The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

We discuss Vestas' anti-oscillation blade tool, which seems to have a dual purpose, Windspider's self-erecting tower method, and a terrifying way to disguise vaccinations for kids. Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug! Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia! https://www.windaustralia.com 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 Phil Totaro: This is Power Up, where groundbreaking wind energy ideas become your clean energy future. Here's your hosts, Allen Hall and Phil Totaro. Allen Hall: Well, Phil, our first idea of the week is from our friends at Vestas, and it's an anti oscillation tool for wind turbine blades. And how this patent is described, it's like a sock for your wind turbine blade with a little bit of a covering over the trailing edge serrations, and you slide this device on And it stops oscillations during deployment, when the, when the turbine may be a little more vulnerable, it's not a full operation, maybe in lockouts, where you really don't want any lift, and particularly you don't want any oscillations that could, in theory, Phil Totaro: Yeah. And maybe it's an idea that GE should have come up with or LM should have come up with first considering some of the issues they've had this year. But what's kind of fascinating about this though, is that this isn't necessarily a new idea from the perspective of putting a little sock on the end of your wind turbine blade to protect the tip during a lift. Usually it's for making sure that you don't damage the serrations or whatever you've stuck on the trailing edge of the blade. In this case, Vestas and, and I'm, I'm kind of expressing my opinion or suggestion here that I think Vestas is basically trying to get an extra 20 years of life on a patented concept that, They, are potentially using on a daily basis for that construction purpose. They found another way to describe that same technology and as an anti oscillation tool. Allen Hall: You ever seen a device called a slap chopper, Phil? No. It slices and it dices. Oh, that thing. Yeah, I have. I have. So what they've To have done, in a sense, is they've taken the Slapchopper and got a patent for slicing, and then when that got close to expiring, they came back and said, well, it dices too, which is a separate patent, and thereby you can extend the same device for Covering two areas. It's very unique way of patenting and very effective by the way. It's smart. Phil Totaro: Yeah, it is. If, if you're trying to capture and protect your IP, but it also doesn't say much for the patent examiners we've ever had in this industry who can't seem to recognize that this is what companies are doing because this is not the first time this has happened. I can recall a few examples in the past where companies had You know, had, their 20 years of patent protection on a concept and then repatented basically the same thing and said, Oh, well, it's not for cooling. It's for vibration damping, or it's not for one thing. It's for something else. So it looks like that's what's happening here. And, I guess kudos to Vestas for trying and maybe not so many kudos to the U. S. Patent Office for allowing stuff like this to get pushed Allen Hall: through. Roncopeel made a living doing that. If you're familiar with Ronco, it's Christmas time and every Christmas you would have another Ronco product, which slices, dices, cooked a chicken or something.

This week, we discuss Siemens Gamesa's MASSIVE 21 MW turbine prototype, Vestas and Siemens Gamesa layoffs in Europe, trade relations between the US and EU in 2025, and the proper out-of-office email etiquette. Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug! Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia! https://www.windaustralia.com 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: If you want to know why Siemens Gamesa is betting big on a 21 megawatt offshore turbine while others scale back, what Norway's 25 billion oil and gas investment means for renewables, and how manufacturing challenges are reshaping European wind energy, stick around. Plus, we've got big news about Wind Energy O& M Australia and a chance to win an exclusive Uptime Podcast mug in our first ever listener survey. I'm Allen Hall, and this is the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. You're listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by BuildTurbines. com. Learn, train, and be a part of the clean energy revolution. Visit buildturbines. com today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes. Allen Hall: Just the season of giving, and this year we want to give you a voice in shaping Uptime's future. As we wrap up another amazing year of wind energy conversations, we're launching our first in person event. And yes, there's a special holiday surprise involved. Picture yourself sipping your morning coffee from an exclusive Uptime Podcast mug. Which could be yours just for participating. All we need is five minutes of your time to tell us what sparks your interest and what you'd love to hear more in 2025. Whether you've been with us since day one or just caught your first episode, your thoughts matter to us. So dash over to uptimewindenergy. com or slay down to the show notes below. And from all of us at Uptime, thank you for making this community possible. Second, wind energy professionals won't want to miss the premier O& M event in the Asia Pacific region, the Wind Energy O& M Australia conference happening February 11th and 12th in Melbourne. And we're thrilled to have industry powerhouses like Tilt Renewables, Worley, Aerones. Phil Totaro: And we're pleased to announce Sky Specs is actually going to be joining us as a corporate roundtable sponsor for the event. Allen Hall: The conference tackles crucial topics that directly impact your operations, leading into erosion, lightning protection, CMS, insurance, and life extension strategies. This is your chance to connect with the industry leaders and gain practical insights that you can implement immediately. So secure your spot now by visiting And finally, don't miss out on a game changing opportunity for your safety program. Active training team known for their innovative and immersive safety training methods. ATT is hosting a free expo in Houston on January 24th, and this isn't your typical safety presentation by no means. ATT brings safety culture to life through dynamic hands on experiences that have transformed safety programs across the energy sector. So this is a rare chance to experience their methods first hand. Spacers are filling up fast, so register now by emailing [email protected] or visiting activetrainingteam.us/contact. Unlock your wind farm's best performance at Wind Energy O& M Australia, February 11th to 12th, in sunny Melbourne.

Connecticut and Massachusetts have backed out of their portions of the Vineyard Wind 2 offshore project, Avaada Group is investing $12B in renewables for Rajasthan by 2030, and Enersense is selling its onshore wind and solar project development business to Fortum. Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug! Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia! https://www.windaustralia.com 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 Welcome to Uptime News Flash. Industry news, lightning fast. Your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, and Phil Totaro discuss the latest deals, mergers, and alliances that will shape the future of wind power. News Flash is brought to you by IntelStor. For market intelligence that generates revenue, visit www.intelstor.com. Allen Hall: There's been a significant setback for offshore wind development from Vineyard Offshore as they announced the withdrawal of its 800 megawatt portion of the Vineyard Wind 2 project from Massachusetts contract negotiations and that decision came after Connecticut opted not to purchase its planned 400 megawatt share of the project. This development impacts Massachusetts ambitious offshore wind goals, where despite earlier procurement of 3200 megawatts of capacity, only Vineyard Wind 1 remains active in the state's pipeline. And Phil, this is due to the combination of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island working together to draw from some of these offshore projects. But now, Connecticut is full stop, not going to be involved in offshore wind, they said, for at least a couple of years. Phil Totaro: Yeah, not that Connecticut has always been Wind Energy's biggest well, biggest fan, pardon the pun. Connecticut has, is basically saying that they're pulling out of this procurement because offshore wind is just too expensive, and that's entirely true. . Given what the industry has to price the PPA at to be able to pay for the project, given the the cost of money and the cost of equipment these days. So I can see why they did it, but it does kind of screw Rhode Island and Massachusetts a little bit because, they were counting on that offtake. So the question then becomes, does Massachusetts unilaterally go and sign an agreement 2 at some point? Is that even something that's going to be able to move forward, before January 20th, where presumably we're not going to get, four years worth of BOEM approvals on offshore wind farms? So there's a lot of uncertainty and unfortunately chaos caused by, Connecticut's decision here and, and certainly unfortunate for, for vineyard offshore wind. Joel Saxum: I think one thing to think about here is that like you said, Phil, that there's a looming deadline that might close the door on some of these wind things or not, not slam the door, but close it a little bit more this offshore wind program that we have going on the East Coast for no matter what state you're in. And, and the way I'm looking at some of this is, yes, the PPAs are expensive. I see that. Tech, the technology is expensive. I see that the financing is, has been a bit difficult. It should be hopefully getting easier to see that. However, If your goal is to have renewable energies and you're in the northeast part of the United States, you don't have a whole lot of options. Your options basically are offshore wind and something else that someone dreams up for something because that's it.

This week on Power-Up, Goldwind's coil pipe system for cooling towers, an idea from Enercon for a predictive model of power output under certain weather conditions, and an interesting alarm clock patent from the 1800s. Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug! Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia! https://www.windaustralia.com 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 Power Up, the uptime podcast focused on the new, hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow along with me, Allen Hall, and IntelStor's Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future. Our first idea is from Goldwind. It is a concept where they have a specialized coil pipe system for liquid cooling in wind turbines, mostly offshore it appears. It is designed to handle the rotation between the nacelle and the tower. So you can think about all this coiled tube in the tower itself and the nacelle is spinning around. So it Keeps everything organized, so it doesn't twist, bend, and kink where the fluid flow would stop. Phil, this one's a little interesting to me because I haven't seen a lot of cooling happening in towers, but obviously GoldWind wants to proceed with this idea to mostly for their offshore turbines, it looks like. Philip Totaro: Yeah, this is designed for larger machines where they're gonna leverage either using the tower as a heatsink or some other downed tower mechanism where they can dump waste heat and theoretically minimize the size of the radiator that they have on the nacelle. And keep in mind that GoldWind, because they're using a permanent magnet generator, they have different requirements up tower for for the, the magnet cooling and stator cooling. So what's kind of fascinating about this to me is that, you've got certainly for, for transmitting, electrical. Current and things like that. You have things like slip rings. You even have kind of hydraulic slip rings when you want to be able to move, from a, from a rotating frame of reference to a fixed frame of reference, you, you can use kind of a, a, an equivalent of a hydraulic slip ring to, to pass fluid that way. This is literally like a twist loop the same way that we have kind of an electrical cable twist loop in the upper part of a, the tower and nacelle but it's specifically designed for liquid coolant. And so, kudos to them for kind of creativity and ingenuity. Whether or not this is going to be more efficient than a nacelle mounted radiator, I'm not. So it'd be interesting to see some feedback or some data on that, but it's it's definitely a unique and kind of fascinating way of developing a liquid based cooling system and implementing it in a way that's going to help them. Address other considerations, design considerations, like wanting to minimize the the volume and the, the size, and frankly, the weight of an uptower radiator or a cell mounted radiator. Allen Hall: Our next idea is from Waban Properties, and it is a concept for using weather data, in particular, more widespread weather data. coupled with performance of a wind turbine over time to create a predicted model for the power output under certain weather conditions. And this idea seems to be driven, Phil, from grid restoration or black start scenarios where they need to turn The grid on restarting the grid and they need to know what pow...