Show notes
The crew discusses Husum Wind, Arthwind's blade consulting work featured in PES Wind, and a major cable damage incident at Taiwan's Greater Changhua offshore wind project. They also cover Japan's plans for a national floating wind test center, Australia's offshore wind development struggles, and feature Scotland's Moray West wind farm as the Wind Farm of the Week.
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Speaker: [00:00:00] You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now, here's your hosts. Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, and I'm here with Joel Saxum up in the great state of Wisconsin.
Phil Totaro is in California, and Rosemary Barnes is here, but she's in a vehicle in Australia somewhere. But there has been a tremendous amount of news over the last couple of days, and I think we should talk about some of them. Uh, I guess it's, it's a where the group would like to go. This week, guys, you know, we've been talking about the administration for the last several weeks and about administration out, uh, the latest is with, uh, the administration in [00:01:00]court about Empire Wind.
Do you want to even talk about that stuff this week or do you wanna move on to some things? A little happier? Let's do happier. Alan. I think we should, we need some different news. I feel the same way, Joel, you know, uh, when this podcast comes out, everybody's, everybody's gonna be in Husam, Germany having a great time, uh, talking wind energy, particularly in Europe.
And it sounds like that event is gonna be bonkers from what I can tell on LinkedIn.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. The, I mean, HU is only second to Hamburg right in, in Germany there. Everybody that I go, they enjoy it. Husam is like the, the. Correct me if I'm wrong, Phil, but I think it was like the first place they had onshore wind in a big way in Germany.
Phil Totaro: Yes. So it's vestus, um, put up a factory there, uh, and was selling wind turbines to farmers. It's also where they used to do, the reason that it's there is they used to do an agriculture. Um, event and then they used to invite some of the wind guys. This is going back to like the, you know, late eighties, early nineties.
[00:02:00] They used to invite the wind guys, or the wind guys used to show up to try and sell turbines at this agriculture event. The amount of people interested in wind got to such an extent that they started doing a separate wind event. Um, and it got. Before they started the separation with the, the Wind Energy Hamburg, um, event, they, uh, that got to a point, I mean, I remember being there in what, 2015 or 2016 when it had to have been.
30,000 people in a field in Huso. You know, I, my best memory of it, I think was when, uh, well it was eon at the time, but, uh, they had a guy running around, passing out hot dogs. And I had a eon hotdog.
Joel Saxum: Phil, I wanted to share with you. This was a Deutsche Wind Technique show, San Antonio a CP. They had margaritas with the Deutsche Wind Technique logo in the margarita, like foam, the foam on top of the margarita once, and they were passing those out at an event.
I thought that was spot on.
Phil Totaro: The hot dogs [00:03:00] are not branded in any way, although that would've been a good idea to like, you know, stamp the button or something.
Joel Saxum: What, how do we do that for weather guy to the next event? How we have like lightning bolt popsicles or something? Oh,
Allen Hall: I'm sure that can happen.
Lightning bolt cookies, maybe. Well, cookies. We all love cookies. Who doesn't love good chocolate chip cookie? You know who told me about Husam first was Lars Benson and at AC 8 83 and he described it as just a. Complete craziness in the middle of a field. You had to go rent a house to stay there. But it was a heck of a lot of fun.
And I thought, well, if Lars is having fun, it must be really fun. 'cause
Phil Totaro: Lars likes to have fun. I used to have to take the train on a daily basis from Hamburg because there was no way you could even get a house or a hotel. It was so busy, uh, in, in that little town. Um. So, yeah, it was, it was quite an experience and they've eventually worked out all the logistics.
'cause they used to not even have like, shuttle service from the train station to the event. Um, but there were so many people that demanded it that they started [00:04:00] adding these kind of amenities, uh, which, which was nice.
Joel Saxum: I did wanna share this one. Uh, you mentioned, uh, Lars Benton, Alan, um, Lars and the team over at a CA 83.
Recently Lars stepped, stepped into the executive chair and handed over the. The main keys to the organization to Yannick, so Yannick Benson, the new CEO at a C 83. So a little bit of a management change up there in Canada. That company growing, selling spare parts, doing blade work, doing service work, all kinds of good things.
Allen Hall: Yeah, if you need spare parts, you better be calling Yannick. It's, it's spare parts are hard to get at the moment and I know Yannick and Lars have connections and places you can't get to, so it's a good place to reach out to AC 8 83. Just in time for a husam. The new PES win magazine is out. This thing is heavy.
It's full of great articles and I've been thumbing through it, uh, recognizing a lot of people that I know in the magazine and that's awesome. Uh, but Joel pointed out that, uh, Amond Costa Rego [00:05:00] is in it from Earth Wind. And, and Arthur Wind is, we've, we talked to Armando a couple of months ago, Joel, down in Nashville.
That seems like an eternity ago.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, I'll tell you what, uh, Armando night chat quite regularly. We're on the WhatsApp telling jokes, talking family stuff off and on, and that man is everywhere. Uh, I talked to him last week. He was in Mexico. He was in Chile. He was in Argentina at all the wind events. He's got wind, uh, power Brazil coming up.
I know he's doing a big thing with the ARS wind team down there for that. He was at a CP Nashville. He, for OMS, he was at a CP in Phoenix. He's like every event everywhere. He's there every, no matter what Europe. South America, it doesn't matter. Um, but yeah, the article they're showcasing, of course what Earth Wind does is as a blade consultant, they're top tier.
They've got a large team. They have a lot of experience inside the factories, um, auditing blades as they're coming off the lines. Internal inspections, external inspections, blade expertise. Uh, they've got their [00:06:00] own platform, ARS Next, which is kind of, um, it's, it's, it's solid, right? It's good. Yeah. It's good stuff for, uh, validating repairers realtime feedback.
Um, I know they got some little AI engines for chat bots and stuff in there. They're doing some, some really cool things. Um, so, and if you haven't, if you've met r Armando, you've probably also met our good friend Rodolfo, uh, who is, who is a. A strong right hand for Armando and uh, that team down there is, um, they're doing big things in Brazil.
Allen Hall: Yeah, a lot of great things happening at Earth, wind, and they are worldwide. If you need help with inspections or technology, or blade management or turbine management. Earth Wind is definitely a place to check out, and you also need to check out PES Wind, so if you haven't downloaded your copy, you can go to PS wind.com and download your copy today.
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 [00:07:00] 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 PES wind.com today. You wanna talk about cables? You wanna talk about storage batteries? I think we should do the, the cables and batteries. You pick the order.
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I mean, they relate. I'm sure one will flow into the other.
Allen Hall: Well, if more things could not go wrong, forested at the minute, and I know, uh, we're watching Orid all the time, watching the stock price, watching them get their feet back underneath of them.
Stead has a lot of projects still going on today, and I think everybody forgets about that, that they're a worldwide company and they're doing great things all over. Uh, but they had a setback in Taiwan, so an export cable was damaged at the greater Chenwa two B offshore wind project, uh, which is going to push back the completion of that project.
To sometime in [00:08:00] late 2026, it's about a 300 million Danish kroner hit on the, on the revenue chain, uh, which is about $50 million. It's not a huge deal, but when I read this article, Joel, the first thing I was, I thought about you saying that on offshore, the biggest risk isn't the actual turbines, it's the cable, and there's a lot of damaged cable as they're deploying 'em.
What likely happened here in Taiwan?
Joel Saxum: Well, it's an in, I think the first off, it's interesting that they're taking the hit. I, I don't, I think that's the, the headline, but that's gotta be an insurance policy that's covering this.