The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Joel Saxum & Phil Totaro

We discuss the new document from Vestas titled "This is Not a Wind Farm", which criticizes the U.S. approach to offshore wind development and proposes solutions. Allen, Joel and Phil analyze Vestas' suggestions and debate whether states will implement any of the proposed changes.







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 special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall. I'm here with Joel Saxum and Phil Totaro, and we are discussing the new document from Vestas called This is Not a Wind Farm. And if you've gone to Vestas website and looked at the U. S. offshore wind tab, you can find this document.







And you may want to follow along during this podcast because we want to dive into the details here. And remember that Vestas released this document during IPF. Basically the offshore wind energy symposium conference that happens in the United States this year down in New Orleans. And we felt like this document summarized some of the things that we have been feeling and seeing, but this is as proposed solutions.







Now we may not agree on all those proposed solutions as we're going to discuss. But, at least they're putting out, they're putting their stake in the ground. They're saying these are the things that need to be done to move the U. S. into offshore wind quickly. Let me give a little bit of background here, and I'll list the items that Vestas has a problem with, or where the issues are.







The key problem areas are, and remember that there's almost up to 50 gigawatts of offshore leases that are going to be proposed in the next couple of years. So in, from Vestas point of view, there's a lot of real estate for, and for turbines to be put into the water. So this is the perfect time to get these US projects moving.







Now they list four to five. I broke them into five. Problem areas, and I want to go through the real quickly here. Number one, offshore bidders proposing projects are based on immature technology. So what Vestas is saying is that the turbines that are still on paper are being proposed for projects. Two there's a lack of focus on the supply chain readiness to ensure the timely project delivery.







And generally what Vestas is talking about here is that if they choose a 20 megawatt turbine, all the supply chain has to be able to deliver a 20 megawatt turbine versus a 15 megawatt turbine in their case. State and local content mandates are leading to recent project cancellations along the East C...

Allen, Joel and Phil discuss GE's decision to stop at 15.5MW for offshore turbines, the impact of cancelled New York offshore wind projects, challenges for Siemens Gamesa's rumored 21MW turbine, and Colorado attracting wind manufacturing jobs.







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: Joel, we're getting close to American Clean Power up in Minneapolis. What are the warmer destinations in the states in May?







Joel Saxum: Actually, the weather doesn't look like it's going to be too bad. It's going to be, it's going to be what sounds like I've been talking to some of my friends that they're, what you would expect is a traditional spring in Minnesota.







Not snow, not 80 degrees. It looks like 65. So it'll be nice where you can wear a blazer and do your things and not sweat too much.







Allen Hall: Is that a promise, Joel, or a wish?







Joel Saxum: Weather in the Midwest, it's a wish. Bring flip flops and winter boots.







Allen Hall: And Weather Guard will be with AC 883 at ACP. And so if you want to come talk to us, stop by, you'll see us wandering around the halls and making all kinds of noise and reporting, recording podcasts.







If you have a company that's involved in wind energy and you want to be on the podcast, that's a good time to talk to us. Our podcast numbers have exploded. So there's a lot of listeners at the moment. And if you want to get your company out in the industry, heard of all around the world. We're a good way to do it.







We're absolutely free. And we'd love to talk to you. The other thing that's happening which is I think going to create an earthquake up in Minnesota is that Phil is actually going to go to ACP. You can't believe the amount of leverage it took to get him out of sunny California and go to Minnesota in May.







We worked on it for weeks.







Joel Saxum: He'll be there though. Smiling.







Philip Totaro: This is actually something I'm pretty excited and interested about this time though, because I've never had so much so many potential, partners and customers show up to an event before and so many existing ones as well, there's a lot of people that I'm going to have.







It almost feels like we're back to before the pandemic, which is when I was, a lot more enthusiastic about going to these these events and trade shows. There was a lot more payback,

New Jersey has created the New Jersey Green Bank to support the state's clean energy projects. Hellenic Cables Americas has been allocated a $58 million tax credit for its planned cable factory in Baltimore, Maryland. Vestas decides not to lower prices in order to turn a profit. Masdar is planning a possible entry into the Chinese renewable energy market.







Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!







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, Joel Saxum. And this is your NewsFlash. NewsFlash is brought to you by our friends at IntelStor. If you want market intelligence that generates revenue, then book a demonstration of IntelStor at IntelStor. com.







The New Jersey Economic Development Authority Board has created the New Jersey Green Bank to support the state's clean energy transition. The Green Bank will use various financial tools such as debt and credit enhancements to invest and attract private capital for New Jersey's clean energy sector.







The bank will focus on projects, technologies, and companies that support the state's climate goals. Particularly in areas like zero emission transportation, building decarbonization and resiliency, and clean energy generation and storage like wind energy. Phil, this is unique for the United States where a separate state has created a bank to fund renewable projects.







Philip Totaro: Yeah, this is really interesting and compelling that other states have tried employing other forms of investment vehicles to try and park money into project development, but this is a pretty unique thing where they're going to specifically focus on clean energy. And, do it with it sounds like the help of federal funding that they've been able to obtain.







This is going to be great for offshore wind and battery storage technology, I think, deployed throughout the state of New Jersey. All in all I think this is a win.







Joel Saxum: Yeah, I like the in the press conference here, they state each investment made by the NJGB must demonstrate benefits for New Jersey.







Great, it's their state, it's their money. But, this is the part I like. It must be new, rather than refinance and reduce greenhouse combustion greenhouse gas emissions or other pollutants. So it has to have, measurable effect for helping the climate out. And it must be new, so it's putting new things out there.

Allen Hall discusses the growing issue of blade wrinkles with Morten Handberg, blade expert at Wind Power LAB. They delve into the causes, consequences, and challenges of identifying and repairing these minute deformities that can significantly reduce blade life. Visit https://windpowerlab.com/!







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 special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, and if you have been following the news lately, there are several ongoing campaigns by blade manufacturers to deal with wrinkles in their blades. Even though these wrinkles are minute in appearance, these fabric deformities can create weaknesses that reduce blade life.







And as you have seen all over the news, these wrinkles are also expensive to remove and repair. Our guest is Morton Handberg, Chief Blade Specialist and Partner at Wind Power Lab, which is a blade consulting company located in Copenhagen, Denmark. If you haven't heard Morten on our podcast previously, Morten is our resident blade whisperer.







In our episode today, we'll be discussing how wrinkles are created, how they produce stresses, and why they are difficult to eliminate during manufacturing. Morten, welcome to the program.







Morten Handberg: Hi Allen,







Allen Hall: it's nice to be back again. If we can catch up a little bit, you and I talked to each other about Blade Wrinkles several weeks ago now, and that topic has just gotten progressively hotter and hotter.







I thought, now's the time. To get it out there about what's happening with wrinkles and why we should care. Now, and at the same time, you sent me some pictures and it would just scare the heck out of me because I thought these wrinkles were relatively small coming from an aerospace background.







Wrinkles don't tend to be big. In aerospace products, but the wrinkles you showed me are large. And I'm trying to understand like what is the real threat here? Let's just start there. What's the real threat. If a wrinkle is in a side of a blade, what does it matter?







Morten Handberg: So it really matters depending on the location of the wrinkle.







So is it in the structural spark cap or in a heavy node, part of the bait, let's say the root or the transition zone. Then even small wrinkles can actually turn into very large cracks. And it doesn't really matter what the size is.

We interview with Cory Mittleider of Malloy Wind, a company specializing in providing bearing solutions for wind turbine applications. Cory shares insights into common pitch bearing failure modes, how Malloy Wind analyzes failed bearings to develop improved designs, and the importance of factors like grease and manufacturing processes in bearing longevity. Visit https://www.malloywind.com/ for more info!







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 special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, and I'm here with my co host, Joel Saxum. If you were an owner, operator, or technician in wind, you have come across pitch bearing problems. And those pitch bearing problems can get really hard to detect early. But once you see them, they're expensive to repair.







So Joel and I thought it was time to bring on an expert. In bearings to the podcast. So our guest today is Cory Mittleider of Malloy Wind. And Cory has an extensive background in wind bearings. Now, Malloy, if you're not familiar, is based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is in the middle of the United States.







And Malloy Wind specializes in providing solutions for wind turbine. applications. So they're a total wind focus organization. They offer a variety of services, including upgrading gearbox bearings, blade bearings, main shaft bearings, pitch motor renewals, and generator bearings. Cory, welcome to the program.







Cory Mittleider: Hey guys, thanks for having me.







Allen Hall: So there's so many questions about pitch bearings and just having been down in San Diego at the ACP OMNS one of the complaints is, Oh, I got a huge bearing replacement program going on this summer. And my first thought was of you were thinking, wow, you guys must be really busy because Bearings are probably after lightning, it's lightning and then bearings were one and two of the problems for wind turbines at the moment.







Cory Mittleider: Yeah, it's been it's been a busy couple of years. There's certainly standout platforms that are having their own platform specific failure modes that we're discovering as we work with operators.







Joel Saxum: Yeah we talked a little bit off air about some of that thing. Okay, so we're in lightning space.







We know if someone calls and says, I have this turbine with these blades, you go, Ooh, you got problems.

Joel and Allen discuss their Texas and Oklahoma wind farm tour, finding tight budgets and lack of technicians are causing operators major struggles. Then the team discusses whether Inflation Reduction Act incentives are effectively driving more clean electricity generation or creating misaligned incentives for hydrogen over expanding wind power.







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







Philip Totaro: Joel wants to do a billboard. In Texas to advertise Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and StrikeTape. That's a pretty good idea, but I got a better one. What if you did a TV ad, or like a, an ad you could post up on LinkedIn, but recreate the episode from the Twilight Zone, Terror at 20, 000 Feet, but instead of there being like a little monster on the airplane wing that William Shatner is all scared of, how about it's just like lightning strikes that get, diverted by strike tape and then, but you recreate the ethos.







And then nothing happens.







Allen Hall: It could be good. William Shatner is still alive. He's like 92. Yeah, he, I'm sure we could sign him up







Philip Totaro: to do that.







I'm telling you. This is actually, this is why I had the idea because his production company contacted me about six or seven years ago and they wanted me to do an infomercial with him.







And it was actually fairly reasonable price. So we should talk off air and look into this.







That's a thing. Why didn't you do







Joel Saxum: that? If we could get William Shatner to do a strike dig commercial. Come on. Phil, how much was it? Was it four figures? Three figures?







Three figures, that's what I'm talking about.







We spent a lot on barbecue this week.







We're trying to recover.







Allen Hall: Joel and I have been down in Oklahoma and Texas going to a variety of wind farms and meeting with the O& M folks, the site supervisors, just to see what's top of mind there. Really great discussions. Some of the best discussions about Wind energy I've had in the last couple of years because everybody's so frank about it and Joel maybe you can give top of mind what some of your insights were.







What are we chopped liver?







Joel Saxum: No. Just so we're clear, the conversation with you guys are great as well. We're, I don't know. I'm not discounting those.







Yeah, no,