Show notes
This week Allen, Joel, and Phil discuss Bonfiglioli's advanced servo motors featured in PES Wind magazine, China's offshore wind dominance, and the economic challenges facing U.S. offshore projects. The Wind Farm of the Week is the 170MW English Farms facility in Iowa, the recipient of the Envision Platinum Award.
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Allen Hall: We've all had our rental car problems over the last couple of years, ever since COVID. It's been as Joel put it, a crap show in rental car land. Over in Syracuse, which is not very far from me, I was just over there a few weeks ago now the employees at the Syracuse Airport Hertz location left their counter unattended, and they left about six hours early.
There's a number of people that had landed in Syracuse and needed a car and there was no one at the counter. So what they decided to do is and about 20 of them decided to do this, they just took the keys that were available at the counter and then went on their way. And one of them was Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, was one of them that needed to be somewhere and didn't have ability to get a car and just grabbed some keys and left.
Now, this created a lot of problems, right? Because all of a sudden these cars have disappeared. They don't know who have them, and they were starting to look for them. And now they're concerned that people that did this are concerned what's Hertz going to do to us? But I think they felt like at the time, Joel, that What else am I gonna do?
If your employee's left, I need to get a car, I gotta go.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, that's a Hertz problem. That's the way I look at it. Technically, it's probably theft, right? Like grand larceny or something like that. I don't know if it's larceny. Grand theft auto? Video games? GTA? Yeah but, it's illegal when you look at it, right?
But I can understand being that I've been in that situation where you show up at 11 p. m., you've been traveling all day, and you're like, Worst. Where's my damn car? Like, where's the dang car that I want to go? And I don't know if there's one person in that group who was the first mover, right?
There was a pioneer before the settlers. One person was like, screw it guys. Let's go. I'm grabbing these keys. I don't know who that is, but this, that's I don't know. There's some cojones there.
Allen Hall: My recent experience with Hertz in Oklahoma was getting to the counter at about 1230 in the morning.
And there not being a single car there. And then I was the second one into the little office they have. And then another person came and another person came and then pretty soon there's about 10 of us standing there and the Hertz employee who was attending the place and was trying to do the best that she possibly could said, I have two cars.
I'm picking you and you. Just pointed at people. Wow. Yeah, I got one. I never get that.
Philip Totaro: Allen, that's like a Seinfeld episode right there. You guys know how to take a reservation, but you don't know how to hold a reservation.
Allen Hall: I felt horrible because I was meeting Joel the next morning. I really needed this car.
We were going far off into Oklahoma, but there were all kinds of military people there that had things to do, too. Everybody had something to do. So they're, Uber was their best friend at the moment, but man, The rental car situation is horrible.
Philip Totaro: Let me give you a hot tip. Because I'm gonna be doing this myself later this week when I fly into Houston and arrive at about 1245 AM.
I have a service called Zipcar. Which you can just automatically, use your phone and unlock the car and you don't even need the keys. So I don't have to worry about doing something Hertz style. I can just rock up to the car, get in and go. That's pretty cool. Now, there are other services available, so that we don't, just promote Zipcar, but I'll tell you what, they have been pretty convenient.
I've been using that, actually, for a couple of years, and it's, they also don't charge you a deposit, and they cover your gas, so I'll tell you what, folks. Zipcar might be the answer in the future. It's either that or electric scooters, Phil. That's the
Allen Hall: future.
The new PES Wind is out, and if you haven't received it in the post, you can go to PESWind. com and read it online. Bunch of great articles. This magazine is really heavy. There's a ton of articles in it. A lot of offshore discussions and technology in this particular area. issue and I'm an electrical person.
I'm reading the one from Bonfiglioli on the new servo motors that are made for offshore wind turbines. And when you say servo motors, I always think little tiny motors that are used in like radio control airplanes and drones and that sort of thing. But these are massive. These servo motors are used on up to 18 megawatt machines for yaw and pitch motors.
But there's a lot of technology in them, a lot more than I thought guys when they're talking about yaw some of the accuracy they have to have and moving these big, massive nacelles accurately is really critical.
Joel Saxum: I think the crazy thing here is that there's so many components that you don't think about within a wind turbine.
Like when you talk about what Bonfiglioli is bringing to the table here you're talking about components that we're just always Oh yeah, yaw motor, pitch motor. But when you dig into the technology of them and what really goes into them, it makes the turbine itself so much more complex, but they're doing it in a great way.
So to be a supplier to an OEM like this, I think the OEM is, we have to realize they, they do. rely on a lot of sub suppliers all around the world to get things done. And so they turn to the experts, right? Like you want to turn to an expert for lightning protection. You call Allen Hall and myself.
You want to turn to an expert for asynchronous motors and yawn pitch drives and other things. You turn to Bonfiglioli. And it's
Philip Totaro: important too, that. With how big offshore turbines are getting, that the reason that yaw and pitch is needs to be so precise now is you've got the potential to have a huge rotor imbalance if you're off by even half a degree.
With, blades that are gonna weigh, close to 35 tons each and, a nacelle that probably weighs like 250 tons, if not more at this point for these large offshore machines rotor imbalance is one thing. Wake effect is also another thing where you have to have a certain level of precision in the yaw motor to be able to ensure that you're directing the downflow from the turbine and the outwash from the turbine in the correct direction so that it's not impacting, another turbine that's, immediately behind it or adjacent.
Allen Hall: In the addition of a couple of sensors that they're putting onto these motors and the electrical systems. To detect failures early is remarkable, because I think in the offshore case, you need to know, because there's not people going up and down those turbines every day, like onshore and getting that early detection is a huge advantage.
The other thing I noticed about this, Joel, is the emphasis on weight, on reducing the weight of these servos, and my guess is offshore, if you have to replace one, The weight matters.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, big time. Because just think about this. When you bring the part to the turbine, you bring the part to the turbine.
That transition piece has usually a Davit crane, or we call a Davit crane on a vessel, but a Davit crane type on the, on, on the actual transition piece to get parts on, so you can't have a thing that is, too heavy. 10 tons going up over there. Cause you're never going to be able to get it up inside the turbine unless you do some have, have to get some crazy, offshore, like lift work style, lift platform, or bring in a specialized vessel.
You don't want to do that. So you need to be able to have everything basically maneuverable or handle handleable. I don't know if that's a good word, but by the technicians on the deck. And if they can't do it, then you have to bring in specialized equipment and everything offshore gets more complicated.
So when you talk about the, boron and neodymium magnets, and some of those rare earth metals are heavy.
Allen Hall: Yeah. So they're beginning to use more aluminum and lighter weight metals. Plus all the environmental concerns of being offshore. Where you need to add a number of features to prevent corrosion and degradation over time, which is why they're providing some of the sensors to detect that early.
It's much more complicated than you think. We get used to being around two megawatt machines. We see those everywhere. Yaw and the pitch motors are pretty much ubiquitous, right? And they're swapping them out on a regular basis. You really can't do that offshore. That's where Bonfiglioli comes in and makes a really cool product.
So if you haven't seen this article, you need to go to PESWIN. com. And read it online or reach out and get a official paper copy. As wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial and let's face it difficult. That's why the Uptime Podcast recommends PES Wind magazine.