Vineyard Wind GE Blade Failure, Mechanix Wear TRACK Program

A blade has failed at the Vineyard Wind Farm off the coast of
Nantucket--what will the fallout be? How is GE responding? Will
this effect the US Presidential Election? Plus a warning about
electrostatic eliminators and mid-blade lightning protection: they
don't work. And Mechanix Wear's TRACK (Trial Research and
Collaboration Kit) program offers on-site assessments to identify
specific hand protection needs for employees. NextEra's Walleye
Wind Farm in Minnesota is our wind farm of the week! Visit AMI's
website to book a spot at the Wind Turbine Blades conference! 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.com Allen
Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm AllenHall, and
I'll be bringing you this week's top stories in the wind energy
sector. Siemens Gamesa has secured a 1. 2 billion euro line of
green guarantees from the Spanish government and major banks. This
support comes at a crucial time for the wind energy subsidiary of
Siemens Energy, which has been grappling with financial challenges.
The Spanish export credit insurance company and a banking syndicate
led by BBVA and BNP Paribas are backing this initiative. The
Spanish state is providing a 50 percent guarantee, up to 600
million euros. Sharing the risk with the guarantor banks. This line
of guarantees is designed to support Siemens Gamesa's projects in
technical guarantees, allowing the company to execute its
substantial order backlog of 40 billion euros in the wind business.
We now turn our attention to the competitive landscape in the U. S.
offshore wind market. Siemens Gamesa is currently leading the pack
with a commanding 57 percent share of the order pipeline for
offshore wind projects that have already selected a supplier. This
translates to six projects with a capacity of Denmark's Vestas
follows in second place with a 32 percent share, while U. S. based
GE Vernova rounds out the top three with 11 percent. Shifting gears
to labor news, approximately 300 workers at a Siemens Gamesa wind
turbine factory in Hull, England, Are being balloted for a
potential strike. The dispute centers around a pay offer that the
Unite Union claims amounts to a real terms pay cut. The union warns
that a strike could cause significant disruption to production. The
Unite Union argues that the workers' pay has fallen in real terms
since 2018, due to below inflation increases and a performance
related bonus scheme. The hull factory specializes in constructing
108 meter long blades. In technology advancements, Orsted has
successfully tested a new lower noise installation method for
offshore wind foundations in Germany. The groundbreaking technology
could revolutionize the way offshore wind foundations are
installed. The new method, tested at Goda Wind III Offshore Wind
Farm, uses a patented jetting technology attached to the monopile.
This allows the foundation to sink into the seabed, replacing
conventional installation methods such as pile driving. The result
is a substantial decrease in underwater noise levels, with a
reduction of 34 decibels compared to most commonly used
installation methods. This installation not only enhances marine
life protection, but also has the potential to make installations
more efficient and cost effective. On the equipment front, German
company Emitech is launching a new wind turbine blade turning unit
designed to facilitate easier on site service and maintenance. This
innovative unit allows a rotor blade to be pitched on the ground
around its longitudinal axis, enabling smooth and continuous
rotation for repairs. For The company believes this technology
could save millions in service costs by allowing most repairs to be
carried out directly at a wind turbine site, eliminating
significant logistics efforts. Emtec plans to debut this new
technology at the Wind Energy Hamburg event this September. Lastly,
we have a developing story from Texas, where Senator John Cornyn
has called for the Pentagon to shut down a wind farm linked to a
Chinese billionaire, citing national security concerns. The wind
farm located in Val Verde County was initially blocked due to fears
of potential espionage given the owner's ties to the Chinese
Communist Party. Although the rights to develop the Blue Hills Wind
Farm We're sold to a Spanish energy firm last year. Senator Cornyn
believes there still may be Chinese involvement in the project. He
has requested an urgent investigation, emphasizing the potential
threat to a nearby Air Force Base. That's this week's top news
stories. After the break, I will be joined by my co host, renewable
energy expert and founder of Pardalote Consulting, Rosemary Barnes.
CEO and founder of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the chief commercial
officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. I guess this is a consumer
alert. We, Joel and I have seen a lot of lightning products being
offered to wind turbine operators. And if you're not a lightning
expert or haven't been around the business about 30 years, like I
have it's hard to gauge what's real and what's not. There has been,
more recently some companies selling electrostatic eliminators,
basically devices that, in theory, would suck all the charge out of
the cloud, preventing lightning from hitting your wind turbine.
Those don't work. They're very serious. They're very serious. It's,
it's a dangerous situation, everybody. Those devices don't work.
They've been tried on multiple, multiple occasions and all around
the world. They don't change the equation. If lightning is coming
down from the sky It's coming down from the sky. What it hits is
random. And if you're the tallest object out there, you got a
pretty good chance of being hit regardless of what device is on it.
That's the first one. The second one I've seen advice more recently
where someone's doing a repair, say halfway up the blade, three
quarters up the blade. And they want to put some lightning
protection on that area. Again, that can be a big mistake. If it's
not tied to the lightning protection system, a lot of times where
there's damage on a blade, the lightning protection system. Is, is
not around there. There's no receptor or any place to ground to.
Putting some sort of lightning protection device in the middle of a
blade is going to encourage lightning to strike there again. And
let's just be aware of that, everybody. And you don't have to take
advice from weather guard Joel or me. We're here. You can call us.
We would love to help. But I understand you want to get a second
opinion. Go get it and get somebody who actually has worked in wind
or worked on aircraft for a long time. And knows what works and
what doesn't, and has a good sense about it. Cause you can get
yourself into a world of hurt, playing around with lightning and
wind turbines. Very expensive. Philip Totaro: Allen, let me ask
the, the supposedly dumb question here. Aren't, when you put
something two thirds of the way up the length of the blade, and
it's not connected to the receptor and conductor, et cetera, And
you're ionizing the air around that area, that's what you're saying
is necessarily going to result in additional strikes in that area.
Allen Hall: Yeah, that, that material you add is going to connect
the down conductor through the blade to the lightning on the
outside. So it's going to create another puncture, probably where
you've just repaired it. And it's just going to be horrible. And,
and that's, that's a dilemma, right? So just putting lightning,
lightning protection on a blade seems simple. It is not, you need
to get good advice from people who've done this out in service and
have a track record like us at WeatherGuard, right? So just be,
just be aware because we've run into this quite often recently in
the United States because there's been so many lightning strikes
and so many damaged turbines that every operator is reaching out
just to try to get some information. We at the Uptime Podcast try
to bring you a lot of good information on all kinds of subjects.
Lightning being one of them. So if you run into difficulty, feel
free to reach out to Joel, reach out to me, and we can get you
pointed in the right direction. Mark your calendars for AMI's
Winter in Blades conference happening October 2nd and 3rd in
historic Boston, Massachusetts. This two day event, which is
similar to the well established edition in Europe, We'll bring
together the whole blade value chain to examine market outlook,
innovations in blade materials, design, manufacturing, testing, and
lifecycle management with a special focus on the North America
market. Gain insights from experts from Vestas, Along with
scientists and engineers from the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Plan your trip to
Boston this fall by visiting the link in the show notes or just
Google 2024 Blades Boston. Off the coast of Martha's Vineyard at
the Vineyard Wind offshore wind site GE had a problem. One of the
new wind turbines there had a blade bust and parts of that blade
hit the water. Now, this happened on a Saturday, so there was,
obviously, people were around that area and saw the debris, the
ship, boats and things, saw the debris in the water and started
posting images on Facebook and on Twitter about it, and the Coast
Guard cordoned off an area and Vineyard Wind has been working to,
to find out what's going on, but today, which is Tuesday,