Why Are Australian Wind Farms Losing Money?

In this episode, Allen, Joel, Phil and Rosemary analyze why 38% of
Australian wind farms are struggling with profitability despite
stable PPAs. They explore how solar saturation, coal plant
inflexibility, and maintenance contract structures impact returns.
Plus, the team examines BlueFloat Energy's withdrawal from New
Zealand and what recent auction results in Maine reveal about the
broader challenges facing floating offshore wind development. 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 show
on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit
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: It is almost fall. I guess it is fall. Joel Saxum: It's
almost November. Allen Hall: I was just outside today. It was like
70 degrees outside. It felt like the end of summer, not the
beginning of fall. But we're almost in winter. We got another month
or two before we hit the official start of winter, which means all
the bears up in my area are starting to thinking about hibernating.
But in the meantime, they're usually pretty hungry, trying to
fatten up before the winter really hits. And This causes a lot of
problems if you're around bears, and a lady in Montana had a
problem where she went out to work in her pickup truck early in the
morning and realized that it had been all torn apart by a black
bear, of all things, which is the thing that I worry about the most
around here. At this time of year, when you're bringing in things
from the house, and a bear shows up and says, Oh, there's groceries
in the car, hops in, and then panics, which is what happened to
this lady. The bear panics and just destroys the vehicle. And this
has happened very close to us, actually. And not that long ago, it
was this summer, where bears were walking in our driveway, walked
right by my wife, she didn't even know it was there. So it's
serious that don't leave your car doors open. That's the one thing
I remember in the fall. Don't leave your car doors open for any
length of time. Otherwise, when you go back, you may have
befriended a bear. Philip Totaro: Allen, I've seen videos where
they're opening car doors. So don't even think about, you can close
the door and they're still gonna get in. So I don't know, man.
They're getting sophisticated out there. Joel Saxum: I've got
another tip for you from my childhood. You always put your trash
out in the morning. Before your kids go to school, before you go to
work, put your trash out in the morning on the street. Because if
you put your trash out outside of your garage the night before,
you're gonna end up with trash all over the ground and the garbage
man won't pick it up and you, i. e. me, as a young child, would
have to go pick up all of our trash multiple times. So that's the
hot tip. Allen Hall: It's either the bears, the raccoons, or the
wildcats. Those are the ones you really have to watch out for. Get
a cat down in your neighborhood because it can do a lot of damage.
Joel Saxum: You would think that Allen lived in like Northwest
territories or something and not in Massachusetts. Allen Hall: I
can walk out my back door and pet deer right now. That's how close
they're sitting next to the house. Cause it's hunting season also
where I am and all the deer join into town. They're hanging up.
Yeah, there's, they're not stupid. Joel, he's in the Berkshires.
This is the wilderness. This is about as wilderness as you can get
in Massachusetts. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm
your host, Allen Hall, and I'll be joined by my Uptime co host,
Chris. After these news headlines. New England's floating offshore
wind sector marked a milestone as their Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management selected winning bids totaling 22 million for four lease
areas in the Gulf of Maine. Two lease areas were awarded to
Avangrade Renewable for areas approximately 35 miles from
Massachusetts, while Invenergy Offshore Wind secured two leases
about 25 miles from the coast. The combined areas covering more
than 625 square miles At the potential to power over 2. 3 million
homes, this marks the first offshore commercial sale for floating
offshore wind on the Atlantic coast, supporting the
administration's goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by
2030. In Texas, Nova Clean Energy has secured interconnection
agreements for a 1 gigawatt wind power portfolio. Construction is
set to begin in late 2025, with power delivery scheduled for the
winter of 2026. These projects located in the Delaware Basin and
Central Gulf Coast will include co located battery storage.
International energy giant BP continues its strategic shift away
from renewables under new leadership. The company is now
considering a minority stake sale in its offshore wind business.
which has a project pipeline of nearly 10 gigawatts but no
operational farms. This follows BP's early decision to put its U.
S. onshore wind energy business up for sale, which currently
operates nine facilities across seven states with 1. 7 gigawatts of
generating capacity. The company has also paused new offshore wind
project bidding and plans to reduce its solar exposure through a
stake sale. in light source BP, marking a significant pivot in its
energy transition strategy. A startup backed by Breakthrough Energy
has secured an additional 4 million in funding for its innovative
floating wind platform. Aikido Technologies will launch its pilot
project this fall, featuring a design that reduces assembly
footprint by 75 percent and enables deployment from 80 percent of
U. S. ports. And a delegation of 19 Dutch wind industry executives
met with the Connecticut officials at The State Pier in New London,
Connecticut, to explore collaboration opportunities in offshore
wind development. The Dutch group, representing expertise from
cabling to marine biodiversity, aims to share decades of experience
from their domestic market, where wind power supplies up to 50
percent of the country's electricity. The meeting coincided with
construction at the State Pier, which is serving as the staging
area for the Revolution Wind Project. Both sides emphasize the
potential for joint research, shared knowledge, and manufacturing
partnerships to reduce costs in the offshore wind energy sector.
And French energy company Total Energies has announced plans to
study A major renewable energy project in Morocco, the Shibika
project, could combine one gigawatt of wind and solar capacity to
produce green ammonia for export to Europe, potentially creating a
significant hydrogen production hub. That's this week's top news
stories. After the break, I'll be joined by my co host, renewable
energy expert and founder of Pardalote Consulting. Rosemary Barnes,
the CEO and founder of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the Chief
Commercial Officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. 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 PESWind. com today. So if we've been following along in
Australia, Andrew Forrest's Squadron Energy has about a 14
gigawatts of a development pipeline and they have announced plans
for the Bookham Wind Farm project in New South Wales. That project
will be, it looks like 99 turbines, With a capacity of almost 600
megawatts, so six megawatt turbines there. The project includes
battery storage, and it is one of the several products that are
happening in Australia at the minute. Now, I did a little bit of
research on this project, and one thing, there's a lot of details
about it, but the one thing I could not find is what turbine they
were going to install at the site. I, my first thought, Phil, was
it was going to be some Vestas turbines, but it's pretty quiet.
Usually, Vestas will announce that they've had a sale in Australia,
but they won't tell you where. You just connect the dots on the
amount of power or the number of turbines, and then you can connect
it up. But in this case, you can't. What are the options here,
Phil? And what is likely to happen? Philip Totaro: They have
options like Vestas. They also have options like Goldwind that
offers a 6x platform. They could buy GE. Squadron historically has
opted for, Western OEMs, but they've been considering, their
options lately on, on Chinese OEMs. The reality of this is, if
they, this is, so let's take a step back. Squadron's got, I want to
say more than a hundred gigawatts worth of projects proposed now in
Australia that usually involve hydrogen or, there's some kind of
hybrid mega project like this where, they've got batteries and
solar and, an enormous amount of wind, obviously, that's going to
be built out in phases. But the reality of this is promising for
the market, but they, I'll turn it over to Rosemary, who's gonna,
re educate us yet again on, like, why Australia probably doesn't
need this much. Wind, solar, and certainly hydrogen generation
from, about eight or nine different megaprojects that have now been
proposed across the whole country at this point. Again, fingers
crossed that this gets downstream enough that they can announce
orders for turbine vendors and things like that,