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

Candace Wood, COO of Everpoint Services, along with Michael McCarty and Megan Culler from Idaho National Lab, discuss their collaboration at Little Pringle Wind Farm to conduct cybersecurity research and testing. The episode delves into the critical importance of addressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities in wind energy infrastructure to ensure grid resiliency and energy security.







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, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. This podcast has an interesting story behind it. Our first guest today is Candace Wood, Chief Operating Officer at Everpoint Services, which is based in Texas. Candace purchased the Little Pringle Wind Farm at an auction.







Little Pringle Wind Farm is outside of Texas. Amarillo, Texas, and buying a wind farm at auction doesn't happen very often. And this is where the story takes an interesting turn. Candace and Everpoint made a decision about how to use this wind farm. Everpoint connected with the Idaho National Laboratory, cybersecurity experts, to use a portion of the turbines for cybersecurity.







Research and testing. So from the Idaho National Lab is Michael McCarty, who is a cybersecurity research specialist and Megan Culler, who is a power engineer specializing in cybersecurity and resiliency, also from the Idaho National Laboratory. Megan, Michael, and Candice, welcome to the show.







Candace Wood: Thank you. Thanks for having us.







Michael McCarty: Thank you.







Allen Hall: Alright, so let's start off with a little prequel and figure out how Candace ended up buying a wind farm. So you were at an auction Candace? Can you describe what happened where you decided to put down some money on a wind farm?







Candace Wood: Everpoint Services, we are a end of life services company for renewables.







So we primarily focus on decommissioning and demolition of wind turbines as well as solar assets. And we'd heard about this wind farm that had been abandoned since about So I was at the auction in August of 2017. Small farm, 10 units originally 2 megawatts each and heard that it was going up for auction.







The county had seized the asset to try and recover some back taxes. I tuned into the option really with the intention of finding out who was going to purchase it and then pitching our services to them. Hey,

Allen, Joel, and Phil record their thoughts on the show floor of American Clean Power 2024 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Which companies are in attendance? What seems to be the industry direction? And they also discuss Vestas' Q1 financial results which show a loss.







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 Phil Totaro, the CEO of IntelStor and Joel Saxum, the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard. And we are in Minneapolis today for the opening of American Clean Power 2024. And we wanted to get everybody's thoughts on what we have seen today, what the feeling is, what the number of people we've seen bouncing around, what the business atmosphere has been like, and, give everybody an update who couldn't be here.







Obviously there's a number of people out in the field fixing wind turbines right now. the people actually keeping wind turbines operating. give us a sense of what's happening with some of the new technology we've seen today and what to expect on the remainder of the week. And Joel, I know early on this morning, it seemed like it was going to be pretty busy.







Joel Saxum: Yeah, absolutely. So I walked in here, the agenda said 10 30, they opened. I walked in at 10 31 and it was already. Packed in here. I tried to get a cup of coffee. There's 200 people in line. so I know Phil, you were saying that you, were the only one of us able to actually take a lap so far today around the show floor and saw a ton of people.







Alan and I have been basically in conversations back to back since we got here with whether it's talking about podcast stuff or strike tape or fixing any other kinds of problems with everybody from the insurance industry, asset owners, ISPs all the above. So it has been swamped here at our booth.







Philip Totaro: Unfortunately, I got here late. I arrived because of some weather in Denver, at about 2. o'clock this afternoon. And so I've been here about, two hours now, three hours now as we record this, and I think I've already closed about three deals. So this is probably the, most productive I've seen an ACP event in, a long time.







which I guess is, good news. but just based on my walking around, I'd conservatively say there's at least about 10, 000, if not maybe 12, 000 here, at this event. So it's got a much better tenor to it, much better mood. people are, really quite engaged. so it's, overall, I, think,

Vattenfall is researching more bird detection methods, Norway and Denmark are setting ambitious offshore wind targets, Australia's first offshore wind projects are progressing nicely, Western Australia is using Tesla Megapacks for battery installations, and U.S. wind generation declines in 2023.







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: Our friend from the UK, Derek Rutherford, ran a poll, and he sent this to me not long ago, and I just have forgotten to put it up here, but he ran a poll about what are the biscuits that are most likely to be consumed when out on a UK wind farm. And a biscuit in the United States doesn't mean anything, and a biscuit in the UK means a cookie, it's a cracker cookie, it's a common, it is a cookie, like an oatmeal cookie, that's the way I, Taste it, that's what it tastes like.







There's really no equivalent in the United States. So they ran a poll, it was very interesting because there, it was a definite choice here. So there was four, rich tea, bourbon, hobnob, and fig roll. And I think I have tried fig roll it's not my thing.







Philip Totaro: Chocolate digestive isn't even one of the how do, this is not a legitimate poll.







I'm sorry this, if chocolate digestive is not on the list, then we have a problem.







Joel Saxum: That's what we, that we eat, there's a box of them in the, in our living room right here, so again, my better half from Newfoundland they were the last British colony in Canada. So we drink tea and have digestives.







Allen Hall: When you have tea, you can't have chocolate and tea. Those two just do not go together. It's so uncouth. The Queen would never do that. It's almost like gingerbread. So the survey results are really fascinating. 61 percent of your wind turbine technicians in the UK prefer hobnobs.







Philip Totaro: Alright, that I believe.







But again, they weren't given the option of chocolate digestives, so I still think this is not a legitimate poll.







Joel Saxum: He did throw some chocolate in there because the bourbon is chocolate. It has a chocolate cream filling. , right? It's not bourbon flavored. It doesn't have bourbon in it.







Philip Totaro: Although if it did, that might be number one, Joel.







Joel Saxum: And when farm sites, I think that the bourbon cookie is, it's named after some like French Aristo aristocracy.

Octopus Energy invests in Ocergy's floating offshore wind foundations, Timken's wind energy revenue declines due to China's shift toward domestic suppliers, Ireland has a €100 billion plan for 37 GW of offshore wind by 2050, and Orsted exits the French 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 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, call us today, then book a demonstration of Interstore at interstore. com.







Renewable energy provider, Octopus Energy has announced a strategic investment in California based floating offshore wind company, Ocergy. Ocergy designs and manufactures lighter modular floating. Foundations for wind turbines aiming to reduce the time and cost of building offshore wind farms.







The investment, which is estimated between eight and 24 million pounds will help commercialize Ocergy's technology and fuel the company's expansion into new markets, including the U S, UK, France, Norway, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. Now, Phil, California offshore. It's going to be almost all floating, has to be.







Does this make sense for Octopus to get in early and to basically choose a winner for a floating platform to move California offshore ahead quickly?







Philip Totaro: Yeah, this is interesting because, there are a number of companies out there with a number of floating platform designs. So that said, with the scale that Octopus Group brings in general to any investments particularly those of subsidiary, Octopus Energy you just rattled off all the countries that they want to be able to go develop projects in.







Most prominently, though, is Octopus has already co invested in some of the projects in the UK and Scotland, where they're gonna be building a ton of, it's I forget how much, it's 8 or 9 gigawatts of floating offshore in the next 10 years. Five, six years and then there's gonna be more, more to come in that market alone.







Plus all these other ones you mentioned again. So this is, I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as they picked a winner. I think they're, placing one bet on one company and they're gonna see how it goes and. They are the type to be a little bit pragmatic and they'll want to potentially spread it aro...

We talk with Ben Ackers, CEO of PelaStar, a company revolutionizing the industry with their tension leg platform design. PelaStar's innovative technology provides stability for large wind turbines in deep water conditions, paving the way for cost-effective and efficient floating wind farms at scale. Visit https://pelastar.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, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. With the increasing demand for clean energy, offshore wind has become a crucial component in the global energy mix. However, many of the world's best wind resources are located in deep waters where traditional fixed bottom foundations are not feasible.







And this is where PelaStar comes in. PelaStar is changing the floating offshore wind industry with their 10 leg platform design, which provides stability for large wind turbines in deep water conditions. Our guest today is Ben Ackers Chief Executive Officer at PelaStar. Ben brings a wealth of experience in the maritime industry to lead PelaStar's efforts in making floating offshore wind a reality on a large scale.







Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. There's a lot to talk about because with the recent auctions or the outlines of some offshore wind sites off the coast of Maine, and then obviously off the coast of California, floating wind is going to be huge in the United States, and it's already becoming something of an item over in Europe.







You at PelaStar have been trying to answer some of the problems that we have with floating offshore wind and maybe you can just give us a little bit of background on PelaStar and what you're working on right now.







Ben Ackers: Absolutely. First of all, PelaStar is, as you said, a tension leg platform which sets it apart from a lot of the platform technologies that you'll see that have been deployed in demonstration and pilot projects. We're really the next generation of technology that the industry needs to bring down the cost of energy for utility scale floating wind farms. We started developing PelaStar around 2009. The idea comes out of our parent company, Glosten, which is a naval architecture, marine engineering consulting firm headquartered in Seattle.







We've been around for over 65 years. And as our engineers were looking at the challenge of how do we put turbines offshore?

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...