GE Vernova Restructures Offshore Wind Division

Allen, Joel, and Phil dissect GE Vernova's restructuring of its
offshore wind operations, potentially cutting 900 jobs globally.
What will be the implications for the US and international wind
energy markets? They also share key insights from the Sandia Blades
Workshop, emphasizing the importance of prescriptive operations and
digitizing tribal knowledge. Enter to win a bunch of Yeti and
StrikeTape swag at https://weatherguardwind.com/yeti! Sign up now
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technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard
Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape
Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show
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show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting -
https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech -
www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Hello everyone. Joel and I have been traveling across America
talking with GE2X wind farm operators about how strike tape can
protect their blades against lightning damage. If you work on a
GE2X site, you need to visit our new website.
weatherguardwind.com/yeti. We'll show you how your turbines can be
protected against lightning with Strike Tape, and you can also
register to win a nice Yeti Roadie 48 cooler, four Yeti mugs, and
some Strike Tape swag. Just visit weatherguardwind.com/yeti. Phil,
have you been to the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New
York? Philip Totaro: I have not. Allen Hall: Oh my gosh, you're
missing out because they have the finalists, the twelfth finalists
for induction into the National Toy Hall of Fame this year. And
they include, are you ready? Drum roll please. Balloons, Pokemon
cards, your own adventure books, which is a particular kind of
interesting book. Hess toy trucks, which we see at Christmas time
here in the United States. My Little Pony, which should have been
an entrance a long time ago, honestly. How is that not already in
there? Exactly my point. Remote control vehicles, stick horses,
trampolines, and probably one of Joel's favorite, Transformers. I'm
a Transformers fan. Hang on, let's go back to stick horses for a
second, because again, how long has this museum been, or Hall of
Fame been in business? I mean, are they, they're digging up some
pretty legacy toy technology there. Stick horses are back. Have you
seen those competitions of, where people are riding the stick
horses over a competitive course where they're hopping over things
and running around? Philip Totaro: There are some people that think
that the United States Is not going in the right direction. I think
these people are probably steering us in exactly where we don't
need to be. Joel Saxum: Allen, when you said that the Toy Hall of
Fame, I looked over at my bookshelf and I have to, I went and
grabbed this toy, because to me, this is American Toy Hall of Fame
material. This was, this toy was my dad's when he was a kid. And
this is the original Mound, Minnesota built Tonka trucks. Allen
Hall: I think we all need to take a moment and observe and salute
the old Tonka truck. I Philip Totaro: will salute that. Joel Saxum:
Working tailgate, I'm telling you, that's it right there. Philip
Totaro: That's a toy. Joel Saxum: It even says USA on the tires.
Allen Hall: Made out of American steel and the edges are sharp like
they should be. I'm Allen Hall and here are this week's top
stories. In a significant corporate development, the Spanish
government has authorized BlackRock's stake in Natergy. This
follows BlackRock's acquisition of GIP, which owns 20. 6 percent of
the Spanish energy company. The approval comes with conditions,
including support for energy transition projects and maintaining
Natergy's headquarters in Spain. This move positions BlackRock as a
major player in Spain's energy sector. Denmark has inaugurated two
new offshore wind farms. Vesterhavnord and Vesterhavnsyd, developed
by Vattenfall, these farms feature 41 wind turbines with a combined
capacity of 344 megawatts. Located between 5 and 10 kilometers from
the Danish west coast, they will generate 1. 5 terawatt hours of
electricity annually, enough to power 350, 000 households. This
addition brings Vattenfall's total offshore wind capacity in
Denmark to 1. 5 gigawatts. Marking a substantial increase in the
country's renewable energy output and a boost for the North
American wind industry. The Canadian port of Argentina has secured
a contract to handle wind turbine blades for U. S. East Coast
offshore wind farms. The port will receive and store 220 wind
turbine blades starting this fall and continuing into 2025. This
agreement with ScanGlobal Logistics positions Argentina as a key
player in the offshore wind supply chain, building on its previous
contract for monopile marshalling and strengthening the
infrastructure for wind energy development in North America. In
Canada, Marmot Energy is restarting wind tower manufacturing
activities in Quebec. A new wind project will add 100 jobs to the
facility and install 56 Vestas turbines generating 350 megawatts of
renewable energy. The 1 billion project is set to begin
construction in 2025 with commissioning planned for next year.
Moving to Hawaii, AES Hawaii reports success with a new bat
deterrent system at its Kahuku Wind Farm on Oahu. The project uses
an ultrasonic mechanism on its turbines to keep bats away. Since
operations began in December 2020, only one bat strike has been
recorded. The project's eight turbines, reaching 40 stories high,
generate enough power for 16, 000 homes. Breaking news. And in the
UK, an investigation is underway following a collision between a
service operation vessel and a wind turbine at Oersted's Hornsea
One wind farm. The incident involved a Wind of Hope vessel carrying
72 people. No injuries or pollution were reported, but damage was
sustained to the vessel and to the turbine base. That's this week's
top news stories. After the break, I'll be joined by my co host,
CEO and founder of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the Chief Commercial
Officer of WeatherGuard Lightning Tech, 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. In this quarter's PES Wind Magazine,
there's a lot of good articles and you can check them all out at
PESWind. com. And if you're over in Hamburg, And looking at the
exhibitions all over the floors there, a big part of that
exhibition is about offshore wind. And one of the issues with
offshore wind is the tooling that has to live out there. And an
article from Hamatro, who makes hydraulic tooling that's made for
offshore they have a really interesting description of what they do
and all the processes and application tools that they have to have
hydraulic tools in an offshore environment, because as Joel knows,
anytime you get saltwater and moving hydraulics, it is a disaster.
Joel Saxum: Corrosion Allen Hall: central. Joel Saxum: Yeah. One of
the things to think about or to understand here is that when you
get in an offshore operating environment, not only like Allen says
is the salt water, the wave heights, the bad, moving things around
with lifts and all this stuff. It's a very difficult environment to
operate in, but almost everything. And this is where it makes it
difficult. Almost every tool you use offshore for construction or
decommissioning for that matter is custom built. And you're dealing
with really large things. It's not like you go to snap on and say,
Hey, give me this tool or Milwaukee tool. Hey, give me this thing.
And we'll, and yeah, we may, we make a hundred thousand of these
and we'll sell you one, every single piece of equipment that goes
offshore in these large applications is custom built for the
application. So whether it's decommissioning or construction. You
have to make it usually these things are designed in like a front
end study. So someone like home mantra will get involved with a
wind farm that's being built years. Sometimes ahead of when they
actually think it's out there, because they need to develop the
tool. They need to build the tool. They need to test the tool. They
need to get it ready to roll before that thing is. Gets out moving
that construction project because you don't get to just run to Home
Depot and buy a new tool. Everything has to be custom built. And
the other side of this thing is what whole mottro does is their
hydraulic specialists. In the offshore world, hydraulics is the
only thing that you really can, Make the kind of power, create the
kind of power that you need to cut, to move, to, straighten out a
monopile or to crush something down or connect something because
electric pumps or just don't do it. A lot of the times in a subsea
environment, you're having a, what's called a work class ROV, the
remotely operated vehicle, becomes the hands, the eyes, the ears,
the everything in that subsea realm. And a work class ROV will
usually be like 150 horsepower is what they call it, but that 150
horsepower Is driving hydraulic pumps. And if you've ever seen like
a house lifting jack or a car jack or something, that's all
hydraulics. And there's the only way to control that kind of power.
But these guys are a specialist, this Homatro company that's in PS
when this magazine this month, they're specialists in creating
these special, these.