Show notes
Allen, Joel, and Phil dissect GE Vernova's restructuring of its offshore wind operations, potentially cutting 900 jobs globally. What will be the implications for the US and international wind energy markets? They also share key insights from the Sandia Blades Workshop, emphasizing the importance of prescriptive operations and digitizing tribal knowledge. Enter to win a bunch of Yeti and StrikeTape swag at https://weatherguardwind.com/yeti!
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: Hello everyone. Joel and I have been traveling across America talking with GE2X wind farm operators about how strike tape can protect their blades against lightning damage. If you work on a GE2X site, you need to visit our new website. weatherguardwind.com/yeti. We'll show you how your turbines can be protected against lightning with Strike Tape, and you can also register to win a nice Yeti Roadie 48 cooler, four Yeti mugs, and some Strike Tape swag.
Just visit weatherguardwind.com/yeti. Phil, have you been to the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York?
Philip Totaro: I have not.
Allen Hall: Oh my gosh, you're missing out because they have the finalists, the twelfth finalists for induction into the National Toy Hall of Fame this year. And they include, are you ready?
Drum roll please. Balloons, Pokemon cards, your own adventure books, which is a particular kind of interesting book. Hess toy trucks, which we see at Christmas time here in the United States. My Little Pony, which should have been an entrance a long time ago, honestly. How is that not already in there?
Exactly my point. Remote control vehicles, stick horses, trampolines, and probably one of Joel's favorite, Transformers. I'm a Transformers fan.
Hang on, let's go back to stick horses for a second, because again, how long has this museum been, or Hall of Fame been in business? I mean, are they, they're digging up some pretty legacy toy technology there.
Stick horses are back. Have you seen those competitions of, where people are riding the stick horses over a competitive course where they're hopping over things and running around?
Philip Totaro: There are some people that think that the United States Is not going in the right direction. I think these people are probably steering us in exactly where we don't need to be.
Joel Saxum: Allen, when you said that the Toy Hall of Fame, I looked over at my bookshelf and I have to, I went and grabbed this toy, because to me, this is American Toy Hall of Fame material. This was, this toy was my dad's when he was a kid. And this is the original Mound, Minnesota built Tonka trucks.
Allen Hall: I think we all need to take a moment and observe and salute the old Tonka truck.
I
Philip Totaro: will salute that.
Joel Saxum: Working tailgate, I'm telling you, that's it right there.
Philip Totaro: That's a toy.
Joel Saxum: It even says USA on the tires.
Allen Hall: Made out of American steel and the edges are sharp like they should be.
I'm Allen Hall and here are this week's top stories. In a significant corporate development, the Spanish government has authorized BlackRock's stake in Natergy. This follows BlackRock's acquisition of GIP, which owns 20. 6 percent of the Spanish energy company. The approval comes with conditions, including support for energy transition projects and maintaining Natergy's headquarters in Spain.
This move positions BlackRock as a major player in Spain's energy sector. Denmark has inaugurated two new offshore wind farms. Vesterhavnord and Vesterhavnsyd, developed by Vattenfall, these farms feature 41 wind turbines with a combined capacity of 344 megawatts. Located between 5 and 10 kilometers from the Danish west coast, they will generate 1.
5 terawatt hours of electricity annually, enough to power 350, 000 households. This addition brings Vattenfall's total offshore wind capacity in Denmark to 1. 5 gigawatts. Marking a substantial increase in the country's renewable energy output and a boost for the North American wind industry. The Canadian port of Argentina has secured a contract to handle wind turbine blades for U.
S. East Coast offshore wind farms. The port will receive and store 220 wind turbine blades starting this fall and continuing into 2025. This agreement with ScanGlobal Logistics positions Argentina as a key player in the offshore wind supply chain, building on its previous contract for monopile marshalling and strengthening the infrastructure for wind energy development in North America.
In Canada, Marmot Energy is restarting wind tower manufacturing activities in Quebec. A new wind project will add 100 jobs to the facility and install 56 Vestas turbines generating 350 megawatts of renewable energy. The 1 billion project is set to begin construction in 2025 with commissioning planned for next year.
Moving to Hawaii, AES Hawaii reports success with a new bat deterrent system at its Kahuku Wind Farm on Oahu. The project uses an ultrasonic mechanism on its turbines to keep bats away. Since operations began in December 2020, only one bat strike has been recorded. The project's eight turbines, reaching 40 stories high, generate enough power for 16, 000 homes.
Breaking news. And in the UK, an investigation is underway following a collision between a service operation vessel and a wind turbine at Oersted's Hornsea One wind farm. The incident involved a Wind of Hope vessel carrying 72 people. No injuries or pollution were reported, but damage was sustained to the vessel and to the turbine base.
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 WeatherGuard Lightning Tech, Joel Saxum. As 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. In this quarter's PES Wind Magazine, there's a lot of good articles and you can check them all out at PESWind.
com. And if you're over in Hamburg, And looking at the exhibitions all over the floors there, a big part of that exhibition is about offshore wind. And one of the issues with offshore wind is the tooling that has to live out there. And an article from Hamatro, who makes hydraulic tooling that's made for offshore they have a really interesting description of what they do and all the processes and application tools that they have to have hydraulic tools in an offshore environment, because as Joel knows, anytime you get saltwater and moving hydraulics, it is a disaster.
Joel Saxum: Corrosion
Allen Hall: central.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. One of the things to think about or to understand here is that when you get in an offshore operating environment, not only like Allen says is the salt water, the wave heights, the bad, moving things around with lifts and all this stuff. It's a very difficult environment to operate in, but almost everything.
And this is where it makes it difficult. Almost every tool you use offshore for construction or decommissioning for that matter is custom built. And you're dealing with really large things. It's not like you go to snap on and say, Hey, give me this tool or Milwaukee tool. Hey, give me this thing.
And we'll, and yeah, we may, we make a hundred thousand of these and we'll sell you one, every single piece of equipment that goes offshore in these large applications is custom built for the application. So whether it's decommissioning or construction. You have to make it usually these things are designed in like a front end study.
So someone like home mantra will get involved with a wind farm that's being built years. Sometimes ahead of when they actually think it's out there, because they need to develop the tool. They need to build the tool. They need to test the tool. They need to get it ready to roll before that thing is.
Gets out moving that construction project because you don't get to just run to Home Depot and buy a new tool. Everything has to be custom built. And the other side of this thing is what whole mottro does is their hydraulic specialists. In the offshore world, hydraulics is the only thing that you really can, Make the kind of power, create the kind of power that you need to cut, to move, to, straighten out a monopile or to crush something down or connect something because electric pumps or just don't do it.
A lot of the times in a subsea environment, you're having a, what's called a work class ROV, the remotely operated vehicle, becomes the hands, the eyes, the ears, the everything in that subsea realm. And a work class ROV will usually be like 150 horsepower is what they call it, but that 150 horsepower Is driving hydraulic pumps.
And if you've ever seen like a house lifting jack or a car jack or something, that's all hydraulics. And there's the only way to control that kind of power. But these guys are a specialist, this Homatro company that's in PS when this magazine this month, they're specialists in creating these special, these.