The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

"Scaling wind energy ...and automating operations" are important, and those are two things Future Positive Capital wants to see happen after its $9M investment in Aerones. There's more to the explanation worth discussing, so Allen, Rosemary and Joel dive in. They also take a deep dive into the Wind-to-Methanol fray, where there's a lot of discord, and a lot of (grant and investment) money at stake. A flammable liquid that has traditionally been used to make other chemicals like formaldehyde and acetic acid, Methanol is becoming the green darling of the maritime industry. But is it a carbon-neutral fuel? The Uptime crew looks at the issue from several angles, does the math, and tries to work it out. Also, GE has three new names (and one unhappy union) - so what changes might we see? 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! Uptime 123 Full Allen Hall: Hey, all welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. We have three items on the docket. Rosemary talked a lot, and so we had to just condense everything and, but it's very good. in fact, we got very, she was in a very combative mode today. I, I have to say so she was ready to go - all fired up. First topic is Aerones in Latvia getting 9 million in funding and we, we try look at that funding to what the future marketplace is, and we think there's huge upsides for them. Rosemary Barnes: And then I get on my high horse a little bit about waste to fuel. And to what extent that can be called green, or maybe, maybe it's more towards greenwashing. Joel Saxum: So GE renamed themselves, GE Vernova on the energy side, so renewables in their rest of their energy portfolio. Joel Saxum: And we're. Put on our marketing hats. And talk about that for a little while. Allen Hall: Stay tuned. It's a good episode, everybody we'll be back right after the music. Allen Hall: Well funding news this week, guys, Aerones up in, Latvia received $9 million in investment funding. And I, I bring this up because usually these investment pieces don't make a lot of news, but the company that one of the companies that invested in, Aerones decided to write up a really detailed loan articles, why they invested in a company in Latvia. Allen Hall: And it was, it was a little bit different perspective on the wind energy community in terms of potential now, potential growth, why they think there's gonna be significant changes over the next couple of years. And. Why other companies are not getting invested. I mean, invested into, in terms of wind companies, you don't see a lot of investment in wind companies. Allen Hall: The, the earlier one, this year was Skyspecs, which is 80 million, Aerones is nine. But after that it gets pretty quiet. So the, the funding company was future positive capital. They led the round with a couple of companies. You’ll probably recognize Change Ventures, Skype founder, Jaan Talllinn Vinted co-founder Mantas Mikuckas, Printify CEO James Berdigans, and then Pace Ventures and EcoSummit and Capitalia. Allen Hall: So there's names that I recognize in that list. So they all invested in our own as a potential growth company. And the reason they did was interesting, it said in late two thousands the north America wind fleet was already average seven years old, and it was expected to be 11 years old by 2025. So they're seeing this aging wind turbine market. Allen Hall: And Europe has pretty much the same difficulty where more than a quarter of the wind tubines are gonna be more than 15 years old as of 2020. So they have older wind tubines out in service and they need to keep them running an...

Siemens Energy is in turmoil as warranty claims spiral out of control. Insiders say an internal investigation has been launched into potential wrongdoing, and rumors are swirling about a possible fire sale of the struggling onshore division. Meanwhile, Equinor is popping champagne bottles to celebrate the grand opening of its futuristic Hywind Tampen floating wind farm. EDP Renewables is bringing the wind power revolution to the American heartland. The company just opened a state-of-the-art training center in Bloomington, Illinois that aims to create an army of 100 wind turbine techs over the next year. But the winds of change are blowing in another direction in Alberta, where Premier Danielle Smith has slammed the brakes on new wind and solar projects. The controversial move has the industry on edge and sets up a showdown with the federal government. At the same time, researchers at NREL and GE are cooking up radical new offshore wind turbine designs using superconducting direct drive generators that could dramatically cut costs. It's a sneak peek at the floating wind farms of tomorrow! The DOE is betting big on carbon capture, doling out a whopping $1.2 billion in funding. The lion's share is going to high-profile projects by Occidental and Battelle. But some are questioning whether carbon capture is a smart investment or just an expensive distraction. In wacky wind power news, a Dallas doctor wants to harvest electricity from the gusts generated by jets and propeller planes at the city's Love Field airport. Is this genius or crazy? Our Wind Farm of the Week is the just-completed Viking wind project in the gusty Shetland Islands. SSE Renewables finished this 103-turbine wind farm a full 6 months early. Raise your mugs - the winds of Shetland are blowing strong! 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! Uptime 180 Allen Hall: So college has started in the States, which means I am building IKEA furniture. It seems like IKEA should give you a Swedish citizenship certificate when you complete one of those things. It they are What is with Swedish engineers, are they some sort of state of mask or something? Because there are some installations which. That can only be done in the most painful positions. It is insanity. Rosemary Barnes: I actually knew quite a few engineers when I was living in Europe. I, I, I, you would run into engineers at, at parties that were working for IKEA or doing their master's projects on, you know, simulation. The, you know, they've got finite element analysis engineers working for them and, and, and stuff. Allen Hall: What Rosemary Barnes: They really are engineered, they spend a lot of effort on those products. Phil, would you agree with that? Now I sound like an ad for ikea, but I, I had never set foot in IKEA before I moved to Denmark. That was the first time that I ever entered in ikea. Allen Hall: Let's all try to pronounce Ikea in the way they would pronounce it in Sweden. And the rosemary has to go last. Phil, give it a shot Phil Totaro: isn't it? Ikea, Ikea. Rosemary Barnes: Rosemary. I just said Ikea. As long as you just don't say I, you say E. That's, that's the only change that I made and that was understood. But I was in Denmark, not Sweden, and it's not exactly the same. You, they definitely laugh at you if you say, I Ikea, see am part, Allen Hall: I am part Swede. You wouldn't know it. But I am part Swede and I, I was paying attention. I knew that IKEA could not be a Swedish word. So there you go. Ikea is not a Swedish word. It's an American word. Ikea.

Byron Martin, CEO of Teknologize, joined us to talk about the Vestas ransomware attack and the great concept of cyber resilience: How companies can rebound after a cyberattack like the one Vestas recently suffered. Plus, we discussed global air pollution levels, India's offshore wind potential and infrastructure challenges therein, the Save Right Whales Coalition and got the engineers' take on the floating wind turbine structure Pivot Buoy from X1 Wind. 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! Transcript - EP90 - Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience with Byron Martin of Teknologize This episode is brought to you by weather guard Lightning Tech at Weather Guard. We make lightning protection easy. If your wind turbines are due for maintenance or repairs, install our strike tape retrofit LPs upgrade. At the same time, a strike tape installation is the quick, easy solution that provides a dramatic, long lasting boost to the factory lightning 00:00:21:08 - 00:00:48:22Unknownprotection system. Forward thinking wind site owners install strike tape today to increase uptime tomorrow. Learn more in the show notes of today's podcast. Welcome back. I'm Dan Blewett. I'm Allen Hall and I'm Rosemary Barnes, and this is the Up Time podcast bringing you the latest in wind energy, tech news and policy. 00:00:59:21 - 00:01:13:00UnknownAll right. Welcome back to the Uptime Wind energy podcast, I'm your co-host Dan Blewett on today's show. We've got a great lineup and we also have a friend of up time joining us, Byron Martin, CEO of Teknologize, which is an IT firm in Washington state. 00:01:13:00 - 00:01:29:22UnknownHe's going to be joining us to talk about the implications of the Vestas cyber attack. Obviously, we mentioned this on the show in a past episode just recently when the story broke. But we wanted to get Byron, who's one of our our repeat guests now, since he's an expert, it's really kind of walk us through this. 00:01:29:23 - 00:01:47:19UnknownYou know, the response, the cyber attack and his term, which you learn today, cyber resilience, which is not just trying to prevent attack, but also how quickly can your organization bounce back once you have in breach? So really great talk with Byron will jump to that in about 15 minutes before that. 00:01:47:19 - 00:02:03:22UnknownWe're talking about air pollution. We're concerned about India's offshore wind potential and why that still is sort of waiting in the wings. And we're going to talk about Rosemary's neck of the woods with the star of the South Offshore Wind project, which has gotten some new legislation just passed, which is going to help pave the way for 00:02:03:22 - 00:02:18:07Unknownthat one. And then after our interview with Mr. Martin, we'll talk about a self orienting floating wind turbine prototype that's just now being christened and the Save Right Whales Coalition and how that's impacting offshore wind here in the U.S.. 00:02:18:17 - 00:02:34:05UnknownSo before we get going, be sure to subscribe to our uptime at tech news, which you'll find in the show notes of this podcast, as well as Rosemary's excellent YouTube channel on renewable energy. So let's get started. Rosemary, we this crazy article from Al Jazeera. 00:02:34:20 - 00:02:50:10UnknownThey did a great job with it, some infographics and sharing some some data here on the 100 most polluted cities around the globe. And unfortunately, 94 are within India, China and Pakistan. Obviously, you know, you've especially harped on the idea that, look, we're all in this together.

For our bonus this week, Allen talks with Nicholas Gaudern, CTO of PowerCurve, at WindEurope 2023. In a new breakthrough process, PowerCurve leverages drone inspection photographs from SkySpecs and 3D laser scans to create highly accurate aerodynamic models of wind turbine blades. These high-resolution models allow PowerCurve to predict the AEP of blades in-service. This new offering is being used by operators world-wide to leverage blade aero upgrades and leading edge protection devices. PowerCurve - https://powercurve.dk Pardalote Consulting at https://www.pardaloteconsulting.com Wind Power Lab - https://windpowerlab.com Weather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.com Intelstor - https://www.intelstor.com 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! PowerCurve Allen Hall: Welcome back to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, president and CEO of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and we are here in WindEurope 2023 in Copenhagen with Nicholas Gaudern, CTO of PowerCurve. Welcome, Nicholas Gaudern: Nicholas. Hey, Allen. Nice to you. Back on with you. Allen Hall: So the, there's a lot happening in Copenhagen this week. there are so many operators here. And, and OEMs. so the first time we've seen GE Renova show up and, and a number of shows, but I've met so many new operators or, and that are really just diving into when they're buying assets and they're now, they're trying to figure out how to maximize those, those, assets. And one of the things that we hear at our booth is we need to get the aerodynamics cleaned up. Yes. And I said, well, you need to go down a couple of. Blocks in this conference center and talk to power curve because, power curve knows about your blade and can make them more efficient. So I, I know you guys have been totally busy. We've pretty much give, got handed out. Every handout we brought, it's already been distributed. This is only the second day of three. so it's been a tremendous conference. What, what are you hearing from some of the operators in OEM this week? Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, it's, it's really interesting and, and, yeah. It is a huge conference. The attendance is great. I think the atmosphere is really nice. There's a lot of positivity, I would say around the industry at the moment, which is really nice to be part of. I think one of the biggest things we've been discussing with, with people visiting our booth is how do you understand, how best to manage your blade over its lifetime? So there's a lot of attention being paid to. So how'd you get the most out of your blade at, at all points of its life? So not necessarily, you know, getting the very best blade at the beginning or the end, but just, just kind of tracking progress, tracking performance, and taking appropriate mitigation methods at, at the, at the best possible time. And that's something that we've been focusing quite heavily on for the last couple of years. So if you understand the. The blade aerodynamics in, in great detail, you can start to map on the impacts of the real world blade conditions. Yeah. So when a blade's out in the field, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's suffering. It's suffering. It, you know, it's in this really a aggressive environment sometimes, particularly offshore. You've got heavy wind, rain, dirt, bugs, ice, and all of these things are, are really. Challenging from a performance perspective, and if you want to optimize how much energy that blade's producing. Yeah, yeah. So one way you can, look at that is to take,

In the final episode of 2021, in which we saw huge growth in offshore wind, Allen and Rosemary give their big takeaways from the year along with predictions for what's to come in 2022. Will we see 20MW wind turbines? A development slowdown due to inflation? Regulatory hurdles? Go here for the video about McDonald's ice cream machines mentioned on the show. 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! Transcript: EP93 of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast 00:00:37:11 - 00:00:38:13Welcome back. 00:00:38:13 - 00:00:40:00I'm Dan Blewett. 00:00:40:00 - 00:00:44:18I'm Allen Hall and I'm Rosemary Barnes,and this is the Up Time podcast 00:00:44:23 - 00:00:48:03bringing you the latest in windenergy, tech news 00:00:48:03 - 00:00:49:18and policy. 00:00:59:22 - 00:01:00:06All right. 00:01:00:06 - 00:01:02:17Welcome back to the UptimeWind Energy podcast. 00:01:02:18 - 00:01:05:03I'm your co-host, Dan Blewett on today'sshow, 00:01:05:03 - 00:01:08:14we're going to do a sort of 2021a year and wrap up. 00:01:08:23 - 00:01:11:20So aside from a couple topicswhich we're going to talk about, 00:01:12:04 - 00:01:16:00including balsa wood harvesting, obviouslythat's used in wind turbine blades. 00:01:16:00 - 00:01:18:06And as they've expanded in size, 00:01:18:06 - 00:01:21:08that harvesting has sped up,which is threatening the rainforest. 00:01:21:10 - 00:01:22:13We'll talk through that 00:01:22:13 - 00:01:25:16as well as maybe some possiblereplacements for that material 00:01:26:09 - 00:01:27:14in the near future. 00:01:27:14 - 00:01:31:07What about Germany phasing outnuclear power and Siemens Gamesa 00:01:31:07 - 00:01:35:09accepting bids to sell off the winddevelopment arm of their business? 00:01:35:09 - 00:01:37:08And then, as we do our sort of 2021 00:01:37:08 - 00:01:40:16wrap up, we have five questionswe're going to throw to our experts here 00:01:41:05 - 00:01:42:09about, you know, developments. 00:01:42:09 - 00:01:45:13They see predictionsand maybe some surprising things 00:01:45:13 - 00:01:47:07about the year behind us. 00:01:47:07 - 00:01:49:16So look for thatin the second half of today's show. 00:01:49:16 - 00:01:53:15Before we get going, be sure to subscribeto Uptime Tech News, which you will find 00:01:53:15 - 00:01:56:23in the show notes of this podcast,as well as Rosemary's YouTube channel. 00:01:57:07 - 00:01:58:17Where is you doing twice a month? 00:01:58:17 - 00:02:02:03Live streamsand all things renewable and wind energy 00:02:02:03 - 00:02:05:05shows a great job there, so check outboth in the description below. 00:02:05:16 - 00:02:09:22So first thing on the docket today,we're going to talk about balsa wood. 00:02:09:22 - 00:02:13:10So obviously this is used structurallyin wind turbine blades, and the bigger 00:02:13:10 - 00:02:18:08they get, the more this has been usefuland necessary to increase harvesting. 00:02:18:17 - 00:02:21:08And of course, just like anythingas demand goes up, 00:02:21:08 - 00:02:24:16this is putting strainon this natural resource. 00:02:24:18 - 00:02:28:15Rosemary, obviously working for Elm WindPower, you have a pretty good idea of, 00:02:28:16 - 00:02:31:16you know, the vendor relationshipsand all of the materials 00:02:31:16 - 00:02:32:23that go into these blades. 00:02:32:23 - 00:02:35:00Can you take us through this situationwith balsa wood? 00:02:35:00 - 00:02:38:09Like, where does balsa woodfit in to blade construction? 00:02:38:10 - 00:02:38:18Yeah. 00:02:38:18 - 00:02:42:18So Balsa Wood is a sand...