Vestas CFO Exit and Offshore Wind Security

We discuss a PES Wind Magazine article featuring 4cast's
methodology for comprehensive wind resource assessment and site
planning. Then cover Vestas CFO Hans Martin Smith's departure after
20+ years. Finally offshore wind security concerns follow a Chinese
vessel's severance of Baltic Sea cables, and Tilt Renewables is
announced as the title sponsor for Wind Energy O&M Australia.
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https://www.windaustralia.com Allen Hall: Well, since everybody is
getting pardoned recently, uh, I thought it may be a good idea to,
to put out there what we should be pardoned for, so we ought to get
added to that list. Joel Saxum: How about this one? I would like to
be pardoned for not getting my better half's windshield changed in
her Jeep from the crack from it. Allen Hall: Ooh, you're gonna need
a pardon for that. Yeah, that's, that's definitely pardonable
material. Yeah. Phil, have you broken any scooter laws there in
California? No, I have not. I don't know, Phil, you ought to get
them out now because the pardons are coming. Okay. Well, Rosemary,
I'm not sure we can pardon anybody in another country, but we might
as well just open it up to everybody right now. Why not? Rosemary,
did you commit any offenses when you were in the States, in
California, studying composites? Rosemary Barnes: I've got a pretty
big one, actually. I don't know if you guys have this, but in
Australia, when you're learning how to, to write, handwrite at
school, you know, you start with a pencil and then when you pass a
test and you can graduate up to a pen, you need a pen license. Um,
do you have that? Allen Hall: That is not real. Rosemary Barnes: I
did not get my pen license, but I do write with a pen sometimes.
So, yeah, including in the United States. Philip Totaro: That's as
real as a hoop snake. Rosemary Barnes: That's true. And I, um, I
would like to invite Australians to comment on if you're watching
this on YouTube or anywhere that you can write comments but look it
up on the LinkedIn post about this episode. Please comment and
confirm that we do or at least did in the 90s. I have to get a pen
license before if we graduate from pencil to pen. I never got it.
Allen Hall: It's a scandal. It's an outright scandal. Alan, you
have to share yours with us. What are you, what do you need to be
pardoned for? Yeah, we could use some pardoning on the production
side of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast because there are, there
have been some times it's pretty rough to edit and I gotta, I gotta
plead guilty. Yes, it is. However. However. Our producer does a
very fine job, and what comes out on the airwaves is much better
than what we record. Clearly. In this quarter's PES Win Magazine, a
number of great articles, and you can download all of them at
PESWin. com, but A really interesting article about weather from a
company called Forecast. So if you go to their website, it's fore
cast. de, they're based in Germany. And the article really
describes how you do forecasting. Preliminary studies on wind sites
to look at what the winds are now, get a really good understanding
of that and how that plays into the yield of this farm and what the
weather should be, the long term weather implications going
forward, so you can at least have an estimate on the revenue you're
going to pay. Possibly be generating from these wind farms. And
Joel, it seems like a lot of wind farm operators don't do this.
Either they don't Joel Saxum: do it or they're not doing it at a
high enough fidelity, right? So they're not doing it well enough.
We run into some wind farms where all of a sudden, you know, the
resource is down or the resource isn't good enough or local
competition for the wind resource, right? Someone's building wind
farms around them and it changes. And you, you see some people kind
of, yeah, generally it looks like this at a hundred meters or at 80
meters. This is what we should have. And then they move on. Um, but
what you're seeing now is more sophisticated lenders as well.
Wanting really good bankable insights on what is that wind resource
going to be? How much profit are we going to generate out of this
project? Um, you know, and there's other things that factor into
that, which, uh, forecast is taking into consideration when they do
their estimates. Legal framework and regulations, right? Because
that's a part of a wind or a site assessment as well, because as
those things change or develop depending on where you are, you may
be used to doing wind in Texas and you move to Kansas. It's a
completely different regulatory framework, so that's a big part of
it. Uh, but, you know, if I'm building a wind farm, this is the
kind of thing that I want to make sure that I tackle in a really
good way. I don't know if they do this, but I know, Alan, you and I
talk about it would be nice if people would do lightning,
lightning, uh, density as a part of their sighting assessment, but
We'll see. Allen Hall: Well, there's less lightning strikes in
Europe, in most places in Europe, than there is in the United
States. But Europe does seem to have a history of doing more
research on the sites before they decide to put turbines in, where
in the States, there are assessments done, but maybe not the
fidelity of what Forecast is doing here. Rosemary Barnes: In
Australia, at least. I know that they do do lightning assessments,
but, um, they don't use it for estimating how many lightning
repairs that you will need on blades or anything like that. It's
for, um, you know, they need to assess the lightning and protect
the substation and things like that and make sure people aren't
going to die from lightning strikes on the site. Um, so I know that
I, I've seen the, you know, initial assessments and when you had
all the information there, it would not have taken very much for
you to extrapolate to realize that you were going to have this big
lightning problem on site. Like you should, you should have known
before you stuck a single turbine in the ground that you're going
to have, you You know, a lot more, um, lightning repairs than, you
know, other sites that you had that had a lower lightning strike,
um, intensity. So yeah, I, I didn't even think it would add that
much more to the development process. If I just need to get the
right expert in to, you know, just take a quick look at it and say,
Hey guys, might budget in some, um, you know, more lightning
repairs than you might be used to. Allen Hall: Yeah, there's a
recent article about wind farms in my area that are on ridgelines.
They're having huge problems with gusts. And they're now realizing
that maybe gusts aren't the best thing for wind turbines. Maybe we
didn't site these turbines right because Half of them are down at
any one time. Rosemary Barnes: That's, that's one thing to not
check the lightning, uh, environment, but to not check the wind
resource properly is a bit strange for a wind farm. Allen Hall: I
agree. Uh, there's been a huge shift in whether, uh, wind turbines
should be cited on gusty sites or on top of mountains. There's,
there's a lot less of the on top of the ridge lines and there were,
uh, 10, 15 years ago, which is when our turbines were installed.
So, you know, getting those wind resources right is a huge
advantage. And if. If you want to go to a resource, you can go to
PESWin. com, read the article from Forkast. As busy wind energy
professionals, staying informed is crucial. And let's face it,
difficult. That's why the Uptime Podcast recommends PESWin
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 peswind. com today. Allen Hall: Well, an interesting
departure from Vestas. Hans Martin Smith has left the company after
20 plus years at Vestas. Um, he's a CFO who began that role in
about two years ago, March 22, and was really instrumental in
Vestas, uh, coming back into profitability in 23 and looks like 24.
Uh, they've installed another person temporarily as CFO for the
company. But this has rocked the stock market a little bit. Uh, the
stock price was down the day of the announcement at about 10%.
We'll see what happens over the next couple of days to see if it
recovers. But this is a real, uh, unique development, I think.
We've seen wind energy companies really struggle lately, but we
haven't seen key players, uh, walk off the court, which is what
just happened Philip Totaro: here, Phil. I mean, there, we don't
really know at this point as we record what the were for the
departure. Uh, clearly Wall Street doesn't like it because they
prefer certainty. Um, but when you consider, you know, their, the
divestitists had a bit of a hard time and, and it's getting a bit
clobbered with, uh, you know, a lot of these, uh, warranty claims
and, and, uh, Uh, not accurately predicting the extent of, um, you
know, their, their liability issues on the services side of the
business. You know, they're, they're still making orders, uh,
globally. They're, they're obviously still behind, you know, Gold
Wind, um, internationally, uh, as far as, you know,