That’s 3. 6 gigawatts. There’s going to be hundreds and hundreds of turbines out there. And if you’re able to increase the efficiency at which they’re put together and decrease O& M costs in the future, I think this technology should be implemented onshore as well. Of course Jasper Winkes: The biggest pain right now is is offshore. So that’s where we’re focusing on. But we see definitely a lot of traction in the onshore market as well. So yeah, bring Joel Saxum: it on. Bring it on. I love it. Jasper, thanks for joining me here today on the Uptime Podcast and best of luck in the future. Thank you very much for having us.

This week on Power-Up, Allen and Phil discuss Bachmann’s turbine monitoring system that combines vibration and acoustic sensing, Blade Robot’s innovative drone delivered LEP robot, and a vest that allows you to carry your pets with you. 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! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to Power Up, the Uptime podcast focused on the new, hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow along with me, Alan Hall, and idasaur’s Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future. All right, Phil, our First idea is called a method and device for monitoring a machine state of a machine system, in particular a wind power plant. Now that’s a lot of words for what is relatively a simple concept from Bachmann, and their idea is a means of monitoring for natural vibration patterns, which is kind of what they do already. So this falls right into their Their skill set, where they’re looking for natural vibration frequencies of a wind turbine over time, and the, the beauty of this system is as the wind turbine ages and vibrations start to change a little more erratically, they can point out that something is off. Not necessarily be able to pinpoint it without having more data, but to say, Hey, this wind turbine has been altered. Let’s go take a look at it. Bachmann does a lot of updated control systems for a number of turbines. This could be rather Phil Totaro: interesting if applied. And here’s the really cool thing about this. I think if you’re familiar with like motor racing, for example Formula One racing, they actually have. People who spend all day listening to their own car and their competitor’s car to try and get the acoustic signature of the engine and see whether they’re running it at full power, whether they’re de-rating it, or whether or not there’s like a, some kind of a mechanical issue during the course of the practice sessions, qualifying or the race. And, and that’s kind of what Bachmann’s adopting, is that same type of philosophy, to not only do the, the vibration monitoring, but combining that with the acoustic sensors that will allow you to determine if the pitch of your gearbox has changed a little bit through mechanical wear. A lot of just the vibration monitoring can throw up a lot of false positives. So combining the acoustic detection capability with the vibration monitoring actually, hopefully, improves the quality of detecting positive, well, we’re calling it a positive, but detecting an issue. In the in the mechanical systems. So, kudos to, to Bachmann for, for coming up with something quite innovative. And, and I think that this is something that they are if they’re not already using it, they are going to be using it commercially soon. Allen Hall: Well, in the area of leading edge erosion, there’s been a lot of work from a number of companies and Blade Robots, which is an outgrowth of Festus. Has a new concept, which I, I think I’ve seen, Phil, where they have their leading edge robot, and if you’ve been at any of the international conferences, you may have seen this robot where the blade is sitting horizontally on the turbine, so everything’s uptower, and the robot sits on the blade and then starts sanding and grinding and applying a new coating, As it moves towards the root, pretty slick. The, the issue with this whole approach though, is how do you get this robot on the blade? Well, they’re, they’re identifying UAVs as the means to lift and to mount this robot, and at the same time once the robot starts, it’s moving. leading into erosion cleanup process, the UAV remains attached. So that’s always a concern from operators. I have this robot up there. Does it fall off? Well, in this particular case, no, because the UAV is hanging around to make sure everything goes okay. This is a, this is really a different approach, Phil, than other means of doing leading edge repair from technicians on ropes to other robotic means. Placing a UAV with a large robot to fix leading edge repair is Phil Totaro: It is, and it’s, it’s really about time and cost efficiency, because normally, even the first generation blade robots approach, it was kind of a crane pick and crane delivered solution, where you’d have the blade in a horizontal position and then you would use a crane pick to get this thing up, Blade, which again involved kind of a precision, control and precision lowering of this thing so that it, it got onto the blade and in just the right way and wasn’t going to further damage the blade with this crane pick. But then, you’d run this leading edge repair system along the length of the blade. And when it was done, you had to kind of crane pick it back down. So as we all know, cranes are expensive. And when you start talking about, hub heights of 120 plus meters, a crane pick for this kind of a leading edge repair technology can get expensive. So. Drones are actually a really great way to not only deliver this, but significantly reduce the cost. Again, I think they’re still in the testing phase, as far as we know with the, the drone delivered solution. I believe they’re actually looking at this right now in, in Denmark and, and perhaps in Germany. But at the moment, if they can make this work, this can be a huge time saver and cost saver for not only fixing the leading edge erosion and, and any other leading edge repairs that need to be done, but also getting this, this autonomous repair platform up there and, and doing its job in, in, in a time and cost efficient manner. I think this is, this is fantastic. Allen Hall: Fun Patent of the Week is by Bryce Belisle, and he has come up with a unique device. It is clothing with transparent, enclosed passageways for small pets. The garment, which can be a vest or belt of some type, allows pets like hamsters and mice to be viewed as they move across the wearer’s body. And The little passageways are integral to the clothing and terminate in pocket like chambers for feeding and retrieval. Now, the patent images, Phil, are really fascinating because they show these pets, I guess, I don’t, wouldn’t have a mouse as a pet, but people do, in their natural habitat. So the, the vest has got all these colorful things on it, so the, the mouse feels like it’s at home, I guess, running through these passageways. Now, I, Phil, I haven’t seen this before. I’ve been around a lot, a lot of the world. I’ve never seen anyone use this. I’ve been to California, which I thought was where I would see this. I’ve never seen it Phil Totaro: there. This has to be, I mean, look, we’ve had the bird diaper on the show. We’ve had The method for swinging on a swing sideways. We’ve had spackling a hole in the wall. We’ve had the motorized ice cream cone. I gotta be honest, this one takes the cake for me, because from the perspective of, like, things that are totally impractical yet rather entertaining, this has gotta be At the top of the list, like, why would you ever, I mean, okay, the fact that you might have like a gerbil or mouse or animal maze on your vest. But why would you need to carry your animals with you? I mean, maybe if you’re really that passionate about animals, this is a great invention for you, and it’s maybe sad that nobody ever bothered to commercialize this, but I don’t know what is going on with this thing. I certainly would not be carrying small animals with me in this manner.  This is for the true animal lover, Phil. Allen Hall: You gotta be dedicated to carry your pet around in tubes on your body.

This episode Allen and Phil examine China’s move to end its domestic wind turbine price war and its global market implications. They discuss Germany’s countermeasures and the complexities of international manufacturing in the U.S. wind industry. Additionally, they highlight an innovative bolt tensioning system featured in PES Wind Magazine, showcasing advancements in wind turbine maintenance technology. 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! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Well, Phil, a Minnesota man has won the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh off with a 2, 400 pound squashy dub. Travis Ginger of Nalvin traveled his gargantuan gourd to the competition in Half Moon Day, California, of course, Phil, not for where you are where it was placed on a massive scale and dubbed the heaviest in the contest. The win marked Giger’s fourth top spot win in the Safeway World Championship pumpkin weigh off. And if you’re not from the United States, Safeway is a grocery store. It’s Really big in California and a couple other places. So a 2, 400 pound squash. Now that’s not the most he’s ever. grown. And back in 2023, he raised a 2, 700 pound pumpkin named Michael Jordan. Now I don’t understand why they have to name these things. That is the mystery to me is why would you have to name a pumpkin or a gourd? It is what it is. And it’s just heavy, right? Philip Totaro: I mean, I’m, I’m impressed not only by the, the growing of something that large, but the logistics of getting it from the Midwest out to California. I mean, we talk in the wind energy industry about the logistics around, shipping components and, and things like that all the time. I mean, how the hell do you even truck a 2, 400 pound? And that’s, that’s gotta be a pretty, that’s got, that’s a big rig right there, isn’t it? It’d be Allen Hall: Travis to start. Moving some blades around. There’s been some blades that look like they’ve been moved like pumpkins, I’ve seen lately. Yikes. Philip Totaro: Yeah, well, Aion, we did catalog the fact that blade damage was the number one cost impact on, on repairs, so. Maybe this guy can teach the industry a thing or two. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’ll be joined by my Uptime co host, After these news headlines, France is making waves in offshore wind development, announcing plans to tender for 9. 2 gigawatts of projects in the coming months. This includes two fixed and three floating wind farms to be built off the coast of the Ficon, Brittany, the Gasconia Gulf, and the southern Mediterranean. These installations are part of France’s ambitious goal to have 45 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2050. Francis, Energy Minister, emphasized the importance of these projects for the industrial value chain, urging companies to maintain their local presence for turbine manufacturing and installation. Crossing the Atlantic, Hydro Québec and Lyons, de l’Energie de l’Est. has unveiled a plan for a new wind farm in eastern Quebec. The project, which could generate up to one gigawatt, represents a three billion dollar investment in the region and spans over 700 square kilometers. This development also includes First Nations marking a step towards economic reconciliation. The project aligns with Hydro Quebec’s strategic shift towards collaborating with communities from the outset. In the United States, the Vineyard Wind Project faces new scrutiny following a turbine blade failure in July. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has ordered the company to conduct a site specific study evaluating the environmental harm caused by the incident. The study will characterize the subsea debris field and assess potential impacts on onshore, offshore, Coastal and offshore resources. The order requires Vineyard Wind to submit a detailed sampling plan, including methods, media, and biota to sample. The development comes as the project remains under a suspension order, though modified to allow continued installation of turbine towers and nacelles. while prohibiting power production and blade installation. On a more positive note, Greece’s Hellenic Cables has secured a partnership with the Leading Light Wind Project, one of the largest offshore wind farms planned for the U. S. The company will supply 65 kilometers of 132 kilovolt interarray cables for the 2. 4 gigawatt project, which is set to power over 1 million homes in New Jersey. Located about 40 miles off the coast of New Jersey, leading light wind is expected to spur 3. 7 billion in economic development. Benefits and create thousands of local union jobs. Across the pond, GB Energy’s chairman, Juergen Meyer, has unveiled ambitious plans to transform the publicly owned company into a UK version of Denmark’s Ørsted. Meyer envisions GB Energy evolving from an investment vehicle into a major power generator. operating its own wind farms, tidal power projects, and carbon capture schemes. The company is set to receive 8. 3 billion pounds over the next five years to drive its investment program with an initial focus on floating wind, offshore wind, hydrogen, and nuclear energy. Lastly, Abu Dhabi’s Mastar and Spain’s Iberdrola have completed turbine installations at the 476 megawatt Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm in Germany. The project featuring 50 Vessus turbines, each with a capacity of 9. 5 megawatts, is expected to produce 1. 9 terawatt hours annually, enough to power 475, 000 homes with clean energy. This milestone is part of a broader partnership between Masdar and Iberdrola which includes a 15 billion euro joint venture announced at COP28 to explore offshore wind and green hydrogen projects in Germany, the UK and the US. Masdar, which aims to reach a 100 gigawatt capacity target by 2030, sees Europe as a key contributor to its growth strategy. That’s this week’s top news stories. After the break, I’ll be joined by my co host, CEO and founder of IntelStor, Phil Totaro. Well, Phil, a lot of news coming out of China, where pretty much all the major Chinese wind turbine manufacturers have pledged to end their price war against one another, which is sort of following what the solar industry has done in China. Now, news reports are saying there have been 12 turbine companies involved, which include Gold Wind, Envision, Mingyang, Shanghai, and Dongfeng. And, as everybody knows, there’s been an internal price war there for a little while, and it’s hurting the sector and hurting profit margins. Now, this is a little bit unusual because they agreed, these 12 companies agreed to put a price floor. In which they wouldn’t cross for both solar and wind to help restore the industry. That is usually frowned upon pretty much everywhere else in the world, where you get multiple companies to agree to what the, the bottom end of the price market will, will, will be. At that point, it’s, it’s considered collusion. In the United States, you can’t even do that internationally without getting punished in the United States. I, I understand why they’re doing it because they feel like there’s a lot of difference between what Vestas charges and what they are charging. Maybe they ought to push themselves up a little bit and get more into the profitable regions of the economy and start forcing, stop forcing themselves to compete with one another. But doesn’t that trigger a lot of EU oversight and U. S. oversight into that marketplace? Philip Totaro: Well, it’s okay. So this is a fascinating kind of occurrence because, as you mentioned, this has been going on for a while where You know, they’ve been in a race to the bottom with each other in the domestic Chinese market. Now, what the Chinese also want to be able to do is leverage those cheap labor rates, raw material costs, et cetera, to produce turbines in China for export to other markets, particularly where they’re going to be able to go in and and deliver projects, either, deliver turbines or deliver turnkey projects in conjunction with EPC contractors from China and potentially finance from Chinese banks where, they can leverage this, this low production cost to basically undercut Western OEMs. So this. Move. This, and we can call it a collusion kind of a move. You’re, I don’t think you’re, you’re wrong to suggest that, because in, in a Western economic system, this absolutely would be considered anti competitive, but it’s actually probably a good thing for them and seems like it might end up trickling down to be a good thing for the rest of the industry, in that If they’re going to not continue to gouge each other’s eyes out in the domestic Chinese market, keep in mind that this, this price fixing thing is only for China. So they’re, they’re basically agreeing that they will create this floor, this price floor and not gouge each other’s eyes out on, on margins anymore in an environment where they’re actually all Suffering. They all have a lot of cash because their, their top line is good and they’re, they’re getting a lot of revenue but their margins are, are thinner and thinner every year and that’s what they want to be able to address with this is, okay, let’s stop hurting each other because at the end of the day, companies, particularly publicly traded companies in the U. S. or the U. S. Western Europe, they’re all focused on next quarter and next quarter’s results, next quarter is whatever. But at the end of the day, the Chinese are trying to figure out ways in which they can be globally competitive in the next like 20 to 50 years. On the back of this news it was also reported that Vestas stock went up by, I think it was like three to 5 percent the other day. Which kind of makes me chuckle because, again, at the end of the day, this isn’t actually going to impact a company like Vestas that much. Vestas already doesn’t sell a ton of turbines in China, so the fact that they wouldn’t really be subject to this agreement, and they weren’t a signatory to this agreement either, it was only for Chinese companies and only a It makes me scratch my head a little bit as to what the, the equity analysts and trading houses of the world are thinking about about this kind of deal and the impact it’s going to have on a company like Vestas. Allen Hall: They’re triggering all those reactions because if you just read through the noise here a little bit. The Chinese government is allowing them to raise prices. So in that sense, it’s a subsidy straight from the Chinese government to the wind companies to keep them all alive and profitable. Which then makes the, their initiative to push out Chinese made products into the power industry more powerful. That’s essentially what it does. Because now, if, if the EU is. looking at this properly, I think, in the U. S. also, they’re going to see it as a straight subsidy, which is what it is. Because there’s no way that they can allow 12 companies to sign an agreement to raise prices without the Chinese government agreeing to that. That’s why they had the meeting in Beijing to talk about it, I’m sure. But if it’s a subsidy, and it’s collusion at the same time. There is no way that the EU is going to sit on the sidelines here and let China do what they want to do, and that may even include parts of Africa, parts of South America, that there will be a reaction to even that. Because now they’ve essentially are playing by a different set of rules and the EU hasn’t been willing to go that far. Philip Totaro: Right. And, and, well, you just brought up two good points. One is the only mechanism that the U. S. administration or the EU and their competition commission really has is for anything that’s outside their jurisdiction, they can go to the World Trade Organization and file a complaint there. But the, the reality of it is That that’s kind of the only mechanism and, and look, it’s going to take so long to get through a, a WTO dispute resolution that the, the commercial impact of these actions is already going to be felt for years before, I mean, it’s going to be five or seven years before the WTO makes a ruling on any of this, going back to your other kind of bullet point on this is, this is a decision that the Chinese government has made. And, and look, at the end of the day, maybe you don’t like communism and certainly we can probably all agree that you don’t like China’s human rights record. Their government has made a decision to subsidize their domestic industry, and many different domestic industries, but renewables in, in particular, because they want, and they’ve seen the success of solar and they want to see a similar success in global market domination for their wind companies. So they’re making a choice. Their government is making a choice to subsidize their, their companies so that they can not only thrive domestically, but they can also try to take over the world. And the reality of it is, all right, if you’re gonna compete with that, then, Hey, EU and Hey, U S government, you’re going to have to find ways. You can’t just apply countervailing duties and expect that that’s going to solve a hundred percent of the problem. Because frankly, it’s not. But the reality of it is, you’re, you’re gonna have to find ways of getting your wallet out. And figuring out how to also support your domestic companies that we don’t benefit from the same cheap labor rates because we have such high pensions because of unions and other things that, we, we’ve got higher costs. Overhead and labor costs, we’ve got higher raw material costs, because again, we don’t get the benefit of having access to cheap materials from China. This is why, I think, part of the solution is, alright, look, China’s restricting exports of things like rare earths. Elements that we use to make things like permanent magnets, both for wind turbines and EVs and other things. Why not apply not just a countervailing duty on Chinese imported goods, but why not say, All right, we’ll let you, import this much, two gigawatts worth of your equipment into our market in exchange for, Hundreds of tons or hundreds of millions of tons of, rare earth element being increased in your, your export quota. But Allen Hall: there’s, there’s a huge difference, I think, between what the EU could possibly conceive of and what China is doing. They are directly subsidizing every manufacturer. And I’ll give the US case, I’ll pull the EU out of this for a minute. With the IRA bill and you’re getting to PTC tax credits, right, so you’re looking at production tax credits, you’re looking at some manufacturing tax credits, primarily it’s production tax credits at the moment, that, those funds go to operators. It doesn’t necessarily raise the prices of wind turbines as we have well seen. The, the operators, the investment groups tend to, to take those subsidies and run with them and there’s their beneficiaries of them. The GEs and the Vestas and the Siemens of the world are not participating in that. The Chinese scheme is totally different. They’re going directly to the manufacturer. They are subsidizing their manufacturers, which produces a different outcome. So I’m not even sure the EU or the US could create the same sort of situation in the legal framework that China has done. That in, in a sense, gives China a huge advantage. If, if, if I was the Chinese GE, I would then know how much revenue I’m in theory bringing in because my government’s exporting me. I can only have a minimum price floor. I know roughly the profits I’d make over the next year, roughly. Here, they don’t have any clue. It is, it is really difficult, and they’re losing, and let’s face it, they’re losing money. So, now, now, now you take two, two significantly different economic models, and it’s now Godzilla versus King Kong. That’s gonna get ugly. Philip Totaro: Well, for anybody who’s seen the movies recently, it does get, it does get ugly. Allen Hall: It gets messy. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of fallout all around them if you watch the movies. Philip Totaro: But here’s the thing though, even the IRA bill we have in the U S that has manufacturing tax credits baked in, that’s not for existing factories. That’s for new factories and new products that are actually, for the most part, being investigated right now by foreign companies. And not even just from China, but in India, South Korea Brazil, that are looking into how can they take advantage of domesticating production to be able to capture this IRA money that’s being made available. It’s, it’s a subsidy that’s supposed to be benefiting domestic production, but it’s benefiting foreign Owned companies that are looking to domesticate the production who haven’t done so already, so it’s not even really leveling the playing field because it doesn’t really even go far enough to, to subsidize the, the domestic corporations that have already made a substantial capital investment and want to be able to continue their order book and their manufacturing. Capacity, it, it, it kind of comes back to, all right, well, if you don’t like what China’s doing, it really only is because you don’t like their economic system. You don’t like communism and you don’t like, their, their human rights record. I mean, what they’re doing, you could call it unfair from a financial and competitive standpoint, but they’ve made a choice and we’re unable to match the choice that they’ve made. And that’s what this really boils down to. We could, we could choose what our priorities are but when have we ever really prioritized industry? I mean I’ll tell you when, Phil. We prior we prioritize industry in times of war. Yeah. And, and that’s got that was kind of my point with all this is We’ve only ever made choices to, to, support industry when we, we can’t do anything else. Otherwise, the government in particularly in the U. S. is very kind of laissez faire, hands off and let the market sort itself out. And that’s supposed to be capitalism. But, there’s a lot of people that complain, oh, the government supports our industries. Not to the same level that the Chinese government supports theirs. And that’s the reality of the world we’re in, and the industry we’re in. Allen Hall: Sure, but you’re seeing a shifting model in the United States, and I don’t want to dwell on this too long, but from 1945 until, let’s just say, 1975, maybe 1980, There was a post World War II where the rest of the world had destroyed itself and America was left pretty much unaltered in its manufacturing capacity and let America explode, right? So then all of a sudden the U. S. became a huge exporter. The world is now stabilized from that horrific World War II event and some of the subsequent wars. Now, now it’s competing on economic, economic fronts that are just different than they were 60, 70 years ago even. So every, every economy has to adapt to the, to the new playing rules. I’m wondering how far the US and Europe are going to go. on this new frontier. That, and that’s where I, that’s where I think we ought to look at because I want to come back after the break here and I want to talk about what Germany is doing. Being the largest state in Europe, they have a lot of weight and some of the things they have just done to push back on China, I think are going to be implemented elsewhere. As busy wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial and let’s face it, difficult. That’s why the Uptime Podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit PESWind. com today. Allen Hall: Well, Phil, Germany is introducing a set of state guarantees for wind energy production as part of a package to boost its wind industry. Now this move comes amid concerns about Chinese firms gaining momentum in this sector. A couple of key measures here are in expanding upon a bank program to include guarantees for a sustainable transformation, approximately 16 billion euros in guarantees are needed to ramp up production for 2030, and then expanding cybersecurity regulations to include all companies with access to power generation facilities, and obviously that’s directed at China. The government aims to reduce dependency on China for critical components like permanent magnets and Germany plans to use existing EU tools and trade protection measures to ensure fair competition, right? So you’re now seeing Germany be a lot more proactive and, and obviously watching what China has just recently done, they’re going to go into high gear and they will not be the last one. You, I’d imagine France is going to be right behind them and a number of other EU countries are going to want to do this. There’s where your shift is going to happen. And I, I think in some measure, the EU being a block of nations can throw significant amount of weight at China about turbines coming into their Philip Totaro: countries. Right? They can. And again, it’s, as we were talking about even before the break, it’s, it’s a choice that, that can be made. The choice that Germany’s making is interesting because they’re obviously going very heavy on the, the anti dumping. Duties and countervailing duties on a, kind of anti subsidy, what they’re calling it. Regulations, but the, the reality of it is that only precludes the Chinese companies from manufacturing in China than importing into the EU. So that’s not necessarily going to have an impact on, companies like Mingyang who want to set up a factory in Germany, for example or in, in Italy with the recent agreement that they also struck. Saini is also looking at setting up something in either Spain or Germany, so, that’s not going to stop the Chinese companies from necessarily coming into the market, it’s just the way in which they come in is going to be affected. Allen Hall: But the cybersecurity touches all those areas, Phil. As soon as a Chinese company plants themselves in a neighborhood somewhere, the cyber security groups are going to be highly focused on that Chinese facility and the number of Chinese nationals coming in and out of it, so it wouldn’t be very difficult just from a cyber security, national security, defense aspect to go, to say no, just to honestly say no, And that is the move. I mean, ultimately, it’s going to come down to something like that, which is defense related more than it is industry related. Philip Totaro: In all likelihood, I’ll agree with that. But here’s the, here’s the flip side of it. These countries in Europe all have, priorities about job creation and, and, tax base creation. And so whether it’s a Chinese owned company or a U. S. owned company or a German owned company, if they’re coming into a market trying to create jobs, the question is how long will that debate go on about cyber security versus or national security versus job creation and tax base creation, because while your economy is growing and your domestic companies are, are all ramping up production and, and things like that, that’s an easy conversation to say, well, we can keep the Chinese money and we can keep the Chinese industry out, but if your economy is stagnating or going down then you have to potentially invite foreign direct investment in. And let them, as foreign owned entities, create the factories, create the jobs, and create the tax base that you’re not getting from your domestic industry anymore. Lightning is an act of God, but lightning damage is not. Actually, it’s very predictable and very preventable. Strike Tape is a lightning protection WeatherGuard. It dramatically improves the effectiveness of the factory LPS, so you can stop worrying about lightning damage. Visit weatherguardwind. com to learn more, read a case study, and schedule a call today. Allen Hall: Blue Wind company specializing in high performance composites has secured a contract with GE Vernova to manufacture the WT 20. wind turbine nacelle cover. Since the partnership began in late 2019, BlueWind has delivered over 2, 000 units of the 2X nacelle cover. This new generation of the WT20 model is more robust and has a higher power generation potential ranging from megawatts, so BlueWind is expanding into the 3x platform. The key differences here and the newer models is it has thicker panels and some more metal mounts for easier maintenance. And it’s about a meter longer and they’re making it a little bit tougher, it looks like. So Blue Wind estimates they’re going to produce about a thousand of self covers for the 2X GE platforms over the next year, so a thousand more 2X platforms are going to happen. And Blue Wind has invested about three million dollars in its industrial structure, including new equipment, CNC lines, fiberglass cutting machines molding machines, all those kind of things. Cool things and plans to double the number of employees to about 300 by the first half of 2025. Now going back to our discussion about outside U. S. companies manufacturing components in the United States. This is one of them. Blue Wind is based in Brazil and very similar to the aerospace business where Embraer has a factory in Florida also and Airbus has a factory I think in Alabama. You have international companies coming to the United States taking some, I would assume this is going to fall into the, some of the manufacturing tax credits, Bill. And, obviously, GE wants it to be domestically produced, and there are, I’d assume, U. S. employees making some of these nacelles. So, this is good in a sense, right? You’re employing U. S. U. S. Well, I don’t want to say U. S. citizens. I’m not even sure that’s going to be the case. But, we’ll just say, we’ll just assume that they’re all U. S. citizens are making these nacelles. Is that really beneficial at the end of the day if they’re outside the U. S. based companies? If it’s something as critical as power infrastructure, at what point do we say, well, we’d like to have a couple of U. S. based companies involved in this? When does that, when does that Philip Totaro: happen? When, the price of gas and oil is probably less than half of what it is today, to be perfectly blunt. Because, the, look, the reality of this is we, and we’re not, going against Blue Wind here or anything. They, they have done a fantastic job at, at kind of growing their, their global footprint. And, and look, they’re, they’re also playing under the rules. And the scheme that the, the DOE has kind of created and, and the, the federal government to the US has, has created with the IRA bill. So the, the reality of it is okay, they’re, they’re creating. U. S. jobs, quote unquote U. S. jobs, because, again, there, there might be some foreign workers in these factories but at the, at the end of the day, they are also foreign owned companies, which means that any profits that they generate, they have the option to repatriate that back to, in, in the case of Blue End, it’s Brazil, in the case of, Siemens or, or Vestas, it’s Denmark, and, and in the case of Nordex, it’s, Germany and, and Spain. Blue so it, at the end of the day, I, I go back to my statement before, how is that necessarily that much different than what the Chinese are, are proposing to do with, coming into a market like the U. S.? Allen Hall: Because I can’t build a factory in China Philip Totaro: without their approval. I get that. But that’s kind of the thing is, if they come over here and spend the money to build the factory here. And they’re hiring for the, 90%, U. S. workforce. Mean, is that not still creating value for, let’s say they put up a factory in Florida? Is that not still creating value in Florida? Allen Hall: It’s creating jobs in Florida. It’s creating a tax base in Florida, right? Obviously, Florida is a beneficiary because of the taxation bit that whatever the company makes in Florida Employees pay taxes. So therefore, yes, it’s a net benefit to the state of Florida. Philip Totaro: However, it’s a foreign owned company. And in the case of China, it’s, it’s, potentially not only government, but military investing in, these, these corporations. And, and look, I, again, I, I antagonize on, on this point a lot because I’m trying to draw the distinction of, it’s, it’s, they’re not actually doing anything that would be substantially different than what we’d be doing if we were prepared to open our wallet and spend in the same way to, to subsidize our companies, but for the fact that the U. S. Army is not directly invested in, like, renewable energy corporations and, and, ex generals or, or current generals are not directly on the board of directors of, of, G. E. Vrdova and, and, what have you. So, but going back to your original question, which is when are U. S. companies going to be able to, to take advantage of this? The, the reality of it is, US companies don’t have, I mean, we already missed the boat from a certain perspective, because we, we might have technical competence to manufacture things like nacelles over here and, and do fiberglass. But even the other company that, that does a lot of GE nacelles is, is Danish. So, at, at the end of the day, like, we don’t create enough Opportunity for the domestic companies to even get a foothold into the market because the barrier to entry at this point in the, in the maturity of the market is so high that they can’t even really do it if they wanted to. And the government certainly doesn’t create the mechanisms that they would need to in order to, to, to do it. Cause these manufacturing tax credits are great, but the bulk of the benefit of the tax credits, the way it’s structured goes to companies like GE because GE negotiates. with Blue Wind, for example, to take advantage of most of the benefit of that tax credit. Because, Blue Wind manufactures and sells domestically, but then GE’s the one doing all the final assembly with domestic made components. They get the, GE gets the benefit of the tax credit. But the manufacturing Allen Hall: tax credit is not a significant part of that ARA bill. The production tax credit is where the majority of that lies. Now, the logic goes, well, you have to have foreign companies come in and manage these American workers to build these components. Com No. Really? If you’re using American employees in an American factory, and you’re using American products to build the thing, then, at what point do you not select an American company to do the work? It’s basically the same dang thing. The only thing that’s happening is, is that if it’s a foreign based company outside the US based, they take the profits, onshore them into their country, and it doesn’t stay in the States. It’s essentially the difference there, but it is relegating your domestic energy production system to other countries in some critical areas. Maybe not Nacelle housings may not be one of them because I’m sure you could spool up somebody in the states in about 30 days to go do this. However, there are some other components in there where you couldn’t. And I, I think that those are the ones that you have to be really careful about. And, and what from my perspective, just watching at it at I’m at 10, 000 feet, but also my 10 feet there, I’m, I’m watching both these simultaneously. What I see is the lack of understanding of what those critical pieces are and to put emphasis on them from a government standpoint. It’s the energy grid, for goodness sakes. Thanks. We have never let it sort of wander around and be built willy nilly. And we’re, we’ve always looked at that as a infrastructure as being part of the nation’s defense system in a sense, because it is. Are we going to then put up the political will to say, Hey, look, we’re going to start doing some of these things in the States and there are plenty of companies to choose from. Pick one Philip Totaro: and go. Well, and, and Matt, that was kind of my point is, part of what we just talked about in the previous segment was how Germany is trying to create incentives even to, to get off, Chinese produced goods. The whole point is we, we are still as a, as a planet. Globally dependent on China’s rare earth element supply chain to be able to either produce magnets for us or provide the rare earth element raw materials and then we refine and produce magnets over here. So until and unless we can either create substitutes and alternatives to that supply chain, we are going to be dependent on that supply chain. That is elsewhere, as opposed to, we, I mean, this is also part of the problem is, okay, again, it’s not going to be applicable for things like fiberglass in the cells. But for some of the internal guts of wind turbines and even solar, we don’t have the raw materials and the depth of capability to, to refine and produce the raw materials at the same cost level. That they would in, in China. Allen Hall: Oh, I’m not saying it’s going to be the same cost level, Phil. What I’m saying is there are other places where those minerals lie and why are we not going after them in, Philip Totaro: in some form? The expense, but that’s exactly, it all comes down to money, Ellen. Allen Hall: Right. But if we just spent 700 billion on an IRA bill, what do we have to show for it at times? And then that’s, that’s the, that’s the reality, right? The reality is when you start looking about what the long term effect of the IRA bill has been over the next five years, what is going to be the legacy here? Will we have more US based manufacturing? Will we have more even in Europe? I mean, cause Europe’s going to do something similar. Will Europe have more EU based products built by EU companies and EU citizens? I Philip Totaro: don’t know. I really don’t know. This even goes back to the conversation of priorities, because you’re saying, how can we create opportunities for the U. S. in the U. S.? This is also choices that the DOE makes to go and spend a billion dollars subsidizing carbon capture, whatever. Nonsense, where A, they’ve got, they’ve got the, these oil and gas companies have the money, if they wanted to invest in that, they could invest without billions of dollars from the DOE doing that. Why is the DOE spending money on things that are not to the benefit of creating this national and domestic security by creating the domestic supply chain for things like renewables, which are seeing increased penetration in, in the market? In Allen Hall: the latest edition of PES Win Magazine, a number of great articles. You can always find them at PESWin. com. There is a tensioning system by Tension Pro and it’s called the Quantum System. And I’m always a proponent of bolt tension versus bolt torquing. I know there’s still a lot of dispute about that, but the tooling that is coming from Tension Pro is great. Is really good and it’s a lot easier than it used to be. So if you, if you take a look at the article, just go to pswin. com. You can actually see this tensioning tool. So it grabs, grabs the bolt, pulls it to tension. It’s all hydraulic. It’s really slick. And the amount of data that they are recording when they do these measurements and do these tensioning exercises. It’s pretty much you plug it in and it just goes and stores all the data, which is a huge, huge time saver. I’m always shocked when I don’t see these, like these quantum systems out in service, because it’s going to save a tremendous amount of time, that data recordings. Yeah, Philip Totaro: and if you think about it, what this technology is, is they’re, they’re able to, tension a bolt, but monitor the amount of pressure that’s being applied and record that so that, normally when, when you’re, hand torquing or tensioning anything, you’ll, you’ll do that and then you’ll mark it off. Based on, a gauge. And if you see that this mark that, that was put on, the, the, the double nut system that’s usually utilized, if we’re, especially if we’re talking about like tower flanges or base flange on, on the turbine that system is, is potentially, it’s, it’s the, the most kind of simplistic system we could invent, I guess, for what we were willing to spend. And in the past, because turbines were so small, it didn’t necessarily make sense to invest in all this, data acquisition system along with your, your torquing or tensioning system. To be able to capture the, this relevant information. But if you’re doing the commissioning work on, on a project and you need to ensure that everything’s being done, A, in the most time efficient way possible, and B, with the same kind of reliability and consistency, this is absolutely the way to go. Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s truly amazing. And to check out Tension Pro’s quantum system, just go to PESWIN. com. That’s gonna do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Thanks for listening and please give us a five star rating on your podcast platform and subscribe in the show notes below to Uptime Tech News, our Substack weekly newsletter. And check out Rosie’s YouTube channel, Engineering with Rosie. We’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

In this week’s News Flash, Allen and Phil discuss Xcel Energy adding 4.2 GW of clean energy to the US Midwest, The European Investment Bank’s partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo to unlock up to €8 Billion for clean energy, and Empire Energy and The Herrick Corporation’s partnership to form an offshore wind venture. 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! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com  Welcome to Uptime News Flash. Industry news, lightning fast. Your hosts Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, and Phil Totaro discuss the latest deals, mergers, and alliances that will shape the future of wind power. News Flash is brought to you by IntelStor. For market intelligence that generates revenue, visit www. IntelStor. com. Excel Energy plans to add 4. 2 gigawatts of clean energy in the upper Midwest by 2030. The plan includes 3200 megawatts of wind, 600 megawatts of battery storage, and 400 megawatts of solar. This could reduce regional emissions by up to 88 percent compared to 2005 levels. The company will extend operations at two nuclear plants and has cut one planned gas plant. The remaining gas plant will be hydrogen capable. Now, Xcel Energy notes that the wind power remains key, but solar deployment is lower than previously considered due to economic factors. Factors. Phil, this is an interesting approach by Xcel Energy that they’re really focused on wind. I was at a recent conference where a lot of wind operators said that their focus over the next couple of years will be on solar for a lot of their operations. Philip Totaro: Well, and, and Xcel has been traditionally very solar focused but the fact that they would pivot to wind at this point themselves is reflective of the market dynamics for wind and price stabilization and in the merchant markets, as well as for utility power offtake agreements and the fact that they’ve Excel has committed to building more transmission in Minnesota North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, and, and even out into Michigan, that’s going to facilitate some of this capacity build out. So, the fact that they’re kind of putting these plans in place and getting approval from the, the various state regulatory bodies to, to be able to build both the transmission and then, this wind solar and battery storage cap Capacity. That’s very impressive that, they’re, they’re going to be able to push forward with it. It doesn’t obviously uncork any more than what they’ve committed to thus far again, because of the, the transmission constraints, but at least they’re, they’re committing to, starting to fund that process of, building out more transmission and modern transmission that will allow for more renewables to to achieve penetration on their their portion of the grid. Allen Hall: Empire Energy Partners and the Herrick Corporation have formed a joint venture to enhance the US offshore wind supply chain capacity. They will explore manufacturing components for fixed and floating offshore wind projects, including monopiles, transition pieces, secondary steel and towers. The venture combines Herrick’s steel production experience with Empire Energy’s EPC capabilities. This is fascinating, Phil, because we really haven’t seen this sort of partnership in the United States yet. Over in Europe, this happens quite a bit. Will we see more of this sort of de risking, but at least trying to move forward on offshore wind? Philip Totaro: I certainly hope so. And this is actually in direct response to them, being in line for contracts for some of the upcoming wind projects that we talked about last week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. So, particularly in the northeast of the United States. So the fact that they You know, are, are moving forward with this partnership and the fact that it’s going to cover more of the domestic production of things like, like you mentioned, the transition pieces, secondary steel some foundation and tower elements, that’s, that’s great because a lot of that stuff was otherwise going to come from Europe or, or Asia. For a lot of these U. S. based projects. So, the more we can domesticate and the more they can try to take advantage of the manufacturing tax credits that we have as part of the IRA bill that’s, that’s a good thing for domestic jobs and creating a domestic economy. Tax base and supply chain over here. Allen Hall: The European Investment Bank and Intesa Sanpaolo have launched an initiative that could unlock up to 8 billion euros in investment for the European wind industry. The EIB will provide a 500 million euro counter guarantee to Intesa San Paolo, enabling the creation of a 1 billion euro bank guarantee portfolio. This will support the supply chain and power grid interconnection. for new wind farm projects across the EU. This initiative is part of the EIB’s 5 billion euro wind power package announcement at COP28 and is the first agreement under this package supported by InvestEU. Well, Phil, this is a way to kick off this InvestEU program with a really substantial Amount of euros being pushed into renewable energy. Philip Totaro: And it’s coming at the, at a time when a lot of folks in the EU are sensing, this increased pressure from the Chinese trying to enter the market and saying, we need to do something to bolster. European companies with, with investment. So this is, as I’ve kind of complained about at various times on, on the podcast before this is something that is, has long been kind of overdue and, and necessary get your wallet out and, and start kind of putting money behind domestic production including, from, from this Italian bank where that has the potential to support. Companies like Festus and, and frankly, even it could end up supporting companies like Ming Yang coming over but that’s also a situation where they’d be coming into the EU, creating jobs in the EU, playing by the EU’s rules by creating a factory here or there. A investment like this, frankly, goes a long way when a European company gets an order book, but they don’t have the cash on hand to be able to support, all the supply chain sourcing they need to do. So this gives them guarantees to be able to get access to, the, the tooling, the parts, the, the components that they need to be able to do the manufacturing that’s going to allow them to keep capturing more order book and delivering on the order book they already have.

This episode Allen and Joel speak with Bill Slatter, CEO of Eleven-I, about their innovative blade monitoring technology. Eleven-I’s sensors provide real-time data to detect and prevent blade damage, potentially reducing maintenance costs and improving turbine efficiency. Gain insights into the challenges of wind blade lifetimes, the importance of proactive monitoring, and the future of blade condition monitoring systems in the wind energy industry. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, joined by my co host, Joel Saxum. As we have all experienced, wind turbine blade failures can lead to costly downtime and repairs. And Eleven-I is tackling this challenge head on with their innovative monitoring technology. Their systems provide real time data that helps increase efficiency and reduce maintenance costs. And if you are new to Eleven-I, they are based in the UK. Near Manchester, England. Today, we’re joined by Bill Slatter, CEO of Eleven-I. We’ll be discussing the challenges in Windblade Lifetimes, Eleven-I’s solutions, and the impact on the industry. Bill, welcome to the show. Bill Slatter: Thanks for having me. Allen Hall: There has been a number of horror stories over the last several months in regards to Blades And I know Eleven-I has been called into action on some of those because I’ve dealt with the operators on those projects but there does seem to be a lot of blade issues at the moment. And it mostly, at least in my opinion it evolves from not knowing what is actually happening with the blade. Bill Slatter: So one of the things that Eleven-I is trying to do is not just detect damage, but help understand what’s causing most of those damaging conditions. It’s something that we’ve. We’ve been trying to pioneer is yeah, picking out what causes damage, not just picking out when it’s happened. Is that already too late? I think that’s one of the things that the industry is picking up on. We need to Obviously pick out that damage earlier on. What would happen if we could actually get to the point where we’re preempting damage and stopping it happening? Joel Saxum: So I think Bill, that’s one of the things of course we’ve known each other for a couple of years now, and that was one of the things that originally, when I was in my blade life attracted me to you and your solution. Of course, I like working with you because you’re a nice guy. But, on the other side of that, it is what Eleven-I brings to the table as far as its CMS technology, and you immediately caught me when we had our first call and you showed me a presentation about, and you’re like, this is an active movement of what’s happening in the blade now, And you guys are doing things rather than, hey, we’ve detected a crack, it’s, we have these physics engines, we’re trying to do, we can, we’re looking at modeling fatigue over lifetime, we’re trying to understand why these issues are happening, or being able to warn operators or give them flags of hey, you’re overloaded here, or you’ve got this going on, Before, and what we feel like a lot of other CMS systems do, they’re like, Hey, problem, flag, come and inspect. So can you walk us through a little bit about what sets the Eleven-I solution apart from the rest of that Blade CMS marketplace? Bill Slatter: Absolutely. I think one of the sort of things that perhaps differentiates us from some of our competitors is that we’re active in a number of similar markets. So we’ve got systems that are being used for in blade test facilities to help understand the bit that blade behavior when they’re in the testing phase. We’ve also been used by OEMs to help understand the behavior of wind turbine blades. They’re the newest, it’s a prototype turbine. And they want to know how that may differ from models and actually see how that blade behaves in the real world. So the type of work that we do in these engineering projects really help. help us to understand what real life looks like and what blade behavior should be, or maybe it shouldn’t be. And that helps us then get to the point where we can help people understand what is causing that damage. And also, I’ve said that before, but We have detected damage when it’s occurred, we’ve also been dropped onto blades that they know have damage or very high susceptibilities to damage and successfully detected those damage modes. I think that’s the big thing is that, if we set our mission statement, it would be detect damage, detect the causes of damage, and then try and prevent damage. Allen Hall: Yeah, it does seem particularly with newer blades, We don’t have a lot of service history. We don’t really know what those failure modes are. And because as we’ve seen on a number of operators, the blade sets are made in different factories in different parts of the world that, which may have different materials built inside them and different approaches to building those blades. The mechanical response of. A set of blades on a particular turbine may not be the same response as the turbine next to it. That is a huge problem area at the moment for the wind industry. What do we do about that? How, what is, what, first of all, what do you think is driving some of that besides manufacturing? Is it just because we don’t understand some of the physics involved? Are we guessing we’re getting newer, Modes of failure because of the blade length? Bill Slatter: New technologies enormous blades, reductions of safety factors and then as shorter innovation time as possible this is why we’re in the position where we are. Nobody wants this to happen. But part of the way out of it is to use systems like ours to help understand what’s actually happening on your blades. The blades are generally fairly neglected in terms of condition monitoring. Some of the bigger blades may have some sort of load sensing systems in there. But it’s not something that has been done as commonplace yet. But obviously the industry knows that requirement is coming. We want to be part of it. Joel Saxum: I had a customer that had a problem they knew was a highly susceptible to an issue. And when we scoured the market for what can we use to, to detect this, that what is that next level of CMS that can really dive down into frequencies and all these different kinds of things and have the engineering prowess behind it in the 11i team to be able to tell us what’s actually going on here. We used you guys, and that installation was basically on that project. Now, of course, I’m sure they’re all different, but on that project it was three sensors in each blade. All amalgamated to one control box with power and comms to it. And then you guys were able to, of course, through your dashboard and everything, be able to see what was going on, map, look at trend lines over time, put some great reports together and help that client. That was a specific case, right? We knew what we were looking for and we needed a piece of kit to do it. And I think what makes it something that shines to me here is that Alan and I have regular conversations with say like R and D test systems testing big blades and doing fantastic things in that realm. But there is, there’s just some reality to, Putting sensors in advanced sensors and understanding what’s happening out in the real world, because you can only test so much, even if it’s hybrid testing, throw in some AI, some machine learning, the biggest freaking 25 megawatt generator test beds and all these things. You can only test so much in a lab, but you really need to be able to dive in to get real data in the field. That’s something I think that sets you guys apart, the ability to collect that high frequency, real good data to be able to do the engineering projects from. And what I want to ask you is, and of course, in respect to any NDAs that you have in place, is there anything that you can share with us of a brief case study of something you guys have done or a problem you’ve solved for someone in the field. Bill Slatter: There’s a number, obviously a number of case studies. The project that we worked together is helping the customer understand the best behavior that they wanted to eliminate. Through that project, we also picked up on some of the anomalous behavior that we detected. So whenever we get involved in any of these projects, we try and. We, there’s often a problem statement from the customer, but we always will deploy all of our analytical methods to that data and highlight that to the customer. So I won’t go too deep into what was found there. But, we didn’t just go we went outside the scope of what we set out to do. It’s probably worth talking a little bit about some of the work that we were done with OEMs. Because using the same equipment that we use for that we use in the field for problem solving when people know we have an issue like the type of project that you and I did together, Joel we use the same kit, and we may have a greater number of sensors, and we may be able to get further out down the blade, but we, this is essentially the same kit that’s used For these really in depth validation projects that’s used for these smaller projects. And obviously every time you do a project there’s learnings from that. So the more systems you get out there, the more we’re able to offer all of our customers. And I hope that sort of that, that makes sense to you guys. Allen Hall: It does. And as we have worked with a lot of operators that are buying 10 turbines, a hundred turbines, several hundred turbines. I’m always shocked that they don’t know much about the blade performance before they start operating those turbines. And they don’t implement some sort of more integrated monitoring system onto the blades to actually see how the blades are performing in their particular site. And this is where I want to get into the little magic that Eleven Eye has in terms of what you’re actually doing to the blades and what you’re monitoring on the blades. It is a relatively simple device from the outside, but you are putting some pretty smart brains into the blade. Bill Slatter: Absolutely. What we set out to do is something that’s easily field deployable. I think I probably took, when we talked previously, I told you where my background was. How I got into wind was through transport monitoring of nearly built. wind turbine blades. And I tried to use off the shelf kit, but they just, none of it did the job that we wanted to do. That led me into the development of our system. We can deploy our system in around half a day. So that’ll be between two and three, three or three sensors per blade. And then some work in the hub and everything’s on the rotating side. And it’s something that’s, there’s a fairly practical job. We want some, we want a system that doesn’t need super precision or super specifically trained installers. We want something that can be there’s field deployable and that’s what we’ve got. Yeah, it’s it’s Magnetic solvents are a solution and as I said before, we can play with a number of sensors per blade depending on what we want to look for. Allen Hall: And the cost to install the sensors in the sensors themselves, what are we talking about in terms of cost per blade roughly? Bill Slatter: Currently a system for a full turbine based on two sensors per blade is in the region of six to 7, 000 possibly a little bit less. We’ve got a new iteration that’s coming out very soon, which will hopefully reduce the cost. And yeah, so it’s not a, it’s not a particularly high cost system. And as I say, it’s something that we want to drive the cost down. And yeah it’s something that it’s practical enough that people can potentially use their own techs to fit. Allen Hall: That’s inexpensive if you’ve have new blades compared to the consequences that some of these operators are dealing with at the moment, because they just, don’t know the failure modes and what’s actually happening with the blade. So with those couple of sensors installed in each of the blades, what are you then able to learn from the blade as it starts to rotate? Bill Slatter: So as soon as it starts to rotate there’s initially a small phase of understanding what normal looks like. This, although that’s probably in the region of a couple of weeks, we start to learn, familiar with the output from that, that serves turbine. If we’ve already seen that turbine before we know we’re expecting On top of that, we’ve got specific things that we’ll look out for that we would know about, we’ve got, we essentially what we do is when we’re on these projects you aim to categorize or characterize fault modes. So if you set off with a completely new turbine, that you set fairly wide boundaries for that type of failure mode, but it gives you an idea, it’s a bit like if cars were a mechanic working on a car they’ll have an idea of what that may mean if they see a specific, um, phenomena occurring. So out the back of the system, we can give you ideas of how that blade is moving, the dynamics of it. We can tell you that effectively it’s a work done calculation. So that’s a really good way for us to understand whether there’s just abnormal behavior or whether the blades have been extremely excited by either weather. And we have seen it where blades have been affected by pitch misalignment or also controller issues. And that, these are some of these things you can fix, we figured out and it’s something that was, yeah. And, but I think one of the things that. One of the things that we want to do is help people understand what, things that some things will get ignored because they’re not necessarily affecting how much energy the turbines producing, but it could be damaging that blade, there’s very secret things that people don’t, you don’t really necessarily understand or have vision on because it’s a, it could be something minor that you overlook within the SCADA data. The reality is that there’s a fairly significant knock on to how much energy that those blades are experiencing. So we’ve also detected a number of of blade cracking faults and also root connection issues. So the root bolt connection is something that we’ve seen a couple of times where basically we’re using our sensors. We can pick out either the delamination or just loose connections. Allen Hall: All right. So for 6, 000. Dollars roughly you have an instrumented turbine if you’re spending, especially now, Joel, when you’re buying, it’s essentially no one’s buying less than a two megawatt generator. So it’s about two and a half million to somewhere in the in the seven megawatt generators, we’re starting to see on shore at the minute you’re paying upwards of nine, ten million dollars for those generators. Six thousand dollars seems like it’s simple money to ensure that your turbine is operating properly and the blades are operating the way you think that they are. That makes complete sense to me. There’s a competitive Joel Saxum: landscape, right? There’s a quite a few different systems out there. So what do you see for the future of this is a pretty broad question, but what do you see for the future of blade CMS? Is it going to be something that everybody’s going to start to implement? Are you still going to see onesie twosies here and there for special cases, or what is your thoughts on that? Bill Slatter: I’d imagine that people will. Prioritize high value problems. So we may see people do more trials on problematic platforms. Every, all of the REMs have got issues. So there’s plenty to go out. But the ambition, and I think we will get there is that, there’s a a more joined up approach to O& M, at the moment it’s fairly spread out and people aren’t sharing information, I know it sounds a little bit fanciful, but if we got to that position where There is a sort of more joined up approach to RNM, then we could actually probably reduce the costs and have more uptime, and in the future have more reliable turbines. That’s what we all want, right? For us, it’s a double edged sword, we see these big blade issues and we’re in the right place for it, but the reality is it’s not good for the wind industry. Allen Hall: And we’ve run into a lot of blade teams at operators that really struggle to get data. I’m always shocked by this, that. The first thing they want to know in any sort of blade defect situation that they’re trying to evaluate, they’re just, they’re handcuffed all the time because they just don’t have any information. And then, is it a serial defect? Where else should I be looking for this? They just don’t have the tools. And then it makes sense for, especially Eleven Eye, to come in and provide the tools necessary to complete this task. And I know you’ve been working with a number of operators. What does that interface look like with the blade engineers when they come to you and say, Hey, I think we’re thinking we’re having problems. Please help what happens next? Bill Slatter: So usually we’d obviously have a meeting to discuss how we get the system installed And if we’re working with people with bladestemers Then very often we’ll meet directly once a week depending on the severity of issue. Maybe once every other week It all depends on the issue really and but we also work with other ISPs. So in the past, we’ve worked with some of the companies that you’ve had on here before it’s a fairly small world and that, that offers. Basically, working with them offers a full solution to the customer of, not just what’s wrong, but what do you do about it, and how to do it. And that, that, that’s a very key thing for us. So that’s something we’re very interested in doing is working with people that not only do we just say, hey, this is the problem, but then there’s that next step of fixing it. And. That that, and that’s what we want to happen. And the customer wants it to happen. Allen Hall: How quickly can you get some turbines instrumented and get that dashboard going and start getting those blade engineers some real hard, hard data? Bill Slatter: If we’ve got the systems on the shelf, then we’ll end up with, if it’s in the US, then generally we’ll have the systems out there within two to three weeks. And as I say, depending on the the requirement and the fitting crew we’d hope to have. I think I’d say the use of the first system will usually take a day and then the subsequent systems will take around half a day. As soon as those systems have turned on, then we’ll start getting useful data. And as I say, we’ve got a sufficient analytical tool library that we can start being useful from day one. And then the sort of the real depth and a learning school from when you’ve had a period of learning from that turbine. The ambition for us is, that we’re. We’re fitted for long term projects and we can help people understand the type of the behavior of their blades and the life that potentially use that information for lifetime extension or for O& M scheduling. We can help you, you can tell you straight away which turbines are having are seeing more high energy events. And it’s really interesting seeing this on, on, on wind farms, you can have turbines that are only a few hundred meters apart and they’re seeing radically different levels of energy on those blades, and when I say energy, basically they’re much higher movements from on, on one turbine. Joel Saxum: Bill, let me ask you a question then. Have you been approached by any of these? Because we did patent reviews and some other things we were talking about the other day and there’s the Windescos and the, all these wake steering ideas. Have you been approached by someone to validate one of these wake steering ideas offshore? Bill Slatter: We may have been, we may have talked to somebody about that because obviously, that, then it starts getting really interesting, right? Because it’s that big picture stuff. And that was very exciting. Allen Hall: How would you do that without having some, at least some decent load measurements and how the blades are reacting to the inputs you’re adding to the farm. You have to have some data to show that you wouldn’t destroy the blades over time, right? Bill Slatter: Yep. And obviously we can help with that. So we can give you those, we can give you those comparative loads for the bla individual blades. And yeah, that’s pretty straightforward. If we want, we can also calibrate to give a absolute strain measurement. A load measurement, sorry as well, which is something we’ve done in the past. Joel Saxum: Yeah. If I was someone deploying a new, any new platform specifically in a new geography as well and in difficult places, remote places, offshore, even like Allen in my mind, the one that comes to, of course, sun Zia. Because Sunzea’s two brand new turbine models out in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. It would be nice to have some of those turbines instrumented because it’s a new geography, it’s a new turbine type. And just to understand what’s actually happening in those blades as they experience their first, first few seasons, at least In production because that’s like we said earlier in the recording here, we’ve been ramping up rotor sizes so fast and we’re so far ahead of this curve and we’re trying to, save weight and we’re affecting And those are the kind of things as these blades grow. So I think it’s smart for people to start doing this from the development side. So where are your customers right now, Bill where on the world? Bill Slatter: The majority of our customers are in the U S we’ve got some in Europe as well, but the U S just seems a little bit braver in adoption of new technologies. I think the European market is it’s a bit more mature and they do things the way they do it. But that’s changing, anecdotally, we’ve had customers that we spoke to years ago right at the inception of 11i and they’ve been having problems and, the first time you see a problem, you might go that was a one off. The second time, or the third time, maybe you want to know a bit more about it. Allen Hall: And if a future customer wants to connect with you, how do they find you on the web? Bill Slatter: So there’s the Eleven-I website, which is eleven-i.com. There’s plenty of links to get in touch with us there. Or you can look me up on LinkedIn or the company on LinkedIn and I encourage answering you that way. Allen Hall: So Bill, it’s been great having you on the podcast. I’ve seen your work all around the United States. A lot of companies are using 11i to get the data that they need to make smart decisions. Your sensors are leading that. And if you need to reach out to 11i, go to the website, 11 i. com. Bill, thank you so much for being on the program. Bill Slatter: Thank you very much, Allen and Joel. Really appreciate it. And hopefully we’ll meet again in person soon.

This week on Uptime Power-Up, an idea from Takkion for re-boring the gearbox and adding an insert without needing cranes and a method from Alliance for Sustainable Energy for a fillable wind turbine blade. Plus a way to rest your head while standing up. 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! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to Power-Up, the Uptime podcast focused on the new hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow along with me, Allen Hall, and idasaur’s Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future. Alright guys, this week some really interesting ideas on the docket. This first one has to do with replacing parts of a gearbox. If you’ve been around gearboxes long enough, you realize that there’s a nice set of bearings in them and sometimes the bearings get overloaded. And they start to spin inside the housing. When that happens, it creates some unevenness and you essentially have to pull the gearbox out of the turbine, sit on the ground and work on it or replace it. But this idea from Renew Energy Maintenance, which is a part of Takkion now, I believe, has a way of basically taking some, some machinery, some equipment up tower and re boring. This gearbox, we’re putting an insert in or a sleeve in so that the bearing can be set properly so that the gearbox then functions correctly. Now Phil, this is a big money saver, right? To have a piece of equipment that saves you from bringing in a crane? Philip Totaro: Well, it, and it’s not only that, it’s the fact that, on site maintenance is something that’s always subject to a certain level of precision. But when you start talking about doing gearbox repairs and replacements, and this is, as you’re mentioning, if you basically have a situation where the bearing raceway kind of machined itself out, you’re probably gonna have to fit something new in there. But in order to do that, you’ve got to kind of refresh the bore. And so what this idea is, is effectively a tool that allows you to rebore this hole and stick a sleeve in there, then put the bearing, the new bearing raceway in there so that everything still kind of fits in a, in a compliant way. On the original gearbox housing. But it’s doing so, like you mentioned, in a way that it doesn’t require a huge crane for lifting the gearbox out and lowering it to the ground, where you would normally want to do repairs. Of this level of precision when, when we talk about doing up tower repairs on like a blade, you might be able to, to get away with, shaving things down up there and while guys are dangling off and ladies are dangling off ropes and, and whatnot. These, these technicians. The, the reality of that is there’s a, there’s a certain level of precision involved with that, and you can probably get away with, minor idiosyncrasies or minor variations in, in the quality of that type of work. When you’re talking about boring a new hole in the gearbox housing, it has to be done with a certain level of precision in order for everything to still, fit properly, like the bearing raceways, the sleeve that they’re talking about in this patent application. Everything’s gotta be able to fit in a certain tolerance level. So, the fact that they’ve invented this tool that’s gonna allow for, this repair that would normally involve a large crane pick, or, even if it’s a turbine level crane pick. You’re starting to talk about, extra tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands with a big crane to be able to pick the gearbox out, well, pick the nacelle off, cover off, pick the, the, the gearbox out of the nacelle lower it down to the ground, repair it, then put it all back. This is something that you can basically, pull a few things apart up tower and, and do this machining in situ which is a, a pretty attractive capability to, to have, or any, any kind of repair, so, kudos to Renew Energy Management. Joel Saxum: What this looks like to me is the fact that even if you’re a little bit off in your machining and you got to redo this every two or three years, you’re still going to be money ahead than you were coming out with a crane if you have to redo this process here and there. Now, when you get into anything, just like Phil said, the precision of. machining out anything for a bearing or any kind of rotating assembly. I used to do so I’ve done not used to do, but I’ve done some high performance engines in my past. And if you get something just a little bit wrong, like you’re it’s toast, right? So the fact that they’ve figured out a way to do this, Fantastic. I think this could be a good, really big boost to the industry. I don’t know personally if Renew is doing a Renew Energy Maintenance is doing this out in the field or not, or if someone else has licensed it from them or not. I do not know. But I hope they are. Allen Hall: Well, our friends at Alliance for Sustainable Energy have a patent out that talks about basically a fillable. So the concept is you build sort of a superstructure of sense and within you cover it with fabric and inner and an outer fabric cover. And haul this lightweight, inexpensive piece all the way out to site. And when you get to site, you can assemble it. But then at the end, you fill the two fabric layers between the two fabric layers with foam to then create a wind turbine blade shape. And there’s been a number of ideas like this, like GE had something similar to this, where Had a fabric covered sort of superstructure to lighten the blade up and to make it shippable. There’s been a couple of attempts at this. This one is a little more unique, though, Phil, in the sense that they’re using a filler or foam to create the final shape. Philip Totaro: The, the Alliance for Sustainable Energy part of what they do is they serve as the holding company for the intellectual property assets of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the United States. And so this technology is something that not only was developed with government funding but is theoretically, able to be licensed or sold to to anybody in the industry that, that would want to try to, to build and implement this, or at least partner with NREL to kind of further this this area of research. So, while this is a clever idea, and I use this term quite a lot, I think this is clever, that’s clever. It is indeed a clever idea in that, the engineers came up with a unique solution to something that is a challenge in terms of transportation and logistics. Do I really like this though from the standpoint of it could be used in industry? Probably not because this is a little too, there’s too many kind of unknowns as well as differences from conventional technology that, you don’t win prizes for, for, clever ideas really at the end of the day. Supply chain companies that build and sell components for wind turbines, they do so on the premise that It’s part of a system that can be, looked at as financeable by both the development community and the financial community and the insurance community for that matter. This doesn’t necessarily fall into that category of, it’s, it’s unfortunately a bit too radical or it’s too much of a departure from conventional technology, I think, to be really widely used in industry. Is there some type of application that this could have in the future, potentially? Even potentially from the standpoint of repairs, because you could, you could see designs being tweaked in the future to allow for, a cavity where you could have some kind of, foam core that could be pumped in and, and could solidify into. A cavity that could provide some kind of structural support or something like that, that, if you detected there might be an area of cracking or damage around the tip, maybe you could have something where you could, pump in some kind of foam core or foam supportive material So there could be aspects of this that could eventually be used in the industry. Do I see this replacing conventional blades in 10 to 15 years? I do not. Joel Saxum: In my mind, I could see this working for like, an off grid application with a seven meter blade or something of that sort. But when you get to utility scale size, there’s just not enough consistency to be had with it. And if it fails, that failure is just too damn expensive. To rely on a technology like this. That’s my opinion. Allen Hall: Well, they say necessity is the mother of invention. And this is the case with this particular patent and our fun patent of the week. It’s an apparatus that sticks to the bathroom wall above a toilet, urinal, or some sort of shower head if you’re in the shower. And it allows the user to lean their forehead against it while using the facilities. This is obviously you can imagine this in pretty much every bar and casino in America. Phil, I think this has inherent problems. Now, if you’re leaning forward and putting weight on your forehead while maybe inebriated, let’s just say it seems like you could stumble and fall and really hurt yourself while you’re trying to use this device. Philip Totaro: That is, that is a possibility, but I, I actually think this is something, I, I can’t imagine if, if the, whoever invented this hasn’t sold, like, millions of these, I don’t know why, because this sounds, as you just mentioned, like it would go into every, public space imaginable, and, and there would be people using it, I mean, I don’t necessarily You don’t think I’d be at a urinal long enough to rest my head, but I could imagine, I mean, even just as a safety precaution, like, you could have something there if somebody’s like, they, they’re a little inebriated, they, they might need, like, head protection against the wall. I mean, I, I like this one. I, I think this I think this has merit. I Joel Saxum: want to see it that can stick to the back of an airplane seat in an airplane. Because I sometimes try to rest my forehead on the seat in front of me and sleep on an airplane and this would be fantastic. See, all kinds of use cases for this stuff.

Renew Holdings purchases Full Circle for £50M, following the UK decision lift restrictions on offshore wind. BlackRock’s holding of voting rights and share in Vestas has increased to 7.59%. And EQT has acquired renewable developer OX2 for $1.58 Billion. 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! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: I’m Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I’m here with the founder and CEO of IntelStor Phil Totaro and the Chief Commercial Officer of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, Joel Saxum. And this is your News Flash. Newsflash is brought to you by our friends at IntelStor. If you want mar, ket intelligence that generates revenue, then book a demonstration of IntelStor at intelstor.com. Renew Holdings and engineering service company base in Leeds has purchased full circle. Group Holding BV, a Dutch firm specializing in onshore wind turbine repair and maintenance. The acquisition, valued at 50 million pounds, was funded through Renew’s existing resources and banking facilities. This move follows the new labor government’s decision to lift restrictions on new onshore wind projects in England. Well, UK government changed and they have become more proactive on onshore wind. That made a nice little market for all the repair companies in the UK to be gobbled up by larger players. Philip Totaro: Yeah, precisely, and at the end of the day Full Circle is one that already has a lot of contracts in place on the aging fleet, so there are going to be repowering opportunities in addition to new build in, both Lower England, Scotland, Wales, et cetera. So you’re, you’re going to see a company like Full Circle continue to thrive, but all the other O& M shops and, and independent service providers over there are going to start probably getting a lot more attention and potentially work if you start seeing more build out in the market. The funny thing about the UK is even a lot of the, well in Ireland you’d have to say too, a lot of the new build, doesn’t always get the OEM full service agreement. So they’ve tended to rely a little bit more on the independent service providers in that market, again, particularly for the older assets. So, this is a, it’s, I guess it’s a good time to be in the The service and repair business. Joel Saxum: I think you’re going to continue to see a lot more of this happen. We’ve been talking about for the last few years is this market consolidation of these smaller ISPs. And I say smaller, but 50 million or 50 million pound acquisition is not a small acquisition. So full circle repairs, but having those contracts in place makes them attractive for an acquisition. So I know that you’ve seen some, there’s been some larger ones scooping up and buying up and buying contracts and a little bit of mark margin compression and things over there in that market. I would still continue to look for, like, Renew Holdings. I don’t know anything about the internal workings of that company, but I would bet this is not their last acquisition. And you’ve seen other large groups doing the same thing. Mulahan and some others. So, keep watching that space. Especially, like Phil, like you said, as the Labour Party has lifted that moratorium on work in the, in the UK. Allen Hall: Vestas has disclosed a notification from BlackRock regarding a change in its group structure. Following the acquisition of Global Infrastructure Management, BlackRock’s holding of voting rights and share capital in Vestas has increased to 7. 59 percent from a previous 5. 36%. The change is effective as of October 1st, with BlackRock now controlling over 1. 5 billion voting rights attached to shares in Vestas. Phil, thank you. Obviously Vestas is a really strong leader on the OEM side in wind. And Blackrock is pushing heavily into renewables. This acquisition, in a sense, does make sense from BlackRock’s standpoint, but does it create issues for Vestas? Philip Totaro: Well, it’s interesting because the global infrastructure management acquisition was really more about the asset ownership and development pipeline and portfolio. BlackRock also, as you mentioned, already had a 5 percent market share. Holding in Vestas as a supply chain company, while these infrastructure investment companies have largely focused on the asset ownership and the project development pipeline, they’re starting to look a little more critically at the supply chain, particularly the OEMs, but also you’ve seen, Infrastructure investors making acquisitions on vessel owners and operators. We just talked last week about Macquarie Group and, and Zyton. But where, where this comes into play for, the turbine OEMs is a company that really doesn’t tolerate, financial losses. Getting involved in a supply chain company that has struggled, at times with, profitability and the fact that they’re going to be increasing their, their shareholding here, it’s, it’s not enough to necessarily get them, a seat on the board or anything like that. And it’s not necessarily enough for them to have anything more than just kind of minor influence. However, it’s indicative of the fact that you’re probably going to see more investment funds start getting a little more vertically integrated in terms of the scope and scale of their investments. Joel Saxum: Yeah, I think this is, this is BlackRock who, BlackRock knows how to make money. They’re a trillion dollar hold, plus holdings company, right? So they’re, they’re, what they’re doing here is hedging their bets that they’ve already made. Like the bet they made in Global Infrastructure Partners as an operator developer, now they’re making sure that they’re getting a little bit deeper involved in what that supply chain is going to be, what that OEM looks like. And like I said, or like Phil said, BlackRock does not tolerate losses. So. As the shares start to grow, you could see some changes at some of these OEMs. Allen Hall: Swedish private equity firm EQTAB has finalized its tender offer for OX2AB. a Stockholm based renewable developer. The deal values OX2 at approximately 1.58 billion U. S. dollars. EQT’s investment vehicle, Otello Bitco AB, has secured a 98. 81 percent stake in OX2. The acquisition is expected to be settled around October 16th, with OX2 applying for delisting from the NASDAQ Stockholm by the end of October. Phil, this is a unique deal up in Sweden. There seems to be more activity happening in Sweden lately economy is right there. What is the next step for EQT as they move forward with this acquisition? Philip Totaro: EQT infrastructure has been getting involved in a lot of renewables projects. We keep talking on Newsflash about these infrastructure funds, plowing money into renewables and in different places around the world. This Swedish infrastructure fund. Is backing, basically one of Sweden’s biggest private non utility developers and OX2 has a huge pipeline of operational projects as well as developmental assets that obviously EQT wants wants a piece of and, the, the thing that we, Kind of gloss over and I hope it’s not lost on on all of our viewers and listeners is in the current market environment where project developers may struggle for access to capital a company like equity has already done a lot of fundraising and has capital at their disposal to spend on. Helping projects get get developed and getting the pipeline moving. So this is a play on the part of an infrastructure investor where, they do see, even though a lot of oil and gas companies or other Companies have have pulled out of renewables investments. A company like EQT wants to be able to plow money in because they see returns. And particularly with OX two, X two’s expanded beyond Scandinavia to the point where they now have a reasonable portfolio throughout parts of Europe, including Poland. So, OX two’s a, a player and they want to, wants to be a part of that. Joel Saxum: Yeah, what, what OX2’s plans look like for the future, backed by EQT now, is to evolve from more of a developer, which you see in Sweden a lot. You see a lot of financial asset owners up there, where it’s a company that comes in, they have the money, they just, buy a project, they sit back and they run it on an FSA or something of the sort. You’re going to see OX2, which they have done that in the past. You’re going to see OX2 evolve into more of an integrated renewable developer and asset owner. So look for them to be more involved in their projects in the future with, bringing engineering support and those kinds of things as well. Which is a, will be a market change from that Swedish market. And, and just to follow Philip Totaro: up real quick on that, the OX two’s been a developer in the past that’s basically followed like the build and transfer type of business model where they’ve sold off a lot of the, the early stage and late stage assets that they’ve developed to someone else who’s gonna own it. And then they may be involved as company that’s gonna help operate. But this gives them, as Joel just mentioned, more of an opportunity to be further integrated. So I think this is a really savvy play on their part.

This episode explores the recent acquisition of a stake in Ørsted by Equinor, discussing its implications for the renewable energy sector. We delve into the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism and its potential impact on wind turbine prices. Additionally, we examine Form Energy’s latest funding round and the challenges of scaling up new energy storage technologies. 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! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: So, down in the south, which is hurricane prone, one of the ways you know to evacuate is to check out the Waffle House. Now, if you’ve never been to a Waffle House in the South, it is delicious for breakfast, or pretty much any time. It’s open 24 hours a day, Joel. You can always go in and get some coffee and some eggs and some waffles. Joel Saxum: The best time for a Waffle House is 2 a. m., because it is Allen Hall: But the weather forecasters at the Waffle House appear to have an inside knowledge of where these storms are going because everybody’s paying attention to if the Waffle House is closed, that means get out of town, or if it’s open, then maybe it’s not going to be so bad. So instead of listening to the National Weather Service or your local weather agency, weather person were relying on the Waffle House to determine the fate of hurricanes now. Joel Saxum: Allen, it’s a little why I made a reaction when you did this is I actually have a LinkedIn post that I put together about the hashtag WH index the Waffle House index that is, was coined by a FEMA director back in 2004. And what it was is he was down in Florida surveying and I can’t remember what hurricane that was, but surveying a hurricane damage and the only place he could find that was open was Waffle House. So he, then he separated into three things. It’s green for Waffle House is all a go, yellow for Waffle House has a limited menu, and red for Waffle House is shut down. And if all the Waffle Houses look red around you, you better evacuate. Allen Hall: It’s a good rule of thumb. And I know people in Western North Carolina. Eastern Tennessee and now sort of central Florida are really going to have a bad go of it. And yeah, serious stuff, everybody pay attention, keep your head down, get out of the bad weather. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’ll be joined by my Uptime co hosts after these news headlines. In a major development for European offshore wind, Total Energies has agreed to acquire a 50 percent stake in two large scale offshore wind projects from RWE in Germany. The combined capacity of these projects is a staggering 4 gigawatts. Located northwest of the German island of Borkum, investment decisions are expected by 2027 and 2028, with full commissioning planned for 2031 and 32. The partnership not only strengthens TotalEnergy’s presence in the German electricity market, but also significantly contributes to the country’s efforts to decarbonize its energy sector. Across the Atlantic, Canada has passed groundbreaking legislation opening up its east coast to offshore wind investments. For Bill C 49 creates a framework for developing offshore wind energy in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The bill amends the Accords Act, allowing federal and provincial governments to jointly manage offshore wind resources. As a result, regulatory bodies have been renamed to reflect their expanded role. The Canadian government sees this as a significant economic opportunity, potentially creating thousands of jobs and attracting investors. billions in investment. In a bold move to support innovative technology, the Norwegian government has proposed a substantial subsidy of up to 35 billion Norwegian crowns, or approximately 3. 29 billion U. S. dollars, for the country’s first commercial floating wind power tender. This support aims to accelerate the development of floating offshore wind technology, which is still Considered immature and expensive, the subsidy is based on a reference project of around 500 megawatts in size, but the actual capacity realized will depend on various factors, including cost developments, and project maturity. Moving to the UK, Leeds based engineering services company Renew Holdings has made a strategic acquisition, purchasing Dutch firm Full Circle Group Holding, BV, for 50 million pounds. The Full Circle specializes in repair, maintenance, and monitoring services for onshore wind turbines in the UK and Europe. The acquisition allows Renew to enter the growing onshore wind services market. Which has been bolstered by the new UK government’s lifting of restrictions. on onshore wind projects in England. In industry news, German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex reported a decrease in third quarter orders compared to the same period last year. However, for the first nine months of the year, the company secured orders of 5, 000 megawatts of wind turbines, slightly higher than the previous year. The average sale price per megawatt of capacity remains stable at 900, 000 euros. with a slight increase to 920, 000 in the third quarter. Lastly, significant progress has been made on the 1. 2 gigawatt Baltic Power offshore wind farm in Poland. The first of four directional drills for the onshore connection has been completed in the Lubja Tova area. This 1. 4 kilometer tunnel will house power transmission cables Connecting the offshore wind farm to its onshore substation. The project, developed by PKN Orlin and Canada’s Northland Power, is on schedule. Construction of the onshore substation is over 40 percent complete, with full completion expected in the fourth quarter of 2025. Baltic Power will be one of the first European offshore wind projects to use Vestas new 15 megawatt wind turbines. And is scheduled to begin operations in late 2026. That’s this week’s top news stories. After the break, I’ll be joined by my co host, renewable energy expert and founder of Partilope Consulting, Rosie Barnes, CEO and founder of IntelStor Phil Totaro, and the Chief Commercial Officer of WeatherGuard Lightning Tech, Joel Saxum. Joel Saxum: As busy wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial. And let’s face it, difficult. That’s why the Uptime Podcast recommends PES Wind magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit peswind. com today. Allen Hall: Well, the biggest news in Denmark is that Equinor, Norway’s energy provider, has purchased a 9. 8 percent stake in Ørsted, valued at approximately 2. 5 billion U. S. dollars. And this is causing a lot of shockwaves around the world because I, I think No one thought that Orstead would ever sell any part of it to Equinor. However Joel, I do think this makes sense from a couple of levels, right, financially at the moment. Joel Saxum: Yeah, there’s from a lot of levels, right? It’s, it’s a win win for both of their goals. So, Equinor being, Equinor is Statoil. That’s the Norwegian National oil company as was dong which is or set as the danish national oil company So you see this transition right dong has transitioned over to be this renewable energy giant Econor continued along its oil and gas path, but Econor has goals by 2050 to have so many so much renewables in their Investment portfolio. This is getting them back Further along the lines to making those goals reality. Also it puts money and some powerful backing into Orsted. So win for Econor on the getting towards the renewable goal side, win for Orsted for getting some more capital behind them. And to be honest with you, if you have Econor that’s invest in part of your company and you’re working in the offshore world, well, Econor is a fantastic offshore player, whether it’s oil and gas or not. They know how to do things and they’ve invested heavily in offshore as well already, right? They’re a part of Highwind and some other cool innovative projects. So to me, I think that they’re not in the press release. They did say that they’re not shooting for a board seat. If I was Orsted, I would almost ask them to be on the board. I mean, you’re here, why not come and be a part of the game? Allen Hall: I think that would create an international situation, and rightly so. But it does, Phil, beg the question, what’s the move by Equinor? Is it just there to back Orsted in a sense that they’re neighbors? They’re all heading in the same direction, because it does seem like, Equinor is getting back into more oil and gas at the moment, while Oersted remains firmly committed to renewables. Is that just a play that both of them can win? That Equinor gets a little bit more of a renewable portfolio without them having to develop it? Yes, Philip Totaro: at its most simplistic level. And largely because, this was touted as a possibility for a while, I’ll say, but nobody ever really believed it was going to happen until it did. But the reality is the reason that it happened was Orsted needs the stability of large minority shareholders like Econor because of not just the, the cash that they bring to the table to help, offset some of the, issues that, that Orsted’s had, particularly with their, their offshore developments in the U. S. But it, it provides that, risk diversification for Equinor in terms of having access to the, to a renewables portfolio without having to directly pour money into it. They’re trusting Orsted’s team to, go and continue the, the offshore and onshore development process. But at the end of the day, I mean, this isn’t like it’s a huge capital infusion, it’s basically, Equinor positioning themselves, if something were to happen and, a larger minority stake or even a majority stake became available, they might be in prime position to step in. Should that occur in the future, nobody hopes it does because, that would mean kind of a financial disaster for Orsted, but it’s just, at this point, it, it’s just like any other, minority investor in any size corporation saying, all right, well, we’re going to take a position. We’re going to hold it. It’s worth, putting a little bit of capital behind it. And and just waiting out what the future brings and then seeing how we, either increase or decrease the position from there. Joel Saxum: I think it’s interesting because you let you in this in the coming at the same time that we’ve seen a bunch of oil majors back out of direct development, right? BP just announced they’re going to sell their whole onshore fleet in the United States. We’ve seen Shell pull out of offshore wind. BP also pull out of offshore wind and focus back with what’s good returns for their stakeholders and shareholders. Whereas Econor, like they’ve kind of dabbled in it and they’re along the same lines where they haven’t, they, they get to dip a toe. They get to be a part of the energy transition, but they don’t have to be the upfront developer. I think it’s a smart move by them. Allen Hall: Rosemary, how does this play in Denmark? You lived there for a while. Rosemary Barnes: I think I’ve mentioned that before on the podcast. I, I feel like in Denmark, they are pretty competitive with Norway about. companies. And in particular, I think that people are still very aware that, back when Denmark and Norway split into two separate countries and they drew the line that would divide, which were Denmark’s waters and which were Norway’s waters. They didn’t realize at the time that they drew that line so that Norway got all of the oil basically. So I think that, There might be, and I haven’t spoken to any of my Danish friends about this, but I feel like there might be some sort of feelings about Norway coming and, you know, taking part of their, yeah, their big shiny national energy company. And I do think that it’s like, it’s a story to be really proud about as well. The Ersted story or Dong story, I don’t know of any other, you oil and gas company in the world that has actually managed to trans transition to a clean energy company. I don’t think that there, there is one where they have legitimately got out of oil and gas and now are leading in renewables. So, I expect that Danes are proud of that and I definitely think that they should be yeah. So it’s also a bit funny with Norway, they have a really, really great green, environmentally conscious reputation and, and, appearance leading the world in electric cars, a hundred percent clean electricity grid. All of those things, but, just slightly beneath the surface is the fact that that’s done based on money that they’ve gotten from fossil fuels both within their country and expanding out. And, I got a little bit thingy about it when. There was a time a little while ago when Norway was making a big deal about we’re not going to exploit the Lofoten archipelago for their fossil fuel resources because it’s too special. But at the same time, they were in that incredibly beautiful part of the Australian coast trying to develop that. So I, I felt like, like as a national kind of thing there where I felt immense hypocrisy from that stance. And there is a really weird tension in, in Norway between all the great things that they’re doing for the world, which I definitely can’t deny that they are. And the people have a, do have an immense love of, of nature and spend a lot of time outdoors and that’s important to their national identity, but at the same time, the funding for all that does come from continuing with fossil fuel projects. So they also have quite a few renewables projects more so than, many other oil and gas companies that like to pretend that they also moving into renewables. I think that. Equinor is actually, seriously intending to have offshore wind and floating offshore wind, wind be a big part of their future strategy. So I don’t want to get too cynical. But it’s just, yeah, it’s a really complex story and it definitely doesn’t just fit into, norway is good, or Ecuador is good in terms of, climate, there’s, there’s a tension and yeah, it will be interesting to see. I can’t imagine that they would be investing in Urstel expecting to take it back to oil and gas, so I’m assuming that this does count as more indication that in the future, where they want their direction to go is more towards the renewables area. So yeah, tentatively think this is probably a good thing. Allen Hall: Phil, it does seem like Equinor is going to acquire about 10 percent total in Orsted. Why 10%? What is the magic number there? Why are they stopping at 10, or is there some threshold? Philip Totaro: No, I, it just, I think that’s probably what shares they could buy either on the open market, or what shares they might have been able to buy from Orsted themselves if Orsted had been doing some share buybacks and had some shares available to be able to offer privately to, uh, to Econor. I, I think the rationale is that they don’t really want to go much beyond the, I think it’s 9. 8 percent if you want to be extremely precise with it. And the reason for that is, again, they, they want to have a, a minority shareholder, and I believe it’s, they’re now the number two minority shareholder in, The in Orsted at this point, so, for them, it’s fine. Again, they just have a little, it’s, it’s kind of a dip their toe in the water jobby at this point where they’re just going to see, how that goes and take it, take it from there. As I said before, they, they may end up increasing that in the future. They may pull out and start plowing their own money back into, their own renewables developments. They, again, unless something drastic happens, I don’t think they’re going to be able to take a majority shareholding for reasons that Rosemary just went into, but at the end of the day, I mean, it’s, we’ll, we’ll see where they go from here, but for right now, it’s just something that provides some, some stability. We’re not a Allen Hall: stock program, so we’re not, we’re not falling stock that close or financial program. The shares of Orsted are way down, like 70 percent from where they were in late 2020, if I believe. So does this make sense from just a financial standpoint that Orsted is only going to go up over the next couple of years in your ROI? From a 10 percent acquisition is just a cash play in a sense. Joel Saxum: If you look at just what, what just happened. So they’re down with Allen, you’re right. It’s 70%. It’s like 61 or something like that from, from early 2021. But just, okay. So they put two in the, so their stock, their value right now is worth about 2. 5. So, upon this, the stock went up, or Orsted stock went up 5. 8 percent in that day. So that 5. 8 percent is worth 145 million in a day. To eor, so Allen Hall: come on, Phil. You’re our insights. You’re supposed to let us know this before it happens, but you’re two and a half billion dollars in it. Philip Totaro: Yeah, but that’s what I’m saying is as a percentage of their overall market cap, it’s not really, that’s why I’m struggling to be as excited about it as others. I guess it’s like it’s. Again, they’re, they’re dipping their toe in the water. Allen Hall: Does it give them insights into what Orsted is going to do before the rest of us hear about it? Because they’re in the boardroom, in a sense? Well, of course. Yeah. Allen Hall: Well, isn’t that a huge advantage for Philip Totaro: them? From a couple of perspectives, one, again, because they are such a large minority shareholder and they’ve publicly stated in, in the Danish press that. Equinor did, that is, that they’re interested in helping to, again, without taking a board seat, which, again, we can debate a little, if you want, why or why not do that. But, at the end of the day, Equinor has said that they want to be able to, help and influence and guide Orsted’s decision making and strategy as much as they can. Or as much as Ørsted wants them to. So, from that perspective, they’re, they’re there. I think it was a bit deliberate the way they said that and what they said in the Danish press because again, going back to what Rosemary’s mentioned, it’s, it’s a little bit touchy between, between the two countries. Yeah. And, and at the end of the day it’s, it’s one of those things where, alright, so they’re providing, like I said, they’re providing some stability. It’s, at this point still a minority shareholding and, they’re, they’re Allen Hall: going to kind of just wait and see. All right. After the break, I wanna talk about something that’s, it’s influencing the price of turbines, particularly in 2026. This. Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and what it means for wind in Europe. Dealing with damaged blades? Don’t let slow repairs keep your turbines down. Blade platforms get you back up and running fast. Blade platforms, truck mounted platforms, reach up to 100 meters, allowing for a quick setup, improved safety, and efficient repairs. Book soon to secure your spot and experience a difference in blade access speed and efficiency. Visit bladeplatforms. com and get started today. Well, a study was commissioned by WindEurope and prepared by the UK consultancy Penta and EY, and it was looking at the impact of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism on The European wind sector, right? So, the carbon border adjustment mechanism based on this analysis, could raise the price of an offshore wind turbine by almost a million euros. Now, there’s some factors into that. It seems like about 25 percent of the turbine is imported and would be affected by this border adjustment mechanism. But first, let’s just take a step back. Rosemary, what is a carbon border adjustment mechanism for those of us in the United States that don’t have one of these things? Rosemary Barnes: We’ve got to call it C BAM, C BAM makes it sound very exciting. Right? So that’s the, that’s the first correction that I’ll make. Allen Hall: Sounds like you’re getting taxed. That’s what it sounds like. Rosemary Barnes: So basically countries that are taking action on climate change, like Europe has a price on carbon for, within the EU, they’re concerned that what that means is that energy intensive products. Won’t be, you won’t, it won’t be competitive to make them within the region anymore and countries without a penalty on carbon emissions are going to be at a competitive advantage and that without any mechanisms in place, you would just say, say something like cement or steel. Instead of continuing to make that locally in Europe, where those companies have to pay for all of the emissions that that generates, you would just see countries outside of the region who don’t have to pay a carbon tax. They would be able to sell them in cheaper. And so those industries would suffer. So, the way that they are getting around that is by having the carbon border adjustment mechanism. To basically level a playing field between inside and outside of the region. Allen Hall: How does that practically happen though? If I’m going to buy steel from someplace else outside Europe, what tax do I apply to that? And how do I know they’re not building or making steel in a green way? Philip Totaro: I mean, Allen, the thing with this is it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, Half of it is, Europe’s doing what they have to do because they’ve already enacted this carbon pricing. But they’re also, never at a loss for shooting themselves in the foot, are they? When it comes to trying to level the playing field. They always do it in absolutely the worst possible way. And this is yet another example of where they’re trying to be fair to anybody that’s You know, going to be leveraging a global supply chain they’re trying to be fair to their own domestic manufacturers within the EU, but at the end of the day, this is why we have global supply chains in the first place is because if you can get the thing cheaper someplace else and import it, you want to be able to take advantage of that price arbitrage, because then the cost of the energy transition, the cost of capital, the cost of everything isn’t, So, putting a tax on things necessarily, compensates somebody who feels like they’re losing whether it’s a government or domestic manufacturers, etc. But, again, this is problematic because you’re ignoring the fact that a lot of these things that are going to be subject to the CBAM are going to be things that we already import which is why they’ve, they’ve done this study. And they’re saying that upwards of, 910, 000 euro per turbine is what the price increase is going to be for not for nothing on a, that’s almost like eight or nine or 10 percent of the cost of a wind turbine. Certainly an onshore turbine in, in Europe right now and an offshore turbine, maybe it’s only 5%, but guess what? Who pays for that extra 5%? as, as electricity rate payers, because if the price goes up, they have to go get more capital. If they have to go get more capital, that increases lending rates and increases all these other things. And that means necessarily they have to have a higher power purchase offtake contract. If the PPA is higher, then the rates that we pay as electricity consumers have to be higher to pay for that extra, that extra 5 percent that’s baked into the PPA. So the point is, you keep finding ways to raise prices and it’s just gonna, ruin it for, for electricity consumers. It’s not gonna solve the fundamental free trade issue that we have. Joel Saxum: But at the end of the, at the end of the day, Phil, exactly what you’re saying, to me, like, at some point in time, you hit a ceiling. We’re You know, you’re not going to be able to sign a PPA high enough to cover this stuff, and you’re just going to stop the energy transition. It’s just not going to happen. It’s just going to be like, it’s too expensive because of all these rules, laws that we’ve enacted. And so we’re not going to do it anymore. Philip Totaro: I mean, Joel, this is the same argument that oil and gas companies are making right now, saying we’re going to pull out of making investments in renewable energy projects because we’re not seeing a return on capital. If you make them even more expensive, then they’re going to keep plowing money into oil and gas, and it’s going to End up reversing progress that’s been made. I mean, it’s, it, you’re, you’re saying it’s going to stop the energy transition. I’m saying it’s going to reverse it. Joel Saxum: I, I just don’t, I don’t like reading about this I don’t understand how anybody sits in a, in a room and writes this legislation or this this CBAM, CBAM, writes this and looks at each other with a straight face and says, it’s a good idea. I don’t, I don’t understand it. Philip Totaro: But here’s the thing. They, going back to what Rosemary is saying, I see why they enacted it. Because if you’re going to adopt carbon pricing within the EU, if somebody’s going to manufacture something outside the EU and, and bring it in, it’s theoretically unfair to the people that have to pay the carbon price tax in, within the EU in the first place. So I, I get it from that perspective. However, what we didn’t address was Rosemary’s earlier question, which was, Isn’t there a way, if somebody can, can demonstrate that this was made in a carbon offset fashion, whether it’s the steel, the concrete, whatever is being imported, whatever would be subject to this eBAM, if they could demonstrate that that was done in a, in a quote unquote green way or, or, carbon offset compliant way, Why can’t they necessarily apply for an exclusion on those goods or, or get, certain companies goods? Excluded from the CBAM if, regardless of where, what country it’s coming from, just say, all right, well, we’re going to make green steel or we’re going to make, yeah, and, and just do it that way. That seems like it’d be funny. A better mechanism. Am I wrong? I don’t know. Joel Saxum: I think that that makes sense, Phil. But I guess what I’m looking at here is in, okay. So just take it from a us standpoint. I know that my friends in Europe are under the same pressures with we’ve had in the last few years is inflationary pressures and some other things that have just like the, the local household is struggling a little bit with finances because of what the global economy has been doing, but now you’re putting. More pressures onto that local household by having to basically because what the local household wind turbine Operators or developers end up being that local household they end up being the one that’s the end user that’s paying for this the same way that if you were buying a car and all of a sudden the price of the car goes up because Imported steel or whatnot with this c bam thing What ends up happening is is I know that there’s a cost associated with energy transition, but some You The general public might not be able to afford it if you just keep jacking up the prices on everything Allen Hall: Isn’t it a real circular argument though if let’s just Well, we can use the UK because they’re not part of the EU, but let’s just use them as an example. So if the UK decided they were going to put a tariff on parts that are going into a wind turbine. All right. So they do this thing and it raises the PPA prices, but ultimately the UK government is accepting those, those offtakes, right? So they’re like taxing themselves and yet they have this pool of money of which they’ve just taxed sitting in the treasury, which I don’t call it a treasury, but then they Then they would just subsidize the cost of electricity generated. It’s just like a pass through in a weird sense, right? Philip Totaro: That’s maybe a specific situation to the UK because they have the contract for difference mechanism. In countries where you don’t use a contract for difference, then it’s, it’s maybe applied in a different way, but I, to your point though, yeah, it, it doesn’t, I mean, how many times have we talked about this on the show, right? Like, but, It’s just governments don’t, they, they put policies in place that make it look like they’re, fighting for energy transition or fighting for the environment or doing whatever it is that they think they’re doing. And it’s probably mostly to get votes. But at the end of the day, they don’t create the market environment in which investors feel comfortable putting money in. In a way that’s going to unlock, the capital necessary to get the energy transition to happen. So it’s like you can, you can try to score all the political points you want by enacting whatever policy you want. And, and, you can go have COP 29 in Azerbaijan and, and everybody’s going to come out of it saying, All right, well, we’re really going to do something this time and nobody’s going to do anything if you don’t create the environment. That makes it possible and necessary for, for investment to flourish and for investors to see return on that capital. In the same way that they see returns in oil and gas or any other investment they could theoretically make. Allen Hall: Well, when we come back from the break, I want to talk about investment into a battery company in the United States, and I want to get, to get Rosemary’s opinion on how it’s going. Lightning is an act of God, but lightning damage is not actually is very predictable and very preventable. Strike tape is a lightning protection system upgrade for wind turbines made by WeatherGuard. It dramatically improves the effectiveness of the factory LPS so you can stop worrying about lightning damage. Visit weatherguardwind. com to learn more, read a case study, and schedule a call today. Allen Hall: Alright Rosie, Form Energy has secured 400 plus million dollars in a series, not A, B, C, D, E. Or E, it’s now at F, financing. The funding round was led by T. Rowe Price, of course. And G. E. Vernova has joined in as a new investor. And if everybody remembers from our discussion a while ago about Form Energy, they’re making the iron air long term storage battery. And they’re building a factory, I think it’s down in West Virginia, if I remember right. Rosemary, they’ve raised a little over a billion dollars total to build this factory to make, basically take Studebakers and grind them up and make batteries out of them. What, what is it taking a billion dollars to do? Rosemary Barnes: I think it’s maybe this is a sign of things that are changing in, yeah, in VC world or just general funding of new technologies. That needs to happen for all of these clean tech companies, because it’s just a fundamentally different business model from what VCs are used to investing in where they, like, usually you would prefer something that, I mean, one would grow quite fast and two would have low CapEx requirements to get that growth. So, if you think about like investing in a company, that’s like. Got an app like Facebook where it doesn’t cost much to develop the app. It definitely doesn’t cost very much different to have 1000 users versus 10, 000 users, and then you get, this network effect and everything just like grows very fast and there’s this huge upside. Whereas hard tech, like, like actual physical hardware products, like most of what we need for the energy transition. It’s not like that, it does cost more to make a factory that can put out, 1000 units per year versus 10, 000 units per year. And yeah, they do get cheaper with time, but it’s not nearly this kind of like same explosive growth that we have been used to seeing within, in investments. And then the other thing is just the timeframes, like you can, you can develop a smart piece of software in a year or two. And like gradually improve it, but for really big physical things, it’s going to take you probably minimum 10 years from the smart science that was discovered through to having something commercial scale. And then probably another 10 years before it’s scaled up far enough that it’s actually making a difference in the market in terms of like actual volumes. So there’s been, there’s a really well known problem for not just clean tech, but I’ll, I’ll limit to clean tech because that’s the space that I play in. There’s a really big problem. First of a kind projects are a certain type of funding challenge because it’s not proven yet. It’s quite experimental. And that’s well known that it’s quite hard to get your funding for the first, the first project, the first, the pilot factory or, whatever. But what’s proving to be an even bigger challenge than that, because there are quite a few companies that are investing in, in first of a kind because you, there’s quite a lot of upside to be taken from that risk. The bigger challenge is the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth of a kind, that sort of where that sort of area where it’s not like totally brand new anymore and you’re, you’re not getting in early enough that you’re, going to expect to ten times your investment within a few years. But it is not yet proven enough that a bank is going to finance it. And so that’s this like new, new funding challenge that needs to be, we need to find out how that’s going to be done for any, like any cool energy technology that you can think of that has to actually be physically manufactured. They’re all experiencing this same kind of issue. And so unless you’ve got a literal billionaire funding you with deep pockets, then you’re going to need somehow to come up with at least probably hundreds of millions of dollars. And yeah, sometimes a lot of hundreds of millions of dollars to, to be able to build and prove sufficiently that subsequent projects can just be financed in a normal way by a bank or something. Thank you. So I think that this without, I will admit, I haven’t actually looked at the yeah, the, the terms of this, this fundraising, but I’m guessing that that’s, that’s the kind of hole that it’s trying to fill and what makes it feel a bit unusual, but I I’m expecting we’re going to see more of this because it’s really needed, like we don’t lack for good technology ideas and that have been proven once or twice. Thanks. But what we do lack is those same technologies to then move all the way through to implementation. Cause yeah, a good idea is not going to solve the, the climate challenge. It’s going to be, implementation that is going to solve it. And that means you’ve got to scale up. Scaling up is where it’s about. Allen Hall: I just have a question of, about how complicated this battery is and why they need a battery 1. 2 billion. I think they’ve raised total. They’re probably going to go get some more money to roll the factory out. It’s not supposed to be really in true production until 2028. Are batteries that complicated? Cause I’ve seen Tesla. Build battery factories in a really short time for lithium. Rosemary Barnes: Yes, but Tesla is really building on very well known manufacturing processes that have already been they’re not optimized, like the optimization is continuing, but, they really know how to, move things around as little as possible waste as little material as possible. And the thing is, I mean, with nearly, I work a lot with manufacturing and in nearly everything that I do, it’s not, is it hard to make this thing? And probably, like if we think about anything that, the US is trying to make batteries locally, Australia is trying to manufacture solar panels locally, maybe some wind turbines as well. It’s not that we can’t make those things. Of course we can make those things. What’s hard is making them cheaply. And so if you let’s consider like a wind turbine tower as an example, cause it’s something that I’ve been studying recently. Like you take a plate of steel, you roll it into a cylinder, you weld it, you weld a bunch together. Like any country can, can do that. Right. But what is challenging is getting them cheap enough that you can at least come with somewhere within the same ballpark as what they’re coming out of China. For, and so that means serial production. That means that you have dedicated equipment and that everything is, arranged so that you’re not, you’re handling things as little as possible. You have machines that are doing double, triple, quadruple duty so that, everything happens exactly right. And it just, they just roll off one after the other, like probably. One every day in terms of like a wind turbine factory. That’s how they’re kind of like minimal economic model is that one comes off the end of the production line, every single 24 hours, like clockwork. And the more that you can do, the more savings you get. If you can’t manufacture like that. It’s going to be just much, much, much more expensive, right? You could have one person, one welder go around and, do all these things by hand, but that’s very expensive compared to making the big investment in automated equipment, like, positioning equipment and robot welders and all that sort of stuff. Is where you save the money, not at first, at first you have to spend, 50, 100 million dollars setting up your, your factory just to do stuff that, any guy or girl with a welding certification could, could go and do that by hand. But. That’s what you have to do to be economic in the long run and with long duration energy storage, I mean, it’s just crucially about the costs. I mean, if you can’t lithium ion batteries getting just cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. And if your long duration energy storage technology can’t be much, much, much cheaper than lithium ion batteries, then there’s no, no place for it. So I think that they’re trying to demonstrate that they can get to that low cost price and they’ve, they’ve done their demonstrations. They’re beyond the point where they can say, trust us, this is going to be one 10th the price. Once we do it at scale, at some point you need to do it at scale to show that that’s what it is. And once you’ve done that. Then a bank will back a project that uses that technology. Allen Hall: Were they anticipating that lithium would be their competitor? Cause I thought when they first announced, this is a couple of years ago, the iron air battery didn’t have much competition for longer duration storage. That’s why they were, they were kind of standalone for a while in that competitive landscape. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, yeah, sure. It does. I mean, there are a hundred hours. Pumped hydro would be the other thing that they would be competing with or some kinds of thermal storage as well. But I think that this is something that I’ve been saying about long duration energy storage right from the start. Like everybody had the goalposts wrong. They’re looking at where, like four years ago, lithium ion batteries were like one hour, two hours. And so people were developing technologies like, we’re gonna be cheaper than lithium ion batteries at four hours or eight hours. But failing to look at the cost reduction curve for lithium ion batteries. And like it’s very easy to predict that by the time. Your technology at four hours or eight hours, by the time that’s mature, lithium iron will have blown that duration out of the water as well. And you’ve got no space to play in. So form with iron air, a hundred hour battery duration. That’s a lot further. Do we need a hundred hours? But I mean in any case they have to be very, very cheap. Otherwise there’s no point. Joel Saxum: The difference though, here with the, with form energy is they’re actually saying that now in the form in, in, in the form in where they’re, how it’s set up now. It actually compliments lithium batteries. So what they’re saying is, is when you put a long duration storage unit in, you do part of hours and part with lithium ion batteries, because the lithium ion batteries, I think can charge faster and discharge faster than, than their technology. So it’s like, You have, Allen, it’s like you and I were talking about turbochargers the other day, a small turbo that spools up and down quickly, and then a large one that spool, it may have more power in it, but it takes longer to spool up and get going. So it’s kind of the same thing where it’s, they complement each other as a battery storage unit. So they’re not, I mean, they’re, in some respects, yes, they’re competitors, but at another scale, what we need on the grid, we need both of those technologies. Rosemary Barnes: As long as form does get Much, much, much, much cheaper. If it is not much, much, much, much cheaper, then it will never play that role. That that’s the thing. Like all of the long duration storage technologies, like there’s nothing to say that you can’t just put in a hundred, a hundred lithium ion batteries instead of one, form one with the equivalent. Yeah, equivalent capacity. It’s just that, we expect the form will be vastly cheaper because it’s just, like it’s, it’s made from very cheap materials. That’s the assumption that we need to now prove. And I will say most new long duration energy storage technologies have not been able to reduce costs in the way that they assumed and promised that they would be able to based on, like, back of the envelope and lab scale, you assessments that just the costs haven’t come out the way that they needed to. And lithium ion batteries just have, they have, I mean, we should have been able to say you can, like it’s very predictable with learning rates. Once technology gets started, you can see how much costs are reducing with every doubling of production and lithium ion batteries have just been doing that the way that you would expect, but it’s just so hard to actually believe in those massive cost reductions. Okay. But yeah, lithium ion batteries are getting so cheap that we really need to get to the point now with alternative long duration energy storage technologies. They need to stop telling us their calculations for how they’re going to be cheap and start showing us that they’re cheap. Allen Hall: I’m not sure I would pick a market where I’m competing with Elon. Philip Totaro: But one, one last thing to add on this too, is the reason that Form Energy is able to raise as much capital as they have. And it’s, it is admittedly highly unusual to get to a series F capital raise. But the reality of it is that there are so many energy arbitrage, energy traders, energy arbitrage companies out there that want both the, short duration, whether it’s lithium ion or supercapacitor based or some other short duration technology that usually provides more of a grid smoothing capability. The reason that everybody’s getting excited about iron air batteries by, form and, and by others is that in addition to being made from cheap materials, it’s enabling a use case that energy traders want, which is long duration storage means they can, open up more opportunities for energy arbitrage where, they can sell power at a price optimal time back to the grid. And bank power from wind or solar or whatever so that they have it, in this long duration storage. It’s, it’s basically an extra tool or an extra knob to turn when you’re talking about, grid balancing and, and energy trading. So, that’s why so many people are excited about it. That’s why so many people are willing to put money behind it, is because it is gonna potentially unlock again, with those cost reductions, it’s going to potentially unlock new use cases and business cases for the industry. Rosemary Barnes: And they have orders. There’s, there’s a dozen project probably announced for these batteries. So, I mean, they might not all happen, but I think that the majority will. So. That’s obviously, an important place as well. Joel Saxum: It looks like they’ve got orders from the California Energy Commission XL Energy, multiple projects for XL Energy going on, Georgia Power. You see all some other states up and down, Dominion Energy and up and down the East Coast. So yeah, they definitely have got some stuff moving. Allen Hall: If you haven’t picked up the latest PES wind, I holding it in my hands. If you’re watching me on YouTube, it’s heavy, Joel. This, this edition. Is thick and I was scanning through it and noticing a pretty good article from the Odense port in Denmark and how massive that facility is. It’s incredible and how they’ve really transitioned from basically being a steel port. To being a renewable energy wind port. Joel Saxum: Yeah. If you are a part of anything in offshore wind you’ve been touched by the port of Odense or you’ve been connected to it at some point in time. Even some onshore wind projects. So it is Denmark’s largest port eight and a half million square meters. And for those of us who doesn’t don’t speak in square meters, it’s about 1800 acres, which is massive. Like that’s just a huge facility. And And they have a lot more available there, too. Two million more meters available, and they’re going to be growing by another million square meters. So another 250 acres that they’re going to be growing by. And what they’re doing at this at the port is they’re continuing to innovate in, basically make a port a part of a, the whole supply chain, which is really cool. So they have, they want to be an all component offshore port. So they want to have all the components as many as they can actually manufacture their onsite or nearby. They want to do right there. Then they want to do the sub assemblies right there on site. So you have less handling materials, less risk involved, less logistics costs. And by doing all this, they think that they can actually reduce the cost of a turbine by two to 3%, which. I mean, armchair to the armchair engineer, it makes sense, right? Do it all in one spot. Don’t have to handle it, pick it, move it, anything like that. Things cost less. So they have a massive amount of acreage. They got big plans for being an offshore wind port, but the other side of this. Thing in the port of Odense is they’re an innovation hub. So, there’s, I mean, there’s test facilities down there. They do a lot of robotics. Maersk was down there for a long time doing large scale robotics for ships. So, they’ve continued that legacy. So, a lot of, a lot of big things going down on there. And being that it’s robotics and a innovation type hub of a facility. The engineers and researchers can be right on site, developing things with new products right as they get loaded up Keyside and off to fix the energy transition or to lead the energy transition. So, the Port of Odette is pretty cool article in the PES Win magazine this week. Allen Hall: Yeah. So if you haven’t downloaded your copy, go to PESwin. com. It’s free. And you can check out all the cool articles. Joel Saxum: This week’s Wind Farm of the Week is the Cardinal Point Wind Farm from Capital Power. It’s up in Illinois in operation since 2020. There is 60 GE machines, 89 meter towers, 62. 2 meter blades, for a total height of 496 feet. Again, speaking in from the U. S. side. And the interesting thing about 496 feet is it’s right under 500, which is when you start to get into the federal aviation administration’s airspace. So that’s why a lot of these are that high. But construction costs of this thing, if you’re wondering what 60 wind turbine site looks like, it’s about 240 million. Interesting in this project as well, Cardinal Capital Power with Cardinal Point Wind. They did an interesting financial mechanism here. Twelve year fixed price contract with an investment grade U. S. financial institution. So that means, basically, instead of getting the revenues, living on the revenues of the wind farm, they have a fixed price contract with a bank that pays them as much as the contract is, but then the losses and gains from that is a risk that the bank took on. So, kind of an interesting financial mechanism there. The other thing that Capital Power does, and I really like this, this is why I came across this wind farm for the Wind Farm of the Week, is they put out community newsletters from the site supervisor of every one of their wind farms. So, quarterly, the site supervisor and of course the marketing communications team, they get together and they write a newsletter. To the local community and they send it out around that area and it kind of supports things of all the different charities that they’ve been working with and whatnot. So pretty cool thing that Capital Power does for transparency within their wind farms. So the Cardinal Point Wind Farm of Capital Power, you are the Wind Farmer of the Week. Allen Hall: That’s going to do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy podcast. Thanks for listening and please give us a five star rating on your podcast platform and subscribe in the show notes below to Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s YouTube channel, Engineering with Rosie. And we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.

We talk to CEO Simone Massaro about how BaxEnergy is revolutionizing renewable energy management. Their groundbreaking software solutions that are making clean energy more efficient and accessible. And the company’s recent acquisition by Yokogawa Electric Corporation will open doors for making their solutions better and more widespread. 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! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, joined by my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, we’re honored to have with us Dr. Simone Massaro CEO of BaxEnergy. And BaxEnergy has established itself as a leading provider of software solutions for the renewable energy sector. Industry. Since its founding in 2010, the company has been at the forefront of developing cutting edge asset performance and renewable energy management systems under Dr. Massaro’s leadership, BaxEnergy has gained recognition for its innovative approach to optimizing renewable energy assets, including wind farms and their solution helps energy companies monitor, analyze and enhance The performance of the renewable installations, ultimately making clean energy more efficient and accessible. And in a significant development this year, BaxEnergy was acquired by Yokogawa Electric Corporation, a global leader in the industrial automation and control industry. This strategic move is set to bolster BaxEnergy’s position in the renewable energy market and open doors to new technologies and markets. And that’s what I want to talk about today. Dr. Massaro is here today to share his insights on BaxEnergy’s journey. They’re groundbreaking work in renewable energy management and the exciting future ahead following the Yokogawa acquisition. Simone, welcome to the show. It’s great to be here. Thank you. Was that an adequate introduction? Because you guys are doing so much at BaxEnergy. It is amazing the capabilities you’re providing to the renewable industry. Simone Massaro: Yeah, I mean, BaxEnergy is essentially a software solution provider. And is focused on doing one thing and one thing only, which is making renewable energy more affordable for everyone. And the way that we do that is by making the power plants more efficient. BaxEnergy is creating and delivering the software solution that is taking control of the renewable energy power plants, and is actually making them more efficient. In other words it’s taking all the aspects of the power plants that are difficult to handle the dark side of the renewable energy and is transforming it into something more efficient. Our history as commenced about 10 years ago with the development of a solution, which was optimizing wind farms. And was focused on wind energy. And then from that, we evolved into solar energy, hydroelectrical energy, geothermal energy. And nowadays we’re working a lot with hydrogen, which is a little bit of the forefront of energy storage. Not many people realize how difficult it is to work with renewable energy because renewable energy are by nature uncontrollable. The reason is that the source of the energy itself, the sun or the wind. They are at their source. They are uncontrollable. They are not depending on the will of the man. So we we wanted to have energy on demand, but in reality, the sun is shining and the wind is blowing on a completely different schedule. So our focus is to make sure that it is possible to create a balance on the network by controlling this uncontrollable part of of nature. And we do that by mixing all the energy together. Allen Hall: It’s been an amazing progression, because if you think about the complexity of the energy system we have today, and where we are going, and where we have been 10 years ago, right? The, the, the issue, the early issues, and still exist today. You have a lot of energy companies that have different assets that are manufactured at different times by different manufacturers, wind and solar in particular, the big two, integrating that into a useful system. has been very difficult for, for operators to achieve. I think you’ve really bridged that gap now in, in terms of software. And that had to be a big hill to climb to do that. You want to explain how you accomplished that and how you kind of working that in software? Simone Massaro: Yeah. So that’s that you, you make a very good point over there. So, when the new energy we’re representing. A very small percentage of the global energy production. They were not creating a problem, but as the amount of renewable energy has grown to reach 10%, 20%, 30% in some countries, even 50% or more of the energy being produced, this is also increasing the fluctuation on the grid. So the grid that we had before. Which was designed for big monolithic power plants was not sufficient to handle the fluctuation and the distribution of this renewable energy power plant. So, new technologies had to be invented to put this under control, not just the monitoring, but also the capability to shut down the power plants when when a wind farm was producing too much or when a solar power plant was producing too much to avoid fluctuation. On on the grid. So the software somewhat evolved with these challenges. At the very beginning, we were focusing on gathering the data from the power plants. And the key focus really from the utilities was just to visualize this data. Later on the challenge came because Each of these power plant is, is typically produced by a different manufacturer. Now, you have not only different technology clearly a wind turbine works in a very different way than the solar inverter and the hydroelectric power plant or geothermal power plant. But each of these power plant may actually be manufactured by a different OEM, by a different vendor, by a different original equipment manufacturer. And each of this vendor is actually creating its own way to exchange data and its own way to control the power plant. It’s like having a different fleet of vehicles. So you can think of wind, solar and hydro making a relationship with the transportation. You can think of them as airplanes, cars. And maybe trains and ships, essentially they’re all moving people from one place to the other, but they’re doing that in very different ways. And when you think of even just one of these categories, like cars, you don’t have a car, you have maybe 20, 30 different type of, of, of cars. You have utility vehicles, you have trucks, you have, very different size, very different objective, but also made up from different vendors. So that, that’s the same thing that you have a renewable energy. And imagine now that you want a system to control all of these all of these equipments, all of these machines from one single place, that’s what the utility need. Because effectively, utilities are not buying just wind or just solar or just hydro. They’re buying all of these technologies. They’re building all of them. And they’re not doing it with one vendor only. They’re doing it whichever offers the best price on the market. And as we started to work with utilities, we realized that That sometime utilities were having not, not one system, not two, not three, sometime 15, 20 different systems in order to monitor their power plants. Because each of these power plant was coming with a different system. Each wind farm was equipped with his own monitoring and control system. Each solar power plant had his own power plant control system. So surely enough, if you have so many systems, you also need a lot of operators that they have to be trained to operate these different, these very different power plants coming from very different manufacturers. So that challenges no one had solved before us. So early 2010, we came out with the first system. Which was unifying the monitoring and the control of different renewable energy sources all under one roof, regardless of the energy type, the technology type, the manufacturer, the vendor of that power plant, regardless of the communication protocol. Regardless, even of things like unit of measurements, imagine a wind turbine produced in the U. S. will measure the wind speed in feet per second and one produced in Europe will measure it in meters per second. So you know, these, these, these utilities, these owners of the power plants, as the number of power plants was growing, they really needed to have that unified platform. So that was the first challenge. That we addressed. Allen Hall: You’ve grown as the industry has grown in terms of capability. Your first hurdle was trying to communicate everything to communicate with one another. So many different vendors, so many different technologies. It must’ve taken you an immense amount of time to even get that to work. Just to get the data. Just to get the data, right. And to make sure that it works. Properly, but then to take that knowledge and then explode it into making sure the grid is more stable. That’s amazing. Simone Massaro: Yeah. And surely enough it’s taken a lot of of people actually have the calculation of that. So to do the, the data collection, the, the capability that we have today is to interconnect every single vendor that exists in the market. Every single winter turbine buying and inverter manufacturer. That produces inverted today in the world. Do we have a protocol for that? So it took us exactly 165 men years to produce this, which we call the universal data engine, and we did that over time in the course of three and a half years. But you know, it was a very intense challenge. Once this challenge was resolved, anything else after that, it’s, it’s simple. Allen Hall: Yeah. After 165 man years, I suppose so, but that’s a huge amount of knowledge that’s into your software platform today, which I think then makes you really powerful and make, this is the big issue. The United States and Europe and even Australia has this issue more recently of grid reliability combined with when, when to use energy storage, how to apply that to a complex grid. Texas has this problem right now, Joel. Joel Saxum: It’s what we talk about all the time in like the next evolution of grids in general to this smart grid version. There’s an integration of hardware and software there, but you guys, software wise, you’re out in front of the game. You’re probably at some level waiting for the hardware that’s out in the field to catch up to what you can offer. Simone Massaro: Yeah, to a certain extent, yes. So, in reality, what we have developed is an intelligent brain that is composed of two parts. It is a central part that runs inside the core system of the utility, the owner of the power plants. And that’s the central brain that is orchestrating everything. And then there are smaller brains, smaller pieces of software that are running inside the power plants. So the two of them are communicating in a very secure way, in a very trusted way, has to be super secure because you’re not just reading the data, you’re actually exposing the capability of controlling the power plant. And the, of course you have to synchronize from a central location, all these plants, you have to have communication is not avoidable, but it has to be super secure. Because if it is not. And any curve can actually enter into the power plant that could accidentally or on purpose shut down the power plant could create a damage, could create a ripple effect, which will lead to a larger scale blackout, such as some that have occurred in the United States years ago. That’s also the reason why today this is a market in which a lot of very stringent regulation exists. Now, each country is creating its own regulation. In the U. S., you have the NERC Cybersecurity Standards for Power Plant. And in Europe, you have some others. And, as you go in Asia, you have some more. So, because we started very early on and we wanted to work worldwide, we adapted our software to all of the cybersecurity standards that exist worldwide. So, companies and nations worldwide started to utilize our technology. And, today, we You know, we brought ourself to have, more than a single digit of the entire world energy generation. In fact, we are approximating 3. 5 percent of the total renewable energy in the world currently being monitored by our software. Now it appears like a small amount where I can assure you being an independent vendor, it’s One of the largest in the market. Joel Saxum: Yeah, that’s great. So that leads us to the Yokogawa merger the acquisition there So you guys now you’ve you’ve selected of basically a partner to join up with to grow the solution How is that going to work for you guys? Simone Massaro: Yeah, so that’s if you if you look at the world the control of renewable energy is Is a an objective for for everyone. So the world is polarizing You And in three, maybe maximum five conglomerates of technological providers that are able to solve this challenge, and we’re one of them. So what we thought was the best way for us was to create an industrial partnership. So we started to look around the four industries that were interested in this technology and sure enough, we found out the most in the industry that is interested the most in. In renewable energy are these heavy heavy industries that are consuming large amount of of energy. Think about the aluminum foil foiling industries or think about all of the industries in which you are producing a large amount of metals or, or you have to cool down, refrigerate. You have to. Create larger scale productions that consume large amount of energies and all of these industries, they’re all looking for. How do we decarbonize our operations? How do we reduce our cost? How do we get away from utilizing oil and gas and burning them in order to generate our energy to to do this? And Yokogawa is actually a technology provider that is offering DCS solutions and distributed control systems to this industry. So it’s already present in all of the heavy industries, in all of the oil and gas industries, in all of the heavy machinery, heavy equipment, heavy metal. Water clarification plant, anything that really consumes an enormous amount of energy. And they were looking for a solution to help their customer decarbonize. So we basically found the perfect match and we created a bond through an acquisition. So Yokogawa acquired 100 percent stakes of BaxEnergy, a little more than two months ago. And the goal of this acquisition is to create a new scale operations. From one side, Yokogawa will distribute our technology to renewable energy providers, independent power plant suppliers. worldwide. From the other side, we will supply them the technology that they need to decarbonize the heavy Allen Hall: industries. Well, that’s truly amazing because I think that is a perfect match of capabilities and industry and connecting the two together to broaden out this technology and get it to all corners of the world. Because it is going to be, as you have pointed out, a renewable future. And in order to have a reliable grid, you need to control these assets properly. And this is the beauty of BaxEnergy, I think, is how well you orchestrate all these different technologies together. for efficient use and BaxEnergy is going to be leading that way. How do future customers of yours find you? Where do they find you on the web? Simone Massaro: Yeah, so they, they can find us in two ways on the BaxEnergy website, which is BaxEnergy. com very easy. Or they can actually look us over to the Yokogawa website. There is www. BaxEnergy. com. Right now one way to reach us we are entering several markets participating into all the most important trade shows and conferences on renewable energy. And we find out that there is a great way to meet people, to speak with with the owners of the power plants and the, the, the operation and maintenance teams that have to run the power plants. And from these conversations. We’re driving our our growth to, to be even more precise on this point. I’m going to be for a minute. What I tell every, every day to my engineers, to my software developers, to everyone else, don’t worry about the revenues. There are people that are taking care of it. Don’t worry about that. Just worry about making the best product possible for our customers. And then all the rest. will flow by itself. And that’s really what has happened. We’re focused only on making the best possible product. And that’s why, the sales have been growing and, we got to the interest of all of these utilities and now all of these industrial partners. When you do something good, when your interest is aligned with the interest of your customer, then everything else is easy. And I will go one step ahead, because in this case, our interest is aligned with the interest of the world. Because our, our motto is really making renewable energy more affordable to make a greener world for everyone. That’s really our goal. It’s solutions for a greener world. And even you guys that are listening to webcast right now, even if you’re not utilizing this solution, you will benefit from our technology indirectly. Allen Hall: That is so true. And congratulations to BaxEnergy and Yokogawa. This is a great matchup. And Simone, I really appreciate you coming on to the podcast. It’s been really informative. I’ve learned a ton. And let’s stay in touch because. Backsynergy is growing and it’s going to be growing in leaps and bounds, and it’s been a pleasure. Simone Massaro: Thank you so much. It’s been my pleasure. Thank you to everyone that is listening, and have a good day, everyone.

This week, Siemens Gamesa’s idea which protects delicate items on the blade while doing lifts, Integrated Power Services’ replaceable yaw break sleeve, and a new way to keep ants away from your picnic. 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! Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor – https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to Power Up, the Uptime podcast focused on the new hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow along with me, Allen Hall, and IntelStor’s Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future. All right, guys, our first patent this week is something kind of unique from Siemens Gamesa. And it tries to answer a problem that all winter blade lifting Apparatus have, especially when there are vortex generators or gurney flaps or trailing edge serrations, which is during the lift, those items tend to get plucked off and it makes the operator not happy. It makes everybody not happy because somebody’s got to get up there and replace them, generally speaking. So Siemens, Gamesa has come up with a little bit of a handling tool to avoid this damage, which is kind of like a pillow like device some sort of plastic, multiple plastic. That encapsulates these add ons so they don’t get broken during the lift. Now, Phil, this seems like a, actually a decent moneymaker because other operators, wind turbine OEMs have the same problem. If you look on the ground after a lift. Usually, you can see those little pieces, those injection molded pieces laying on the ground there. Philip Totaro: Shards of things stripped off. Yeah, so this one’s really interesting, and I should admit that I’m not actually sure if Siemens Gamesa is using this with any of the EPC contractors yet. However the reason that it’s been developed, as you mentioned, Alan, is that it’s, it’s there to try and help prevent add ons from being kind of sheared off as, if the blade is being lifted in the saddle and there’s either some kind of, gust or something, some kind of torsion that, that occurs that might shift the blade in the saddle in particular. That can cause a lot of these incidents where, where bits get sheared off. Where this comes in handy is it’s basically padding on the straps that is made with some kind of, gelatinous something. They don’t, I mean, they, they go into a bit of detail on what these materials could be in the patent. So you can, I guess, use your imagination, but it’s, it’s basically Relatively compliant. Jelly like structure. I guess that’s the best non technical way to explain it. You know that it’ll basically accommodate the deformation when it goes up against the blade surface that has the vortex generators or whatever poking out of it. So you could use this for, for riblets, you could use this for, for any little add ons you want. So I, I think from that perspective it’s, it’s pretty clever. We at Intel Store will dig more into whether or not this is being used commercially and, make that a part of our our technical analysis on inventions like this. Joel Saxum: I think this one makes absolute sense out in the field, right? It’s not too complicated. It’s something that can be implemented pretty easily. Thank you. And in my mind, I’m already thinking like, Oh, this might actually give the lifting company lifting the crane or however you’re lifting a blade a little bit of a better grip on on the blade itself as well So sometimes there is slippage in that and that’s not good, right? There’s specific lifting points on the blade that need to be adhered to to avoid structural damage and and and or trailing edge damage These kind of things can we see this in inspections all the time on brand new fully commissioned wind farms where there’s a crushed trailing edge or, or there’s a mark in the, somewhere in the shell because something slipped or was grabbed wrong. And these may avoid that by giving it a little bit more biting power, right? It’s like something compliant that can actually squeeze on the blade a little bit. But on the other side of that as well, if you’re installing a new blades and you break off of some VG panels, if I’m the asset owner. Well, I want those fixed before I take this asset over. So you’re going to get someone up there on ropes or in a platform to fix them. It’s not just gluing it on. That’s gonna cost, two, three, four grand to get a crew up there, come down, fix the things, all that. So there’s a lot of costs that this thing can avoid as well. So I think it’s a great, great innovation. Philip Totaro: And keep in mind, too, that this is an invention by the OEMs, which you would kind of assume You know, they’re the ones most kind of keenly impacted by this, particularly if they are the ones that are liable until the, the turbine’s commissioned. But the fact that it’s a patent around kind of EPC and, and construction, it gives Siemens Gamesa the opportunity to potentially partner with EPC contractors and license this technology to them. So you could see this being part of a commercial offering at different EPC contractors that they may have obtained through a license by Siemens Gamesa, so that’s, that’s potentially extra revenue for them. And one reason why you need to think a little holistically when you’re, when you’re contemplating the inventions you come up with and the patents you actually go get. It’s not just about protecting your ability to use the technology. There may be licensing opportunities for this. Allen Hall: Our second invention is related to yaw brakes. And I think of yaw brakes as one of the most difficult pieces of a turbine to keep healthy. It’s very similar to the way a brake rotor works in a car, or a Formula 1 or a NASCAR. There’s a lot of heat and energy trying to be absorbed by this brake. And on some wind turbines, it’s all hydraulic, sometimes the housing that holds this brake mechanism tends to crack because of all the stresses that are there. Well, to replace that housing, unlike a car where you pull the wheel off, on a turbine, you have to lift off the whole nacelle. And that can get really expensive if you have to do it, while the people down at Integrated Power Services have come up with a build replaceable yaw break sleeve and Phil this this idea I haven’t seen implemented. It must be out in service somewhere It starts to make a lot of sense because those parts break. And that’s one thing about integrated power services. They are trying to make turbines easier to maintain. Philip Totaro: Indeed. And so the fact that this is a, a field replaceable element now versus potentially, as you just described, Alan, not a field replaceable element that may OEM. That’s something where it, it gives IPS. a particular kind of leg up on, potentially supplying this as an aftermarket part to asset owners or operators that are kind of feeling the pain. Whoever wants to, have a crane call out just because you’ve got some kind of, yaw break element stuck and, you can’t get down in there older turbine designs need technology like this where they can, they can leverage the fact that this thing has its own separate threaded insert and you can kind of twist it on, twist it off without having to remove the whole nacelle. That’s advantageous, I think. Joel Saxum: Yeah, when I think about hydraulics and replacing things, my mind immediately goes to really basic stuff, right? I’m thinking excavators or skid steers or something where it’s really easy to get at. You can grab a sledgehammer, pop some pins, pull them out, rebuild a hydraulic cylinder, put it back in, boom, you’re on your way. Well, those aren’t 80 or 100 meters up in the air and they don’t have a 70, 100 ton nacelle sitting on top of them. So something like this is a very much needed innovation within the marketplace. And I would, to be honest with you, we just, we just talked about the idea of, an OEM putting a patent out where some people can license it from them. I would love to see an OEM license this patent from IPS to build into their next generation turbines to make them more field Allen Hall: serviceable. Our fun patent of the week is an electrified tablecloth. And, and Phil, the electrification of a tablecloth, I’m sure has been a medieval device from hundreds of years ago, because, you know what? There are some people you just don’t want to have to have dinner with. However, in this case, it’s a little bit different. They are looking to stop the insects, the ants in particular, when you’re out having a nice picnic from joining you and crawling up on the table. So they’ve created this electrified area perimeter, so to speak, in which when the insect crawls over it, it receives a small electrical shock. However, the obvious question is, well, you don’t want to shock someone you want to have a nice lunch with. You want to make sure they’re not hurt. The voltage is low enough where it doesn’t shock humans. But high enough where the insects are repelled. There’s gotta be other applications of this beyond the tablecloth, right? Joel Saxum: Potentially. What needs to happen next is this needs to be Bluetooth enabled. And if you’re having a bad date, you can just look at your phone and BZZZT end that date real quick. Philip Totaro: I you know what? I don’t even know where to go from there. I the other applications for this technology, I mean, certainly, well, let’s, let’s also talk about the fact that you, you definitely want the voltage to be at a particular level so that, like, kids or animals. I mean, what happens when the dog comes and starts begging for food next to the tablecloth and it’s electrified? I mean, you got to make sure that it’s only going to only going to deal with insects. So this is one where, you know, what we normally talk about, these, these wacky patents every week and, and some of them are just kind of preposterous. Like, why’d they ever propose it as the inventor? Why did the patent office ever allow it? We get into a lot of those debates all the time amongst the engineering world. This one’s actually Joel’s extrapolations notwithstanding. This is actually a fairly practical idea solving a real world problem. So I have to actually come down on the the favorable side of, of this one this, this week. Allen Hall: It’s going to get exciting when it rains out there at your picnic. Everybody’s going to get electrified, Phil.