PowerCurve’s Advanced Blade Upgrades

Nicholas Gaudern, CTO at PowerCurve joins the show to discuss
advanced blade upgrades that improve turbine performance and reduce
noise. PowerCurve's technology helps operators make smart decisions
about maintenance and upgrades. Gaudern explains why combining
repairs with performance enhancements is a cost-effective strategy
that benefits both operations and community relations. Fill out our
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www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. I'm your
host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxon. Today, we're
diving deep into the world of wind turbine aerodynamics and blade
optimization with one of the industry's leading experts. Our guest
is Nicholas Gaudern, the Chief Technology Officer at PowerCurve, a
company that's revolutionizing how we approach wind turbine
performance through advanced Aerodynamic solutions. Now, Nicholas
has over 15 years of industry experience and his journey includes
significant roles at industry giants like Vestas, where he led the
design of next generation blades. And as CTO of PowerCurve,
Nicholas and his team are pushing the boundaries of what's possible
in wind turbine optimization. They've developed innovative
solutions like AeroVista, which helps operators make data driven
decisions about blade maintenance and upgrades. Their work spans
from custom designed vortex generators to trailing edge serrations,
all aimed at increasing AEP while reducing turbine noise. So please
welcome to the Uptown Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight, Nicholas
Gaudern. Nicholas Gaudern: Thanks, Allen. Yeah, good to see you as
well, Joe. Allen Hall: We have a lot going on in the United States
in terms of rotors on the ground. Variety of reasons, but anytime
that Joel and I are running through the Midwest, we see rotors
down, and when I run into those people, I always ask, why are you
not putting arrow improvements on your blade? It is the lowest cost
way to do it. There's an opportunity there Nicholas? Nicholas
Gaudern: Yeah, there, there really is, and I find it very
surprising as well, because whilst you can put upgrades on at lots
of different points in a turbine's life cycle, if you do have that
roach on the ground it just makes everyone's lives that bit easier,
and also it's going to save you a lot of money on installation
costs. So yes, I think it's a great thing to be considering because
you can be working on different parts of the blade at the same
time. And if you're going to increase the AEP with those devices
you put on, you can consider that as a way of paying for some of
the other work you might be doing while the rotor's down. Allen
Hall: Yeah. And we've run into many operators that have talked to
us about noise of all things in the middle of the United States
where there's not a lot of neighbors to them. But neighbors are
concerned about the noise produced by the turbines and in very
windy places. Yeah. like Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, there is blade
noise. It's there. And most of the equipment out in service does
not have trailing edge serrations. And I'm beginning to wonder if
that is trying to be, if there's needs to be an adjustment made
there that you may not technically need trailing edge serrations
for noise quieting, but to be a good neighbor. To everybody around
you, you may want to consider it Nicholas Gaudern: or especially if
you have blades on the ground. I think we should see more
serrations out on the blades because as you say maybe it's not
about a regulatory thing Maybe the turbine is producing a an
acceptable noise level to the letter of the law in that place But
it is about being proactive and being a good neighbor and I think
now Serrations have been out there from lots of different OEMs,
lots of different turbines. To me, they're a proven technology.
Serrations work to reduce noise. And now the actual magnitude of
that noise reduction can vary from turbine to turbine and site to
site. But you should easily be looking at getting one and a half to
two decibels of peak noise reduction if you're applying serrations.
Joel Saxum: I would say almost all of the new turbines that we're
seeing, like Allen, you and I just took a trip last week, right?
And we were bombing through, we were up in Kansas, a little like
right near Kansas. We went through Oklahoma and we actually ran
into a two piece GE blade on the side of the highway. So we stopped
to take some pictures of, cause of course that's who we are. And
that, that blade had serrations on it. And almost every blade I
see, or that you see going down the highway on a truck, it's got
serrations on it. So proven technology. People understand that it's
probably easier to do during a capex phase than applying these
things on uptower. Now, Powercurve, from your guys, from your
armchair, you've been putting dinotails on, we call them dinotails
in the field, right? Yep. Dinotail serrations. You've been putting
these things on for years as a retrofit. You've also sold them in
during the capex phase. And I've actually worked with you guys in
the past, in my blade life during a repower which is, that's the
extreme version of what we're talking about here. When you drop a
rotor, of course you drop a rotor, you're going to drop a ton of
them during the wind farm. Or you're putting new blades up. It just
makes sense to do it during those stages because Let alone the,
what you're doing for the neighbors, right? You're keeping things
quiet. There's also some efficiency increases with serrations too,
isn't there? Nicholas Gaudern: Like with anything, there's lots of
ways to define efficiency. So with serrations, I think one of the
big gains you can get is if you're in a site where the turbine is
curtailed. So if it's having power reductions in order to reduce
noise at certain times a day, often called noise modes. And
different OEMs will have different kinds of noise modes available.
That can cost huge amounts of AEP. For every one decibel of noise
reduction, you might be looking at a couple AEP loss, depending on
the turbine and the specific noise mode. So you can imagine if you
can apply serrations to a blade that are going to take a couple of
decibels off, and that means you can escape a noise mode. That can
give you some massive gains in annual energy production. And yeah,
as you say, Joe, we've been retrofitting serrations for a while
now. We've done it on lots of different turbine models often models
where the OEMs may not support that particular blade with a
dedicated serration product. And that's where we can really help
because we can design serrations for any Yeah, Joel Saxum: I know
working with you guys in the past on many projects there's a really
intense way of getting things done at Powercurve. It's done the
right way. So when you're looking at whenever, if you ever watch a
commercial and you see something cool like wind tunnels and race
cars and stuff like that's Nicholas's daily life. So is that you
guys are out there getting 3d models of certain blades. You have a
library of 3d models of blades, and that's what you build your
products off of, because it's all about aerodynamics. Nicholas
Gaudern: It is. And it's really important when you're putting
something on a blade that you know how it's going to perform over
the whole blade system. So when you put a serration on its job is
to reduce noise. But it's job is also to not break the blade that
you're putting it on. It's job is also to not fall off. So it's
very important when you design a serration that you tailor it to
the blade you're working with so that you're not changing the loads
in a bad way. And it should also be designed to interact with that
blade. So it's a robust product over the lifetime of the turbine.
So there are lots of different ways you can design serrations. Some
people claim that serrations can directly increase AP. That's not
an untrue statement, but it's quite a subtle statement because
serrations Can act a bit like flaps on the back of a blade if you
angle them relative to the flay. And if you angle them, maybe you
can get some more lift. And maybe you want more lift. But sometimes
you may not want more lift. I'm very cautious of making blanket
statements around serration as directly increasing AP. Because
there's some subtleties around how you do it and whether you are
concerned about loads or not. As a general rule, at Powercurve we
design our serrations to be load neutral, i. e. they won't increase
or reduce power. Their job is to reduce noise. Now, if there's
scope to do other things, we can talk about it, but yeah, please
think about serrations as a noise reduction tool. If you want to
change lift of a blade, there are some smarter ways to do it that
are a little bit less invasive. Allen Hall: Because The serrations
by the different manufacturers are not all the same. We obviously
see them from the side of the road or if you're out of sight. They
just look like triangles on the back of a turbine blade. But
they're not all made the same. And some more recent news from
PowerCurve is big noise reductions because of the specific design
that PowerCurve has invested in. Do you want to talk about that a
little bit?