How OEMs Solve Problems, ACP OMS Recap

Allen and Joel discuss their experience at the ACP OMS event in
Nashville, Tennessee. Ameren's High Prairie Wind Farm shuts down
all turbines following three turbine collapses. GE Vernova partners
with Amazon Web Services on wind projects. And a larger discussion
about the way OEMs attempt to solve problems. Fill out our Uptime
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today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro,
and Rosemary Barnes. Allen Hall: To start off the week, Joel and I
have just completed a couple of days that. ACP OMS in Nashville,
Tennessee. And if you don't know where Nashville is in the center
ish of the country, more towards the eastern part than the western
part. It's the same state where it Davey Crockett came from Daniel
Boone. Am I right about that, Joel? Sergeant York, Andrew Jackson.
Yeah. This is some old names. Yeah, it's right next to, actually
next to North Carolina. So we're like I don't know, an hour's drive
from North Carolina with the area that got hit with hurricane a
couple of months ago. We're not very far from it. But Nashville,
the event was pretty well populated. I was trying to relate it to
the OM and S event that happened in San Diego a year ago. It felt
like it was a little bit smaller of an event, Joel, and maybe the
attendance was a little bit lower. Joel Saxum: Yeah, the
interesting, we were at the Gaylord Opryland Convention Center.
It's absolutely massive. I learned today that it's the largest like
resort convention center without a casino in the entire world. Like
it felt like he walked like a mile through the inside of the thing
to get to it. Like the conference center. What I think the issue
there was, or what it felt like, is it didn't feel like it was as
well attended as it was last year. A lot of ISPs, so a lot of blade
repair companies, a lot of service companies, all floating around,
not as many operators, but my thought is we're used to having this
thing in San Diego. It was 40 degrees and raining today. And in San
Diego every year it's like 75, 80 degrees. Beautiful. Everything is
fantastic. People bring their families and stuff like that. So you
hear a lot of people, oh yeah, I can't grab dinner tonight. I got,
my, my wife and kids we're gonna go do this. When you're in the San
Diego event here, not so much. 'cause it's, there's live music
that's great that but it, you're also 20 minutes from downtown. It
is a little bit of a different feel. But yeah the show floor. Of
course, Allen and you and I took a couple laps around it and
Claire, our producer as well. We took a couple laps around to see
what was there. A lot of the same players that we're used to seeing
a lot of the same companies. Nothing super new that stuck out.
Nothing groundbreaking, however. A couple cool things, right? We
sat down, I think we rec, we recorded a bunch of great material
with some of our podcast friends and people new to the podcast at
the thing. You'll hear those in the coming weeks, of course. But we
did get to look at the Earth next platform from Earth Wind. That
was really cool. Also the Gulf Wind Technology team was there and
they were show showcasing their up tower root bushing repair. That
was really cool. Other than that, ah, c nnc onsite, right? The
ability to do precision machining up tower, which is really neat.
But other than that, yeah, kinda lackluster for new technology or
really cool new stuff. I don't know what you thought about that,
Allen. Allen Hall: I didn't see much new there. I motor dock or
brought some new stuff in terms of software to analyze wind
turbines and that's always cool. I love when Howard Pinrose. Brings
new technology to the market and he's so gung-ho about it. And as
an electrical engineer, I just find his approach to solving
problems. Interesting. Arons has some cool stuff, obviously. They
always bring the robots and they have a New Rover internal drone
inspection robot that has en enhanced lighting for some of these
offshore blades. And obviously they're doing a lot of work with GE
Renova at the minute. Yeah. But the operator's part of it was
really non-existent. GE Renova had a really small booth. Vestas
also had a booth. Joel Joel Saxum: Vestas had the same so you can
see the scale Vestas had the same size booth. We did, yes. Yeah. It
was, I would say a lot of ISPs there. We talked to a ton of blade
repair companies a lot of people providing services to the
industry, which is normally what's at this event. But a, it seemed
to be lacking in the operator, the asset owners, the actual
purchasers of services and products, almost like. A pendulum swung
and all the operators started to figure out that this is really the
event to go to. So there was a ton of them here, but there happened
to be less operators. I'm I did hear some really good conversations
around the booth business getting done, everybody getting prepared
for the upcoming repair, blade repair seasons. Of course. We talked
to a couple of ISPs that say this has been their busiest winter
that they've ever had, which is interesting in the states here that
people are starting to kick off a bit earlier in the year to try to
get more done. I don't know if that's a budget crunch problem or
it's, we've just gotten to the point where people are looking for
capacity. If you're looking for blade repair teams that's the
conversation we kept hearing. How many teams do you have? I've got
15. 10 of 'em are spoken for, right? If you want to. Be a part of
the other five. You better react soon. Allen Hall: Yeah. I would
say in general though, don't you think that this spend was less
this year for booze and you didn't see the big flashy booth? A CP
probably had the largest booth this year and the most show type
things happening. Of course, they have a couple of speakers that
come and all that generally goes on, but you didn't see a lot at
the booze themselves. There were a couple of. Rather interesting
parties that happened. We should talk about the town for a minute.
The last time I was in Nashville was probably 15 years ago. So the
NFL team was here and the Tennessee Titans were here, and Broadway
was always there with the live music in the bars. You could always
walk along that, but the number of people that are here now is so
much more. It's crazy. The airport. Is probably the nicest airport
in the United States and it competes with Copenhagen's Airport.
Couldn't believe it, right? We saw Louis Hamilton's Formula one car
at the conference center. Like you don't see those things in
America. That doesn't happen. So what the activity in Nashville
economic activity is off the charts. It is so much different than I
remember it and I. I guess that's good for Nashville. People are
tending to move to the southeast of the United States at the
minute, so my guess is a lot of my fellow compatriots from
Massachusetts and New York that are moving down this way based on
the license plates that I saw. And that's good. Obviously you want
to go to a city that is vibrant for sort of these trade shows, but
I'm not sure early March is the right time to be in Nashville.
April would feel like the right kind of weather. And where are we
going next year? Joel. Where? Where's Joel Saxum: A-C-P-O-M-S. So
A-C-P-O-M-S. This same conference will be in Orlando next year in
Orlando course. Very fun. And so I said, when I said that to
someone our friend Armando from Aland, he said, Ooh, I'll bring my
wife and kids. We'll go to Disneyland and do universal studios and
all that. So I think that one could could peak some more interest
for some travelers. Allen Hall: Yeah, it's a lot closer. If you're
coming from Europe too, you can usually direct flight. To Orlando,
which makes life easier. Yeah, that, that's good. But I still think
San Diego is everybody's number one Joel Saxum: for sure. Yeah.
Next, so the next show if you're. Wondering where you might be able
to catch Allen, myself or anybody else will be in Phoenix for a CP
up there in late May. Allen Hall: 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 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. So most moon turbines at Ameren's High Prairie Wind
Farm in Missouri remain offline. And if you remember, they had
three turbines collapse last year due to some blade failures. Now
according to Ameren's, director of Renewable operations, only about
15 of the turbines have been reactivated while the company
continues to perform inspections to identify which units require
blade replacement. And when I. Saw a blade replacement. I thought,
oh, Rosemary, there's, we need to understand why they are going to
be replacing blades, because usually they would try to repair them.
Now, Joel and I did a little bit of investigation because it's been
a while since I've followed this story, but there's about what, 160
V one 20 at this site. 163. There you go. 163 V one twenties at
this site, and then a handful of V one twelves.