US Wind Unionization, Blade Weather Damage Insights

This week, we cover the unionization of Vestas technicians in
Michigan, and research revealing significant blade damage occurs in
short but intense weather events. At the Atlantic Shores offshore
farm, an environmental permit was remanded by a judge. Dermot Wind
Farm in Texas, also known as the Amazon Wind Farm, is our wind farm
of the week. Register for the start of our webinar series with
SkySpecs! 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
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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: Before we start the program this
week on March 26th. At 11:00 AM Uptime sits down with Josh Goryl
CRO of SkySpecs, and their newly appointed CEO Dave Roberts for an
exclusive conversation in our new joint webinar series. You may
have heard about Dave recently stepping into the role. Now's your
chance to hear from him directly and we'll dive into what's new at
SkySpecs, the latest industry insights, and what their newest
announcement means for the future of wind turbine inspections. Wind
o and m. And asset health management, so don't miss it. Tune in on
March 26th, 11:00 AM Eastern, and we'll include the webinar
registration link in the show notes. Up in Michigan, wind turbine
technicians who perform operations and maintenance on Vestas
turbines have voted to join the Utility Workers Union of America.
Marks the first Vestas wind technicians in North America to
unionize. The 11 member group voted nine to one, so someone
abstained obviously in favor of organizing and will become members
of the UWUA local 2, 2 3, which also represents winex at DTE in
Michigan. Now these workers are responsible for operations and
maintenance on about 120 odd turbines, including MCE. So Joel, this
one's a little unique and maybe 'cause it's Michigan unions are
really strong in Michigan, have been for a hundred years. 'cause
the auto workers, and this seems like an outgrowth of that, but
what is the relationship with Vestus in unions? Is that something
that they have done in Europe quite often and this is just carrying
over into the United States? Or is this. An American move. Joel
Saxum: I think it's an American move. If you look at the state of
Michigan, like you said, auto workers are there. They're heavily
unionized. And because they're heavily unionized and that state has
looked at them as, they do well. It's in good middle class incomes
and, that, that's driven some progress over the last a hundred
years in Michigan. My, some of my in-laws are from Michigan and
they're boilermakers and they're all unionized. And when they say
get that union job, they've got it. They've made it right. So I
understand the city or the state of Michigan and some of the ideas
around there. And I think that if you, in wind, if you were to pick
a state that would've unionized first. Michigan would be at the top
of your list probably. So I don't think it's a Vesta thing
necessarily. I think this is a local Michigan thing, but I don't
also believe, Vesta is being a Danish company and they have, a lot
of trade representation there from in all trades in that northern
part of Europe. I think that's, it's not abnormal to Vestas either.
It's probably abnormal to Vestas. United States Management, but
Vestas as a company, eh, pretty standard thing. I'm curious to see
what their package looks like, because now we're in this era of IRA
bill things, right? So we, IRA bills, apprenticeships, and white
sheet wages and these kind of things to, to fulfill these needs for
all these projects. So I would. Be interested to see what the
package looks like and what they've signed with or as a union to
Vestas and to the people that you're working for, to see if it
aligns with the IRA bill. Rosemary Barnes: What can you explain for
non-Americans? What does that mean to have unionized in America?
Because we have unions in Australia, but my understanding, like it
must be incredibly different here than it is there. 'cause like you
say, it could be, you can have a union job, like I'm pretty sure in
Australia, like you are. There's no such thing as a union job. They
can't I think they're explicitly prohibited from discriminating
based on whether you are in a union or not. Everyone has a right to
join a union, but, what does a union job mean? And Yeah tell those
of us who aren't from America. What does this actually mean? Joel
Saxum: It's different depending on the organization, the industry,
the area, right? So technically same thing. It's not, it's, it is
illegal to technically discriminate against non-union or union,
however, they become such a strong presence that when, if you're
part of the union and you. Say there's a strike going on, and then
you cross that picket line, like you will be ostracized from that
group of people, even though it's technically illegal to do they're
not sanctioned by the government. It's all independent
organizations, but they have a lot of power, the auto workers
unions and stuff, like if they go on strike, they shut down gm,
they shut down forward, they can't do anything. So they have a, an
insane amount of power. And it, it rolls over into, when I say good
union jobs, they have good packages. In my opinion, I've seen some
union packages that are just crazy, right? Like I was working in
Chicago and there was guys that were holding shovels clearing,
clearing off manholes, and they were making $48 an hour because
they were in the union. And the guy next to him that wasn't in the
union, that wasn't working for the union company was making like
16. And doing the same work except for after eight hours he was
still working. The other guy put a shovel down one home. So there's
a give and take. Phil Totaro: Yeah. But that's the flip side of
this as well, which is okay, there's a benefits package that, that
they offer as being part of a union, but there's a price that's
paid for all of that. It's the same sort of thing with, like a
government that leans a little more socialist. They're gonna
collect a lot more in tax. And then have a lot more programs for
everybody that's based on all that money that they've collected.
But the reality of it is who do you think pays for that? At the end
of the day, that's gonna be the asset owner and then all of us as
electricity rate payers who end up, the power purchase contract
price is necessarily gonna be, more than what it might have been
otherwise. There's. There's two sides to it. And yeah, you can, you
can get unionized labor and their argument with joining the union
was, safety training, access to safety training, access to
benefits, things they weren't getting either from vestus or
independently. But somebody's gotta pay for it and it's gonna be
all of us Joel Saxum: as busy wind energy professionals. Staying
informed is crucial, and let's face it. Difficult. That's why the
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Allen Hall: New research from the Netherlands Organization for
Applied Scientific research in collaboration with offshore wind
operators reveals that approximately 30% of annual wind turbine
blade damage occurs during just 12 hours of harsh weather
conditions. The PROWESS project conducted. Year long, detailed
measurements of precipitation in the North Sea, a pretty rough
place finding that damage happens when the tip speeds reach about
325 kilometers an hour as wind speeds exceed about 63 kilometers an
hour, which is pretty fast and rainfall surpasses about 7.5
millimeters per hour, which is a lot of rain. Now, these findings
have led to the creation of a erosion atlas in the. That could help
wind farm operators proactively reduce turbine speeds to prevent
damage. Now, I think that's the goal everybody, is that if they
know there's certain environmental times when rain erosion is going
to occur, then you basically slow the tip speeds down, which will
reduce the amount of erosion. Maybe I'm missing some of this.
Rosemary, I know you've heard the same story that you can slow the
tip speeds down when the rainfall is really high and the wind
speeds are really high. And sure you can reduce the amount of
erosion, but it's still a problem. Rosemary Barnes: And I haven't
seen this this atlas, is it just for the North Sea is is it just
Europe? Europe, Joel Saxum: TTU was working on one to cover all of
Europe. Allen Hall: Yes, they were. Yeah, I haven't seen it yet,
but it maybe out. Rosemary Barnes: One of the things that I've been
working on. Recently with a few different clients is leading edge
erosion in Australia. And just noting that we don't see things
behave the same way that they do in Europe. And one of the reasons
is, or that I suspect actually I don't suspect, I know I've back
backed up with data, that we have much higher rainfall intensity
and a lot of places and. Australia. Like I just know that from
living here. When I lived in Denmark when I moved to Denmark I
checked the climate data before moving to see, things like, oh,
what's the annual rainfall and how does it compare? And it wasn't
so different to a lot of parts of Australia.