Siemens Gamesa Financial Troubles, Chinese Turbine Concerns

Allen, Phil, and Joel dissect Siemens Gamesa's latest financial
woes, including their shocking 54 MW onshore wind order intake. The
trio debates the company's bold claim of competing with Chinese
manufacturers on quality, not price. Plus, they explore the ripple
effects of Chinese wind turbines potentially entering European
markets, from Italy to Germany. Register for the AMI Wind Turbine
Blades Event! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email
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www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Joel, I will be at the AMI Wind Turbine Blades conference in
Boston in the beginning of October, holding a panel or hosting a
panel, I'll moderate a panel. On blade operation and maintenance
upstream quality problems and operators challenges, which sounds
like what we just saw on our drive through Kansas and Oklahoma a
lot of operators with a lot of challenges on the quality of
products that they're purchasing. Joel Saxum: Yeah, I think that
panel couldn't come at a more timely. I guess that's not a very
good way to say that. However, yeah, when we hear from people is
the, we're getting blades, the blades are a year old, two years
old, three years old. We've got a leading edge erosion. We've got
cracks. We got this going on. We're fighting warranty claims. We've
got blade repair contractors out here. We got this, we got that. So
we're going to get up on state, or you're going to get up on stage
and we're going to have some people from a couple of IPPs. So
there's going to be some some of the engineers that are dealing
with this firsthand. And you're also going to have someone from
Nordics on stage with you. So someone from an OEM. Going to have
some varied opinions and some good information. But you're going to
get different viewpoints and different details from all sides of
the supply chain there to be able to hopefully solve some of these
problems. Allen Hall: Yeah, Matt Sagala from Moraes from Nordex and
Pragna Martin from Engie, if you don't know Pragna. That would be a
really good panel. I'm gonna learn a ton there, I'm sure. And I am,
just want to make sure everybody knows, if you're interested in
attending that event, and there's several other sessions about
supply chain and blades and, all kinds of materials involved in
blades. This is your conference. So you need to Google the AMI
plastics wind turbine blades conference in Boston and Boston in
October will be beautiful. The weather would be perfect. So it's a
good time to get out of the office and get a short flight over to
Boston and have a good time learning about. Supply chain and blades
and all that's involved on making and supporting the wind industry.
I'm Allen Hall and I'll be joined by the rest of the Uptime hosts
after these news headlines. In the UK, Siemens Gamesa wind turbine
workers in Hull have secured a significant pay deal. Around 300
employees who construct the 108 meter long wind turbine blades by
hand have accepted a two year agreement worth 8.4% the deal
includes a 4.5% increase for 2024 and 3.9% for 2025 with 93% of
workers voting in favor. The settlement demonstrates strong support
for the agreement among the workforce. U. S. Treasury Secretary
Janet Yellen has called for a substantial increase in climate
financing, stating that the global transition to a low carbon
economy requires three trillion U. S. dollars in new capital
annually through 2050. This figure far exceeds current financing
levels but represent what Yellen describes as, quote, the single
greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century, unquote. She
emphasized the need for increased private sector investment and
highlighted the role of multilateral development banks in
catalyzing climate focused projects. Ørsted is pioneering the use
of heavy lift cargo drones for maintenance work at the Borsele 1
and 2 offshore wind farm in the Netherlands. This world first
operational campaign involves 70 kilogram drones capable of
transporting up to 100 kilograms of cargo from vessels to wind
turbines. The drones can complete tasks in minutes that typically
take hours, significantly reducing operational time. This
innovative approach is expected to cut costs, enhance safety for
personnel, and lower carbon emissions by reducing the need for
multiple ship journeys. In the United States, construction of the
first U. S. offshore wind turbine installation vessel Charybdis is
nearing completion. Now 89 percent complete the vessel owned by
Dominion Energy is expected to be delivered in late 2024 or early
2025. However, the project has faced cost increases. The latest
estimate reaching 715 million. As a Jones Act compliant vessel, it
will offer great operational flexibility compared to foreign built
alternatives for offshore wind development in American waters.
Fugro has completed a comprehensive four year survey operation for
Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind in New Jersey and New York. The
company's innovative approach boosted efficiency by 30 percent,
playing a crucial role in the recent federal approval of Atlantic
Shores Southbound. which will provide 2, 800 megawatts of clean
energy to New Jersey. We will also introduce Virgeo, a cloud based
platform for data management, marking the industry's first digital
deliverables to federal regulators. And finally, the UK government
has significantly increased the budget for this year's Renewable
Energy Auction to 1. 5 billion. Up 500 million pounds from last
year, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband announced that most of the
funding will support offshore wind power development, aligning with
Labor's goal of quadrupling offshore wind capacity by 2030. While
the renewables industry has welcomed the move, experts caution that
additional measures may be needed to ensure timely project
delivery. That's this week's top news stories. After the break,
I'll be joined by my co host, CEO and founder of Intel Store. Phil
Totaro, and the Chief Commercial Officer of Weather Guard, Joel
Saxon. 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
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or new to Wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need.
Don't miss out. Visit PS wind.com today. Phil, the Q3 report from
Siemens g Mesa came out this week and their, obviously that's
combined with the Siemens Energy reports for all their divisions,
but the Siemens Cab Meso is the one that we're concerned about on
this podcast. Really fascinating data because it's broken up into
offshore, onshore, and the service business. In Q3, now remember
that everything's shifted a little bit for their quarterly year. So
they start October 1st is the beginning of their fiscal year, so
we're in Q3 with Siemens Energy. The order intake for onshore wind
turbines in Q3, Q3 was 54 megawatts. On the offshore side, they had
0 megawatts of order intake. On offshore, the service business
looks to be fairly consistent. It hasn't changed too much. They
have about 80 gigawatts of a fleet managed by them. And that seems
to be pretty consistent, but with the 4X and 5X platforms having
design issues and they essentially stopped selling. 4x and 5x until
probably just now they're going to start is what it sounds like it
has, they have had a dramatic downtick in order intake a year ago
in Q3 of 2023. I'll give you the example here. They had 717
megawatts of orders for onshore compared to now 54. So it's less
than 10 percent of what they had eight. A year ago, when Siemens
made this move to stop the 4X and 5X and that dried up all sales,
is this something that it's recoverable? From a Siemens Gamesa
standpoint, or is it just that Siemens Energy, the larger
corporation, has the financial resources to carry them over until
they become productive again? What's the move here? Philip Totaro:
Allen, this is a real tough question because, at the end of the
day, with a product that's been taken off the shelf for a year, And
then put back on, this isn't consumer products where, maybe they
can sell it again, just maybe even rebranded, repackage it and sell
it again. This is a piece of industrial equipment that people need
to be able to trust. And that's really the challenge for them is
how do they really go about gaining the trust of project developers
who I mean they're going to start what I think is going to happen
if they're going to make sales on this 4x, 5x platform without
redesigning it. Although with the new fixed blade and all that,
we're assuming, although again, they haven't been very transparent
about what actually happened and what they've done to fix it. But
hopefully that comes out when they start selling it again. But in
the meantime the reality of it is if they're going to sell. I think
they, instead of being up with GE and Vestas in kind of a tier one,
they're now down in terms of kind of finance ability of their
product at the same level of maybe Nordex and some other companies
out there. I don't think they're a tier one with their sales
anymore. And I think they're going to get financially discounted in
Western, particularly in Western markets. Joel Saxum: For sure.
Phil, and I think a difference here in the market and I take the
market in general,