Podcaster
Episoden
20.11.2025
22 Minuten
Allen and Joel sit down with Michael McQueenie, Head of Sales for
SkySpecs in Europe at the SkySpecs Customer Forum. They discuss the
booming European wind energy market, SkySpecs' role in asset
management, and their expansion into solar farm operations. 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! 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 Spotlight. I have Joel Saxum with me. I'm Allen Hall, the
host, and we are here with Michael McQueenie head of sales for
SkySpecs over in Europe. Michael, welcome to the show.
Michael McQueenie: Thanks for having me. Allen
Hall: We are at SkySpecs customer Form 2025 and it has been a
blowout event, so many operators from all over learning and
exchanging information about how they operate their assets. We
wanted to have you on today because you're our reference to Europe
and what is happening with SkySpecs in Europe. America and Europe
are on different pathways at the moment. What is that status right
now in Europe? What are people calling you for today? Michael
McQueenie: the, European market is really booming. we get
calls from customers to support [00:01:00] with internal
inspections, external inspections as we always have for, nearly a
decade now. We are seeing a lot more, discussions around the,
enablement services that we can offer. how did, how do we bring a
blade engineer and how do we bring a CMS engineer into support and
give us, give us more of an insight on the data that we have or, or
the data that Skys fix are producing. things are evolving. and,
it's a buoyant offshore industry at the moment. Allen
Hall: yeah, there's like thousands of turbines going up right
now. it used to be when you thought of. Deployment. Unlike Germany,
for example, it'd be three turbines on the hillside. Michael
McQueenie: Yeah. Allen Hall: Now we're talking
about in the uk have hundreds of turbines hitting the water.
Michael McQueenie: Yeah. Allen Hall: And that's
change of scale has driven a lot of operators realize I need
expertise in blades, I need expertise in CMS. I need an expert in
gearbox, but I don't necessarily need them full time. Michael
McQueenie: Yeah. Allen Hall: Skys spec. Can you
help me? Michael McQueenie: the
projects [00:02:00] are, they're fewer projects, but
they're, the scale of these projects are massive. the scale of the
turbine scale of the projects and the impact the projects can have
on, the country, as a whole is, is massive. So yeah, it's, it is a.
It's a, it is a great time to be in Europe and to see the growth.
it's been, coming for a long time. I've worked with consultancies
who are looking at feasibility studies, in offshore, and onshore.
But the, the growth has been. Just, it's just around the corner.
And I do feel like now with some of these big projects that they're
installing, and yeah, just given the size of the turbines, it's
it's massive. Joel Saxum: one of the things I want to, I
think there's an important context here is that we're talking,
we're sitting in Ann Arbor, right? we're in the us You're over in
Europe. I worked for a Danish company for a while and it was always
like this seven hour delay. Kinda can I get the in, can I get the
support? Can they get the support? Can we work? How do we work back
and forth? Sometimes it was cool because you'd send an email at two
o'clock and when you woke up in the morning [00:03:00] it
was done. That was awesome. But also there was these delays. Now
this is the interesting thing here is, and Skys facts. This morning
we listened to Cheryl. always a great presentation. Yeah. the head
of the TEI blade stuff here. She was delivering some insights, but
with her was Thomas. Thomas is in Europe. And you have CMS experts
in Europe. You have the local talent that's over there that can
work with these operators on their timelines, on their regular day
stuff. They're not waiting as, and what I'm trying to get to is, is
SkySpecs is not a Ann Arbor company. Skyspace is a global company
in a big way. And so this, so thinking like, oh, this is an
American company, w. Will we use someone that's more local no. No.
Skyspace is a local European company as well. Michael
McQueenie: Yeah, and we've got the SMEs over there. it's not
just Cheryl, who's a fantastic en engineer. Having your at your,
disposal, Thomas is phenomenal. customers are seeing real value in
integrating him into their team, being the
SME [00:04:00] for them, as you, as we said before. Being
able to turn 'em off, on and off as required. Don't, you've not got
that the FTE cost right. to bring in an SME that, that needs to,
support you with a, with an individual component of your, asset.
Yeah. Blades are a huge problem. The industry's seeing that as
they're getting bigger, the problems are getting bigger. but yeah,
having, a local presence in Europe is, massive. my inbox is full
from, all the US. Inquiries and issues, during the night, just like
you're saying. Yeah. And I wake up to dozens of emails with,
requirements on inbox and my to-do list is full. But the, but the
reality is yeah, we're, grown in Europe. we are. Our real solid
presence in Europe and we've, seen massive growth this year.
Joel Saxum: I think it, it's part of the value chain there.
Touching on the Thomas and Cheryl. Right. So in SkySpecs over this
week, we've been talking more and more about the, how you guys like
to specifically work within a workflow. And that workflow being we
have [00:05:00]inspections, we're in the platform now we're in
horizon, bam. And we can enable the tech enabled services, which is
those SMEs which you have inside. The company and then rolling that
forward to the repair vendor management, which is happening in a
big way in the States. Yesterday I saw a number, $13 million in
repairs managed by the Sky Spec team. That's huge. And, that same
capability. And we're just talking blazes right now, like we
haven't even touched on CMS performance monitoring, financial asset
monitoring. That same concept is, is replica replicate in the EU as
well. Michael McQueenie: No, it absolutely is, Our
customers have got problems, we can help them with the problems.
Thomas is, as you said, we work in workflows and Thomas is, is
looking to support customers with how they, touch their data as few
times as they possibly can. How do we get from A to B and how does
a customer understand what their problems are and how they fix the
problems? And sometimes an [00:06:00]SME is the, way to fix
that. Thomas has provide, provided huge value to our customers. The
design of workflows in Horizon is the, essence. It exists just to
try and get from A to B and, and try and drive insights and then
next steps. And I think that's the important part, being, this is
the action to Joel Saxum: get Michael
McQueenie: to the, we've got the data, we understand what the
data's telling us. here's an insight, but actually what is the
follow up? And, Thomas is designing that follow up for our
customers and providing the support. Allen Hall: and
just a little bit comparison between the United States and Europe,
when we still talk to anybody in the United States about a turbine.
Almost always, it's a two megawatt, one and a half megawatt
turbine, right? Occasionally a four. Sometimes someone says
Joel Saxum: yesterday like, oh, that's a three megawatt
Allen Hall: turbine. Whoa, what's big? And in Europe, three
megawatts was like years ago, particularly offshore that,
everything's 6, 8, 10. Michael McQueenie: Yeah.
Allen Hall: Plus Michael McQueenie: 3.6 was the
common [00:07:00] turbine. Five, eight. Allen
Hall: Yeah. Michael McQueenie: Years ago, that was,
what everyone was working on. And, they're a very reliable turbine.
It's, there was a reason why there were so many of them installed
at that time. but nowadays, we're helping OEMs with 50 megawatt
turbines. Allen Hall: and I think that's the, thing that
we just don't see in the states is a turbine that's 15 megawatts is
down for a day. Is so much more expensive and particularly offshore
and the expenses go astronomical compared to onshore. Yeah, and
Michael, I always see your position of you're there to save.
Millions of pounds or millions, of euros all the time because a
shutdown there is huge. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Allen
Hall: And because the grids are changing so much in Europe
where they're becoming more solar and wind dependent and coal is
going to change away. And Joel Saxum: triage.
Allen Hall: Yeah. The triage bit, is that the SkySpecs is in
that position to really help a lot our operators out.
You're [00:08:00] providing the insights and the guidance
and the knowledge that. An operator probably doesn't have, because
they don't have the staff to go do it. It's a And can you enlighten
us like what that is because we just don't see a lot of that here.
Michael McQueenie: Yeah. I think there's a good reason you
don't see that this was, we are just providing data to some of
these, transactions. Whether it's a due diligence, inspection, or
an end of warranty. We are just providing the insights for the
customers to. Make their own decisions. Um, so it's not a SkySpecs
decision. We are just providing insights to, to allow them to make
a, smart, educated, data-driven decision. Joel Saxum: I
think that's important, concept too. 'cause like here,
Mehr
18.11.2025
1 Minute
The crew discusses LM Wind Power's dramatic layoff of 60% of
remaining Danish staff, dropping from 90 to just 31 workers. What
does this mean for thousands of wind farms with LM blades? Is
government intervention possible? Who might acquire the struggling
blade manufacturer? Plus, a preview of the Wind Energy O&M
Australia 2026 conference in Melbourne this February. Learn more
about CICNDT!Register for ORE Catapult's UK Offshore Wind Supply
Chain Spotlight! 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! If you haven't downloaded your latest
edition of PES Wind Magazine, now's the time issue four for 2025.
It's the last issue for 2025 is out and I just received mine in the
Royal Mail. I had a brief time to review some of the articles
inside of this issue. Tremendous content, uh, for the end of the
year. Uh, you wanna sit down and take a good long read. There's
plenty of articles that affect what you're doing in your wind
business, so it's been a few moments. Go to peswind.com Download
your free copy and read it today. You're listening to the Uptime
Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn,
train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build
turbines.com today. Now here's your hosts, Alan Hall, Joel Saxon,
Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes. Welcome to the Uptime Wind
Energy [00:01:00]Podcast. I'm your host, Alan Hall in the
Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. I've got Yolanda Padron in
Texas. Joel Saxon up in Wisconsin and Rosemary Barnes down under in
Australia, and it has been a, a really odd Newsweek. There is a
slow down happening in wind. Latest news from Ella Wind Power is
they're gonna lay off about 60% of their staff in Denmark. They've
only have about 90 employees there at the moment. Which is a
dramatic reduction of what that company once was. Uh, so they're
planning to lay off about 59 of the 90 workers that are still
there. Uh, the Danish media is reporting. There's a lot of Danish
media reporting on this at the moment. Uh, there's a letter that
was put out by Ellen Windpower and it discusses that customers have
canceled orders and are moving, uh, their blade production to
internal factories. And I, I assume. That's
a [00:02:00] GE slash Siemens effort that is happening,
uh, that's affecting lm and customers are willing to pay prices
that make it possible to run the LM business profitably. Uh, the
company has also abandoned all efforts on large blades because I, I
assume just because they don't see a future in it for the time
being now, everybody is wondering. How GE Renova is involved in
this because they still do own LM wind power. It does seem like
there's two pieces to LM at the minute. One that serves GE Renova
and then the another portion of the company that's just serving
outside customers. Uh, so far, if, if you look at what GE Renova
paid for the company and what revenue has been brought in, GE
Renova has lost about 8.3 billion croner, which is a little over a
billion dollars since buying the company in 2017. So it's never
really been. Hugely profitable over that time. And remember a few
months ago, maybe a month ago now, or two months ago, the CEO of
LM [00:03:00] Windpower left the company. Uh, and I now
everyone, I'm not sure what the future is for LM Windpower, uh,
because it's, it has really dramatically shrunk. It's down to what,
like 3000 total employees? I think they were up at one point to a
little over when Rosie was there, about 14,000 employees. What has
happened? Maybe Rosemary, you should start since you were working
there at one point. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I dunno. It
always makes me really sad and there's still a few people that I
used to work with that were there when I went to Denmark in May and
caught up with a bunch of, um, my old colleagues and most of them
had moved on because a lot of firing had already happened by that
point. But there were still a few there, but the mood was pretty
despondent and I think that they guessed that this was coming. But
I just find it really hard to see how with the number, just the
pure number of people that are left there. I, I find it really hard
to see how they can even support what they've
still [00:04:00] got in the field. Um. Let alone like
obviously they cut way back on manufacturing. Okay. Cut Way back on
developing new products. Okay. But you still do need some
capabilities to work through warranty claims and um, you know, and
any kind of serial issues. Yeah, I would be worried about things
like, um, you know, from time to time you need a new, a new blade
or a new set of blades produced. Maybe a lot of them, you know, if
you discover an issue, there's a serial defect that doesn't, um,
become obvious until 10 years into the turbine's lifetime. You
might need to replace a whole bunch of blades and are you gonna be
able to, like, what's, what is gonna happen to this huge number of
assets that are out there with LM blades on there? Uh, I, yeah, I,
I would really like to see some announcements about what they're
keeping, you know, what functionality they're planning to keep and
what they're planning to excise. Joel Saxum: But I mean,
at the end of the day, if it's, if [00:05:00] the
business is not profitable to run that they have no. Legal standing
to have to stay open? Rosemary Barnes: No, no, of course not.
We all know that there, there's, you know, especially like you go
through California, there's all sorts of coast turbines there that
nobody knows how to maintain them anymore. Right. And, um, yeah,
and, and around there was one in, um, in Texas as well with some
weird kind of gearbox. I can't remember what exactly, but yeah,
like the company went bankrupt, no one knew what to do with them,
so they just, you know, like fell into disrepair and couldn't be
used anymore. 'cause if you can't. Operate them safely, then you
can't let no one, the government is not gonna let you just, you
know, just. Try your luck, operate them until rotors start flying
off. You know, like that's not really how it works. So yeah, I do
think that like you, you can't just stay silent about, um, what you
expect to happen because you know, like maybe I have just done
some, a bit of catastrophizing and, you know, finding worst case
scenarios, but that is where your mind naturally goes. And the
absence of information about what you can
expect, [00:06:00] then that's what. People are naturally
gonna do what I've just done and just think through, oh, you know,
what, what could this mean for me? It might be really bad. So, um,
yeah, it is a little bit, a little bit interesting. Allen
Hall: Delamination and bottom line, failures and blades are
difficult problems to detect early. These hidden issues can cost
you millions in repairs and lost energy production. C-I-C-N-D-T are
specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become
expensive burdens. Their non-destructive test technology penetrates
deep to blade materials to find voids and cracks. Traditional
inspections, completely. Miss C-I-C-N-D-T Maps. Every critical
defect delivers actionable reports and provides support to get your
blades. Back in service, so visit cic ndt.com because catching
blade problems early will save you millions. Yolanda, what are
asset managers [00:07:00] thinking about the LM changes
as they proceed with orders and think about managing their LM Blade
fleet over the next couple of years, knowing that LM is getting
much smaller Quicker? Yolanda Padron: Yeah, and this all comes
at a time when. A lot of projects are reaching the end of the full
service agreements that they had with some of these OEMs, right? So
you already know that your risk profile is increasing. You already
know. I mean, like Rosie, you said worst case scenario, you have a
few years left before you don't know what to do with some of the
issues that are being presented. Uh, because you don't count with
that first line of support that you typically would in this
industry. It's really important to be able to get a good mix of the
technical and the commercial. Right? We've all seen it, and of
course, we're all a little bit biased because we're all engineers,
right? So we, to us it makes a lot of sense to go over the
engineering route. But the pendulum swung, swung
so [00:08:00] far towards the commercial for Ella, the
ge, that it just, it. They were always thinking about, or it seemed
from an outsider's point of view, right, that they were always
thinking about, how can I get the easiest dollar today without
really thinking about, okay, five 10 steps in the future, what's
going to happen to my business model? Like, will this be
sustainable? It did Just, I don't know, it seems to me like just
letting go of so many engineers and just going, I know Rosie, you
mentioned a couple of podcasts ago about how they just kept on
going from like Gen A to Gen B, to Gen C, D, and then it just,
without really solving any problems initially. Like, it, it, it was
just. It's difficult for me to think that nobody in those
leadership positions thought about what was gonna happen in
the [00:09:00]future. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I
think it was about day-to-day survival. 'cause I was definitely
there like saying, you know, there's too many, um, technical
problems that Yeah. When I was saying that a hundred, a hundred of
versions of me were all saying that, a lot of us were saying it.
Just in the cafeteria amongst ourselves. And a lot of us, uh, you
know,
Mehr
17.11.2025
5 Minuten
Terra-Gen's 238.5 MW project in Texas is now fully operational and
the Philippines just awarded approvals for more than 10 GWs of
renewables. Plus Nordex and Siemens Gamesa are optimistic about
their future. 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! There's news from the wind industry this week.
And for once... the headlines tell a story of growth. Down in
Hidalgo County, Texas... something worth celebrating happened this
week. Terra-Gen commissioned the Monte Cristo ONE Windpower
Project. Two hundred thirty-eight-point-five megawatts. Fully
operational. The wind facility will generate more than 850
gigawatt-hours of clean electricity every year. Enough to power
roughly 81,000 homes. And the power? Already sold. Long-term
purchase agreements with two corporate customers. Construction
created about 280 jobs at peak activity. More than 490,000 work
hours. Not one lost-time incident. They upgraded 11 miles of state
roads. Twenty-five miles of county roads. Over its lifetime... the
project will deliver more than 100 million dollars to the local
community. Property taxes. Landowner payments. Other economic
contributions. "It is an honor," said John O'Connor, Chief
Financial Officer for Terra-Gen, "to celebrate the hard work and
dedication of the hundreds of men and women who made the
commissioning of the Monte Cristo wind project possible."
Meanwhile... halfway around the world in the Philippines... the
government just awarded approvals for more than 10 gigawatts of
renewable power. That's ten-point-two gigawatts, to be exact. One
hundred twenty-three winning bidders. Solar. Storage. And wind.
Onshore wind alone claimed two-point-five gigawatts of that
capacity. Twenty-one projects. All set to deliver power by 2029.
The Philippines is targeting 50 percent renewable generation by
2040. And they're not waiting around. The "overwhelming response,"
said the department of energy, "reflects the growing confidence of
investors." Back in Europe... in Germany... Nordex is making moves.
The turbine manufacturer just secured orders for 123 megawatts from
Denkerwulf. Twenty-five onshore wind turbines. Installation begins
in 2027. Commissioning in 2028. And Nordex shares? They're
climbing. Hit a multi-year high this week. Trading at 28 euros and
2 cents. Denkerwulf'S orders for Nordex in 2025 now total nearly
144 megawatts. And last week... Mingyang signed a contract with ORE
Catapult... a state-owned British test center. They're going to
test main bearings for Mingyangs offshore 18.5MW turbines in the
United Kingdom. "A major milestone," said Mingyang'S chief
technology officer for Europe, Marc Sala. "A decisive breakthrough
for our local operations." Mingyang has big plans for Britain.
One-point-five billion pounds in investments. Half for factories.
Half for the offshore wind supply chain. Now... over at Siemens
Gamesa... things are looking up. The wind business has been
struggling. Over four fiscal years... losses totaled
eight-point-six billion euros. But Chief Executive Officer
Christian Bruch confirmed this week... they're still targeting
profitability by 2027. Break-even by 2026. Revenue for full-year
2025 rose 5 percent to ten-point-three-seven-five billion euros.
Losses improved slightly. "The journey towards profitability is
going to take time," said Chief Financial Officer Maria Ferraro.
"But I think the team is doing a great job." They expect a positive
fourth quarter in 2026. So there you have it. The wind industry is
pushing forward. Two hundred thirty-eight-point-five megawatts
commissioned in Texas. One hundred twenty-three projects approved
in the Philippines. One hundred twenty-three megawatts ordered in
Germany. Eighteen-point-five megawatt turbines heading to Britain
for testing. And Siemens Gamesa ... now seeing light at the end of
the tunnel. The numbers tell the story. Things are beginning to
stabilize – and there’s hope for the future. That’s the state of
the wind industry on the 17th of November 2025. Join us tomorrow
for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.
Mehr
13.11.2025
29 Minuten
Morten Handberg, Principal Consultant at Wind Power LAB, joins the
show to discuss the many variables within wind turbine blades that
operators may not be aware of. From design to materials and
operation, understanding your blades is crucial to making informed
decisions in the field. 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! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on
wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress Powering
tomorrow. Allen Hall: Morten, welcome back to the
program. Morten Handberg: Thank you so much, Allen. It's
fantastic to be back. It's, uh, I really, really happy to be back
on the show to discuss blades with you guys. Allen
Hall: So you're a resident blade whisperer, and we wanted to
talk about the differences between types of blades even within the
same manufacturer, because I think there's a lot of
misunderstanding if I buy a specific OEM turbine that I'm getting
the same design all the time, or even just the same basic materials
are that are used. That's not the case anymore. Morten
Handberg: No, I mean, there's always been variations. Uh, so
the B 90 is a very good example because initially was, was released
with, uh, with the, with the glass fiber spark
cap. [00:01:00] But at later iterations it was, then they
then switched it to carbon fiber for, for, for larger, for larger
turbines, for higher rated power. But it, it, but it sort of gave
that you were not a hundred percent sure. When you initially looked
at it, was this actually a ca a glass fiber, uh, beam or a carbon
fiber was only when you started to learn the integral, you know,
what, what to read in, in the naming convention that you could
understand it. But it caused a little confusion about, you know,
I'm looking at glass fiber blade or, or a carbon fiber blade. So
it's been there for a while, but we're seeing it more and more
pronounced with, um. Uh, OEMs changing to signs, uh, or OEMs
merging together, but keeping their integral design for, for, for
various purposes. And then for the, for the, for the people, not
in, uh, not in the loop or not looking behind the curtain. They
don't, you don't know, know, know the difference. So I think it's
really important that we, that we sort of highlight some of those
things to make it easier for people to, to, to know, to know this.
Allen Hall: There was a generational
change. [00:02:00] Uh, even in the 1.5 megawatt class.
There were some blades that were fiberglass and then they, there
was a trend to move to carbon fiber to make them lighter, but then
the designers got better and started putting fiberglass in, where
now you have 70 meter blades that are fiberglass worth 35 meter
blades, may have had carbon. Yeah, it's hard to keep up with
it. Morten Handberg: You know, it's really difficult to
know. I mean, for, for, for the longer blades, it's becoming more
and more pronounced that they will be, uh, there will be carbon
fiber reinforced. But a good, uh, example of where it doesn't
really apply is actually with, uh, with Siemens cesa. Because if
you look at Siemens, Cade said, you know, it's, it's Siemens, uh,
the original OEM Siemens at the original OEM Cade that merged.
Quite a few years back, but you know, we still see the very sharp,
uh, difference between the two different designs because whenever
you install a Siemens Esso turbine offshore, it's the Siemens
integral blade, it will. And, and they kept
that, [00:03:00] uh, and that blade is produced in one
cast, it's called the Integral Blade because that's their inherited
design. And there are no adhesive bond blinds in that. Uh, so all
laminated is consolidated. It's all cast in one go, and then
whatever kings and small, uh, defects there, then repaired on
factory before they ship offshore. These are pure glass fiber plate
that has not changed at all. So that's sort of the, uh, how do you
say, uh, the one that, that, uh, that is outside the norm that we
see today. But the Gaza part of it, they, they've kept for onshore
purposes, they kept their design using, uh, adhered shells or
adhered bond lines. So they would have two, uh, share webs and then
two shells, uh, that are then, that are then, then, uh, glued
together, uh, at the bond lines, on the share, on the trading edge,
and on the leading edge. With carbon re, re reinforcement. Um, so
that is a massive different design within
one [00:04:00] OEM and often when people say, well, we
have a problem with the Siemens commes blade, which one? Uh, so
then it's very, very important to understand, you know, what blade
type, you know, what, what, what turbine model it is because then
we can pretty easily drive it, or even for just know the wind farm
because. If it's offshore, we pretty much, you know, we can, we, we
know already. We just need to know the what, what, what size of
turbine is, and derive what blade type it is. Onshore becomes a bit
more pro problematic because then you need to know, you know, at
what, when was it erected, because then, you know, it can be both,
but. If you don't know, then it will just be presented as a Siemens
cesa. So it's really important to keep, uh, in check, uh, when,
when, when, when, when looking at that. So that's a, so that's a
very important distinction that, that we need, need to understand
when the child, when determining blade damages, Allen
Hall: right, because the type of damage, the integral blade
would suffer really completely different than the sort of the ESA
bonded design. I was looking at blades in Oklahoma recently that
were integral from like a two megawatt machine, and it,
it [00:05:00] looks completely different when you walk up
to that blade. You can tell that it's cast in one piece. It's very
interesting to see, but that makes it, I think the, the thing about
those blades is that it's a little more manufacturing cost to, to
make 'em that way, but. They are, uh, tend to be a little more
rugged out in service, right? Morten Handberg: Well,
they're, they're definitely heavier because of the, the
manufacturing process that they go through. Um, they're more
robust. We, I think we can, we can, we can see that from a track
record, uh, in general. Um, but they're, but the trade off is that
they are a lot, they're heavier. So that means that the, that the
components that are used in the Drivetrain Tower Foundation,
they're equally heavier. So you pay the price in the, uh, in the
cost of the turbine. But, uh, overall on the, on the mainland side,
we do see less, at least some structural damages and if something
really bad happens, so, uh, the trailing edge more often, not it's
kept to the, to the tip or on that part of the trailing edge. So,
so, uh, so [00:06:00] the, the, the blade structure keeps
together better, um, because of this consolidation of the
laminates. Allen Hall: Right, and the, the traditional ESA
design, I'll call it, has been a bonded design for a long time. The
issue with bond lines is there is no peel ply stoppage, so there's
no fasteners in it, in case it starts to come apart, it'll continue
to peel, and that's what we typically call a banana peel when it
really goes bad. The blade splits in two. Once it starts, it really
doesn't have a way to stop. And I think that's why inspection is so
important on those bonded blades. Right? Morten
Handberg: Yeah. Actually, 1, 1, 1 1, 1, 1 small thing. Uh,
peel ply is actually something that's used in laminate production
to, uh, to you apply it when you're casting, you laminate typically
for repair. Then when you peel it off. The surface is fresh and
clean, and then you can, you can continue working it, adding more,
more mobilely or, or new coating. So it removes some, uh,
lamination or some grinding process that will otherwise be needed,
has no structural purpose in it, [00:07:00] uh, just to
kill that myth of, but you're right. Uh, when you have an adhere
blade for any, for any manufacturer, for any purpose. If you have
a, uh, if you have a deep bonding that starts, then it can, it can,
depending on the location, it can grow really fast because you
don't have the same consolidation. You do have some bike layers
that would add over, but it doesn't have the same integral strength
that you would see with the, uh, with the consolidated laminate.
Allen Hall: So that's a big difference. And if you're looking
at blades, and if you haven't. Looked inside of a hub and looked
inside the blade. You, you may not even know. And I think that does
happen to a lot of engineers that they, because they, they're
dealing with a thousand blades a lot of times the blade engineers,
it's crazy what they're asked to go do. You just can't know all the
details all the time. But just knowing these top level things can
really help you suss out like where to start. And, and, and even on
the inspection res regimes would on an integral blade type design,
are you doing different kinds of inspections than you would do on a
standard kind of. Mesa bonded up design? Morten
Handberg: I would [00:08:00] say not actually. I
mean, you would still, you would still do, uh, you, you'll still do
internal inspections because, um, you can still have defect
developing. They would be, uh, slower, uh, growing in general, um,
compared to a, uh, to a more thin skin laminate, uh, type blade.
But, but the inspection methodology is, is more, less the same. You
would do an external inspection to check for lighting damages
wearing of, uh, coating. So erosion. Any kind of structural damage
in developing over the shell, uh, surfaces.
Mehr
11.11.2025
32 Minuten
The crew discusses Equinor's significant investment in Ørsted,
while Ørsted denies plans to merge. They also cover Jupiter Bach's
new plant in Colorado and the upcoming Wind Operation and
Maintenance Australia 2026 event. Register for ORE Catapult's UK
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sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about
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Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes'
YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy
Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be
a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com
today. Now, here's your hosts. Allen Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro,
and Rosemary Barnes. Allen Hall: Welcome back to the
Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall in the queen
city of Charlotte, North Carolina. I have Rosemary Barnes in
Australia who has, uh, been doing a little bit of travel. Joel is
back in Austin, Texas. Man, I feel like everybody's been traveling
a lot and so is Yolanda. The Yolanda has been on the road quite a
bit and we have a really interesting week in wind energy.
Particularly over in Denmark and Norway, and if you've been
following the news there, uh, as we all know, Ecuador had a pretty
big investment into Sted several months ago where they put in about
two and a half [00:01:00] billion dollars to buy 10% of
Sted to help write the ship a little bit, and then. A c basically
last month, right Joel? It was about last month where they, they
spent about a billion dollars for the right rights issue, uh, to
keep that stock moving, right, and or, and need more cash. And
that's how they raised it. That's a total investment, about three
and a half billion dollars. That's a lot of money for anybody to be
spending at this moment, and Ecuador is thinking this is a pretty
good bet. That's great and they wanna work closer with Ted. And the
talk is that Ecuador wants a boar seat with Ted Joel. Is there any
chance that is going to happen? Joel Saxum: Well, it
was, it's interesting that they brought that up as well, right?
Because the initial buy-in, you know, back I think six, nine months
ago or whatever it was, they specifically said in their press
release, we are not trying to get a board seat. We don't want to
have [00:02:00] control over this, yada, yada, yada. But
then when the rights issue came out, and I think it was the, the
TED stock dropped like 30% or something that day. Um, they threw
more cash in, they got a little bit more power. But it's like
anything, right? Once, once you've got, uh, quite a bit of money
invested and you have a, have pretty heavy percentage of us of
whatever that investment may be, it can be. Half ownership in a
car, I don't care. You want to have a little bit more say about
what happens with your money and what the results can be based on
strategic decisions. And if you've, you know, been watching Ted's
decisions. Now they've been at the, the whim of government policies
and stuff for the last few years, but they've also mistepped a
little bit on a couple of them. Uh, so you can see EOR wanting to
get in there to protect their investment a little bit. The, in the
funny thing to me here, and, um, Rosie, you spent a ton of time up
in Denmark, is the, the, the back and forth between the Norwegians
and the Danes about, oh, you're, you're just
our [00:03:00] little brother. You're our, oh, you're our
distant cousin, da da da da. How they were kind of all at one point
in time, a lot, you know, a lot closer. There was what was called
the, um, the calmer Union, I think it was. And that was the Danes,
Norwegians, Swedes, all under one king. This was a long time ago,
but, so there's that area of the world's kind of all been playing
together and, and if you know a little bit of the history too, all
of that money that Norway has, so all the money that Einor has is
Danish ex Danish land money. So the Danes gave away their rights to
the North Sea, to the Norwegians for whatever reason, and that's
where all the oil was that made the Norwegians rich. That is the
EOR pile of cash. Rosemary Barnes: People talk about
that frequently, like really frequently. In Denmark. I probably
would've had a conversation like, I don't know, at least once a
month, maybe once a week about that topic. I remember one that
sticks out in my mind. Um, I always said that Norwegian, like, I
love the Norwegian [00:04:00] accent. It sounds like
Danish, but they're, they're laughing. And I remember saying that
to my boss one time, my Danish boss, and he says, yeah, they are
laughing, they're laughing all the way to the bank because they've
got our oil. And, and every Danish person has a huge chip on their
shoulder about it. Um, it, it was like the oil, the oil reservoirs
weren't well known when they did the divide up of who would get,
you know, which bits of the ocean. It was mostly about fish. Um,
and yeah, so they divided it where they divided it, everyone was
happy with it at the time, and then not so long afterwards found
out there was just heaps and heaps of, uh, oil under there. And
yeah, Norway got quite rich off it. But you know what? I think
that, um, Denmark hasn't done so bad out of it because it kind of
forced them to go all in on wind energy in a way that other, like
other countries kind of, it's like during the oil shock of, was it
the 1970s? You know, everyone. Looked into wind energy a lot, but
as soon as the price went down again, then they were just like, oh,
don't worry about wind energy. But [00:05:00] Denmark
just, you know, kept on keeping on and they did have, you know, a
few decades of just total world dominance in wind energy. Um, and
it also kind of, you know, filtered through to other bits of the
economy. It's, it's really nice kind of. Smart industry
manufacturing. They, they really did train up a whole generation or
so of, um, engineers that are, you know, really industrious and
innovative and you see them in all sorts of other industries now.
So I, I don't think that Denmark should have a ship on their
shoulder about it. I think that, you know, they should consider
that they got some, some good out of it as well. Joel
Saxum: I, I completely agree. The, the last funny I'll throw
in there is, if you don't know this, Ted used to be known as Dong
Energy, which is Danish oil and natural gas. So they used to be an
and not, that's not too long ago. That's only like 10, 12 years
ago. Rosemary Barnes: No, and I think it's the only
example of, um, any fossil fuel company that has flipped, like
fully flipped to [00:06:00] renewables. I don't think
there's another example. Um, maybe, you know, someone can email us
and, and tell me I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they're the only
ones. And so that's why, like, I, I really like, I'm always going
for them, you know, like I'm always cheering them, cheering them
on. I want them to succeed because I want that to be something that
can happen, you know, so much better if, um, oil and gas companies
spend their energy transitioning to renewables and succeeding
compared to if they spent their energy trying to, you know, um,
stymie the renewable energy transition. So yeah, I, I think good
for them. Allen Hall: Ted is saying no chance of any
sort of merger with Ecuador. In fact, there's CFOs, total analysts,
there are no merger plans, and the CEO of Ted is also basically
saying we're focused on our own plan. We, we we're going to go
ahead and get the company righted and we don't really need a lot of
Ecuador involvement. That's gonna come to a head pretty soon
though, if Orec [00:07:00] can't get their stock back up.
Like Joel has pointed out, the, the pressure from Ecuador will
slightly diminish over time. And if Oreg can get really rolling,
which analysts are saying now is somewhere in the 2030 region
before they become, uh, self-sufficient in a, in a sense that, uh,
until such time, EOR probably is gonna keep knocking on that door.
It does lead to the question, and I think Rosemary, you brought it
up, oh, probably six months ago or more, that Ecuador is starting
to pull back from its renewables business and starting to focus a
little more on the oil and gas side, but they have renewable sort
of requirements that they're going after are goals. And that stead
could fulfill those goals, is that still likely to be the situation
where EOR is gonna be in oil and gas and Orsa is gonna be in
renewables and between the two of them, they satisfy, uh, both
sides, Denmark [00:08:00] and Norway's economic
interest? Rosemary Barnes: I, I think it's very, very
hard actually for, um, a company that's used still oil and gas
projects to move on to renewables. I mean, they're not. That
similar, you might like, you might think it's one kind of energy,
um, moving to another kind of energy. But I think that that totally
misunderstands how the, the business, the actual business works,
what kinds of, um, projects they do, how risky they are, how much
return they require, and the only reason. Companies would do that
as if they were kind of forced to. Joel Saxum: That's
the ESG thing. Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Well, it's not
only ESG though, because I mean, eor they are kind of running out
like, you know, started off with, um, stuff in Norway or in
Norway's waters. Right. And they've, to a certain extent, run out
of good projects. I mean, that always happens with, um, with fossil
fuels that, you know, the good sites get, um, uh, depleted and you
have to find new sites that, that always happens. Um,
Mehr
Über diesen Podcast
Uptime is a renewable energy podcast focused on wind energy and
energy storage technologies. Experts Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes,
Joel Saxum and Phil Totaro break down the latest research, tech,
and policy.
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