The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

A Danish data center will heat a town with its waste heat, Sumitomo buys into Celtic Sea floating wind, and Cadeler orders two more vessels.

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Good Monday everyone.

A data center broke ground in Denmark this week … and the plan is for it to help heat the town. Not a slogan. But a pipe. Let me explain.

The project is called Dansk Data Center 1. They put shovels in the ground on August thirteenth at the Port of Esbjerg in southern Denmark. The owners are the pension fund PensionDanmark … the real estate firm Thylander … and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. That last name should sound familiar. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has raised about forty-three billion euros across fifteen funds … and builds energy projects in more than thirty countries. This time it is building a data center.

Eleven and a half megawatts. By the standards of this business … that is small. But watch how they built it. The waste heat will go into the town’s district heating system … in partnership with the local utility … Din Forsyning. The cooling water runs in a closed loop and gets used again. And the plant can raise or lower its power draw to match whatever the Danish grid has to spare that hour.

The chief technology officer put it plainly. The goal is for the data center not to be a burden … but an active part of a balanced energy system. Commissioning is set for October of twenty twenty-seven.

Now … hold that model in your head. Because on the other side of the world … they are still doing it the old way.

Centuria Industrial is a warehouse landlord. Australia’s largest pure-play industrial property trust. This week … in its full-year results … it told investors it is chasing more than two hundred and fifty megawatts of data center capacity.

Some of that is expansion at sites it already owns. A twelve-megawatt building in Melbourne bought from Telstra back in twenty twenty. A small center in Toowoomba, Queensland. Another in Perth … leased to Fujitsu. But the rest of that plan is warehouses. Old industrial yards in Victoria and Western Australia that Centuria wants to turn into data halls.

And here is the tell. For three of those sites … the company has already filed power applications. Not planning applications. Power applications. Because in this business … the grid connection is the product. Centuria’s head of funds management says Australian demand is now outpacing supply. He is not wrong. And he is not alone.

So … two continents. Two data center stories. One built as a part of the power system. The other waiting in line for it. Either way … the load is coming. Which brings us to the people building the supply.

Start in the Celtic Sea … about forty kilometers off the British coast. There is a floating wind project out there called Gwynt Glas. That is Welsh for blue wind. Up to one and a half gigawatts. This week … Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation bought a third of it. The other two thirds are held by EDF … and by Ireland’s Electricity Supply Board. Three equal partners.

Now … Sumitomo has been investing in European offshore wind since twenty fourteen. But this is its first floating project anywhere in the world. And the timeline will test your patience. Consent applications do not even begin until twenty twenty-eight. Commercial operation is targeted for the late twenty thirties. That is a Japanese trading house writing a check today for electricity that shows up in fifteen years.

The deal sits under a memorandum signed with the British government last year. Britain wants the Celtic Sea built. Japan just volunteered to help pay for it.

Now up to Scotland. Vestas has installed the most powerful onshore wind turbine in Britain. It stands at Sanquhar II … between Dumfries and Galloway and East Ayrshire. The machine comes off the EnVentus platform … a bigger rotor married to a higher-rated generator. More energy out of the same wind. That project spent ten years in planning. And Vestas has more than six hundred megawatts of these machines under construction across Britain.

But here is the argument going on inside the industry. Everybody is building bigger turbines. And yet a Vestas executive said this week … quote … we firmly believe bigger does not automatically mean better. Project economics are under pressure. In Germany and the Netherlands … you cannot get a blade that size under a bridge or through a village. Scotland is empty enough to try it.

Britain now has about thirty-three gigawatts of wind … split about evenly between onshore and offshore. Onshore space is running out. So every new turbine has to do more work than the one before it.

And then … there are the ships. Cadeler runs the largest fleet of jack-up wind turbine installation vessels in the world. This week … it ordered two more. The yard is COSCO Shipping Offshore in Qidong, China. The price … about eight hundred and five million euros. Call it nine hundred and thirty million dollars. Delivery … twenty thirty and twenty thirty-one. That will bring the fleet to fourteen vessels.

And understand what these things are. The current class carries a deck of five thousand six hundred square meters … a payload over eighteen thousand tonnes … and a crane that lifts more than three thousand three hundred tonnes. Six extra-large monopile foundations per trip. The new class … they say … will be bigger still.

Meanwhile the newest ship … the Wind Ace … is finishing commissioning right now. Its first job is East Anglia Two for ScottishPower Renewables … starting in twenty twenty-seven.

And here is the number that tells you the most. Cadeler’s order backlog stands above three billion dollars. Eighty-two percent of that work is on projects where the customer has already taken a final investment decision. Nobody orders a nine-hundred-million-dollar ship for twenty thirty-one on a hunch.

So … here is what to watch. For years this industry has fought one bottleneck at a time. Permits. Then supply chain. Then vessels. Now the bottleneck is the grid connection itself. Centuria filed power applications before planning applications. Because in twenty twenty-six … the scarce resource is not land or steel or capital. It is a slot on the transmission network.

That changes the game for wind developers. The projects that win will not be the ones with the biggest turbines or the cheapest blades. They will be the ones that show up with a grid solution already in hand. Denmark just showed what that looks like. A data center that flexes its load … feeds heat back to the community … and makes the grid operator’s job easier.

If you are developing a wind farm today … and you are not thinking about who will consume your electrons and how … you are already behind. The old pitch was … we generate clean power. The new pitch is … we solve a grid problem. That is the difference between a project that gets built and one that sits in a queue for five years.

And that is the state of the wind industry for the 18th of August … twenty twenty-six. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast tomorrow.

Lars Bendsen, founder and CEO at AC883, joins to discuss the Muehlhan Wind Service acquisition and Canada’s aging turbine fleet.

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. 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: Lars, welcome back to the podcast.

Lars Bendsen: Thank you so much, Allen.

Allen Hall: A lot has happened since I talked to you last. I saw some of the announcements on LinkedIn. I was really excited for you. So AC883 has news.

Lars Bendsen: We have news. It was about a month ago now, but yes, things have been going very well.

Allen Hall: Muehlhan has acquired AC883, which is a company you started how many years ago?

Lars Bendsen: I started AC883 12 years ago. From my dining room table, basically.

Allen Hall: Wow. And it’s grown to quite the business over time.

Lars Bendsen: Yes, we have been expanding, especially the last five years after my son came in. He has been the main driver, so we’ve been expanding like crazy the last five years. And, well, getting older. Now we are at a point where we should extend, spend more. And then when Muehlhan, one of the biggest companies in the wind industry, looked our way, it was an easy decision to make. Very easy.

Allen Hall: Muehlhan is well known for being a leader in the ISP world in Europe, and a little bit in America. They’re still making a presence here. That’s why they wanted to talk to you, I’m sure, because AC883 has a nice Canadian market. People trust you and rely upon you, because you bring the quality people over, plus you have all the resources to get to parts that you can’t acquire in Canada and the United States. You know who to call. It’s part of that Danish connection. And that makes a lot of sense, because I do think as we see the industry mature, those quality companies like AC883 are very valuable. They see them as being a huge resource to the industry.

Lars Bendsen: As I said, it makes us really proud that a big company is looking our way, and it’s been a very smooth transition. As you were talking about earlier, the industry is maturing, meaning also big is getting bigger, and you need more horsepower, you need more muscle. And we also needed that, because we’re expanding and there’s only so much we can do. And we’re all getting older, so at a certain time you have to do something.

Allen Hall: Sure, but it comes at a point where you’ve proven yourself time and time again. How many times have you grown an industry in your lifetime? You’ve done it many, many times. That’s why AC883 has always been the relied-upon source for so many things. Now Muehlhan brings a lot of advantages and a lot of horsepower to the organization. Because as you have gotten larger, you realize there’s a lot of back office things that need to happen. Safety, gear, equipment. It’s not just putting technicians on ropes out on site. There’s all the management of that. That’s where size matters.

Lars Bendsen: Size matters, and also the whole health and safety perspective. You’re putting more staff behind the scenes than actually in front of the scenes. So it’s also extremely expensive. And now we’re expanding our offering, because under the Muehlhan umbrella we can do everything, including main component changes, which we didn’t do before. We decided before that anything we need a crane for, we do not do.

Allen Hall: Right, I remember that.

Lars Bendsen: Because it’s a completely different animal from a health and safety perspective, equipment, et cetera. And now in Canada, the company we’re going to be merging with, that’s what they do. They’re really strong in lifting and really strong in installation of turbines, complete wind farms. Where we are strong on the O&M side. And our primary customer is the asset owners.

Allen Hall: Asset owners love you.

Lars Bendsen: We hope so. We think so.

Allen Hall: I know they do.

Lars Bendsen: Where the other company is more focused on the OEM side. So there’s actually a really good mix in that. And we don’t step on each other’s toes, because we are focused on the O&M part and they’re focused on installation of turbines. So it’s a perfect match in so many ways.

Allen Hall: And particularly in Canada, because the Canadian market is poised to put a lot of turbines up in the next couple of years. But at the same time, there’s an older fleet there, and spare parts is an issue. Some of the blades and the repairs are a little more complicated just because of the age of the turbine. And there are a lot of spares and components that you have access to and can bring into the Canadian market. You keep those turbines that are 15, 20 years old running.

Lars Bendsen: Yes, we’re in a sweet spot in that respect, where the turbines are getting older but they’re not too old. So we need to keep them alive. And also, many owners still have the high PPA, which also means they want to do it. So there is a growing market for the O&M component, no doubt about it. But also, whatever happens in the US, leave that aside, they have a lot of good stuff happening in Canada on the offshore side, on the East Coast.

Allen Hall: Oh, yes.

Lars Bendsen: Nova Scotia. There are four big projects going out to bid, I think, within a year or so, and a lot of new projects coming up. So no doubt about it, Canada is a growing market. Where my impression is, and I have to be careful not to say too much, maybe the US is more a stagnating market. It’s maybe not growing as fast as it used to be. Of course, I don’t know enough to be smart about saying it. I’m just saying my impression is it’s more a flat market.

Allen Hall: Today.

Lars Bendsen: Today, today.

Allen Hall: But tomorrow it’s something else.

Lars Bendsen: That’s the charm of the unpredictability.

Allen Hall: Exactly. Welcome to wind, right? It’s unpredictable. Well, I think that’s good, because the Canadian market is one of those pieces that a lot of Americans don’t pay attention to, because it’s not the same scale.

Lars Bendsen: Not yet. But also from the European side, every time we have talked to European vendors or customers, it’s “yeah, be in America.” Yes, but I’m talking Canada. Canada has not even been on the radar. They’re talking about it as of late, but they had not talked about anything else before. So now it’s coming on the radar. And I know the Muehlhan people are smart people. They might be seeing that too.

Allen Hall: Oh, I would imagine, yes.

Lars Bendsen: So I have no doubt that it makes sense. The other thing that’s critical, of course, the US is big as well, but Canada is area-wise extremely big.

Allen Hall: Same width as America, roughly. That’s a big territory.

Lars Bendsen: But that also means it’s further between the turbines. That means you can travel like crazy to meet very few clients. And that’s why the one company is in western Canada and we are in eastern Canada. That makes sense. There are many reasons why you have to be local in your area.

Allen Hall: Part of that is what’s happening in the United States at the moment, but it’s also on the part of Canada to react to it in a positive way. Like, if America’s not going to do it, well, we’re here. We have great wind resources in Canada. And that’s what the Canadian government is saying to itself, I think. They’re realizing the opportunity to go after that wind resource is now. And not only that, because of the way America has situated itself, they can sell a lot of that power that’s going to be generated in Canada right down to the East Coast of the United States.

Lars Bendsen: Yes. Well, the whole AI, the whole data center stuff. It takes seven to eight years to build a power plant. Normally they put a wind farm up in two years. You can’t avoid it, whether you want to or not. I think the Canadians are a little bit optimistic right now, to say, “If you don’t want to do it, we will do it.” And I think we are very happy, and we will see by the end of 2028 who’s happy where. But it’s all good.

Allen Hall: Right.

Lars Bendsen: It’s all good. But again, by that time, well, only now I’m retired officially, so…

Allen Hall: What does that mean? What does retired officially mean?

Lars Bendsen: I don’t know. But I’m retired in the respect that Muehlhan bought the company, and Jannik, my son, who’s been running my company—

Allen Hall: Jannik is awesome.

Lars Bendsen: —he’s been running my company anyhow the last three years. So there’s no change in personnel, same person, people know the same him. Same place, same locations. Nothing has changed at all. Same reasons as before. We just have more horsepower and more offerings to do, and we’re very happy, because we needed that too. Just the whole thing about main component routines. Now we can do it. We couldn’t do that before.

Allen Hall: There’s a lot of need for that.

Lars Bendsen: As you said, the aging fleet, they need to do main components. We need to lift a whole rotor down, different stuff. So that’s good.

Allen Hall: Isn’t that exciting, though?

Lars Bendsen: It’s very exciting. Especially for our team. And I’m so proud and happy sitting on the sideline and following it. It’s amazing.

Allen Hall: Well, you’re not going to sit there and let them do main component exchanges without going and watching that, right? You’re going to have to go at least take a look at that.

Lars Bendsen: I can’t go on site, so I can sit from the highway and look at it.

Allen Hall: They’ll give you a hard hat, don’t worry.

Lars Bendsen: Oh, I won’t do it.

Allen Hall: Safety glasses and steel-toe shoes.

Lars Bendsen: Maybe, maybe, maybe. But I’m happy. And Muehlhan is truly good people, a good company. And they have bought out, I don’t know the number of companies they have bought the last couple of years, not only in wind but also in the industrial division. They have a huge industrial company. So I think it’s something like, don’t hold me to it, 40 to 50 companies over the last couple of years. So they’re growing like crazy. And you only do that if you’re good people.

Allen Hall: That’s true. The only way to survive is with good people.

Lars Bendsen: Or people just say, “No, thank you.” Because people are not desperate to sell. And we were not desperate. We saw it as a great opportunity, and we are honored that they did it. And I think we can take the market share if we want to.

Allen Hall: I think Muehlhan, in terms of its reputation, is well known. I’ve talked to large European operators, and who do they use? Muehlhan. That’s who they use. So you hear that name pop up quite a bit, and rightly so. We’ve worked with them. Weather Guard has worked with Muehlhan in the past, and the results have been good, so we’re really grateful.

Lars Bendsen: It also looks like there will be more presence of Muehlhan, so to speak, because before it was more the individual companies that had been a part of the Muehlhan group. They’ll be branded as Muehlhan. So it’s the same companies, but there might be bigger visibility, is my guess. I don’t know, again, I’m out, I don’t know the strategy plans. But that’s my two cents, that there’s going to be a bigger visual presence as well.

Allen Hall: But in terms of contact points at AC883, Muehlhan now, you’re still able to call Jannik, you’re still able to call Jacob, Bent, and Sydney, and the whole crew is still there.

Lars Bendsen: The whole crew. No changes. Same numbers, same emails. The email signature has changed, but the same email address, same telephone number. Even I have my same phone number and my same email address. So if you’re desperate, I’m happy to pick up the phone and forward it to someone else. So it’s all in good order. I’m very happy and proud that we can do that and hand it over.

Allen Hall: Well, it’s amazing. And congratulations. But I wanted to have you back on the podcast because we’ve had you on so many times before, and because you’re such an industry insider, so to speak. You know where things happen, and why they’re happening, and the history of some of these wind events. So I use you as that resource, but you’re also a great friend, and I appreciate that. We met just randomly several years ago. Like, who is this Lars guy? And you realized immediately, super knowledgeable, smart on his feet, good salesperson, all those things you need to have in the wind industry to be successful. That’s the package.

Lars Bendsen: Well, people dealing with people.

Allen Hall: Yes. People dealing with people. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. We’re going to have to have you back on. We have to pull you out of retirement to comment on the state of the wind industry.

Lars Bendsen: Would love to do that.

Allen Hall: All right, I would love to have you back on.

ORE Catapult wants industry blade failure data, Siemens Gamesa posts its first profit since 2022, and Vattenfall sweeps Denmark’s offshore auction. Fill out the ORE Catapult survey!

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, Matthew Sted, and Yolanda Padron. And it has been a real interesting week out in the renewable land, uh, if you’ve been watching some of the news, and we’re gonna talk about a number of those stories this week.

But I wanna lead off with what ORE Catapult is doing over in the UK. So if, if you haven’t followed ORE Catapult, they are a, a research investigative arm and a huge proponent of wind, offshore wind in the United Kingdom, and they’ve done a, a tre- really tremendous amount of work in some of the, uh, particular problems that exist in wind trying to help [00:01:00] solve them.

They have a survey that’s out, and if you haven’t seen it, you can just Google ORE Catapult and put in survey, and you’ll come to either an article or get to their site. And Rosemary and Yolanda, there’s a couple of particular items that they’re asking questions about. Uh, a lot of it is asking specific questions about torsional stability of blades.

Have you seen more difficulty with torsion? Is… Do we need a torsion test? I think that was one of the questions. Uh, also looking at ranking of the different issues that happen with blades in particular. That’s what I noticed. Uh, you know, where’s lightning? Where’s blade connections? Where’s structural issues?

Where do you rank all those different things? And I, I have not seen a survey like this in quite a while. Is this something that we need to do more of? I know [00:02:00] ORE Catapult will get a huge amount of feedback, at least I hope, over in the UK and, and around Europe. I don’t think many Americans are gonna be contributing to that too much since you don’t have a lot of offshore wind.

But is this going in the right direction? Do we need more of these industry surveys about structural blade issues? 

Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I think these surveys are a really good idea. Uh, the only thing that scares me from the owner side is that sometimes there’s a little bit of, uh- Teams don’t really love the idea of sharing information that might seem like it’s, um, like intellectual property to their internal teams.

Even if as an engineer, of course, you love the idea of sharing and finding out like, um, what everybody else is, is experiencing on their site. Um, and so I really hope that the teams can really look, like their internal teams can really look past that because this would be a really great tool [00:03:00] for everybody to use.

I know I looked at the survey myself and some of the questions kind of gave people the, the opportunity to kind of anonymize their data and then just kind of share it and have it. It seemed like it, it would probably be a platform that everybody could look at or everybody that, that shared could look at.

And I think that it could be really, really good for operators to be able to know kind of if what they’re seeing on site is normal and just to be able to see what they’re signing up for when there’s a new site coming in. Or if it’s a site that’s been operational for a while, you can see what’s, hopefully, what’s happening to a quite older site than yours.

So just to, to be able to be a bit more prepared, um, since a lot of these sites are from different own- owners. But I think it’s a really good idea. 

Allen Hall: The survey asked questions about leading edge erosion, torsional loads, root joint integrity, lightning damage, manufacturing defects, which is a big [00:04:00] issue right now, extreme loading events, which also, uh, is, uh, coming about more often, uh, repair performance, and end of life fatigue.

So there’s a, a series of questions about that and when do you experience these items in the lifetime of a blade. Is it more towards the beginning of the operation or more towards the end? That is important to know ’cause it, how you go about managing blades depends on that. The torsional questions were more specific.

Uh, in your experience, how well understood are the effects on blade longevity of torsional loads compared to bending loads? And I think that relates back to some of the, uh, issues that have been seen on some offshore blades where there’s no existing test for torsion because it’s so hard to do. Whereas bending loads, we pretty well understand that and can do lifetime testing essentially for, for bending loads.

So the torsional one I think is gonna raise a lot of question marks to hopefully with people, and we can come up [00:05:00] with a, a better approach to that. 

Yolanda Padron: Hopefully, yeah. I think this is, I mean, this is just a really good idea to if, if everybody could partake. Um, I would really love to see something similar if people could in, in onshore.

And so just something that’s, that’s shared a, uh, a little bit more widely I think would be really, really great. Uh, the only thing that might stre- or not stress me out, but- you know, I think people need to be careful about is just making sure that you’re not, um, that you actually use your data and not just kind of like, “Oh, I know that I remember this terrible lightning damage that I got in this really, really bad area, so I’m gonna mark as though most of my lightning damage happens in that bad area.”

So just, just make sure you don’t use confirmation bias for, for that, but 

Matthew Stead: I can also add to it as well ’cause, um, we’ve done a fair bit of work with all Catapult over the years, um, particularly through the new IEC standard for blade O&M. Um, and, uh, [00:06:00] definitely through the new blade O&M standard, the topic of blade twist has come up multiple times.

Um- And also adding to that, you know, our organization has done twist on, twist measurements on 100 meter blades, and the twist that we measured was more than the OEM expected. Um, so I think this is a bit of a sleeper topic, um, and I think OR Catapult is doing the right thing by gathering more information.

Allen Hall: There is a l- little database that’s gonna be put together, at least looking at the questions. Question 12, and everybody hopefully will go in and, and participate in the survey, but it says, “Would you be interested in sharing redacted failure data into a industry-wide database to help inform research agenda for blade development and O&M tools and solutions?”

That is a great idea. Having a database so we understand the scale of problems and can put some numbers [00:07:00] to them, and then we can do some more research in those areas, and focus research where we’re actually gonna spend money in the right places, which has been my fight for the last five, six years, where we spend a lot of money, but not necessarily where we need to.

That’s a great question, and hopefully OR Catapult does p- put together a database. 

Rosemary Barnes: Companies really, really, really struggle to provide access to their data. Like, um, it, y- yeah, it, it’s, it’s very hard to get it beyond just using for their own specific project. I’ll be, I’ll be so happy if this database gets up and becomes publicly available so that every- everybody can use it to create the solutions that the industry needs.

But I know how hard a challenge it is, so I’m wishing them heaps of, heaps of luck to get it to work. 

Matthew Stead: And can I also add that, um, OR Catapult also did a wonderful presentation at Blades Europe, where they talked about life extension. They talked about the actual loading on the blades, um, influencing the fatigue life.

And so I think, you know, that excellent [00:08:00] database hopefully, as we talked about, gets fed into some of their work about life extension. 

Allen Hall: Well, OR Catapult is trying to get ahead of blade failures before they cost money. Uh, our next company knows exactly what that costs. Siemens Gamesa is still climbing out of a serial defect problem, and it posted its first profit in four years.

So we’ll be back to talk about that in a moment. 

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Allen Hall: Siemens Gamesa has finally turned a [00:09:00] profit, its first time since 2022. Uh, now comes the hard part. Order intake in the third quarter fell 77% from 4.89 billion euros a year ago to 1.05 billion Chief Executive Christian Bruch, uh, says a lot of the offshore projects that were originally planned are slipping, and as we’ve seen in the news, and that developers are not willing to make final investment decisions right now.

Uh, in Germany, developers are lobbying to hand 16 gigawatts of offshore sites back to the states, and, and Bruch says that the, the capacity is, is not going to be built. Onshore, uh, the relaunched 5.X platform is ramping up slowly after the serial defect shutdown, with approvals still holding some orders back.

So Siemens Gamesa is going to make a push, or [00:10:00] Omtera I guess it is called now, w- is going to make a push, uh, into the 5.X machine and continue on on the offshore side. But boy, some of these, uh, auctions and, uh, bidding processes are not great for Siemens at the moment. 

Matthew Stead: I’ve got a question. Did, um, did Siemens actually stop selling for a while as well?

Is that part of their order intake loss? 

Allen Hall: Some of the machines, I believe, the 4.X and the 5.X, when they had the serial defect issues, uh, they put a hold on them for a little while and, and did a complete redesign, I believe, on the blades. But other turbines I thought were still being offered for sale, and I thought I saw s- some installs in the United States going on, more on the two megawatt, three megawatt machines, uh, but n- not the bigger ones.

And, and offshore too, like it sound- does sound like the large offshore wind project in the United States, which is the coastal Virginia offshore wind project, uh, off the, you know, a couple of miles off the coast of Virginia, is [00:11:00]going a little bit slower than they thought. Uh, so maybe there’s a, a little bit to the 14.

It’s, that’s a Siemens Gamesa 14-236 direct drive machine that’s going in there. So there, there’s some still learning curves going on from what I can see, but it does seem like it’s, uh, it’s, you know, formerly Siemens Energy, there’s a huge amount of money to be had in this corporation. So if the wind division is not doing all that great, it, it’s kind of like GE Vernova.

There, there’s other ways to make money. 

Matthew Stead: There’s also, I mean, I’m just wondering if there’s a bit of a blip. It’s just a short-term correction in terms of the order intake, and, you know, once they get back on track, uh, it’ll, it’ll revert again. Uh, that’s what I hope for, hope for. 

Allen Hall: We’re gonna move on to Vattenfall.

Uh, there was a Danish offshore auction, and Vattenfall won both of them. And Ørsted did bid and didn’t win, and no one seems to care too much that Ørsted didn’t win. Uh, and Vattenfall, it’s, it’s a huge deal for [00:12:00] Vattenfall. So- Orsted not winning in their own backyard does seem like a problem politically 

Rosemary Barnes: If Denmark wanted to have, you know, local companies winning these auctions, then they could’ve, they could’ve, uh, you know, made it for l- local companies only or tilted the playing field in their favor.

Um, so yeah, uh, I don’t know, maybe that’s the outcome that they want. If they want… It’s always like a, a tension, right? If you, you want cheap- the cheapest prices on one hand, you want local content on the other, and if you, you know, anything you do to one of those two sides affects the other. So yeah, like, in general, the more you encourage local content, then the more restrictions you place on companies to choose a cheaper supplier in every case.

Uh, Denmark is at least well-placed to have good world-class suppliers in, you know, most, most categories of the things that you need in an offshore wind [00:13:00] farm. But yeah, I mean, you see it all over the world. Uh, you know, Australia periodically tries to, uh, you know, get more local content, but it’s very, it’s very hard for us ’cause we don’t have a whole thriving ecosystem.

And so it’s like you’ve gotta pick out the one thing that you think that we could compete on and then subsidize that, and then it’s just, like, so… it’s such a weird distortion. And if companies didn’t already wanna choose that local supplier, it’s because it’s more expensive, so therefore you are necessarily adding cost.

Um, I think Taiwan d- uh, has h- experienced a lot of this with their offshore industry, right? Where they kind of s- they got really enthusiastic about local content, and everyone’s like, “Yeah, this is a great thing to do ’cause you can get local manufacturing, and you can develop a whole thriving industry But then when it comes down to it, you know, it’s not so great to have, like, whoever set up the, the system that you’ve gotta adhere to to get these projects in place, like, they’re not the experts in developing offshore [00:14:00] projects for a cheap price and on schedules, obviously.

Other- otherwise they’d be working in that, in that role. So you, uh, do end up making things really hard for the developers, and then you- they ended up with very expensive projects. And, um, because the local content, you know, like, they had what sounded, in theory at the start, like a good, um, like a good idea.

They start off with a low local content requirement and gradually ratcheted it up as the industry is supposed to mature. But what they saw was the prices just ratcheted up in parallel. Um, especially once the few things that can be competitively supplied, uh, locally, once you… That is not sufficient to y- y- you know, once the local content amount exceeds what you can achieve with those competitive industries, then yeah, you do start to see people having to spend a lot more and add a lot of project risk if you’re, y- you know, uh, going with brand new suppliers that have never, you know, never supplied a project like that before.

So I can kind of [00:15:00] understand why Denmark wouldn’t be so focused on, yeah, our local, our local company needs to win. 

Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah, com- competition is a good thing, isn’t it? So yeah, you can’t have everyone winning all the time. 

Rosemary Barnes: I think it’s such an interesting time, though, in the world where, and I’m changing my mind about this, like, yes, competition is a good thing, but if you only have competition, um, and don’t consider your country’s, you know, local competitiveness, then you end up not being able to make anything, especially when we’ve got, y- you know, in the world at the moment, there’s so much globalization, like, way more than ever before in the world’s history.

And, you know, there are countries or our country mostly, that has, you know, 50% of market share for certain things, and more for other things that people need. It’s like, so- They can obviously, just based on scale alone, can produce things at prices that no [00:16:00] one else can compete with. And then you add in that not every country is totally committed to 100% fair global playing field and, you know, there are subsidies involved and incentives and that sort of thing.

Like, you do just end up with every other country not thinking it’s economic to make anything at all. And then, yeah, I mean, everyone knows monopolies are bad, right? I don’t think that would be any different for supply chains. So I think, yeah, like we’re about to have a re-reckoning or are in the process of a re-reckoning about how much globalization is a good thing, how much free trade is a good thing, how much, you know, just letting the market take care of it is a good thing because nobody wants to end up in a situation where, you know, the whole world is dependent on one country to make absolutely everything.

Yolanda Padron: Yeah, but is it, isn’t it also kind of like a cultural thing here for Vattenfall, um, like for Dane- Denmark itself to try to be very [00:17:00]strict about the rules and if Ørsted didn’t win the bid, then they didn’t win the bid type of thing? Like, to not try to give them as much of a, of an advantage ’cause they’re still owned majorly by the Crown, right?

Allen Hall: It’s like 50% ownership by the state, right, Ørsted still. 

Yolanda Padron: In general they, they have a lot of- very Danish rules of like against, you know, uh, in the US against like PACs and lobbying and stuff, and things that are very common here because it’s more culturally aligned with Denmark. Um, so I guess it, I mean, it does, it, it does make sense, right?

That they would try to separate that as much as possible to try to not have that conflict of interest. 

Rosemary Barnes: I think Denmark, um, definitely wouldn’t consider themselves rule followers, ’cause if you compare them to their immediate neighbors like, um, Sweden and Germany, the Danes are like a lot more relaxed.

They have this saying in, [00:18:00] uh, Denmark that i- in, in Sweden, everything that isn’t forbidden is mandatory. That’s how they think of, of the Swedes. 

Allen Hall: Wow. There’s a lot that’s not forbidden, Rosemary. You’re going into some murky waters there. Okay. 

Rosemary Barnes: That’s their perception, and I think it is true relative to Sweden.

The Swede- Swedes are more rule followers. But as, um, someone that comes from a probably more relaxed country, again, yes, the Danes did really like following rules. Um, like a lot of unwritten rules as well. I remember one specific example I remember actually, uh, we had like a whole, uh, I did Danish language classes when I was there, and part of that was like a cultural education.

One of the classes was based around, uh, some of the unwritten rules in society, and one of them is it’s this date, and I don’t remember the date, but there is a certain date that if you have not trimmed your hedge by that date, that is just like y- you are not an upstanding member of society. Like, that is just like ab- absolutely not okay and like everybody that walks [00:19:00] past your house is like, “Oh my God, they haven’t trimmed their hedge yet,” and people will be talking about it and in the canteen at work.

So definitely they do like to follow the rules. But what I will say about Denmark also is that I think that they usually top the world’s list, or at least close to the top in terms of trust. Um, they trust people in general, but especially they trust government institutions. And I think that you can’t have trust in government institutions if they pick and choose, um, when they’re going to enforce the rules or not.

So I think that in that sense, yeah, of course, they’re not going to after the fact go, “Oh, this, the, oh, we had an auction, but the result wasn’t the way we liked it, so we’re gonna change it.” Like, that’s not a very trustworthy thing for a government to do. They do rely, obviously we’re a small country, they rely a lot on international trade, and so I think that they would see a big risk in, um, yeah, having their auction be anything but fully transparent and fair.

So yeah. Anyway, that’s my, my cultural interpretation based on having lived in Denmark for five years. Uh, [00:20:00] five years ago now. It’s been a while. 

Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn.

And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And for Rosey, Yolanda, and Matthew, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.

Allen covers a judge lifting the Pentagon’s wind freeze, RWE’s $1.22B US offshore exit, and TotalEnergies buying Shell’s European renewables.

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.

You know … there is an old saying. When one door closes … another one opens. Well this week in wind energy … a whole lot of doors were swinging.

Let us start in Washington. For months … the Pentagon had quietly stopped reviewing wind energy project applications. More than a hundred and fifty onshore wind projects … stuck in limbo. The Defense Department claimed that drones in Ukraine had changed the game. Wind turbines … they said … could blind radar to incoming threats. So they hit the brakes.

But on Thursday … a federal judge said … not so fast. Judge Karin Immergut … a Trump appointee no less … issued a preliminary injunction. Resume the reviews … she ordered. Follow the law Congress wrote. The law gives the Pentagon seventy-five days for a preliminary review. As of late July … not a single one had been completed since the halt began in May. When government lawyers were asked to name one project they had reviewed … they could not name a single one. The judge told them plainly. If you want to change the rules … go ask Congress.

Now … while one arm of the government was being told to do its job … another arm was writing checks. German energy giant RWE … handed back its American offshore wind leases. New York. California. Louisiana. In return … the U.S. Department of the Interior cut RWE a check for one-point-two-two billion dollars. RWE is the fifth developer to walk away from American offshore wind under this administration. The company had spent more than a billion dollars on those leases. Years of planning. Investment. Partnership with federal agencies. But RWE said there is simply no path forward to permit these projects … for the foreseeable future.

So where does the $1.22B go? Nine hundred million dollars into Louisiana LNG. Three hundred million into natural gas turbine reservations. Fifteen gas peaking projects across the country. A company that came to America to build wind farms … is now building gas plants instead.

But here is the thing about RWE. They are not leaving the wind business. They are leaving American offshore wind. Globally … RWE operates eighteen offshore wind farms. Four more under construction. And nearly seven gigawatts secured in the United Kingdom’s latest auction. America said no. The rest of the world said … come on in.

And speaking of Europe … TotalEnergies … the French oil major … just bought Shell’s entire onshore renewables business in Europe. Four gigawatts of solar and wind. Five hundred megawatts already running or under construction in Italy and the Netherlands. Three-and-a-half gigawatts more in the pipeline across Italy … the United Kingdom … and Spain. And in the same breath … TotalEnergies sold a fifty percent stake in a one-point-two gigawatt European portfolio to KKR … for an enterprise value of one-point-eight billion euros. Build it. Sell half. Keep operating it. That is the model.

Now let us fly east … to India. GE Vernova just landed a hundred-and-sixty-three megawatt wind order from American developer Enfinity Global. Forty-three turbines. Three-point-eight megawatts each. Headed for the Fatehgarh wind farm in Rajasthan. Deliveries start late this year. And those turbines will be built at GE Vernova’s factory in Pune … which can turn out fifteen hundred megawatts a year. India is pushing for five hundred gigawatts of renewable energy.

Meanwhile … up in Denmark … a Danish wind tower maker named Welcon is raising its voice. Swedish utility Vattenfall just won two offshore wind tenders in Denmark. But when asked whether they would use European-made turbines … Vattenfall would not say.

Welcon’s chief executive Jens Risvig Pedersen said … and I quote …

“It would be completely absurd not to buy European products for the two new Danish offshore wind farms. That would simply shut down the European industry.”

The Danish trade union Dansk Metal agreed. Chinese turbines … they said … should not be financed with Danish taxpayer money. Vattenfall says it has not decided yet. But the debate is on.

And finally … a milestone that happened so quietly … nobody noticed. The world just crossed three terawatts of installed solar power. It took ten years to build the first terawatt. Less than three years for the second. And not even two more years for the third. Seventy-four countries now have at least one gigawatt of solar installed. That is up from forty-two in twenty-twenty. BloombergNEF expects nine terawatts by twenty thirty-six.

But here is the catch. Without batteries … solar hits a ceiling. Places like Australia and California already have so much solar that electricity prices go negative during the day. You heard that right. They pay people to use power. The answer is battery storage. But batteries are not able to keep up with the pace of solar.

Now … if you step back from all of this … something interesting emerges. Nobody in these stories is arguing about whether wind works. Not the judge in Oregon. Not RWE. Not even the Pentagon. The debate has moved on. The question is no longer … can you build a wind farm. The question is … who gets to decide where one goes.

Think about that. A federal judge did not rule that wind turbines are safe or good or necessary. She ruled that the government cannot ignore its own laws. The science was not on trial. The process was.

RWE did not surrender its leases because offshore wind failed. It surrendered them because one government made permitting impossible … while eighteen other wind farms in its global portfolio kept spinning.

And TotalEnergies did not buy four gigawatts of European renewables out of charity. It bought them because Shell … an oil company … decided those assets no longer fit its strategy. One oil major’s exit is another’s entrance. The assets did not lose value. They changed hands.

That is the story underneath all these headlines. Wind energy has crossed a threshold that most industries never reach. It is no longer competing on technology. It is competing on governance. The turbines work. The economics work. The engineering works. What varies … country by country … is whether the rules of the road are clear enough for capital to show up.

And capital … as we saw this week … will always find the door that is open.

That is the state of the wind industry for the 10th of August … twenty twenty-six. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast tomorrow.

Jon Zalar, founder of IWTG Consulting, joins to discuss broken blade bolts, cracked pitch bearings, loose root inserts, and early detection.

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: Jon, welcome back to the program. 

Jon Zalar: Thanks for having me. 

Allen Hall: Uh, last time I saw you, we were in Melbourne- Yep … at WOMA 2026, and that was a huge event. We know we’re gonna do it again next year in March three, the 3rd through the 5th, so you’re invited back, of course- I can’t wait … if you can make it. Yeah. Yeah.

It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a good time. A lot is happening in the blade world and in the wind turbine world more broadly. A lot of things we’re hearing right now are related to blade bolt connection, pitch bearing inserts still. A lot of that still happening in the United States. What is the current status of, uh, the blade connection issues in the US?

I, 

Jon Zalar: I feel like it’s a growing [00:01:00] issue, not super, super fast, but it seems to be getting a little worse. There’s, you know, more bolts breaking at that joint. Um, pitch bearing cracks are, seem to be pretty common. There’s different solutions for it, and then, you know, the root inserts are another thing that we’ve talked about before that seem to be happening more and more, or maybe more and more people are finding them ’cause they’re looking.

Allen Hall: What are the first indications that you have a blade bolt or some sort of joint issue at the root of a blade? What can you see? 

Jon Zalar: A bolt laying in the hub bouncing around. Um, you know, from like a– looking at it from, like, the sensors on the turbine, it’s really hard to tell unless it gets really bad. Uh, some of the OEMs have some analytics developed to kinda start to indicate if there is a aero change because there’s missing bolts or root inserts are coming out, and they’re using that as a way to go figure out which ones to go inspect first.

Allen Hall: Really? Yeah. You think [00:02:00] the SCADA data will give you some indication that you have a, basically a little bit of a loose blade? 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. I, I, I think because the number of turbines and the number of data points you have, I think there is a pretty good analytic out there right now. 

Allen Hall: Wow. All right. I think a lot of our operators have not taken advantage of that.

Is, is that just b- based on the high-speed data, SCADA data, or is it low-speed data you could see that same effect? 

Jon Zalar: I believe it’s on the low-speed data as well, but I bet the high-speed data was used to kinda develop it. 

Allen Hall: Wow. All right. So that’s a huge help to operators. Yeah. So what are you looking for if you’re looking through SCADA data, what would be the couple of markers there that say, “Hey, maybe we ought to go look up at the– in the hub”?

Jon Zalar: I don’t know exactly what they’re using, but they would basically look for maybe an imbalance or looking for certain components that are being overworked. 

Allen Hall: Oh, sure. Okay. 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. 

Allen Hall: So your pitch actuator may be getting a little bit overworked. It would seem like one of the places- I think that, yeah … that would get loaded, right?

Jon Zalar: Mm-hmm. 

Allen Hall: Okay. [00:03:00] And any vibration monitoring going on? Because it, it, uh, in some cases you’re– I’m hearing, like, millimeter gaps- 

Jon Zalar: Correct. Yeah … 

Allen Hall: between the blade and the pitch bearing. 

Jon Zalar: So probably a combination of the ALC sensors, at least on a GE turbine, looking at that. But the PCH box also is looking at the tower vibration, so it could be a combination of all three.

I don’t know the exact- Okay … details, but between all of that, I think there are some analytics that kinda say, “Hey, go take a look.” And then I think there’s some other companies that have- tools that go monitor it. 

Allen Hall: Mm-hmm. 

Jon Zalar: Dial indicators remotely or even, you know, people going up there with dial indicators to go kind of rotate the rotor and kind of see if there is gapping between the blade and the pitch bearing.

Allen Hall: Is that a safe situation in your– from the gapping? I’ve heard this where they’ve basically took shims and they’re trying to measure this gap or some sort of dial indication. Is that a smart thing to do? Is it even reliable to do it that way? [00:04:00]

Jon Zalar: I, I, I think there’s some reliability there. And like, you know, these are really big parts, right?

So like a little bit of gap, it, it’s probably expected to a point, but growing gaps is where you should be a little more scared. 

Allen Hall: So you’re– you would have to go do that quarterly, monthly, weekly? How, how often would you have to do it to see the progression? Because I’ve heard stories of, uh, a couple of weeks from nothing to hub crack to, “Oh, it took a year or more.”

Jon Zalar: I think it depends on the issue. I think for– if you’re looking at that, the bolted joint itself between the root inserts and the, uh, bolts breaking itself, I, I think they’re doing about quarterly. Now, the pitch bearings inspections are also quarterly. They’re al- they’re, they’re leveraging the drone inspections for the blades, and they’re looking at the pitch bearings to see if they’re cracked, right?

Uh, you guys are doing that too. 

Allen Hall: Okay. 

Jon Zalar: I think Coraly is doing a good job mitigating the risk, feels like. 

Allen Hall: Wow. All right. [00:05:00] Yolanda, looking at pitch bearings, you’ve looked at a lot of drone images in your lifetime. Mm-hmm. How much can you see on drone images on pitch bearings? Can you see cracks and, or y- or do you see grease, which is a really indication that something is wrong in the bearing?

Yolanda Padron: You can see grease. You can see the cracks pretty, pretty well. Yeah. The drone images are, are really high quality. Uh, but you did mention that it’s something that you’re seeing a lot more. Is it because there’s a lot more aging fleets, or is it a problem with a lot of the new turbines that are coming online?

Jon Zalar: I, I think it’s an, I think it’s a more of a fatigue problem, so the aging of the fleet. And also, I think more people are looking at it, right? ‘Cause, like, initially the drones that were looking for blade cracks weren’t looking at pitch bearings, but then pitch bearings started cracking, so now they added that to whatever they buy off the drone companies, right?

Go look at my pitch bearings, for example. 

Allen Hall: Hmm. 

Jon Zalar: So I, I think it’s a problem of the more you look sometimes, the more you find. 

Yolanda Padron: Hmm. 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. 

Allen Hall: So we [00:06:00] have root insert issues, which are being addressed by a couple of different companies- Yes … uh, uh, with somewhat similar solutions. OEM is offering one right now also.

Jon Zalar: I, I think there’s three solutions. There’s two uptower that are basically looking at ways to go fill the void between the root insert itself and the blade root. Um, and I– there’s another company that’s also more of a downtower solution where they’re actually, like, r- drilling out the root inserts and putting new ones in that are gonna last better, longer.

Allen Hall: Okay. So the drilling out is, would be CNC onsite. Correct. 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. 

Allen Hall: And they’re based over in Europe. But th- the drilling out is a take the blade down, set it on the ground sort of- Yeah. Right … doing really fine machining on the, on the blade itself. So that, that’s a different, completely different insert that’s going into that- 

Jon Zalar: Correct

Allen Hall: new hole or- Yep … clean hole, right? So it’s a, just a, uh, totally different kind of product versus trying to inject [00:07:00] some s- sort of epoxy or resin into the, the void. 

Jon Zalar: Right. Yeah. Uh, I mean, you would prefer to do it uptower. It’s gonna cost you less money. 

Allen Hall: Sure. 

Jon Zalar: But you wanna make sure you do it right, so I think, uh, I do foresee it being a combination of both solutions kinda going forward.

Allen Hall: Is it dependent upon, like, how much damage has been already done, or what the fatigue w- uh, an estimate on what the fatigue life is? 

Jon Zalar: I think it’s strictly on measurement perspective right now. So how much gapping you have, um, kinda determines what potential solutions you have. 

Allen Hall: So the gaps aren’t big, right?

So the, the gaps I hear are one millimeter is k- kind of sort of start a problem. 

Jon Zalar: Mm-hmm. 

Allen Hall: Three millimeters is, “I need to be making decisions.” 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. So- That, that’s what I’ve heard, too. Yes. 

Allen Hall: Three millimeters is about a eighth of an inch. 

Jon Zalar: Mm-hmm. 

Allen Hall: So it’s not a lot of m- 

Jon Zalar: But you can see sunlight through it if you’re s- down there.

Allen Hall: Okay. That’s not… Well, you should see. That’s not 

Jon Zalar: good either. Yeah. 

Allen Hall: Right. Okay. So in a, in a three millimeter situation then, you’re doing what? [00:08:00]

Jon Zalar: You’re trying to decide if the uptower solutions are something you wanna go try, ’cause they’re still in the trial mode from my understanding or- 

Allen Hall: Okay … 

Jon Zalar: people are learning a lot.

So I think when you get to that point, you’re calling some of those companies to say, “Hey, I have this issue. I got a couple blades with, you know, .3. Can you guy- you guys wanna come take a look at it, see if your solutions, if you guys wanna go use it or not?” And then I think the ones that get too bad, from my understanding right now, is they’re, they’re replacing the blades.

Allen Hall: So they’re taking the whole blade down. 

Jon Zalar: Yes. 

Allen Hall: And what’s the thought process in that? Uh, versus drilling out the inserts and putting new inserts in. Is there just a composite degradation that’s happened around those joints that it just puts it at risk or, or you have actually aged the blade much faster than you would otherwise have done?

Jon Zalar: I, I think they aged that particular connection too much. So I, I- Wow … either between the [00:09:00] fatigue or lack of epoxy resin, w- whatever the actual root cause is for that root insert coming out, when it gets that bad, it’s like you’re not gonna be able to inject enough To make it adhere 

Allen Hall: You can’t de-age it.

Jon Zalar: Correct. 

Allen Hall: Right? 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. 

Allen Hall: Bring back the youthfulness of the blade. Wow. All right. And we have seen this worldwide. I know in the, in the States you hear about it all the time, but it, this seems to be not a US- Correct … problem. 

Jon Zalar: It’s a worldwide problem, yes. 

Allen Hall: Okay. So if, if it’s a worldwide problem, are there more solutions on the way?

I know you talked about three of them already. 

Jon Zalar: I have not heard of any other ones except those three as of today. 

Allen Hall: Wow. 

Jon Zalar: There could be other people working on it. I think there should be. 

Allen Hall: So, yeah. You would think so, yeah. So we’ll, I guess we’ll eventually hear about it on the podcast. Usually people with technology will contact us.

They might call, 

Jon Zalar: yeah. They might call you, they might call you tomorrow. 

Allen Hall: Sure, they may. So that leads to sort of a subsequent issue, which I think is getting grouped together. So the [00:10:00] hub crack, pitch bearing crack, root insert pullout issue is also discussed with blade bolts being broken. 

Jon Zalar: Correct. 

Allen Hall: Are they related or are they separate engineering problems?

Jon Zalar: If you look at them individually, you’d probably come up with some separate answers, but if you combine them all together, you kind of start looking at is there too much loading happening in the leading and trailing edge of the blade? ‘Cause the hub cracks, the root inserts, and the blade bolts, from my understanding, are happening at those two highly loaded areas of the, the blade or that whole rotor connection.

So I mean, I do feel the root cause is probably a little higher loads than anticipated. 

Allen Hall: I think everybody’s talked about when they’ve done the injection method and the drilling method, all they’re discussing is leading edge, trailing edge. 

Jon Zalar: Yes. 

Allen Hall: And how– It’s a question of how many- Correct … are you gonna replace.

So th- [00:11:00] that’s, those are the two highly loaded spots on the bolted connection. 

Jon Zalar: Correct. 

Allen Hall: And that’s where blade bolts are also breaking or, or the bolts breaking elsewhere around the periphery? 

Jon Zalar: I don’t have all the data, but what I had seen, it’s very similar areas. 

Allen Hall: So if you don’t pull the insert out, you’re then loading the bolt.

Cr- Right It’s one or the other, right? Right. Yeah. So the, the, the load path is the load path, so it’s coming through the insert into the bolt. Bolt’s carrying it into the pitch bearing. Pitch bearing’s carrying it into the hub. 

Jon Zalar: Correct. 

Allen Hall: Hub carrying it downtower. So eventually, one of those, uh, links in the chain is- The weakest.

Yeah … is, is the le- is the weakest. What is it about blade bolts that is so dangerous? We hear– we walk onsite to an O&M building, there are signs saying, you know, “Pay attention for loose bolts. Look around on the ground for loose bolts.” We’re gonna– and as electrical engineer, like, “Whoa.” Bolts should not be falling out of this tower.

What i- what is that sort of sequence where a [00:12:00] bolt would escape from the nacelle? 

Jon Zalar: So let’s just use one bolt. One bolt breaks, falls in the hub, bouncing around, doing some– potentially doing some damage inside the hub. And ’cause these turbines, you don’t need to go out there every day ’cause they do run pretty good, right?

Right. You just do your regular maintenance. And if you don’t really know about that, ’cause, like, it bounces around for a while, then it usually gets, like, lodged behind a, uh, either center box or pitch cabinet or actually in the front sometimes. Kinda don’t know it happened. But, you know, frees itself up, keeps bouncing around, it, it could escape through the hatch covers ’cause, you know, people have to get into the hub anyway.

And I’m sure a lot of people listening here that have sites, like, you know, probably found some bolts laying on the ground, which is a little scary. 

Allen Hall: Right. So is, is the busting the hatch opening levers? I know there, there’s a couple different ways to get into that hatch. Yeah. But, uh, is it just completely busting the hatch?

Yeah. So it’s– [00:13:00] okay. So you see a– so if you see a loose hatch panel, you have an issue. You probably gotta be careful about coming up on that turbine? 

Jon Zalar: Potentially. A lot, a lot of hatches are, you know, not always maintained well. 

Allen Hall: Right. I’ve seen them, I’ve seen loose ones, yeah. 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. 

Allen Hall: Okay. So that, that would be a sign that– but though if, if you’re approaching a turbine, one look on the ground.

And Yolando, you, you’ve seen a lot of turbines. So are you, are we looking on the ground and seeing what’s around the turbine before we approach the turbine now? Yeah. Just, just a sanity check? 

Yolanda Padron: Yeah. Be aware also of what’s happening on site, right? Because if it’s some- if it’s a problem on site, you need to be extra careful when you’re approaching any turbine there.

Uh, is it something that people maybe should start thinking about implementing, like, a sensors earlier on than when they’re seeing the issue actually happen? 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. I, I, I think that’s a potential, ’cause it, the quicker you catch it, the less damage you’re gonna do, and it also reduce the risk of [00:14:00] it, um, falling out of the hub And I’ve worked with a couple of my, uh, customers for some, like, potential ways to detect it.

Still kind of trialing it right now. But I, I do think there’s gonna be some benefit from a safety reduction, but also from a strictly a damage. ‘Cause, like, you get a couple bolts bouncing around there, and you bang up some cabinets or some pitch motors, that’s expensive and hard to go fix. 

Yolanda Padron: Yeah, we were talking about it earlier too.

Like, it goes down, it can hit a transformer, it can hit, like, a truck or someone. 

Jon Zalar: Chance of it hitting someone. Yeah. I mean, I don’t care what hard hat you have on, it’s not gonna do anything. 

Yolanda Padron: Yeah. 

Allen Hall: So what kind of sensor should you be putting onto the turbine if you don’t have access to the SCADA data or you don’t know what the correct algorithm is to suss out there’s something wrong up there?

But a, a bolt breaking is not gonna be something that a SCADA would even pick up, I don’t think. One bolt out of the whole- Yeah. No. 

Jon Zalar: No way. Okay. I mean, there’s a– I think there’s, like, [00:15:00]one company looking at more of a, like, mechanical way to, like, prevent the bolt from coming out. I forgot the name of it.

Allen Hall: Okay. 

Jon Zalar: Um, and then what I was looking at was more of a, like, you know, microphone type detection to kind of listen for that. 

Allen Hall: It would make a lot of noise. 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. It seems like it works. It, um, yeah, still more development needed on my end. 

Allen Hall: So- The engineer in me was, is saying, “Why are we not putting strain gauges on bolts?”

I picked on the leading and the trailing. It’s like right dead center there to look at, even if it’s just two strain gauge bolts to see what the loads are. 

Jon Zalar: So like there are s- there are bolts that are, or that are made with the strain gauges built in that you can use to go, you know, monitor that. But you also need to understand like what was the design intent.

So unless you’re working with the OEM, you don’t really know what you’re seeing is good or bad. You just say, “Oh- 

Allen Hall: You just see a number. 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. Right. I mean like, and if you install, I don’t know, four, you’d be like, “All right. Leading and trailing edge are higher [00:16:00] than the other two.” Well, yeah, it’s supposed to be, but like is a 10% difference expected or not expected?

Allen Hall: Is that something where if you’re, especially if you’re in a full service agreement, and a lot of these turbines are- Yeah … for the first couple of years, if you were to do that, it’s something you would just say to the OEM, “Hey, this is, these are the loads we’re seeing from the strain gauges on these bolts.

Does this make sense to you?” Or, or would an OEM just not even respond to that kind of inquiry? 

Jon Zalar: I mean, I think it’s all about relationship with the OEM. I, I, I think 

Allen Hall: it- I think they would wanna know. 

Jon Zalar: I have a feeling they probably are looking. 

Allen Hall: Okay. 

Jon Zalar: I mean, ’cause I mean they have the test turbines too that they probab- that, that I know they have instrumented heavily.

Allen Hall: Yeah. So they, they’re probably getting at least some feedback. Th- that’s the problem. Yeah. And you worked on the other side, right? I have. So you worked for an OEM doing the RTAs. The first problem is you don’t have data, so now you gotta go get the data. 

Jon Zalar: Correct. 

Allen Hall: And that data is not available tomorrow. No.

‘Cause you’re gonna have to go run some sort of design of experiment to go figure out if [00:17:00] there is even a true problem or even what the root causes could be. 

Jon Zalar: And it, and it’s expensive to go instrument a blade and get the data back at the right speed and connected to the turbine data. I mean, I rem- I, I used to say it’s about like 300 to 500,000 to go put a couple gauges on a blade just with all the equipment you need to get the data correct.

Allen Hall: To get the right data. 

Jon Zalar: Get the right data at the right frequency connected to the controller. It’s, it’s very expensive. 

Allen Hall: Wow. Okay. Yeah. I, I don’t, I don’t see a lot of operators doing that. 

Jon Zalar: And especially connecting it to the operating data, right? So like if you go put a strain gauge and I don’t know, you’re curtailed, you’re only making, I don’t know, a megawatt- Doesn’t matter.

And if you don’t know what the turbine’s doing and you’re looking at this, like, strain gauge data, it’s really hard to correlate anything. 

Allen Hall: So you need a full suite of data. Yeah. That includes weather data- Yeah … at some level, right? Gust winds and- Oh, 

Jon Zalar: yeah … 

Allen Hall: average wind speed. You need the anemometer. You need which, which way [00:18:00] the n- cell’s pointing.

Y- uh, you would need a lot of information- And what the controller’s- … to even suss it out … 

Jon Zalar: and what the controller’s doing, right? Right. ‘Cause, like, every turbine, the controller’s trying to, like, you know, balance the rotor the whole time. It’s trying to, you know, micro pitch depending on what the winds are doing.

And if you don’t know what all that stuff’s doing, like, it’s really hard to correlate a strain gauge measurement to is that bad or not. 

Allen Hall: It’s a complicated problem. 

Jon Zalar: Yes. That’s why RCAs take, you know, a long time, and they’re not done in two weeks. 

Allen Hall: No, they’re done in a year. 

Jon Zalar: Yeah. 

Allen Hall: Typically, or longer. So what should an operator be thinking about now?

If, if we s- get our drone images back, we’re scanning through them like, “Oh, there’s a crack” What am I doing next besides calling you and connecting to your LinkedIn page? 

Jon Zalar: So right now with the pitch bearing crack, um, some of the OEMs are providing stiffener plates to put over the crack and try to run it.

Allen Hall: So that’s a doubler plate, basically. A double plate. Doubler 

Jon Zalar: plate, yes. [00:19:00]

Allen Hall: Yeah. Okay. So even in a, in a crack scenario, that pitch bearing, if given mechanical support, can run like that? 

Jon Zalar: That’s my understanding, yes. That, that potentially could run for some period of time. I don’t know if it’ll make it 20 years or not, but it’ll buy you time for sure.

Allen Hall: Does that involve a crane to do that work or is that just… My recollection, that was in pieces, like there, it’s not a ring, it’s a, a couple of pieces that you’d be able to bolt on without taking the- 

Jon Zalar: No, it’s a- … blade down … it’s a, it’s a single piece that- 

Allen Hall: It’s like a single casting kind of thing. 

Jon Zalar: Right. And I, I think you need some like small crane, like a jig crane or one of those- 

Allen Hall: Just to support the blade while you do it?

Jon Zalar: And to go put it in, right. Okay. Yeah, I don’t think, you’re not taking the blade off. You’re not taking the 

Allen Hall: blade down. 

Jon Zalar: Correct. Yeah. It’s, it’s done with the blade up there. 

Allen Hall: Okay. 

Jon Zalar: You’re putting new, putting longer studs in and putting the plate on. 

Allen Hall: So first step is let’s get the joint reinforced. Right.

That’s the easy first step. 

Jon Zalar: Right. Although there has been some cases where since [00:20:00]you’ve put that stiffener plate on, the loads get spread out to the end of the plate, and then you- Sure … you could see cracks there. 

Allen Hall: Okay. All right. So the loads- It, that- … have to go somewhere … 

Jon Zalar: loads have to go somewhere. That’s, that is a bottom line.

Allen Hall: All right. So you’re just changing where the load path is, so you have to be cognizant of that. Okay. Sure. Fine. But if you have, uh, especially in the United States, you don’t have 10 of these turbines, you have 50, 100- 100 … 200, 300 of these things, or thousands as it, as it turns out. Are there simple solutions that can be applied to, just to give me a sense, like that turbine’s having a problem, but the one next to it’s not, and, and just, just from a maintenance spin standpoint where I’m not just blanketing everything and trying to do everything to all these turbines at once, how do I, how do I manage this?

Jon Zalar: I, I think it’s like being very observant. So like, you know, making sure you’re looking at the pitch bearings from the drone images, right? Um, also talking [00:21:00] to your maintenance people like, “Hey, are, are you finding a bunch of broken bolts? Like, what positions?” Like, you know, if I was back at the OEM, I would like to have as much data as possible on this issue.

Like how many bolts are, when did you find them, what positions? A lot of times we, when I was there, like we would not get all that information, so it’s like really hard to run an RCA without that information. 

Allen Hall: Sure. Yeah, where did this bolt break in the ring? 

Jon Zalar: Right. 

Allen Hall: Could tell you a lot. Is it just a b- bad lot of bolts, or is it something more load related?

Jon Zalar: Correct. 

Allen Hall: Wow. Okay. 

Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point, too, to make sure that you’re connected with like every stage of the operations. ‘Cause I know that everybody’s obviously really, really busy on a wind farm, but it’s really common for like an engineer to have certain data and the site team to just be running around and having a lot of data, but maybe they don’t realize that, oh, it’s important to know how many bolts per tower are coming down.

Jon Zalar: Correct. Yeah 

Allen Hall: That’s a lot of work 

Jon Zalar: It definitely- 

Allen Hall: It’s a tremendous effort if you’re gonna [00:22:00] go after this problem and, and solve it RCS 

Jon Zalar: are hard. They 

Allen Hall: are. Yeah. All of it. Yeah. Machines are complicated today. There’s a lot of computer-driven s- things about them, and then you have these loading issues, and you have composite materials.

Th- there’s just, y- 

Jon Zalar: you got to get- It’s a very complex 

Allen Hall: It’s a machine, right? Yeah. It’s a complex machine. So how do people reach out to… You’re, you’re the head of IWTG, which is based in South Carolina, but you do consulting worldwide. Yes. And, and you are a huge resource because you understand the complexities of these problems.

How do people get ahold of you and, and get something started if they have a, a, a blade bolt issue or an insert issue or a cracked pitch bearing? Where do they start? 

Jon Zalar: They can send me an email, jzalar@iwtgconsulting.com. 

Allen Hall: Okay. And you have a great LinkedIn page, so you can connect with you on LinkedIn. 

Jon Zalar: Yes.

Yeah, I have one 

Allen Hall: of those. Yes. Or you could just come to WOMA in [00:23:00]2027. Yeah. You can. You can meet John there and, and arrange everything there. So John, it’s great to see you, and thank you for coming up. We, uh, we’re recording this at the world headquarters of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and, uh, John just lives down the street in, in, in US terms.

Yeah. So it’s, it’s great to have John come and visit us up here in North Carolina. So John, thank you so much for joining us. 

Jon Zalar: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.