Power-Up: Blade Lift Cushion, Yaw Break Sleeve

This week, Siemens Gamesa's idea which protects delicate items on
the blade while doing lifts, Integrated Power Services' replaceable
yaw break sleeve, and a new way to keep ants away from your picnic.
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www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Welcome to Power Up, the Uptime podcast focused on the new
hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow
along with me, Allen Hall, and IntelStor's Phil Totaro, as we
discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will
charge your energy future. All right, guys, our first patent this
week is something kind of unique from Siemens Gamesa. And it tries
to answer a problem that all winter blade lifting Apparatus have,
especially when there are vortex generators or gurney flaps or
trailing edge serrations, which is during the lift, those items
tend to get plucked off and it makes the operator not happy. It
makes everybody not happy because somebody's got to get up there
and replace them, generally speaking. So Siemens, Gamesa has come
up with a little bit of a handling tool to avoid this damage, which
is kind of like a pillow like device some sort of plastic, multiple
plastic. That encapsulates these add ons so they don't get broken
during the lift. Now, Phil, this seems like a, actually a decent
moneymaker because other operators, wind turbine OEMs have the same
problem. If you look on the ground after a lift. Usually, you can
see those little pieces, those injection molded pieces laying on
the ground there. Philip Totaro: Shards of things stripped off.
Yeah, so this one's really interesting, and I should admit that I'm
not actually sure if Siemens Gamesa is using this with any of the
EPC contractors yet. However the reason that it's been developed,
as you mentioned, Alan, is that it's, it's there to try and help
prevent add ons from being kind of sheared off as, if the blade is
being lifted in the saddle and there's either some kind of, gust or
something, some kind of torsion that, that occurs that might shift
the blade in the saddle in particular. That can cause a lot of
these incidents where, where bits get sheared off. Where this comes
in handy is it's basically padding on the straps that is made with
some kind of, gelatinous something. They don't, I mean, they, they
go into a bit of detail on what these materials could be in the
patent. So you can, I guess, use your imagination, but it's, it's
basically Relatively compliant. Jelly like structure. I guess
that's the best non technical way to explain it. You know that
it'll basically accommodate the deformation when it goes up against
the blade surface that has the vortex generators or whatever poking
out of it. So you could use this for, for riblets, you could use
this for, for any little add ons you want. So I, I think from that
perspective it's, it's pretty clever. We at Intel Store will dig
more into whether or not this is being used commercially and, make
that a part of our our technical analysis on inventions like this.
Joel Saxum: I think this one makes absolute sense out in the field,
right? It's not too complicated. It's something that can be
implemented pretty easily. Thank you. And in my mind, I'm already
thinking like, Oh, this might actually give the lifting company
lifting the crane or however you're lifting a blade a little bit of
a better grip on on the blade itself as well So sometimes there is
slippage in that and that's not good, right? There's specific
lifting points on the blade that need to be adhered to to avoid
structural damage and and and or trailing edge damage These kind of
things can we see this in inspections all the time on brand new
fully commissioned wind farms where there's a crushed trailing edge
or, or there's a mark in the, somewhere in the shell because
something slipped or was grabbed wrong. And these may avoid that by
giving it a little bit more biting power, right? It's like
something compliant that can actually squeeze on the blade a little
bit. But on the other side of that as well, if you're installing a
new blades and you break off of some VG panels, if I'm the asset
owner. Well, I want those fixed before I take this asset over. So
you're going to get someone up there on ropes or in a platform to
fix them. It's not just gluing it on. That's gonna cost, two,
three, four grand to get a crew up there, come down, fix the
things, all that. So there's a lot of costs that this thing can
avoid as well. So I think it's a great, great innovation. Philip
Totaro: And keep in mind, too, that this is an invention by the
OEMs, which you would kind of assume You know, they're the ones
most kind of keenly impacted by this, particularly if they are the
ones that are liable until the, the turbine's commissioned. But the
fact that it's a patent around kind of EPC and, and construction,
it gives Siemens Gamesa the opportunity to potentially partner with
EPC contractors and license this technology to them. So you could
see this being part of a commercial offering at different EPC
contractors that they may have obtained through a license by
Siemens Gamesa, so that's, that's potentially extra revenue for
them. And one reason why you need to think a little holistically
when you're, when you're contemplating the inventions you come up
with and the patents you actually go get. It's not just about
protecting your ability to use the technology. There may be
licensing opportunities for this. Allen Hall: Our second invention
is related to yaw brakes. And I think of yaw brakes as one of the
most difficult pieces of a turbine to keep healthy. It's very
similar to the way a brake rotor works in a car, or a Formula 1 or
a NASCAR. There's a lot of heat and energy trying to be absorbed by
this brake. And on some wind turbines, it's all hydraulic,
sometimes the housing that holds this brake mechanism tends to
crack because of all the stresses that are there. Well, to replace
that housing, unlike a car where you pull the wheel off, on a
turbine, you have to lift off the whole nacelle. And that can get
really expensive if you have to do it, while the people down at
Integrated Power Services have come up with a build replaceable yaw
break sleeve and Phil this this idea I haven't seen implemented. It
must be out in service somewhere It starts to make a lot of sense
because those parts break. And that's one thing about integrated
power services. They are trying to make turbines easier to
maintain. Philip Totaro: Indeed. And so the fact that this is a, a
field replaceable element now versus potentially, as you just
described, Alan, not a field replaceable element that may OEM.
That's something where it, it gives IPS. a particular kind of leg
up on, potentially supplying this as an aftermarket part to asset
owners or operators that are kind of feeling the pain. Whoever
wants to, have a crane call out just because you've got some kind
of, yaw break element stuck and, you can't get down in there older
turbine designs need technology like this where they can, they can
leverage the fact that this thing has its own separate threaded
insert and you can kind of twist it on, twist it off without having
to remove the whole nacelle. That's advantageous, I think. Joel
Saxum: Yeah, when I think about hydraulics and replacing things, my
mind immediately goes to really basic stuff, right? I'm thinking
excavators or skid steers or something where it's really easy to
get at. You can grab a sledgehammer, pop some pins, pull them out,
rebuild a hydraulic cylinder, put it back in, boom, you're on your
way. Well, those aren't 80 or 100 meters up in the air and they
don't have a 70, 100 ton nacelle sitting on top of them. So
something like this is a very much needed innovation within the
marketplace. And I would, to be honest with you, we just, we just
talked about the idea of, an OEM putting a patent out where some
people can license it from them. I would love to see an OEM license
this patent from IPS to build into their next generation turbines
to make them more field Allen Hall: serviceable. Our fun patent of
the week is an electrified tablecloth. And, and Phil, the
electrification of a tablecloth, I'm sure has been a medieval
device from hundreds of years ago, because, you know what? There
are some people you just don't want to have to have dinner with.
However, in this case, it's a little bit different. They are
looking to stop the insects, the ants in particular, when you're
out having a nice picnic from joining you and crawling up on the
table. So they've created this electrified area perimeter, so to
speak, in which when the insect crawls over it, it receives a small
electrical shock. However, the obvious question is, well, you don't
want to shock someone you want to have a nice lunch with. You want
to make sure they're not hurt. The voltage is low enough where it
doesn't shock humans. But high enough where the insects are
repelled. There's gotta be other applications of this beyond the
tablecloth, right? Joel Saxum: Potentially. What needs to happen
next is this needs to be Bluetooth enabled. And if you're having a
bad date, you can just look at your phone and BZZZT end that date
real quick. Philip Totaro: I you know what? I don't even know where
to go from there. I the other applications for this technology, I
mean, certainly, well, let's,