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  • PowerCurve Recovers India AEP, Silent Edge Cuts Noise

    PowerCurve Recovers India AEP, Silent Edge Cuts Noise
    2026/07/02
    Nicholas Gaudern, CTO at PowerCurve, joins to discuss India AEP gains, DragonScale VGs, and Silent Edge noise reduction. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” 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: Nicholas, welcome back to the podcast. Nicholas Gaudern: Thanks, Allen. Great to be back. Allen Hall: So there’s a lot going on at Power Curve, and I saw some news online about Power Curve in India. Nicholas Gaudern: Yes. Allen Hall: Which is a new development. Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, so we’ve been working in India for, for some years now, and we have, uh, more than 100 turbines out there with our equipment on, primarily vortex generators so far. And what we’re seeing in India is some of the highest AEP gains we’ve ever recorded with our vortex generators And I think a lot of this is being driven by the fact that in certain parts of India, there’s some very unique, uh, environmental conditions, climatic conditions, and there’s parts of the year, like the dry season up in [00:01:00] the north of India, where you’re getting this very sticky dirt accumulating on the blades. And it’s really quite dramatic when you see the photographs, but that means that the blades are actually starting to, to stall, have flow separation on them. Allen Hall: I’ve seen pictures of that. Yeah. I was really shocked at the time, uh, ’cause I didn’t know it was just kind of a black, gooey- Yeah … kind of tar-like substance- Yeah, yeah on the blades, and, uh, it, it was only on there a limited time. As soon as the monsoons come through and the rains hit, it would wash, eventually wash it off. Yes. But while it’s there, you could see the airflow over the blade surfaces. You, you could definitely see separation happening really early on those blades. Dramatic. Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, absolutely, and I think the, um… Like you say, it’s not all year. No. But it doesn’t have to be all year to have a huge impact on, on how many, you know, megawatt hours you’re getting out the other end. So there’s a few months of the year where this problem is particularly severe, maybe sort of December through to February, something like that. And what we’re finding is that when you see, uh, the power curves for these [00:02:00] turbines, some of them aren’t even hitting rated power. They’re not able to hit rated power because there’s so much flow separation on the blades. Allen Hall: Wow. Nicholas Gaudern: And that, I mean, just imagine that. You’ve got a two megawatt turbine, for example. Maybe it doesn’t cast- get past 1.5 megawatts for this, uh, time of the year. I mean, that’s crazy. Allen Hall: Does the turbine try to adjust itself when that happens? Because the pictures I s- have seen indicates, like, the turbine is pitching the blades to, ’cause it knows- It can- … Nicholas Gaudern: what the wind Allen Hall: speed is- I mean, yeah … and it knows what it should be putting out, and it’s not putting that out. Nicholas Gaudern: It’s very turbine specific, kind of controller logic specific, but what we see is even the turbines that try to do something, they’re very limited in how much pitch authority they have from the controller. They might be able to just do a little bit, a degree. Okay. Two degrees. You know, very, very small pitch adjustments. And when you have this kind of dirt on the leading edges, a degree of pitch ain’t gonna save you really. Um- N- Allen Hall: no. And I think that’s what we’re seeing. And it’s not gonna get that power back. No, no. Nicholas Gaudern: No. Allen Hall: But does it add extra load onto the blade structurally over [00:03:00] time when you do that? Nicholas Gaudern: In terms of the pitching, or- Allen Hall: Yeah, in terms of the pitching, where you’re trying to be more aggressive on the angle of attack to get the power out of the turbine. Potentially. And the winds are still pretty strong, you just, the blades are inefficient. Nicholas Gaudern: I think it’s one of those things where there’s, there’s so many interconnected items with the dirt and the controller and the structure. It’s actually pretty difficult, I think, to say with confidence how much life impact you would have from that. But what I would say is the more that you might end up trying to pitch, if that’s what’s going on on some machines, that obviously puts wear on the pitch bearings themselves. But yeah, I think at the moment ...
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    27 分
  • Storm Damages ENGIE Wind Farm, Mexico Plans 7 GW

    Storm Damages ENGIE Wind Farm, Mexico Plans 7 GW
    2026/07/06
    Allen covers a storm that damaged ENGIE’s South Dakota wind farm, Sumitomo exiting two Belgian offshore farms, Envision’s loss in Denmark, and Continental building its own wind farm. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Happy Monday everyone. Sometimes … Mother Nature reminds the wind industry who is really in charge. Late last month … hurricane-force winds ripped through Hyde County, South Dakota … tearing into the Triple H Wind Farm operated by French energy giant Engie. One hundred and thirty-one miles per hour … as strong as a Category Four hurricane. More than twenty of the site’s ninety-two turbines … damaged. The two-hundred-fifty-megawatt complex is out of service … and turbine supplier GE Vernova is on-site now … assessing the wreckage. No injuries … but the governor declared a state of emergency. The machines that harvest the wind … taken down by the wind itself. Now … while one wind farm goes dark in the American plains … ownership is reshuffling across the North Sea. Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation has exited two Belgian offshore wind farms … selling its stakes to joint venture partner Jera Nex BP. That is the partnership between oil major BP and Japan’s largest power generator Jera. Jera Nex BP now has full ownership of the two-hundred-nineteen-megawatt Northwester 2 … and has raised its stake in the one-hundred-sixty-five-megawatt Nobelwind to eighty percent. Both farms operate out of Ostend, Belgium … and have been generating power since 2017 and 2020. Sumitomo walks away … Jera Nex BP doubles down. Meanwhile … in Denmark … China’s Envision Group is seeing red for the first time in fifteen years. The company’s global innovation center in Silkeborg … a strategic research hub for wind turbine components and advanced manufacturing … posted a loss of just under one-point-three million Danish kroner. That is a swing of more than one hundred fifteen percent from last year’s profit. The culprit is not the technology … it is the currency. The U.S. dollar fell nearly twelve percent against the Danish krone in 2025 … and Envision’s books took the hit. Revenue also dropped eighteen percent … but management says the underlying operations remained stable. The machines still work … the math just changed. And speaking of money flowing into wind … a Turkish energy company just tapped an unusual source. Aksa Enerji … the largest publicly listed independent power producer in Turkiye … has secured one hundred twenty-four million dollars in financing backed by China’s export credit agency Sinosure. The money will fund a one-hundred-megawatt wind-plus-storage project in the southern province of Mersin. This is the first renewable energy project in Turkiye to receive a license as a storage-integrated facility. Aksa now operates power plants across seven countries … with more than three gigawatts of total capacity. Chinese capital … backing Turkish wind … with battery storage baked in from day one. Now … here is a story that might surprise you. Continental … the German tyre maker … yes … the tyre company … is building its own wind farm. Three Nordex turbines … each standing two hundred sixty-seven meters tall … right next to its tyre factory in Korbach, Germany. When they are online … those turbines and the factory’s existing solar panels will cover two-thirds of the plant’s electricity demand. Fifty-five gigawatt-hours a year … powering rubber mixing and extrusion lines … directly from the wind. Continental calls it a model for its production sites worldwide. Cheaper power … more predictable costs … and less exposure to volatile energy markets. The wind industry just gained a tyre company as a customer … and a competitor for electrons. And finally … south of the border. Mexico has eight gigawatts of wind power installed today … more than thirty-three hundred turbines across sixteen states. But the next chapter is already being written. The government plans to add nearly seven gigawatts of new wind capacity this term … part of a broader push for thirty-two gigawatts of new generation overall. More than two gigawatts of wind projects are pending allocation right now … and the industry estimates this next wave could mobilize four to five billion dollars in investment … building thirteen to fourteen new wind farms before the decade is out. The final decisions come in October. Here is what stands out this week. The wind industry is no longer just selling kilowatt-hours to utilities … it is selling energy ...
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    3 分
  • GE Vernova Backs LM Wind Power, KKR Buys EDF Assets

    GE Vernova Backs LM Wind Power, KKR Buys EDF Assets
    2026/07/07
    GE Vernova pumps $1 billion into LM Wind Power, and KKR buys EDF’s US and Canada renewables arm. Plus CIP sweeps South Korea’s offshore auction and the CME plans wind derivatives across three continents. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now, your hosts. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with Matthew Stead and Yolanda Padron. Rosemary is at GWO training this week. And we have an announcement about Wind Energy O&M Australia 2027. Matthew, you wanna give all the details? Matthew Stead: Drum roll Um, very pleased to announce that WOMA 2027 will be at the East Pullman Hotel in Melbourne’s east, uh, not the other one, and, uh, 3rd to 5th of March. Um, the first two days will be two days of wind O&M, uh, conferences, [00:01:00] uh, and then the Friday will be a half-day, uh, training session. More information to come. Allen Hall: Well, she’s not here, so we can probably just announce it, that Rosemary will be giving a terrific four-hour-long seminar on blades and blade repair, so you sign up now. Matthew, where do you go if you wanna just check out what’s happening at WOMA Matthew Stead: 2027? Uh, well, actually, it’s woma2027.com. Allen Hall: Uh, over at GE Vernova and LM Wind Power, there’s been a whole bunch of turmoil over the last couple of years if you haven’t been paying attention. Well, GE Vernova just injected about a billion dollars into that company. So although LM recently has shown very little in terms of revenue, it definitely had needed some capital injection in, uh, at least according to the Danish press, the number of employees at the Danish site is about 20 to 30. So it’s really a fraction of what it once was. But [00:02:00] it does seem like GE is paying off all its existing debt and then giving it a little bit of a cash infusion to keep it rolling. The question really is, is what is GE Vernova gonna do with that business now? Are they planning on keeping it? Are they trying to get s- to get it back to health where they can service the other, uh, OEMs that they manufacture blades for? Or is there a larger action that will happen in the near future? What do we think? Matthew Stead: Yeah, I’m really confused by this one. I mean, a cash injection just so that you’re not bankrupt on paper is, um, that’s just playing with money as far as I’m concerned. Or I’m not sure if it’s a US term, but, you know, shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic. It doesn’t– Does it change anything? Allen Hall: Well, uh, th- they made no announcements about closing facilities. The LM blade facility in North Dakota still appears to be making blades. There’s the TPI factories, which are going through a transition r- right now, appear to be making GE [00:03:00] blades. I, I assume Gaspé up in Canada is still making blades, at least that’s the story. If GE’s gonna rely upon LM to make blades, they’re gonna need to keep them open. Is, is this more of just keeping the factories open with a skeleton engineering crew and possibly moving the blade design group into the States? Is that– Or India or, or somewhere? Yolanda Padron: And they’re still selling, right? They’re still selling blades. It seems like they’re still planning on manufacturing blades. Do we think that maybe- They’re just trying to avoid that whole TPI bankruptcy deal to not have to kind of scrap for parts? Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think TPI has been producing parts at high quantity, and some of the Things I’ve heard from the industry folk is that TPI is really busy in producing quality blades, and it’s like the bankruptcy transaction is not happening, which is great to hear because the [00:04:00]industry needs blades, and there’s a lot of repowering going on in the United States and a lot of activity in general, so they need blades. But does LM continue to be a part of that? Matthew Stead: Yeah, I mean, presumably the TPI, um, whole story only makes LM more important, you know, more important to have, uh, an additional manufacturer and, you know, providing, you know, options for the OEMs. Allen Hall: It does seem like, though, the GE offshore, GE Vernova offshore is not a thing. Although I’ve heard a couple of rumors that, yeah, GE Vernova is offering some products for offshore, it doesn’t seem like their heart is in it. I can see ...
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    27 分
  • WindQuest Advisors on Repowering and Rising O&M Costs

    WindQuest Advisors on Repowering and Rising O&M Costs
    2026/07/09
    Dan Fesenmeyer, Managing Partner at WindQuest Advisors, joins to discuss the repowering rush and the FAA permitting stall, rising O&M costs on larger turbines, tariff pass-throughs, and AI data center demand. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” 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: Dan, welcome back to the podcast. Dan Fesenmeyer: It’s great to be here. Great to see you again. Allen Hall: There is so much happening in your particular area. Your name pops up quite a bit within Weather Guard because, uh, we’re dealing with a lot of operators and- A number of times we’ll ask them, “Have you read your turbine supply agreement?” “No.” “Have you read your full service agreement?” “No.” “Well, maybe you should do that.” And then we say, “Have you talked to Dan? You should call Dan, ’cause he can help you understand what you have signed.” Mm-hmm. “Oh, that’s probably a good idea.” So now that you’re here, WindQuest Advisors, of course, obviously is your company. Mm-hmm. And you’re talking to a number of operators. The, the big hurdle at the minute, the nearest short-term hurdle, is repowering. There’s just a lot of [00:01:00] repowering efforts going on- Mm-hmm … trying to get turbines in, start a project. There’s a July 4th deadline and an end of the year deadline. There’s a couple deadlines after that. What are you seeing right now from operators i- in terms of repowering? What’s the effort happening? Dan Fesenmeyer: Well, there was a ton of effort to start physical work. That window’s obviously closing- Allen Hall: Yes … Dan Fesenmeyer: very quickly, but it’s still open. Uh, and then once you’re past that window, my understanding is if you get your repower completed by the end of ’27, you didn’t really need to have started physical work. But I think most folks, start physical work is kind of the insurance piece of it- Allen Hall: Sure … Dan Fesenmeyer: if things take longer. Uh, another thing that’s popped up is obviously FAA and other permitting. Allen Hall: On the permitting side, from the federal’s, uh, standpoint, is that stopped? Or, or are projects able to continue putting turbines in the ground, or what’s the status? Dan Fesenmeyer: My- From what I’ve seen, I think on the opening session here at [00:02:00] ACP, it was said, they said that there’s, like, 130 projects that are- Allen Hall: At least … Dan Fesenmeyer: caught. Yes. And I’m, I’m involved with some of them, and I have a fairly small shop, and there’s just no FAA variances or permits or- They’re not issuing- … mitigation studies. Everything seems to have stopped. Allen Hall: So they’re not even reviewing the documentation that’s been submitted by the operators at all? Dan Fesenmeyer: That’s what it seems, yes. Yeah. Allen Hall: Is that legal? Uh, uh, usually those federal requirements have a timeline which they’re able to review those permits and get them approved or disapproved them. You’re s- Right … I think what I’m hearing is, what you’re saying is they’re not even looking at them. Dan Fesenmeyer: That’s correct. That’s what I’ve heard and seen. Allen Hall: Okay. Dan Fesenmeyer: Yeah. Yeah. Allen Hall: So what is an operator to do then? How does this, how do they meet some of these deadlines if they can’t get the permit? Dan Fesenmeyer: Well, I mean, it stalled a lot of projects ’cause of the associated risk with it. Although I’ve seen some, uh, you know, some repower folks think, “Well, you know, I’m just repair- repowering like for like, or I’m not changing much.” [00:03:00] But if your, if your rotor’s changing or pad location’s changing, you need to update those permits. Allen Hall: So the, the groups and the operators that are repowering the existing turbines are putting basically the same turbine in the same hole. Dan Fesenmeyer: Well, Allen Hall: I- Would that be okay? Dan Fesenmeyer: I would say originally- The initial push on repower was kind of your larger rotors- Sure … new drivetrain, et cetera. Yes. The market seemed to shift more towards, “Hey, let’s do smaller upgrades, component exchanges.” Allen Hall: Okay. Dan Fesenmeyer: Getting more towards the minimal investment, so to speak. Allen Hall: The 80% investment portion. Dan Fesenmeyer: Yes. Allen Hall: Right. Dan Fesenmeyer: Yeah. And less about, you know, a big ...
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    25 分
  • Poland Powers First Offshore Wind, Vestas Expands in Japan

    Poland Powers First Offshore Wind, Vestas Expands in Japan
    2026/07/13
    Allen covers Poland connecting its first offshore wind farm, Ocean Winds reaching full power in the Mediterranean, Stiesdal’s floating wind cost breakthrough, Vestas expanding in Australia and Japan, a federal permitting freeze stalling 250 US projects, and India passing 50% clean power. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Happy Monday, everyone. A coal-dependent nation just plugged into offshore wind for the very first time. Poland’s power grid received electricity this past week from its first offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea. It’s called Baltic Power, a joint venture between Poland’s Orlen and Canada’s Northland Power. It began sending electricity from its 76 turbines to shore — about a 1.4-gigawatt site, enough to power more than 1.5 million Polish homes. And this is more than just one wind farm. Poland is shifting its entire energy map. For decades, the center of electricity generation sat in the coal-rich south. Now it’s moving to northern Poland, to the coast. The country plans six gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. Equinor and Ørsted are both set to build along that Polish shoreline, and that’s good news. A new 530-million-złoty substation — about $140 million — is part of a plan to build nearly 5,000 kilometers of high-voltage lines to carry the power to southern Poland. Coal still supplies more than half of Poland’s electricity, but that number is about to change. And now down to the south of France. Ocean Winds, the offshore wind company created by EDP Renewables and Engie, just reached full power at a floating wind farm in the Mediterranean Sea. It’s three 10-megawatt turbines sitting on semi-submersible floaters 16 kilometers off the coast. It’s a pilot project, but the lessons are real: 99% of the suppliers are European, 85% French, and it proves that floating offshore wind can work in deep Mediterranean waters. Now we’ll stay with floating wind for a moment. Danish company Stiesdal Offshore says it has cracked the cost code, and this is important. The company modeled what it would take to build a full-scale floating wind farm — one gigawatt from a single port in a single installation season, loading out one turbine per week. And the cost? Less than one million euros per megawatt. That is on par with the jacket foundations used for fixed-bottom turbines in deeper water. About 80% of the world’s oceans are roughly too deep for conventional foundations. And if those numbers hold — one million per megawatt — floating wind just got a whole lot more investable. Meanwhile, Danish Vestas is making moves on two continents. In Australia, the Danish giant bought a 272-megawatt project in Tasmania from Ark Energy. It’s called the St. Patrick’s Plains Wind Farm, and once built it would be the biggest wind project site in the state. Vestas now has more than 13 gigawatts of wind projects in its Australian pipeline. So the model is clear: buy early-stage projects, bring in investors and offtakers, then supply the turbines to build the farm. The turbine supplier is turning into a wind developer. And over in Japan, Vestas secured backing from the Japanese government to build a wind turbine assembly factory. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has committed support for the facility. Vestas already has about two gigawatts of turbines installed in Japan, including machines at the country’s largest operational offshore wind farm. A factory on Japanese soil puts Vestas closer to an offshore market that is just getting started. Now we turn back to the United States. In Minnesota, four wind energy projects are stuck in limbo. The Department of War has stopped completing national security reviews for proposed wind farms. Those reviews used to be routine. A new report says more than 250 wind projects are stalled nationwide because of it. In Minnesota alone, the four frozen projects represent over one gigawatt — that is more output than the state’s twin nuclear reactors at the Prairie Island Power Plant. So at stake is $1.6 billion in direct investment, about 5,600 jobs, and more than $168 million in economic impact. Nine clean energy groups have sued the War Department to break the logjam. And over in Ohio, the state senate passed a bill that could block many new wind farms and solar farms. The bill says power sources must be available at least 50% of the time, and wind and solar on their own rarely hit that number. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce opposes the bill, and so does the grid operator. But the bill has passed the Senate and now heads to the House. ...
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    3 分
  • Japan Backs Floating Wind, US Grid Sidelines Clean Energy

    Japan Backs Floating Wind, US Grid Sidelines Clean Energy
    2026/06/30
    Japan and the UK sign a $12 billion floating wind deal for 5.9 GW, Muehlhan buys Coverwind Solutions in Spain, and US grid reform stalls as MISO, PJM, and SPP fast-track fossil resources over wind. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now your hosts Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall. I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, just back from Japan, in Matthew’s stead. Yolanda Padron is on special assignment. Well, Rosemary, what happened in Japan? You, you spent a, a week touring the country and looking at, uh, some energy projects. What did you learn? Rosemary Barnes: I was there for just five, five nights. I went over for an, um, an, a systems engineering conference by INCOSE. I was doing a keynote presentation there, and also spoke to some of their… They’ve got this program, an international programming for, like, upcoming leaders. Um, and yeah, it was funny, the topic that I chose for [00:01:00] that was how you can combine an online presence with a serious professional career. Uh, ’cause, you know, like, a lot of the advice that you see about building an online presence is, like, totally compat- incompatible with being taken seriously in a, uh, you know, in a, a job like engineering. So that was pretty fun. And then on the last day, I was able to arrange a tour of a community. Like, we went to this village near Fukushima, and they, a- after the Fukushima, uh, or the earthquake that led to the Fukushima, uh, shutdown, that town, some power lines came down, and that, that village was without power for three months. So in response to that, they’re like, “Community power for the win.” At this place, like, there was literally steam coming out of the ground just, you know, randomly. It’s an onsen town, so you know, like, it’s, um, it’s built around tourism for these hot baths. And so they put in a couple of geothermal power plants, small ones, and, um, also some hydropower. But the reason why I wanted to go there was ’cause, you know, ge- [00:02:00]geothermal is such an obvious solution for Japan, for the energy, but they only have… .3% of their electricity is generated by geothermal currently. And, um, the main reason is that the onsen community in Japan is really opposed to it. They’ve lobbied against it because they’re worried that, um, you know, the onsen community needs heat to come out, hot water to come out of the ground, and geothermal takes hot water out of the ground, so they’re just worried that they’re incompatible. Um, now I think the science says that that’s not really true, that the, there isn’t, they’re not the same resource and that one doesn’t affect the other. The wastewater from the geothermal is not really wastewater. It’s just water that is not as hot as it was when it came up. Um, that goes down then into the onsen because it’s a good temperature. And then some of the even cooler water, about 21, 23 degrees, they’re using that to raise shrimp. Allen Hall: Well, just speaking of Japan, uh, the Japanese Prime Minister was just in the UK and a [00:03:00] big deal was signed between Japan and United Kingdom, £9 billion worth, which is about 12 billion US dollars, uh, to work together on 5.9 gigawatts of floating wind capacity in the UK, uh, across three different projects. W- And the goal is to get some Japanese partners working with, uh, the UK companies involved with it to suss out how to do offshore wind. And as we all know, Japan is gonna, is headed there right now and is going to need a little bit of a primer on how to do it. And, and, well, they should because, uh, there’s been some really successful efforts in the UK and up north, Northern Europe. Uh, so the, the goal of this is to, to get these projects underway and, and Japan’s committing all this money, which, uh, sure, it’s a nice boost to the UK at the moment. It gets a little turbulent over there if you’ve been watching the news. Rosemary [00:04:00] Tying back to your experience in Japan recently, is there a big push internally? Do you see that internally in Japan for offshore wind and even offshore floating wind in Japan, or are they really prepping for it in country? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I’d say I went over there thinking that Japan was, like, oddly not bothered about wind energy of any flavor. Um, ’cause, you know, like onshore wind, they’ve got problems ...
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    33 分
  • SunZia Switches On, Ørsted Weighs Chinese Turbines

    SunZia Switches On, Ørsted Weighs Chinese Turbines
    2026/06/29

    Allen covers SunZia coming online as America’s largest wind farm, Ørsted’s stance on Chinese turbines, a record floating platform leaving China, Canada’s first offshore wind bidders, and a centuries-old North Sea shipwreck.

    Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

    Good Monday everyone.

    America just switched on the biggest wind farm it has ever built. Out in New Mexico … a vast field of spinning turbines called SunZia. Enough power for more than a million homes across the Southwest. It is a landmark. It may be the last landmark for some time. After this year … forecasters expect annual onshore wind additions to fall … all the way to twenty thirty. The tax credits that powered the boom … expire this year. Add tariffs … supply troubles … local opposition … and a federal permitting freeze. One developer put it plainly. Capital investments … frozen. Solar is cheaper now. Batteries are faster. And the wind industry did not see the breadth of the campaign against it. So the biggest American wind farm ever … arrives just as the road ahead narrows.

    Now … cross the Atlantic to Denmark. Ørsted … the offshore giant half-owned by the Danish state … is being asked a hard question. Will it buy Chinese wind turbines? Its chief executive will not say no. Right now … he says … it is not expected. But they are keeping an eye on it. Analysts call that a wake-up call. Because the Chinese builders offer lower cost … faster delivery … and bigger rotors. And if a European champion turns east for turbines … that is a signal Europe is losing its edge. Not everyone is buying it. Britain has banned Chinese turbines from its offshore projects. The competitiveness fight … is just beginning.

    Now set to sail from southern China. The world’s largest tension-leg floating wind platform. Sixteen megawatts. More than three hundred meters tall … and nearly eight thousand tons. It left port headed for the deep sea. And its power will run straight to an offshore oil field … clean wind … feeding fossil-fuel production. China connected more than three-quarters of the world’s new offshore wind last year. As the shallow sites fill up … the industry moves into deeper water. And the deep water … is where floating wind grows up.

    Across the Pacific … a brand-new frontier is opening. Canada cleared the first bidders for its very first offshore wind farms. Off the coast of Nova Scotia … seven qualified players … from nine countries. The province dreams big. A megaproject called Wind West … forty gigawatts … far more than the region could ever use itself. The first phase alone … an estimated sixty billion dollars. Enough surplus power to supply a quarter of all Canada’s demand. The formal call for bids comes later this year.

    And finally … a story that comes up from the seabed. While surveying the site of a future wind farm in the North Sea … Ørsted found something far older than any turbine. Three lead ingots … resting beside the bones of a wooden shipwreck. Late sixteen-hundreds … maybe early seventeen-hundreds. A Dutch vessel … likely bound for home … lost on the run from England to the Netherlands. Seventy kilograms each … mined, it seems, in the very English hills they will now return to.

    And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 28th of June 2026. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast tomorrow.
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    2 分
  • Everpoint’s BladeBlok Recycles Blades for Drilling

    Everpoint’s BladeBlok Recycles Blades for Drilling
    2026/06/25
    James Timmins, VP of Engineering at Everpoint Services, joins to discuss how recycled wind turbine blades become BladeBlok, a drilling fluid additive for oil, gas, and geothermal wells. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” 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: James, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. There has been a lot of activity at EverPoint Services. So I wanna back up first because if you’re not familiar with EverPoint Services, they are a recycler f- for renewable projects. James Timmins: So we’re a, a renewable energy service company that specializes in, um, decommissioning and remediation services for, uh, wind and solar assets. Allen Hall: So when a solar farm gets hit by hail and the panels are broken, EverPoint comes up and cleans up that mess to, to allow the repair to happen. James Timmins: Correct, yes. Allen Hall: And on the wind turbine side, you’re t- decommissioning wind turbines, but you’re also taking the [00:01:00] blades. James Timmins: Yes. So it’s our responsibility to haul off the damaged, I guess, the scrap. And, um, obviously there’s a very healthy market for scrap steel that you find in the tower base- Yes … but the fiberglass is a little less straightforward when it comes to disposal and/or recycling. Allen Hall: So typically with the fiberglass blades or any composite that’s, that’s being recycled, th- there’s really two techniques that are being implemented right now. Uh, well, really three. Let’s go over three of ’em. One of ’em is you can just bury them. They’re c- essentially construction materials, so you can bury them. Not ideal, but it has happened in the past. The second is they grind up the, the blades and use ’em in, uh, c- the cement-making process, where they’re burning some of the things that are combustible there and using it for fuel, but also the fiber can help with the cement. Does, does that sound right? Correct. And, and then the third one I’ve seen is just as a reinforcement product. [00:02:00] So it’s, uh, they chop up the fiber in different lengths, they clean it up, and you can u- use it as an additive to different products. Yes. And, and that generally has been the marketplace in the blade recycling area for- Going on 20 years now probably Yes Until now. And that’s where Everpoint has really changed the game because you’re thinking about blade recycling a completely different way. James Timmins: Correct. So my background is oil and gas. I was a drilling engineer, uh, for major oil companies, so it was my job to plan, execute, and oversee drilling operations. So I worked kind of all over the world, and this project started as an icebreaker at a friend’s birthday. I had never met Tyler Goodell before. I- Wait, Allen Hall: wait, wait. So you’re at a birthday party- James Timmins: Yes … Allen Hall: and your kids are having fun. They’re eating cake. Oh, James Timmins: we were at a dive bar, so we- Oh, okay … yeah, watching a band, uh- … sitting over a bucket of Lone Stars and yeah. Allen Hall: Okay. That’s the [00:03:00] best place for new ideas to occur clearly. So you’re, you’re, you’re at a birthday event, you’re hanging out, and what happens? James Timmins: He asked me what, what I would do with tens of thousands of tons of scrap fiberglass. Allen Hall: And you get asked that every day, or is it- No. Okay. James Timmins: And I thought it was a weird question, and I kinda put it in the back of my mind. And about 15 minutes later I was like, “Well, I have an idea that we could, uh- Put at least some of that to work. Allen Hall: And what was that idea? James Timmins: The idea was that we could grind it to a specific particle size distribution and use it as a fluid loss additive in oil, gas, and geothermal drilling operations. Allen Hall: Okay. That’s a unique application. James Timmins: Yes. Allen Hall: So I think we need to walk into what happens when we’re drilling an oil well or any sort of well, I suppose. Uh, there’s unique things that happen that require specialty fluids or specially … James Timmins: Uh, specialty additives you could say. Additives. Allen Hall: Yes. [00:04:00] So- Okay. That’s a, that’s a good way to describe it. All right. So, uh, I’m drilling a well. I’m in Texas. I’m an oil tycoon. I wanna drill this well. What am I doing? James Timmins: So you have what’s called drilling mud, which is...
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    22 分