Suzlon’s Record Quarter, Wind O&M Australia, Critical Minerals in US

This week, Allen Hall and Joel Saxum explore Suzlon Energy's
record-breaking quarter, featuring a 5.1 GW order book and 96%
earnings increase. They detail plans for the Wind Energy O&M
Australia conference in Melbourne, aimed at sharing global
technical expertise. Allen and Joel discuss the game-changing
discovery of America's largest lithium deposit in Arkansas, and
spotlight Michigan's Isabella Wind Farm project, which powers major
automotive companies while generating substantial community
benefits. 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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Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes'
YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting -
https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech -
www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.comWind
Energy O&M Australia Conference - https://www.windaustralia.com
Allen Hall: Well, Joel, we just don't seem to have the luck of some
people, I'm telling you. Because a gentleman down in North Carolina
found a 20 bill laying on the ground outside of a gas station and
used it to buy, of all things, a scratch off lottery ticket. And
that ticket was worth one million dollars. Joel Saxum: You know,
Allen, sometimes they say, you gotta play to win. And if someone,
if some, by some luck of chance, you get 20 and it's not, you're
playing with the house's money, then. I think that, uh, maybe we
need to just keep our heads on the ground a little bit more. Allen
Hall: He had the opportunity to buy all kinds of lottery tickets. I
don't know if you go into a gas station in North Carolina, there's
several kinds there. He couldn't find the one that he wanted. So he
ended up buying just one that seemed okay. And that was the winning
one. So if he had chosen the ticket that they had, the ticket that
he wanted, he wouldn't be a million dollars richer. Now, the real
funny thing about this is they asked this gentleman, well, what are
you going to do with all that money? And it says, we are going to
head straight to Golden Corral and eat everything they've got. So
he's gonna spend like 40 bucks worth of it? It's hard to spend a
million dollars at Golden Corral. But, however, I, it did force me
to take a look at the dessert menu. Cause that's one thing about
Golden Corral is that they have a lot of desserts. It's like, it's
a big dessert bar thing. And If you, I will read some of these to
you and go, wow, okay, this is not bad, right? Chocolate dip
marshmallow skewers. Come on. I'm out on that. No way. So they have
cakes and pies. They always have cakes and pies. All right. All
right. Right? Pumpkin pie, peanut butter pie. The Sweet Home
Carolina cake, which is popular. Uh, carrot cake. Are you a carrot
cake fan? I am, but it has to have good frosting. It's gotta be a
cream cheese frosting. Otherwise, I'm out. Carrot cake is an
acquired taste. I think it's an American taste, weirdly enough.
Now, do you want it with walnuts? No walnuts. No nuts. I want it
clean and clear. And I have had one with a little bit of ginger in
it that was Joel Saxum: really good. Allen Hall: Oh, the ginger is
terrific in carrot cake. I have to admit, I'm a recent convert on
that one because I thought, there's no reason to put ginger into a
cake. What are we doing? But it is quite good. So this, this
gentleman is going to be a golden corral quite a while. I wonder
what the calorie intake is going to be in his life for the next
couple of years. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm
your host, Allen Halladay, and I'll be joined by my Uptime co hosts
after these news headlines. Vattenfall has expanded its landfill
ban to include more wind turbine components beyond blades. The
Swedish developer will now prohibit landfilling of permanent
magnets, nacelle canopies, and nose cones from its wind farms. The
company aims to achieve 100 percent recycling of these components
by 2030, with a particular focus on recovering the rare earth
elements from permanent magnets. This latest initiative builds upon
Vattenfall's 2021 blade recycling commitment and is already being
integrated into current wind farm decommissioning contracts. The
strategy underscores the company's dedication to reducing
dependency on newly mined materials while decreasing environmental
and social impacts associated with Rare Earth Mining. In Texas,
RWE's Champion Wind Farm will power Rivian's DC fast charging
Adventure network through a new 15 year purchase power agreement.
The 127 megawatt facility is undergoing repowering with 41 upgraded
Siemens Gamesa turbines and six new 3. 1 megawatt units. Once
completed by mid 2025, the wind farm will generate enough
electricity to power nearly one billion miles of renewable driving
annually. The project demonstrates innovative circular economy
practices with decommissioned turbine blades being repurposed
through regen fiber for use in construction materials. These
recycled fibers will be incorporated into concrete To enhance
strength and durability, extending infrastructure lifespan. Belgium
is advancing the world's first artificial energy island with a 650
million euro green loan from the European Investment Bank. The
Princess Elizabeth Island, to be constructed 45 kilometers
offshore, will channel 3. 5 gigawatts of wind power, enough for
over 3 million households. The project scheduled for completion
between 2024 and 2027 will feature both high voltage DC and AC
infrastructure. Foundation caissons are already under construction
in the Netherlands. Additional funding includes 100 million euros
through the European Recovery and Resilience Facility. GE Vernova
has launched an online store for wind turbine components in Latin
America, featuring over 30, 000 items. The digital marketplace aims
to reduce turbine downtime during maintenance and repairs across
the region, where GE currently operates more than 3, 400 onshore
wind turbines. The platform follows successful implementation in
the United States and Europe, allowing wind farm owners to purchase
spare parts and essential items in a single transaction. And Fred
Olsen of 1848's Floating Wind Foundation, Brunel, has received DNV
Basic Design certification. The semi submersible steel foundation
features a modular design with two forward leaning towers, and a
single point mooring system. The design is specifically engineered
for the North Sea conditions and aims to utilize existing global
fabrication capacity. The Foundation's weather veining function
enables a passive ballast system that continuously optimizes its
position relative to wind thrust force. The certification validates
comprehensive design methodologies for primary steel design,
secondary steel mooring, manufacturing, assembly. Integration,
logistics, transportation, and installation protocols. That's this
week's top news stories. After the break, I'll be joined by my co
host, the chief commercial officer of WeatherGuard Lightning Tech,
Joel Saxom. Lightning is an act of God, but lightning damage is
not. Actually, it's very predictable and very preventable. Strike
Tape is a lightning protection system upgrade for wind turbines
made by WeatherGuard. It dramatically improves the effectiveness of
the factory LPS, so you can stop worrying about lightning damage.
Visit weatherguardwind. com to learn more, read a case study, and
schedule a call today. Allen Hall: Well, Joel, we have been to a
number of conferences, including SkySpecs annual forum. And there's
so much O& M activity at the moment, all over the world, it's
insane. Yeah, Joel Saxum: and you know, the problem is, is getting
the right people in the right room to talk about it. Like you said,
the Sky Specs Forum, to be honest with you, okay, it's a private
event, it's like invite only, right? But that's one of the best
events I've been to, uh, from a knowledge sharing standpoint, in
the wind industry ever. And to me, the reason being is, is you have
all the people that are dealing with the same problems that have
their own solutions that have figured things out in lessons learned
and best practices to make their wind farms more profitable to
solve problems in the field. Uh, so everybody together in one room
and kind of breakout sessions about specific things. We, we were
there, we did one about lightning, right? And we had a room in
there, small room, not like we weren't speaking to 2000 people,
right? We're speaking to 20 and everybody kind of broke, broke down
and broke some barriers down because we're all. Engineers in there
talking about technical stuff. So I think that that's, there's a
huge amount of value to that. And that's why we got to the point
where we said, you know what, let's do this wind O& M Australia
thing, because a lack of technical conferences, uh, in that part of
the world, uh, it just kind of means that there's nobody really
talking about the things that matter day to day in the wind world,
right? How do you run these turbines? What do you do to make them
more profitable? How do you solve this problem? Um, and a lot of
that knowledge exists. It just needs to be shared. Allen Hall:
Yeah. And there's not a lot of infrastructure in Australia at the
moment, even though there are a significant number of turbines,
there's no blade factories there. There's no nacelle factories
there. Everything that they're doing in Australia is imported. So
the expertise doesn't necessarily lie in country, unlike Europe and
the United States where there's.