Blade Platforms: Revolutionizing Blade Repair Access

In this episode, Petr Bartusek from Blade Platforms discusses how
their truck-mounted platforms, capable of safely reaching over 100
meters, are transforming wind turbine blade repair access. With
increased speed, skill utilization, and 24-hour shift capabilities,
using Blade Platforms minimizes turbine downtime and maximizes
efficiency in blade repair campaigns. 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
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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 your host,
Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum, today, we're
tackling a critical issue in the wind industry. Accessing wind
turbine blades for repairs. And our guest is Petr Bartusek,
commercial VP of Blade Platforms. And Blade Platforms is a truck
mounted platform company based in Abilene, Texas. And with wind
turbines hubs reaching new heights, traditional repair access
methods can be slow and inefficient. Blade Platforms solves this
problem with a fleet of machines that can safely reach over 100
meters, allowing technicians to quickly and efficiently repair
blades while minimizing turbine downtime. Today, Petr will share
how Blade Platforms is transforming blade repair access and discuss
the future of this innovative company in the wind industry. Petr,
welcome to the show. Petr Bartusek: All right. Thanks for having
me. Allen Hall: So Joel and I happened to visit your facility in
Abilene. And the reason we did was because of speed. It comes down
to quickness and our strike click take application where we're
touching a lot of blades, we have to get up and down very quickly
because we touched so many blades simultaneously, which is a common
industry problem. If you're going to fix one blade pretty easy, you
can use whatever method. But when we're. At some farms that have a
hundred, 200, 300 plus turbines, it becomes so slow and efficient
that there has to be a new way to do it, a faster way to get on
blade and to make repairs. And this is where we stopped. And
Abilene met with your folks down there at Blade Platforms. It is
impressive the speed at which you guys move and it has really
changed the industry. And we, Joel and I have been around a lot of
parts of Texas and Oklahoma and we see Blade Platforms. And now we
understand why, because you're really changing the industry. Petr
Bartusek: I'll add, it's not just speed, I think. There's a couple
of things. You get speed, you get skill, and you get time
utilization, right? So the speed kind of speaks for itself, right?
I tell everyone on a 12 hour day, We'll do 11 hours worth of work,
right? So you got some truck set up time and, some idle time that
just, you cannot monetize that, that, that's one aspect. The other
thing is utilization of time and that, these sites are, on windy
projects, right? So you're, you don't put turbines where the wind
doesn't blow. So you have to be able to operate in increments of
time. When that happens. I use a traditional means of access or
ropes or suspended platforms. It's the rigging time and everything
else that goes into it changes the dynamics of what you're doing
because, let's say you got a rig for two hours, then you go up and
you get a three hour weather window. Then you got to go down and
maybe or maybe not, you have to pull it a day. If at two o'clock a
storm roll in or something will happen. So for us, we get, six
hours worth of work. There's three hours storm going through. All
of a sudden we can take a, three hour lunch to kill that storm,
weather a storm, and then we go work again. So that's what I would
call the time utilization. Third aspect, which is skill or
training, right? And the way I look at it is the older you get as a
skilled technician, the less likely you are. To be one, I hang on
the ropes. So let's say you're 20 year old. This is fun. You're 40.
You may have some midsection weight, you may have some bum knees.
You know, you've acquired a lot of knowledge and you. Basically
could become a liability rather than an assets to a traditional
access company. Whereas with us, if your knees a little bum, it
doesn't matter if used to be 175 and now you're 275. It's not that
big of a deal because the basket can handle 1, 300 pounds. So we
can then effectively monetize or help our customers monetize The
skill that particular technician has already built up over, let's
say, 10, 15, 20 years. So I think that those are the 3 advantages
that I see. It's the time utilization and the skill utilization
that comes with it. And I'm not even talking about the safety
aspects of, being up there where, there's 4 redundant systems or
how you can get down and. You don't have to worry about anything.
Joel Saxum: And I can speak to that too, Petr. So I know that you
guys have some aid in house that can help someone with a bit of a
blade issue if they need it. But if a company has technicians that
they need to put up there, this is not, you don't have to come to
site and do a three day training mechanism or something when this,
when the. Blade Platform's truck shows up, there's a technician
with it, there's a, there's someone who can operate it I was there,
like I was gonna say, I'll speak to this we came to the Abilene
facility, saw the fantastic facility when you pull in, all the
trucks everywhere being worked on the army of people maintaining
these things and making sure they're ready to go at a minute's
notice, I did an orientation with one of your techs on site who was
fantastic. Rigged, the guys rigged me up for a harness and showed
me where to hook off and all these things. And within 5 minutes I
was up 200 and some odd feet in the air. Just a little scared, I'm
gonna be honest with you. I think I was the one who actually said,
Okay, that's high enough, we're good here. I have a beautiful view
of Abilene, Texas, right from the sky. But what I'm saying or what
I'm getting at there is if you have technicians or if you have
people on the ground already, they don't need to go through a big
training program to do this, right? It was literally 15 minutes of
orientation, safety rigging up a harness, which if you're in a wind
industry, you already probably have your own or you know how to do
it anyways. And then Going up and you're ready to work, right? It
was like, now we're ready to go. Petr Bartusek: Yeah, that's
exactly it. As long as you have your basic wind search, which is
your, safety GW now, which, it's becoming the prevalent requirement
it's more of an orientation for you, Hey, here's where you're going
to step here is where you're going to clip your lanyard. And then
you're good to go. And then other than that, you've been trained
for everything. So you're right. Our unit will roll up to site. Or
whoever needs to use it, but I would call self contained. That
means there is an operator in the basket. They'll do all the work.
And we also have a ground control technician. That's somebody who
manages the ground, make sure nobody gets underneath because there
is a drop zone. If something were to happen, this person can also
serve as a secondary rescue. So if you've never seen these units as
a future potential customer it's out of sight, out of mind. Almost.
We roll in, we'd set up everything and we take your super skilled
technician or inspector or whoever that needs to be and take him up
and then they got to do whatever they got to do. We do have a
limited capability. So helping mostly our OEM customers in house,
but. Our bread and butter is truly truck rental and access and
truck sales. Joel Saxum: The majority of platforms or the majority,
I'm saying platforms as in turbines, right? The majority of the
turbines out in the fleet in the United States right now are, or
let's say North America in general, are under a hundred meter hub
height. A lot of them, 80 meters, 90 meters for the majority of the
fleet. It's pretty odd that you get turbines over a hundred meters.
So what that means is I know that you guys have trucks at all
different levels, like you have 30 meter access all the way to a
hundred meter access, correct? Petr Bartusek: Correct. Yeah, we go
30, 50, 70, 75, 90, and then 103. Joel Saxum: That's flipping a
football field on its nose and going from the end of the end zone
to the end of the other end zone. Not the, not just the end lines,
but the whole thing. That's huge. You're 330 feet and you're 340.
Petr Bartusek: 336 is almost 340. These trucks are actually the
highest reaching trucks that exist in North America, South America,
probably in Europe. Joel Saxum: So with these, all these different
heights, right? So if you wanted to go just work on the tip of a
turbine blade, great. If you want to go up the side of the tower
and look underneath the nacelle, great. If you want to go and work
the whole blade length of the tower, we can do that as well. But
all of these different heights also have different kind of wind
restrictions to go with it, right? Because you're not going to be
up at 100 meters with a 20 meter per second wind, like that's just
not going to happen, right? But what do the wind restrictions look
like for you guys? Because I'm just looking at weather windows.
Petr Bartusek: Yeah for us traditionally, especially on a newer
fleet we have what's called an extended wind regime. So the truck
is 12 and a half meters a second, 16 meters a second,