EOLOGIX-PING Lightning Sensors Join SkySpecs Horizon

Allen and Joel are joined by Matthew Stead, Chief Product Officer
and Co-founder of EOLIGIX-PING, at the SkySpecs Customer Forum
2025. They discuss the biggest takeaways from the forum, new
developments at EOLOGIX-PING, and the upcoming Wind Energy O&M
Australia event. 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
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YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime
Spotlight, shining Light on Wind Energy's brightest innovators.
This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Welcome to
the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Alan Hall, and I'm
with Joel Saxon. And we are in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Matthew
Stead, chief Product Officer. And co-founder of eLog Ping and he is
traveled all the way from Australia to be here in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. We are at the Skys Specs customer Forum 2025. We've been
spending the last couple of days with most of the operators in the
United States, uh, learning about what issues they are having and
how they're using Skys specs to reduce their overall operational
costs. Boy, Matthew, it, it is been a really interesting couple of
days hearing where customers are struggling and where they are
trying to attack lost revenue. Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think
it's [00:01:00] been amazing. I'm so pleased to be here.
And, you know, it was great to get the invitation, uh, from
Skyspace. I, I think, um, really the things that I've been hearing
is the data and pulling data together, uh, to getting those
insights as to what's going wrong and then, and then fixing it and
getting the money back. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Yeah. The, the big
thing here, we're talking about the one big beautiful build, and
it's followed on the industry.  Matthew
Stead: Yeah.  Joel Saxum: Right. So the, the theme
of the event is prevent, perform, or prevent, prevent, predict,
perform, I'm gonna get it wrong again.  Allen
Hall: There's three Ps,  Joel Saxum: three very
important ps. But what we're looking at is, is how, how can
digitalization, how can the next generation of op intelligent asset
management change the way we do things? Because you can't do things
reactively like we were in the past anymore.  Matthew
Stead: Yeah,  Joel Saxum: right. Even when budgets
were tight before they're gonna get even tighter. We're gonna, and
we're gonna have to make sure that these assets are running. And
that's where like your smarter, smarter, smarter, smarter, right?
Yeah. Your solutions come into play. The Skys specs team. The, the,
the conversations in the sessions.
The [00:02:00] conversations around the sessions, the
conversations over a beer.  Matthew Stead: Yeah.
Yeah.  Joel Saxum: They have all been about the same
concepts, right? About how can we do this better, more efficiently.
And one of the reasons I really like events. Like this is, like you
said, Allen, you have all these operators. Yeah. You have all of
these engine. It's a, it's a room full of 50 engineers that
probably control man, 60 to 70% of the  Allen Hall: Oh
yeah.  Matthew Stead: The US  Joel
Saxum: fleet. In the US fleet. Right. So you have so much
knowledge, so much sharing, and it's an open forum. You have people
p piping up, Hey, we use this strategy. Hey, we do this. I heard
some really cool things this week.  Matthew Stead: Yeah,
I, I, at breakfast this morning, I was sitting to two guys, one
from Canada, one from the US and they were talking about
Repowering. One guy's got GE turbines. He didn't know that he could
put a vestas in a cell on a G turbine.  Joel
Saxum: Yeah.  Matthew Stead: And so these guys have
exchanged details. Ban.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Matthew
Stead: That was beautiful to watch together.  Allen
Hall: Well, yeah, we've, Joel and I have been hosting a number
of panels, uh, during the Sky Specs event.
If [00:03:00] those have been eyeopening, uh, I hosted
one earlier yesterday and it, uh, the panelists, I don't get too
deep about who the panelists were because a lot of this is
obviously. It's just be kept in house. But some of the approaches,
uh, to the one big beautiful bill act mm-hmm. Were unique. The
insights there that a lot of operators were planning for since last
year.  Joel Saxum: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: Mm-hmm.
And that they felt like this where we are today was likely to
happen and they were making adjustments way back in October,
November of last year. So the repowering issues that we talk about
a lot, and you hear smaller operators really struggling with bigger
operators. Already had a plan of attack.  Joel
Saxum: Safe harbor. Safe harbor. Safe harbor. Yeah. I've heard
that word a lot. Right. And that was a, it was a plan from some of
those, those, those big operators, uh, their senior leadership that
shared some of their strategy, which I was surprised they did. It
was fantastic. But, um, if you haven't been safe harboring, uh, or
in, in contact with some good tax lawyers to understand the fall of
these things and what it means to
your [00:04:00] operation, do that now. Mm-hmm. Um,
because you have, we have this cliff coming July 4th next year, and
then at the end of the year after that. Allen Hall: Yeah. So
the, the amount of planet assets is going to, uh, go down and I
think everybody in the industry has been. Talking about that. You
see a lot of news reports about the number of wind turbines that
will likely, uh, be repowered is gonna drop down. However, uh, a
lot of operators have 10 year plans and those plans have not really
changed all that much. They, they weren't super aggressive. They
knew that during the Biden administration, this was just an
extension mm-hmm. Of the Obama administration, but eventually it
was going to end. Mm-hmm. That's say they were preparing for the
end anyway. And you hear that in their operational strategy. 
Joel Saxum: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: You hear about how
they're trying to reduce their overall spend every year. They're
trying to reduce their o and m budgets by a percent or two, even
though the fleet's getting bigger.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. An
interesting conversation I had this morning was right around that
was we're, it was, this was not the same operator you and I talked
to, but a different one saying that, Hey, we're good through 28,
29. Now [00:05:00] what happens with the next
administration changes things. But then another person at the
table, this was breakfast again, um, said, uh. That being said,
what does the job market look like for engineers? My take on it was
engineering staffs are being changed. However, if you're an SME,
that's where, that's where it lies. And this person at the table
was like, that's awesome to hear, because my new boss just asked me
to be the SME for blades in our company. It's like  Matthew
Stead: burn  Joel Saxum: chase it. Yes. The bonus
that raised today. Yeah,  Matthew Stead: I, I, two things
struck me. One was the, first of all that actually having the bill.
Is clarity. I mean it's actually good. So I mean, that struck me as
a real positive that actually there can be  Joel
Saxum: getting outta the gray area.  Matthew
Stead: There is some optimism there. And the other thing I
heard, um, many people were talking about, not necessarily
repowering, they were talking about. Whole of life, you know, o and
m strategies, right? And then if Repowering happens. So that was a
bit of a, a lesson learned for me.  Allen Hall: Well,
because a lot of operators that are in the United States
have [00:06:00] a European branch, or they were, or
European base, or they came  Matthew Stead: from 
Allen Hall: there, right? So, and that's a just completely
different model than what we've been talking about in the United
States and what has been offered in the United States. But that
stra, that European strategy has. Transferred over. And so it's
always  Matthew Stead: been,  Allen Hall: yeah.
And the plans are there now. Yeah. And, and because they started
several months ago, practically a year ago now. Mm-hmm. They have
some sanity looking forward. Mm-hmm. They're not panicking. And I
was expecting to hear a little more cautiousness, a little more
panic. No. Mm-hmm. Not really.  Joel Saxum: It's the same
conversation that we've been having on the podcast for, for, since
the follow out of this thing back in July of. This is going to
change operational strategies, but being here we're only what,
three months removed from that?  Allen
Hall: Mm-hmm.  Joel Saxum: And it seems like the
strategies are already there. Allen Hall: It was,  Joel
Saxum: right. They're already like, yeah, we're we're moving.
Yeah. They're big companies,  Allen Hall: right? Shore is
different. Yeah. I think, I think offshore is where they got a
little broadsided.  Joel Saxum: Yeah.  Allen
Hall: Onshore not so much. And
because [00:07:00] every operator pretty much has. Some
level of solar, some level of battery. They just see, all right,
if, if wind's gonna get pummeled for a few months, we're gonna put
in a bunch of solar and we're the plans, were already in place to
do it anyway. So we're gonna do the solars, we're gonna do the
batteries, we're gonna make the grid more resilient regardless of
what happens to wind, which is great. I, in my opinion, some of the
discussions happening in Skys specs this week, were the grid's
gonna get more resilient. We're gonna handle the AI data power
increase, and here's how we're gonna do it. Joel Saxum: I
heard this morning in another major operator, five to one solar
farms to wind farms.  Matthew Stead: Yeah,