Show notes
Joel and Phil dive in to liquidated damages and how the industry can avoid big payouts. GE Vernova is dealing with another offshore blade failure in the UK, and our thoughts on the latest renewable energy Instagram craze. And, a discussion on a very full eagle! If you have encountered metal staples in a GE 2.X-116 or 127 blades, reach out to Joel at [email protected].
There's still time to register for AMI Event's Wind Turbine Blade Conference in October 2-3rd! Click here - AMI Boston Wind Blade Conference
Need low-cost lightning strike sensors for your turbine? Email Joel at [email protected].
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: All right. Really urgent news story here. A supposedly injured bald eagle. Now, remember that the bald eagle is America's bird. Is it America's bird or national animal? National mammal? And it's also like the national symbol too. It's a national symbol. There we go. All right. So a supposedly injured bald eagle, which is America's national symbol.
Was rescued from a national park in Missouri and found it was acting like it was too injured to fly, but they took poor Eagle in and did an x ray on it and realized. That it was just full of raccoon. What? It was full? It had too much food? Yeah, it was found healthy, but engorged with raccoon. In other words, too fat to fly.
Philip Totaro: Is there tryptophan in raccoons?
Allen Hall: Oh, there may be.
Joel Saxum: I'll tell you a fun fact about the eagle as the United States national symbol. Ben Franklin actually wanted it to be the turkey. And his reason. His reasoning was, eagles are actually scavengers and they eat dead things and turkeys don't.
Allen Hall: Both of those birds are huge.
If you've ever been anywhere near a bald eagle, they are massive creatures. I, the thing that bothers me about this is that eagle was living large, relaxing, chilling, and then somebody grabbed him! Somebody scooped him up and with the x ray in him, the next thing he knows, it's like he's waking up in a hospital and all he wanted to do was watch the Cowboys game, I'm Allen Hall and I'll be joined by the rest of the Uptime hosts after these news headlines. Denmark is making waves in the renewable energy sector with a massive 13 billion euro investment in offshore wind power. Aiming to boost capacity by 10 gigawatts across three areas. This ambitious plan, representing the largest tender for offshore wind power ever issued in Denmark, introduces a novel financing model where companies are required to make concession payments and co invest with the state.
Which will retain a 20 percent stake in each project. This initiative is expected to create thousands of jobs with estimates suggesting that each gigawatt of offshore wind power could generate around 9, 500. Direct and indirect positions and require a capital investment of approximately 2. 1 billion euros.
Beyond meeting national energy needs, the expanded capacity is set to position Denmark as a key exporter of electricity to neighboring countries. and a producer of green hydrogen. The European Commission's wind power package is breathing new life into the continent's wind industry with major players like Vestas and Siemens Energy expanding their operations.
Vestas is establishing a new nacelle and blade factory in Poland, potentially creating over 1, 700 direct jobs by 2026. While Siemens Energy plans to hire around 4, 000 new employees across Europe to bolster its grid equipment manufacturing capacity. To support this growth, the European Investment Bank has set up a 5 billion euro counter guarantee facility with the first tranche activated through a 500 million euro deal with Deutsche Bank.
Part of a larger portfolio expected to catalyze up to 8 billion euros in additional private investments. GE Vernova has encountered a series of setbacks in its offshore wind operations with the most recent being a turbine blade failure at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm off England's northeast coast. This incident follows a similar blade failure at the same facility in May.
And another off the U. S. East Coast where a fallen blade has led to beach closures on Nantucket Island after debris washed ashore. Despite challenges, the global offshore wind sector is poised for remarkable growth, with capacity projected to surpass 520 gigawatts by 2040. Europe is expected to lead this expansion, hosting over 70 percent of global floating wind installations, while Asia aims to capture about 20 percent market share.
For The UK, Germany, and the Netherlands are particularly well positioned, leveraging their proximity to the North Sea and ambitious carbon neutral goals to potentially achieve a combined capacity of 150 gigawatts by 2040. In the United States, offshore wind development remains heavily influenced by the political climate, with capacity forecasts of up to 40 gigawatts by 2040 contingent on stable political support.
In technology advancements, SenseWind has successfully completed factory acceptance testing of its innovative 2 megawatt Sense self installing wind turbine system at Cali Ocean Systems facility in Glasgow, Scotland. The testing witnessed by ABL Group validated the lifting assembly designed to hoist the fully assembled turbine rotor nacelle up the tower, verifying crucial factors such as operational loads, bearing surfaces, repeatability, and contamination resistance.
This milestone marks a significant step forward in their demonstration program and builds confidence for the planned installation of a two megawatt wind turbine. Next year. And the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is setting its sights on Hawaii for offshore wind development, planning a lease auction off Oahu's coast for 2028 to support between 500 of wind energy.
The initiative aligns with Hawaii's decarbonization targets and aims to reduce the state's reliance on imported oil, biofuels, and hydrogen. This project, agreed upon by Akahi Energy and the U. S. Department of Defense, would utilize floating wind technology to navigate the deep waters surrounding Hawaii, with BOEM considering depths up to 1, 300 meters feasible.
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, and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum.
Lightning is an act of God, but lightning damage is not. Actually, it's very predictable and very preventable. StrikeTape is a lightning protection system upgrade for wind turbines made by Weather Guard.
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: The AMI Events Wind Turbine Blades event in Boston is on October 2nd and 3rd. So it's coming pretty soon.
If you haven't booked your tickets to Boston, you better do it now. You won't want to miss this conference. There's big discussion on blade materials, blade design, blade manufacturing, and the supply chain. And with the recent high profile blade events, there will be plenty to discuss. So just Google AMI Events Wind Turbine Blades Boston, and it should take you to the proper page.
Also, the new low cost Eologix PING Lightning Sensor is available now. We are getting a lot of great feedback about the Lightning Sensor's performance in the field. It has just a little integrated solar panel for power and uses local cellular network for data transfer, means No wiring to the turbine.
It's just held on there by magnets. It's truly incredible. Clean and simple, which is what everybody's asking for. And if you want to purchase some lightning sensors for your turbines, you have to call Joel. And his number
Joel Saxum: is 832 593 2782. And so you guys know, they're in shipment right now. We've got some of them heading out to an operator or two different operators.
As we speak, we've got confirmations today.
Allen Hall: Phil, what do they call that in the newspapers where they're giving the corre is it corrections? Is that what they call that in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times? Is there a corrections section of that newspaper?
Philip Totaro: Are they ever wrong, though, Allen?
Is that that is you're correct. That's what they call it, but do they ever really admit that they're wrong?
Allen Hall: Occasionally. We're not going to be like the New York Times. We're going to be one better than the New York Times. We're going to talk about the email that comes in here.
Some of it good and happy, some of it not so happy. So I think there's one here that's not so happy and has a point actually. So we're going to be the first to correct this. This has to do with our discussion last week about Vestas or maybe two weeks ago now about Vestas in their Q2 reports. And how Vestas did sell a number of turbines and the order intake was pretty good, right?
And we got mired up in the discussion between Vestas building wind turbines and the Vestas development portion of their business and Vestas development is, as Bill has described it to me where they go out and put wind turbines in the field, which is unique for, I think, a lot of OEMs, like GE doesn't do that.
Philip Totaro: Literally a project development division of the OEM company. Which, GAMESA used to do this, actually,