Boosting Turbine Performance Through Electrical Insights: ABB WindESCo Collaboration

01/18/24 • 24 min

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In this episode, Allen and Joel speak with ABB's Daniel Gerber, Senior VP, Global Product Group Manager Wind, System Drives and WindESCo's Founder and CEO Mo Dua about their companies' new partnership. They are combining ABB's capabilities in wind turbine electrical systems with WindESCo's optimization software platforms. This collaboration aims to help wind farm operators monitor the health of electrical components to reduce downtime and maximize energy production. Plus, we discuss pilot projects planned for 2024 to demonstrate the value of jointly leveraging ABB's converter expertise and WindESCo's analytics. Reach out to Windesco and ABB! 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: Welcome back to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I am Allen Hall and I'm here with Joel Saxum, and we have some really interesting guests today. We have Daniel Gerber, Senior Vice President, Global Product Group Manager, Wind System Drive from ABB, and he's based in Zurich, Switzerland. And also Mo Dua from WindESCo. Mo is the founder and CEO of WindESCo, which is based in Massachusetts, my, my state. And the reason we're talking here today is because there has been a minority stake in WindESCo from ABB. And when this news release popped out a couple of months ago now, I thought, man, this is a great alignment. Finally, the wind industry is doing something on the electrical side that is interesting, because everything we hear is on the mechanical side. It's all about blades, leading edge erosion, how the gearboxes are breaking, how everything's leaking oil. But the, a lot of the improvements that are going to happen in wind energy and in the production side are going to happen because the electrical control system and the converters and everything downstream are working properly and doing what they should. And this is where WindESCo and ABB come in together. So Daniel and Mo, welcome to the program. Daniel Gerber: Hello, welcome, and thanks for having me. Thank you. Allen Hall: So would you like to just describe what brought the two of you together and how that relationship started and what the plan is for the combined effort. Daniel Gerber: We at ABB, we have a strong commitment in decarbonizing the power generation. And therefore the wind business for us is a strong part of our strategy. Our customers are asking us, what can we do actually to improve the situation, to get more out of our equipment, more out of our turbines. How can we make them as available as possible? And we at ABB, we have 17, 000 converters in the field, more than 21, 000 generators in the field operating. So we have a couple of years of good experience. And what we try to do is to find a partner, which can basically help us to bring a 360 degrees view on this. And we found with WindESCo, a partner, which has a credible offering into the market. And basically allows us to not just see the electrical part, but as well have the mechanical parts together. And therefore we found that WindESCo is one of our preferred partner in this collaboration. Mo Dua: Yeah. Thank you, Daniel. From my perspective, WindESCo has been a company that's been hyper focused on addressing the challenges in the wind sector. And as you guys know, there's a lot of challenges in the sector, a lot of moving parts right in the sector also. So We have ourselves been looking to expand beyond just performance optimization into as...

Previous Episode

New York Renewables: Opportunities and Obstacles for Offshore Wind

This week we discuss New York's delayed/canceled offshore wind contracts and the effects on future electricity demands, new port facilities for wind manufacturing, and a US-based initiative to paint turbine blades black to reduce bird collisions. Joel Saxum, Rosemary Barnes, Phil Totaro and Allen Hall bring you the latest in wind energy news, technology, and science! 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: So I got this really cool swag. So if you're listening, you really can't see my new swag. Got this Drive Smart sweatshirt from my favorite race car driver, Kyle Weatherman. And in fact, Rosemary, if you go to the drivesmartwarranty.com website, you will see the Uptime logo on the race car that we were on this past year in Texas. So this is going to be an exciting year for Kyle Weatherman and for Uptime and Drive Smart Warranty. Because we're expecting great things this season. Rosemary, want me to, I could, I can get one of these cool sweatshirts and send it your way if you'd like. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I'll never, turn down a freebie like that. Allen Hall: The only problem with this sweatshirt, it's not really a problem, is it has a Chevy logo, and I've never driven a Chevy. Now I feel obligated that I have to drive a Chevy. Joel, you, are you driving a Chevy right now? Joel Saxum: GMC, same thing, same pot of money. Allen Hall: There's someone on the uptime crew, because Phil is driving a scooter. a very complicated scooter, nonetheless. Philip Totaro: I used to, drive a truck, thank you very much, had a nice Dodge for 11 years, so I was part of the family. Rosemary Barnes: We've got a Subaru. Allen Hall: It's a very Australian car. There you go. We're expecting great things this year from, Kyle Weatherman and the DGM crew and from Drive Smart Warranty, so check it out, drivesmartwarranty.com. European energy companies Equinor and BP have terminated their agreement to sell power from the proposed Empire Wind II offshore wind farm. To New York State, the company cited rising inflation, higher borrowing costs, and supply chain issues as the reasons for canceling the contract. As Phil, New York recently launched a new offshore wind procurement to allow developers to exit these old contracts and to re offer projects at higher prices. And that's supposed to conclude sometime in February. However, in this particular case, BP and Equinor also cancelled the substation build. So there seems like they've committed a little further down the line than just saying, hey, we're going to rebid. They've actually stopped production on a vital component of that wind farm. This is in, in light of, obviously, Ørsted pulling out of the two projects. In New Jersey, so there seems to be a trend going on here. Equinor also had the problem, you and I were corresponding via, Slack or whatever it was the other day, and I, commented that Equinor has been pressured by the state quite a couple of times for a variety of different reasons. One more recently is the New York state canceled the on shoring of one of their cables, and which was a last minute dig at, Equinor, I felt. Does this all seem to align? Equinor is getting the cold shoulder from New York State, and will they go back and try to rebid this? Philip Totaro: I believe they will. First of all, this, probably wasn't surprising that they were going to pull out after, Empire Wind 1, Phase 1, and,

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GE’s big SunZia turbine order, Eversource exits offshore wind, BlackRock buys G.I.P.

Allen, Joel and Phil discuss Eversource's offshore wind exit, BlackRock's blockbuster G.I.P. buyout, and how GE's massive SunZia turbine order is powering the Western Hemisphere's largest wind farm in this episode. 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: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with the founder and CEO of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum, and this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our friends at IntelStor. If you need actionable information about renewable projects or technologies, check out IntelStor at intelstor.com. Eversource Energy is continuing efforts to exit investments in emerging U. S. offshore wind projects, negotiating the sale of Interest in three wind farms, South Fork Wind, Revolution Wind, and Sunrise Wind. Eversource sold some assets last year to partner Ørsted. The sale requires regulatory approval and agreements with Ørsted. Scope depends on Sunrise Wind rebid outcome. Eversource is going to take an impairment charge of roughly 1. billion dollars due to the changing market value of those assets and the construction costs. Phil, this is a problem, right? If offshore wind isn't at least profitable, marginally profitable. You're going to see a continual outflux of companies leaving offshore wind in the U. S. And Eversource, again, is another one that's doing it, and that's a big problem for New York in my opinion. What do you think? Philip Totaro: Yeah, and obviously we all know that PSEG left the projects in New Jersey before the plug ultimately got pulled. But, we've talked, I don't know how many times on the show about the fact that U. S. companies don't seem to yet really be bought into the idea of offshore wind. Pretty much all the projects even being built are being built by foreign owned entities at this point. So it's obviously, Eversource doesn't want to stay locked into unprofitable projects and agreements. So the divestiture makes sense for them. The question is, how does anybody follow this up? the interest rates look like they're going to come down. In 2024, there's already predictions that there's going to be up to five rate cuts this year to, readjust the, the fed, interest rate. At the end of the day, I think that's going to help tremendously getting projects back on track and may end up encouraging new investors, to, to plow some money into it. including some of these big infrastructure funds that are, they've got plenty of assets under management now and plenty of cash at their disposal. And they're, looking around. Joel Saxum: To note here too, guys, this isn't an odd concept of 50 percent ownership, 50 percent ownership, we're selling our ownership over here, we're selling our ownership over here, because this happens in offshore wind in the European market all the time. You hear, ah, Kodawind here was bought by this, and this guy's divested here. These are all, those are financial plays. So at some point in time, I would be willing to almost bet that the Eversource game plan wasn't to buy a wind farm, operate it, and decommission it. It was going to be to get in, get it built, get it running, and enhance the value of it, and dump it for a profit. It just is at the stage where, hey, that profit just doesn't look like it may come to be right now, or it's too far off for our investing risk appetite,