Vattenfall 1.6 GW Farm, AI Learns to “Cheat”

Allen and Joel discuss Nylacast's article in PES Wind Magazine
about corrosion solutions in offshore wind and Vattenfall's major
investment in Germany's largest offshore wind farm. They also talk
about MIT's strategic alliance with GE Vernova and the ethical
concerns around AI in engineering. Sign up now for Uptime Tech
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YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! 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: If you checked
your mailbox or checked online, the new PES Wind magazine is out
and it is full of great content this quarter. There's a very
interesting article because we've been talking a lot about offshore
wind and some of the problems with offshore wind as one of them is
corrosion. Just betw between us engineers, it comes up quite a bit.
Like, why are we making things outta steel that you don't need to
make outta steel, why you're not making them out of plastic? And
that's what, uh, the people at, uh, Nylacast engineer products are
doing, um, on some hang off clamps, Joel, uh, which are
traditionally really cheap clamps that are made outta steel and
rust like [00:01:00] crazy. Joel Saxum: Yeah. You know, from my oil
and gas offshore background, that was one of the things that was
always a pain in the butt. IIRM contracts, as they call 'em,
offshore inspection, repair, and maintenance. There's so much focus
on coatings, paint coatings, paint coatings, and it's a special
coating, and it's this, and you can only apply it during this, and
everything has to be painted. And if you can't allow rust to start
anywhere on an offshore facility, it's in a high corrosion
environment, right? You have salt water, salt spray temperatures,
it's always kind of wet. It's a marine environment. And so erosion
moves very fast, right? So in the, in the oil and gas world, they
started creating some things out of like HDPE, which is high
density, polyethylene, plastic. Um, it's even so dense. You can
mill it. It's really cool stuff. But that's what, um, the PO the
kind of Nylacast engineered products is working with some of these
plastic products to replace some of those components in offshore
wind turbines that are a pain in the butt to maintain. So when we
talk about these hang off clamps. [00:02:00] They grab the cables
and other things and they, and they hold them in place in the
turbine as need be. If those are made outta steel and have a
coating on 'em, and you get a little bit of vibration and that
coating starts to wear away or starts to get a little bit of rust,
you've got a huge problem. You've gotta take the cables out, you
gotta take the things off, you've gotta replace 'em. You gotta
either replace them or you gotta grind on 'em and repaint them. It
is a nightmare. So they're, what they're doing with these, um, uh,
hang off clamps that are, you know, basically plastic instead of
metallic. Or a plastic type instead of metallic is there, they're
removing that need for IRM contracts in the future. Allen Hall: I
think it's great. It makes a ton of sense. And I'm surprised you
haven't seen more of this because, uh, nylon and and derivatives in
nylon are easily recyclable. It does fit all the things that wind
energy is looking for. It doesn't. Rust recyclable, easy,
lightweight, simple. We need to be moving this direction. So if you
haven't checked out PES Wind, you go to PS wind.com and download a
[00:03:00] copy. Or if you are at Wind Europe when this episode
comes out, it'll be during the Wind Europe event. Uh, there'll be
plenty of PES wind hard copies available just. Stop by and grab
one. It's well worth reading a lot of great material this quarter,
so check out PESWind.com. Well, Swedish Power Utility Vattenfall
has made final investment decisions for two wind farm projects in
the German North Sea. The Nordic one project is set to become
Germany's largest offshore wind farm, which marks a significant
expansion in Germany's renewable energy capacity. Now Vattenfall
has approved construction of Nor Lake one and two wind farms. And
they've also bought back Joel, uh, 49% stake that BASF had. And
the, the total capacity of the projects is 1.6 gigawatts. That's a
lot of power with construction. It's set to begin in 2026 and full
operation is expected by 2028. [00:04:00] And this is gonna power
about 1.6 million German households. This is a huge project. Joel
Saxum: I think it's really cool to hear this about the offshore
wind sector, right? So, so much, whether it's in the US or
elsewhere, not a lot of good news, right? We had the Danish, uh,
auction news. It didn't really go anywhere for a little while.
There was a German, uh, auction that was, you know, had a really
low subscription rate. So the fact that, uh, Vattenfall is charging
forward, and, and this is a key thing too. And we'll talk, you
know, Phil's usually here to talk about this, but final investment
decision is a big milestone, right? There's all this, you can,
these offshore wind projects are being worked on for 6, 8, 10 years
before you get to this stage, you know, you're, you're looking out,
um, doing sub seed mapping and site characterization and all the
permitting, and getting all the PPA stuff in place and signing
these contracts and all these different things. And then you
finally get to final investment decision and once that is debt box
[00:05:00] is checked, then you're moving. Right. So final
investment decision right now, Alan, and it looks like 2026 is
gonna be the start of construction. What do you think they're
looking for right now? Are they signing contracts for vessels? Is
that, is that next on the list? It Allen Hall: has to be right
because they signed an agreement with Vestas for 68 turbines. Now
this is really fascinating because it's the V 2 36 15 megawatt
turbine, 68 of them. Now, the big discussion about offshore is
been, is 15 megawatts enough and should we be pushing to 20 or
higher than 20, which is where Siemens GAA appears to be going. But
uh, that and fall sticking with a 15 megawatt turbine. I do think
makes a lot of sense because it is less risky and risk is a huge
concern at the moment. But Vest has also got a comprehensive
long-term service agreement, which has been their, uh, mode of
operating for a number of years now, and which [00:06:00] you hear
a lot of operators offshore talk about not wanting a long-term
agreement, but it seems like Europe is still sticking with it and
Augustus is obviously. Pushing it, uh, at the moment, but 15
megawatts long-term service agreement. Does this Joel Saxum: make
sense, Allen Hall: Joel? Joel Saxum: I think so. And one of the
reasons for Vestas as well is we know, 'cause we have someone in
our network that used to be operations for Vestas, uh, for the
offshore stuff, is they, they're very well versed in it and they
have the facilities and the Keyside facilities ready to go. So
Vesta is, uh, it's not like, oh, we have these, you know, this
gigawatt of order. Fantastic. We got the service contract.
Fantastic. Now we need to do all this prep and this build out and
figure out how this operation works. That's not the case. Vestas is
ready to rock. They've got their own keyside facilities, they have
the teams in place, they can make this thing happen and that 15
megawatt turbine, I think it's interesting that you say this too
because you know the other one, um, from the Western OEMs that
we've been following is that Big Dog 21 megawatt, I think from
Siemens Mesa. [00:07:00] That's, but that is currently being
tested. So to take final investment decision, you have to engage
your insurance companies and your banks. If they're not gonna sign
a contract for a turbine that's still under testing at this stage.
Right? This is a, you're talking a gigawatt of, of turbines at, you
know, that's a billion dollars, that's a billion US dollars minimum
in just tur a turbine order. Right? So, so just in those turbines,
that's what that thing looks like. And, and if I'm fat and fall, uh
uh. And fall. Of course, they're, they're developing a lot of on
onshore power. They're a part of some other offshore wind farms.
But this is a big, big undertaking and I think you want, when
you're, you know, you're taking, looking at final investment
decisions. You're in these conversations with the banks and the
insurance and the people that want to de-risk the investment. I
think that's where the, the Vestus thing steps in. I think that's
where it looks good, is de-risking the operation. Allen Hall: Does
esa. [00:08:00] Have a problem now that Vestus seems to be scoring
with a 15 megawatt turbine. It does. The Siemen SC MEA effort get,
or the pathway get more difficult because like you said, they're
gonna have to have somebody buy a number of these turbines and it's
gonna have to demonstrate a decent service life for a year or two
before you start to see a lot of people jump in and start to
purchase those turbines. In the meantime, Vestus is gonna be. Just
building 15 megawatt turbines, one after the other. Does that start
to weigh on Siemens cesa in terms of what they want to offer? Joel
Saxum: I don't think so. Um, and the reason being is, is that 2021
megawatt machine that they're testing right now is they're trying
to future proof their organization, right? They're trying to make
sure that for the next push,