Episodios

  • Localizing Offshore Wind: Insights from KIMAenergy’s Maya Malik

    Localizing Offshore Wind: Insights from KIMAenergy’s Maya Malik
    Jun 20 2024
    Maya Malik, co-founder of KIMAenergy, joins host Rosie Barnes to discuss local content in offshore wind. Drawing on examples from the UK, Denmark, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, they explore policies to encourage domestic manufacturing. Maya shares insights on the key factors for success, including providing certainty on project volumes, offering incentives and infrastructure, and exploiting the potential for low-emission manufacturing in Australia's growing offshore wind industry. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Rosemary Barnes: Welcome to a special episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Rosie Barnes, and I have with me today, Maya Malik, who is the co founder of KIMAenergy. Thanks for joining us, Maya. Thanks, Rosie. Happy to be here. So today we're going to be talking all about local content and how countries can try to get more manufacturing in their region when they're going to be installing a lot of wind energy. So I know this is an area that you've worked in a lot. Would you be able to just give us a bit of background about the kinds of work that you've done in this industry over the years? Maya Malik: Yeah, sure. So I have a 20 year background in energy and offshore wind. Actually I first started in, in petrochemicals working in Australia and Europe and Asia. On the construction projects and 13 years ago, I moved to offshore wind. So I worked on projects in the UK, in Europe and Asia. And then together with my business partner, we started up KIMAenergy, which we are an advisory company focused on offshore wind in APAC. And I guess our niche is doing offshore wind in new markets. For most of our careers, we've basically worked on projects that are, pioneering in nature in the countries that we've worked in. Now we are based in Melbourne and yeah, continuing to support other developers with their projects in new markets. Rosemary Barnes: Okay. So you've worked a lot on a lot of different offshore wind projects all around the globe. I know that from the conversation that we've had before, before this recording. Can you tell me about yeah, just a little bit of A few examples of some interesting offshore wind projects that you've worked on. Maya Malik: Most interesting and I guess most impactful for me was working on projects in Taiwan. I'd worked on projects in Europe but there, the industry developed quite organically over, a period of two decades projects, getting incrementally bigger and technology incrementally improving. And Taiwan, I would say was the first market outside of Northern Europe to implement offshore wind and also was doing it in a way to accelerate the industrialization. So go from, doing commercial scale projects over a period of multiple years to, a handful of years. Yeah I I moved there together with another colleague from my company, and we were essentially there to win projects and, do a show in for the first time in in Taiwan. And yeah, it was a really It was a cool experience. Yeah, just really not having, the suppliers, not having the experienced people on the ground and just, it was down to, you and what you knew and, the resources you could personally call on. To do to do projects. Yeah, it was a real growth experience, I think for all of us in the industry at that time. But yeah, super, super great achievement. Rosemary Barnes: You're Australian, but you started in Australia. And then Europe,
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    38 m
  • Cement Decarbonization, EU Election’s Impact on Renewables, Co-Locating Solar and Wind

    Cement Decarbonization, EU Election’s Impact on Renewables, Co-Locating Solar and Wind
    Jun 18 2024
    Rosemary discusses emerging technologies from companies like Calix and CarbonCure to reduce emissions from cement production. Phil and Joel analyze how the European Parliament election results could impact renewable policies and the growing trend of co-locating wind, solar and battery storage projects. Plus Invenergy's Purple Skies project is the Wind Farm of the Week! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: YouTube star Alex Choi, known for his car stunt videos, has been charged with, by federal authorities, for orchestrating a dangerous video involving a helicopter and a Lamborghini. The 24 year old content creator allegedly directed a video called Destroying a Lamborghini with Fireworks, in which two individuals in a helicopter shot fireworks at a speeding Lamborghini in the El Mirage. Dry Lake Bed in San Bernardino County, of course, California. Troy faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison if convicted of causing the displacement of an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft. Now, Rosemary, I assume you have seen this, being the YouTube star that you are. You have seen this video of them shooting off Roman candles from this helicopter? Rosemary Barnes: It hasn't come up in my suggested videos, no. Allen Hall: I've seen it like 12 times. Joel Saxum: Yeah, I've seen it and it's awesome. I feel bad for these guys. They created a cool video. But if you go by the letter of the law, there's a lot of things illegal about this. It's like the same concept of if you shoot a drone down with a firearm, you can get the same exact penalty as if you shot down a plane with people in it. Because they're both aircraft that are covered under law by the FAA. So the FAA has got some pretty stinch stringent laws, and if you don't tow the line, you can get in a lot of trouble, as evidenced by This awesome video of shooting fireworks from a fire, from a helicopter at a Lamborghini in the desert. Philip Totaro: If precedent is anything, we had a guy in Santa Barbara County who, during COVID, took up his little, tiger cub plane or whatever single engine prop, and did a YouTube video of him crashing his plane. He got six years. These guys can probably expect a little more than six. Allen Hall: Wow. Don't mess around with airplanes. I think that's the whole point of this is don't do stupid stuff around airplanes. They're not toys, boys and girls. They are definitely not toys. And the Wild West is over. Maybe you can do that in Australia, but you sure can't do that in the United States anymore. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm Allen Hall, and here's this week's headlines. The International Energy Agency's latest report reveals the clean energy investment landscape across top countries and regions. The United States invested 280 billion in clean energy in 2023, up from 200 billion in 2020. Europe leads with the highest clean energy to fossil fuels investment ratio, spending more than 10 euros on clean energy for every euro invested. And fossil fuels. China saw the most robust growth in solar, wind and nuclear power, while India's clean energy investments reached 68 billion in 2023, a 40 percent increase from the 2016 to 2020 average. In related news, the increasing occurrence of negative electricity prices in Europe is raising concerns among investors about the profitability. Renewable energy projects. Negative pricing has become more frequent as sol...
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  • North Star Funding, $2T Clean Energy Investment, Yokogawa Acquires BaxEnergy

    North Star Funding, $2T Clean Energy Investment, Yokogawa Acquires BaxEnergy
    Jun 17 2024
    UK's North Star secures funding for 40 new offshore wind service vessels by 2040. The IEA reports clean energy investment will hit $2 trillion in 2024, though challenges remain in developing economies. Yokogawa acquires BaxEnergy and Lotus Infrastructure Partners acquires PNE AG's U.S. renewable business. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with the founder and CEO of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum, and this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our friends at IntelStor. If you want market intelligence that generates revenue, then book a demonstration of IntelStor at IntelStor.com. UK based North Star has secured up to 500 million in debt investment to fast track tech's goal of adding 40 hybrid service providers. Operation vehicles to its fleet by 2040. The funding package includes term facilities and committed resources from institutional investors and banks. The capital infusion will support North Star's continued growth in the offshore wind market. The company currently has several new belt SOVs in operation and under construction for major offshore wind projects to fill 40 SOVs can't come soon enough. Philip Totaro: Indeed. And they've, as you mentioned, they've already got a fleet of. SOVs operational for various projects around Europe. These new ones where, I mean, 40, by 2040 is, is quite ambitious. That's, one, one per more than one per year. This is obviously going to come in handy for what the industry needs. And more importantly, it'll give them the option to be able to re flag or re domesticate those vessels for use in, other markets where they're going to be needed, like the U. S., potentially, again, up to a point where we have Jones Act issues or markets like South Korea, Brazil Taiwan, etc. So, it's much needed. Joel Saxum: So, for those of you who don't know, or new to offshore wind, or haven't followed the program before, an SOV is basically a floating hotel for all the offshore wind workers. It has a lot of deck space, usually has a small crane, not a big work crane, but enough to move things around on deck, or, or transition some, some gear that's needed, some tools, or some equipment to the transition piece on an offshore ship. Wind turbine. So basically, these are the big vessels that kind of are resident out in a wind farm. They'll go out for a couple weeks at a time until they have to do crew changes. Sometimes even doing crew changes at sea where the vessel just stays out there and a little transfer boat comes and moves people around. But these are the big vessels. These SOVs are the things that make the wind farms tick offshore. Without them they're not going to stay up and running for very long. Allen Hall: The International Energy Agency reports that investment in clean energy technologies, including renewables, will be twice that of fossil fuels this year. Global spending on sectors such as wind, solar, grids, EV, nuclear, and energy storage is expected to reach about 2 trillion in 2024, while oil, gas, and coal receive dollars. However, the IEA warns a persistent low investment in clean energy in emerging and developing economies due to high costs of capital. And Phil, we've seen this play out in Asia at the moment and in Africa. Philip Totaro: Yes,
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  • EmpathCMS: Fast, Non-Invasive Fault Detection for Wind Turbines

    EmpathCMS: Fast, Non-Invasive Fault Detection for Wind Turbines
    Jun 12 2024
    Allen Hall interviews Dr. Howard Penrose, president and founder of MotorDoc LLC, about the groundbreaking EmpathCMS electrical signature analysis system. Dr. Penrose explains how the technology can quickly and non-invasively detect developing faults in wind turbine components like generators, gearboxes, and bearings, helping to optimize maintenance and prevent unplanned downtime. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall. Our guest today is Dr. Howard Penrose, the president and founder of MotorDoc LLC, and the creator of the groundbreaking EnPath electrical signature analysis system. Dr. Penrose has over 30 years of experience in the field, authoring books, presenting at conferences worldwide, and providing training and consulting services to numerous industries, including wind energy. The Empath system Dr. Penrose developed is a cutting edge tool for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance of electrical assets like motors, generators, and transformers. By analyzing the unique electrical signatures of equipment, Empath can detect developing faults early, preventing unplanned downtime, optimizing maintenance, and extending equipment life. Howard, welcome to the program. Howard Penrose: Thank you very much. And I just have to correct you on one thing. And that's the Empath system was actually originally developed at Oak Ridge National Labs and is is, construct, is basically built and maintained by Framatome ANP, which is International Nuclear Power Company. We are their non nuclear distributor and researcher. Large portion of what we do at MotorDoc is research the applications for electrical signature analysis and develop the algorithms. Allen Hall: So this is, we have a magician here today, so to speak, because the whole thing about wind energy and when you talk to the engineers is the vast majority of them are mechanical engineers. Drivetrain, blades, right? They know a lot about how the turbine works mechanically. But it is an electrical machine. It's there to produce electricity. And that means there's a lot of electric motors and obviously one big generator on the turbine. And that's the heart of the system. And that's the part that we really need to work. What? I think you guys have done is interesting because you're using the generator to diagnose things that are happening onside the turbine that are not only electrical, but mechanical. You want to explain how that works a little bit? Howard Penrose: Okay. Well, with vibration analysis, for instance, I will use an accelerometer with a piezoelectric cell or some of the newer technologies that involve etching and certain other things of materials. And you put that on the casing of a machine, and you generate an electrical signal signal in that component, that accelerometer, for instance, or whatever other type of device it is for vibration. So you have to read all the movement of all the components inside the machine through the material. through that transducer into something else that then translates that data in, either as a rules based system using squiggly lines or a machine learning based system, that kind of thing. Electrical signature analysis is exactly the same thing, except we use the air gap of the machine, whether it's a generator or a motor or a transformer, as our transducers, the little magnetic field.
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  • Ørsted Settles in NJ, Vestas Restructures, Belgium Objects to French Offshore Wind Farm

    Ørsted Settles in NJ, Vestas Restructures, Belgium Objects to French Offshore Wind Farm
    Jun 11 2024
    Ørsted and New Jersey settle their dispute over cancelled offshore wind farms, Belgium objects to a French offshore wind farm near Dunkirk, Vestas merges its technology and manufacturing divisions, a new blade root bushing repair method is patented by We4Ce, and details on NextEra's Hubbard Wind Project in Texas. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Over in the UK, and this is the only place where I think this would Obviously occur for multiple reasons. Adam Spencer, a serial thief from Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, was recently caught and sentenced after a string of burglaries and shoplifting incidents. Most notable theft, 17 tubes of Pringles potato chips, all stolen in one go. When arrested by police, Spencer reportedly quipped, Once you pop, you can't stop. A reference to Pringle's famous advertising slogan. But Prince's crime spree went beyond just chips. He broke into the same Iceland shop twice in one morning, stealing meat and then returning a couple hours later to steal over 300 pounds worth of additional stock. Okay this is gonna become the Pringle's defense. It has to be, right? Once you pop, you can't stop. I like it. Rosemary are we would call them potato chips in the United States, but they're called other things in other places. Are they popular in Australia? Rosemary Barnes: No, they're they're chips in Australia. They're crisps in the UK. Joel Saxum: Are they popular and or would you be willing to steal 17 tubes of them? Rosemary Barnes: I certainly wouldn't. Wouldn't steal them. It's hard to imagine how you could sneak out 17 tubes of Pringles in one go. So that's, obviously I guess they, they didn't because they were caught, but yeah, no, I think, I don't know with chips, I I don't like them particularly, but if they're there, I'll eat them and then regret it. So I would not. I would not keep 17 tubes in my house because there's, it's hard to, It's hard to eat healthy foods while you've got Pringles available. Even if I don't like them. I don't, yeah, I guess ones you probably can't stop. Allen Hall: A Belgian minister has joined several coastal municipalities in filing an objection against a large wind farm off the coast of Dunkirk, France. And if you remember Dunkirk, France is the place where the British removed all their coal. Troops at the beginning of world war two very famous place The plans would build 46 wind turbines barely 10 kilometers from the coast which Belgian authorities say would cause visual nuisance impact shipping routes and harm protected seabirds Belgium has been opposing this Project since 2016 has proposed an alternate location further out to sea if necessary Belgium is prepared to go to the European court to safeguard the rights of coastal residents and other stakeholders Okay, guys, so when you decide to build an offshore wind farm along your border You have to anticipate if the country or the other side is going to have some concerns about it, right? Particularly in Dunkirk France, which is a very next to Belgium, which is quite beautiful You it's just like the coastline of New Jersey that and Virginia and everywhere else in the United States where the sight lines can't be interrupted. Six, 10 kilometers, which is six miles, right? Six miles isn't that far offshore. Joel Saxum: How do they navigate this? I'd be the like to be the first one to say that if we're gonna take a uptime podcast field tri...
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  • Muehlhan’s Endiprev Acquisition, Energy Capital’s $4.4B Fund, FiberLine’s Production Shift

    Muehlhan’s Endiprev Acquisition, Energy Capital’s $4.4B Fund, FiberLine’s Production Shift
    Jun 10 2024
    Muehlhan Wind Service acquires a controlling interest in Portugal's Endiprev to create a global front runner in wind installation and maintenance services. Energy Capital Partners raises over $4.4 billion for its latest fund focused on power generation, renewables, and decarbonization infrastructure. FiberLine Composites is moving all production from Denmark to India over competition from Chinese manufacturers, while also working on domesticating some production in the U.S. to take advantage of tax credits. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with the founder and CEO of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum, and this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by your friends at IntelStor. If you want market intelligence that generates revenue, then book a demonstration of IntelStor at IntelStor. com. Danish company Muehlhan Wind Service has acquired a controlling interest in Endiprev, a Portugal based company specializing in commissioning and electrical work for the wind industry. This acquisition aims to create a global front runner in wind installation and maintenance services. Endiprev will continue to operate under its existing brand with current executive management team remaining in place. Muehlhan has expanded significantly over the past seven years and has acquired several companies in the last 18 months. And Phil, this seems to be the trend in any sort of repair, maintenance company is to acquire, acquire, acquire. Philip Totaro: At this point, yes, Allen. And it's interesting because we've talked over the past, six to 12 months about Any number of different deals where companies have either kind of merged together an EPC contracting capability with maintenance services or maintenance providers getting together in some cases, maintenance providers acquiring supply chain, smaller, tier three or four supply chain companies as well. So, I mean, this is, it's starting to get serious. We've talked on the show before about, the increased need for maintenance services, quality of maintenance services, et cetera. And this puts Muehlhan and, and Endiprev in in a really great position globally. Joel Saxum: Yeah. So if you aren't familiar with kind of what this business model looks like as it expands is Endiprev being a basically front end commissioning services company, they do a lot of build outs. They do electrical work of these things. Muehlhan has been Classically a more of a maintenance company. So now what you do is you come in on the front end of a project, you help build it or you build it as the EPC is the front runner there. And then when that project switches over to commissioning, which normally you would walk away. Now you just back your other players in there and you've already got built in work for the maintenance and operation side of things. So it's a great tie up and you're going to start to see a lot more of these as well. Allen Hall: Energy Capital Partners, an investor in power transition, electrification, and decarbonization infrastructure assets, has raised over 4. 4 billion for its fifth flagship equity strategy, ECP5, or better called Fund 5. The fund exceeds its initial target by 10 percent and also raised an additional 2. 3 billion in co investment capital. Fund 5 will continue Energy Capital Partners i...
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    8 m
  • Wind Catching Systems: Offshore Modular Multirotor Technology

    Wind Catching Systems: Offshore Modular Multirotor Technology
    Jun 6 2024
    Rosemary interviews Ivar Knutsen, Senior VP of Technical and Supply Chain at Wind Catching Systems, to discuss their innovative floating offshore wind concept. Wind Catching's design features a grid of small wind turbines that benefit from the multirotor effect and enable easier installation and maintenance compared to traditional large offshore turbines. Wind Catching will also present at the Multi Rotor 2024 seminar June 12-13. You can find more information here: https://multirotor24.zohobackstage.eu/MR24. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Rosemary Barnes: Welcome to a special episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Rosie Barnes, and I have today with me Ivar Knutsen who is the Senior Vice President for Technical and Supply Chain at Wind Catching. Thanks for joining us, Ivar. Ivar Knutsen: Thank you for inviting us, Rosie. Rosemary Barnes: Okay, so for those who don't know, I'm just gonna quickly start by summarizing what the concept of Wind Catching is. So basically it's a grid of wind turbines that is floating offshore. So you've got a whole lot of small wind turbine turbines arranged in the grid, and they're benefiting from being close to together with the multirotor effect, which we'll get into later. And obviously there's also, more modularity all the. Turbines are arranged in this grid so that they can all yaw at the same time to face a differing wind direction. And yeah I'll hand it over to you Eva to explain more about what the concept is and yeah, why you decided that this was a, an interesting company to get involved with. Ivar Knutsen: It has become apparent to us that there are fundamental differences Between a bottom fixed and a floating wind turbine and they those differences are so big that you might need to Take a second look at that, you need to maybe consider a completely new approach to the design, but also to the operation. So we find that multi rotors have three or four key benefits. One is that you're actually able to avoid. The infamous tow to port. If the turbines are sufficiently small, you can handle them offshore and perform a turbine replacement offshore without using a crane vessel. You just need to bring people aboard a unit as long as you have the right technology to, to do that. And as, as we see it, there are no options for. Return to port for big single rotor floaters today, there are many concepts out there, but we don't see any of them as being tackling the real problems is that it's going on in an offshore environment with a lot of motions. The other thing we also find very interesting about multirotors is that you decouple the turbine development from the sort of the development, both on the supply chain, but also on capacity. So if you can go from 20 to 30 to 40 megawatts without developing new turbines for every single step, that's interesting. If you can use the same turbine, But you can change your installed capacity by building on your support structure. That is a very interesting part of the multirotor concept. And the other thing is that with a standardized turbine, you can actually enable a much broader supply chain. You can enable local content in each country because the sophistication required to turbine is much lower. And the reason for that, this is that if you now look at the biggest turbines and the turbines expected to come later. With blade lengths of 120,
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  • Blade Platforms: Revolutionizing Blade Repair Access

    Blade Platforms: Revolutionizing Blade Repair Access
    Jun 5 2024
    In this episode, Petr Bartusek from Blade Platforms discusses how their truck-mounted platforms, capable of safely reaching over 100 meters, are transforming wind turbine blade repair access. With increased speed, skill utilization, and 24-hour shift capabilities, using Blade Platforms minimizes turbine downtime and maximizes efficiency in blade repair campaigns. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum, today, we're tackling a critical issue in the wind industry. Accessing wind turbine blades for repairs. And our guest is Petr Bartusek, commercial VP of Blade Platforms. And Blade Platforms is a truck mounted platform company based in Abilene, Texas. And with wind turbines hubs reaching new heights, traditional repair access methods can be slow and inefficient. Blade Platforms solves this problem with a fleet of machines that can safely reach over 100 meters, allowing technicians to quickly and efficiently repair blades while minimizing turbine downtime. Today, Petr will share how Blade Platforms is transforming blade repair access and discuss the future of this innovative company in the wind industry. Petr, welcome to the show. Petr Bartusek: All right. Thanks for having me. Allen Hall: So Joel and I happened to visit your facility in Abilene. And the reason we did was because of speed. It comes down to quickness and our strike click take application where we're touching a lot of blades, we have to get up and down very quickly because we touched so many blades simultaneously, which is a common industry problem. If you're going to fix one blade pretty easy, you can use whatever method. But when we're. At some farms that have a hundred, 200, 300 plus turbines, it becomes so slow and efficient that there has to be a new way to do it, a faster way to get on blade and to make repairs. And this is where we stopped. And Abilene met with your folks down there at Blade Platforms. It is impressive the speed at which you guys move and it has really changed the industry. And we, Joel and I have been around a lot of parts of Texas and Oklahoma and we see Blade Platforms. And now we understand why, because you're really changing the industry. Petr Bartusek: I'll add, it's not just speed, I think. There's a couple of things. You get speed, you get skill, and you get time utilization, right? So the speed kind of speaks for itself, right? I tell everyone on a 12 hour day, We'll do 11 hours worth of work, right? So you got some truck set up time and, some idle time that just, you cannot monetize that, that, that's one aspect. The other thing is utilization of time and that, these sites are, on windy projects, right? So you're, you don't put turbines where the wind doesn't blow. So you have to be able to operate in increments of time. When that happens. I use a traditional means of access or ropes or suspended platforms. It's the rigging time and everything else that goes into it changes the dynamics of what you're doing because, let's say you got a rig for two hours, then you go up and you get a three hour weather window. Then you got to go down and maybe or maybe not, you have to pull it a day. If at two o'clock a storm roll in or something will happen. So for us, we get, six hours worth of work. There's three hours storm going through.
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    21 m