Published

1 year ago

May 30, 2025

Alice Rush

Joseph Chacon, CEO of Padge LLC, discusses the impact of electrical harmonics on wind turbines and solar systems, providing insights into causes, consequences, and effective solutions for improving power quality.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Joe, welcome to the show.

Joseph Chacon: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Allen Hall: Well, I’m glad we connected, uh, through Jon Zalar, I believe, and we don’t talk electrical power creation or what that. Kind of power we’re creating and what the effect of that power is on systems downstream very often, uh, the Uptime podcast, because there’s so many wind turbine issues, is mostly focused on mechanical problems.

But we’re finding that more and more problems may have an electrical origin. We wanted to get an expert in here that would be you to come help us on harmonics because there are requirements about harmonics.

Joseph Chacon: There are, uh, IEEE five 19 governs [00:01:00] the requirements for harmonics. At the point of common coupling.

Allen Hall: That’s correct. And your prior experiences with ge, which is now GE Renova down in South Carolina, that’s correct. But you were involved, maybe give a brief description of the things you’re working on because when electrical people talk, um, kind of gets lost in translation. You were knee deep, maybe waist deep, maybe eyeballs deep and electrical

Joseph Chacon: power at GE Renova?

No, not, not knee deep, not weight deep, waist deep. I was baptized, completely immersed all the way in. I came shortly after the Enron acquisition. Um, I was one of the electrical engineering managers at the time. We had, uh, I think two or three at the time. Um, this was pretty early on. Uh, I got out of that because, uh, I’m, I like management, but I, I like electrical engineering, so I wanted to go back to being an individual contributor.

Um, so I’ve touched just about [00:02:00] every electrical thing you can think of in a wind turbine. And also in solar

Joel Saxum: as well. You know, a little bit of a sidebar here ’cause I want, we want to definitely get into this deep technical conversation, but Joe, you touched on something that happens to people, right? You’re a really good engineer, you’ve run a team, you’ve solved some problems.

So now you get promoted to management, but you don’t get to engineer as much anymore. So you get, like, you get, you start being leadership and like doing all these things, how to manage people, how to run a team, this, that, and that’s great. We need that. The industry, every industry globally, we need to be able to do those things.

But for engineers that have engineer at heart, and I’m, I’m also looking at you, Alan Hall. Uh, they, they wanna be able to engineer, right? They wanna be able to do stuff to make a difference to, to, to get hands on with a problem. So, so you, so you’ve done that though, right? That that’s you, you are now, uh, Josh Shahan is, uh, pad LLC and

Joseph Chacon: pod is short for Padre, which is what my kids and grandchildren call me.

They just shortened it from Padre to podge. ’cause saying two [00:03:00]syllables was too much and I liked it.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, I like that. Okay, so, so, so like we said, uh, you, you, you guys, you’re getting deep into harmonics and other issues. You get called in by Solar Farms to solve problems and, and this is the thing Alan and I were kind of talking about off air a little bit is.

W we have a bit of a culture like in wind right now of electrical problem, swap, swap apart, swap apart in, swap apart out. But nobody’s looking at the, the root cause of why or why did this thing fail, and how can we, you know. Make this more robust for the future. And that doesn’t just stop at components in the turbine.

It’s, it’s BOP, you know, and this is, like you said, also solar and, and other industrial facilities as well. But that’s what you tackle, right?

Joseph Chacon: Yeah. And you know, you mentioned John Zellar, uh, great, great root cause analysis guy. Uh, does fishbone, uh, ad modeling, things like that, um, what’s your observation that you’re seeing?

I think is correct. People ignore. [00:04:00] One of the fundamental root causes for a lot of issues, um, not just in renewable energy, but anywhere you have, uh, large amounts of nonlinear loading, uh, these days. That’s primarily coming from data centers. Um, with the advent of the diode six pulse front end, uh, variable frequency drive, uh, IGBTs, any type of switching device.

It’s only getting worse. It will never get better because we are putting more and more non-linear loads on the utility and fewer and fewer linear loads. Even our lighting today, we don’t use incandescent anymore. It’s all either LED, well, we used to do fluorescent, but LED is a horrific offender for harmonics.

So, and I hate to pick on that technology because. They all really are. Um, so a solar inverter, a wind turbine converter, uh, a UPS, any type of [00:05:00]device is going to introduce more harmonic content into the grid. So you got the issue where the device itself has harmonic content, couple to a grid that’s getting more and more harmonic content already on it.

So the situation is definitely getting more and more exacerbated.

Allen Hall: So some of those harmonics have really significant consequences. Uh, if you go to podge LLC on YouTube, you can watch some of the discussion there and walk through the equations about what harmonics can do to equipment on generators. Up in the the wind turbines, you can actually damage some of the Y connections on those, uh, defi generators.

It can causes all kinds of problems. And I know one of the issues that’s, and it’s being sussed out right now, so we’re talking about it live as it’s happening, is, uh, they’re seeing transients come from the line back up to, to the turbine and are causing problems to the electronics. Straight harmonics.

And the same thing coming [00:06:00] out of some of the turbines is the harmonics can be strong. And in one of your videos you talked about what kind of damage you can do with a transformer if you have harmonics that are significant enough. It’s, it’s surprising. How you can shorten the life of a transformer

Joseph Chacon: correct, or any magnetic circuit, uh, generators, motors, transformers, anything that’s going to take, uh, electrical conversions to magnetic conversions and back or vice versa, any type of thing like that.

Uh, they cause extreme dielectric stress and extreme temperature changes. Um, and both of ’em are damaging. To devices like transformers, motors, generators, et cetera.

Allen Hall: Yeah, because transformers and all that sort of magnetic equipment is designed to work around a core frequency. Typically 50 hertz or 60 hertz, depending on where in the world you are.

When you put other frequency components on that equipment, it’s not designed to do that. So that turns into a lot of heat a lot of times, [00:07:00] and then you over temp or shorten a lifetime of. Transformers on the pads and up tower in some cases that don’t. If you have a failure like that, uh, at a wind farm, I saw it most recently, uh, a couple of weeks ago, where they’re replacing transformers, like, wow, it’s only been there a year or two.

That shouldn’t happen. There are other, so those kind of failures, unless you’re paying attention, are just gonna repeat, right? Because replacing a. Pad transformer with another pad, transformer doesn’t remove the source of the problem. It just puts in another fuse in the circuit.

Joseph Chacon: Correct. And you know, let’s say you put it in, in pick a year, January of 2015, and your harmonic content from utility can change over time.

So many times it’s worth just taking a look at it. Um, in one of the videos you talked about. I promoted a [00:08:00] Fluke 1777 power quality analyzer tool that I use, and I rent that tool out to people that are wanting to do a study. Uh, and that’s an economical way to do a study. Um, the technician or engineer or whoever puts that in does not necessarily need to know a lot about harmonics to set that up.

Uh, you’re going to be putting in either three or four cts, depending upon whether you’re a four wire or a three wire system. Then connections to your bus for voltage, and then you turn the fluke on and you verify that your currents are going in the right direction. So in Phase A current, it’s phase A voltage, and you start a session and then you mail it back to me and I’ll give you the report.

Um, and it does a lot more than just harmonics. Uh, and I basically, I run an IEEE five 19 report. It does sags swells, it does super harmonics. It does intra harmonics. Super harmonics [00:09:00] are harmonics that are higher than 50, um, 50 times the fundamental. So that’s 50 times 60, uh, for 60 hertz people, or 50 times 50 for 50 hertz people.

And you, you mentioned Alan, that Transformers motors are designed for a certain frequency. Um, if you take a motor or a transformer and look at it, it’s gonna tell you the frequency. Sometimes it’s dual rate at 50 or 60. Um, but the engineer that designed that transformer motor is gonna take certain things into account related to the magnetic side to make sure that it’s able to operate for that broad frequency range.

Low frequencies are quite bad. In fact, as you get towards dc DC you can’t use magnetic circuits as a rule. I mean, there’s ways to make DC motors and things like that. And then as you get to tire frequencies, um. Then like 400 hertz is a common in aviation, you know, it’s specifically designed for that frequency.

So when you introduce [00:10:00] even small amounts, it could wreak havoc

Joel Saxum: over time. So a question for you, just I we talking, IEE here. I. Do you get into, this is like a, as a, as a podge LLC thing. Do you get into more of these studies at the development stage, or is it once they are deployed and having problems, when do they call?

Joe,

Joseph Chacon: you know that, that’s a very, very good question, Joel. Um, I do both. Uh, so if you, there’s a fixed installation. I could come in and put up the Fluke 1777 and conduct that study for that person or the company, or they could do it themselves and just, uh, FedEx or UPS me back the equipment and I could interpret the data.

If you’re doing a new installation, I use a software called Easy Power. There’s others, uh, SKM, etap. Um, you know, if you ask me what type of phone I use, I’ll tell you I got an Android. Why do I have an Android? Because that’s what I’m comfortable with. That’s what I use. I’m not [00:11:00] opposed to Apple or anything like that.

Why do I use Easy Power? Because that’s what I use. I mean, it’s, you get comfortable with what you use. Um, 20 years ago I used SKM. But easy power. And there’s a video on that YouTube series I mentioned about how to use easy power to do IEEE five 19 harmonic studies before you even put it in. Um, so that can be done as wealth.

I. And I can model it with easy power after the fact too. Uh, but Fluke makes it so easy. It’s just hook up 6, 7, 8, 9 leads, whatever, click record, come back a few hours later and populates the report. Then when you want to talk about the fix, then I might have to use Easy Power to help with. Do you want a, so there’s lots of fixes and, and I hope we get to talking about some of the fixes here in a minute.

Joel Saxum: That, that’s what I wanted to dive into next. ’cause I’m thinking, okay, earlier we talked, uh, RCA, how these, you know, what’s happening here And my mind immediately [00:12:00] goes to, and, and everybody that’s listening here knows I’m not an electrical engineer. Uh, like, not nothing nuts whatsoever. You know, like I, I, I put uh, KC lights on a truck once and almost burnt it down.

So that’s not my, that’s not my thing, but in my mind, I, this goes through this, this unstable grid with a lot of frequency. So I go like, okay, is it a grid macro problem? Like, do we need to have more flywheel type technology on the grid to even these things out? And I’m thinking about like, I’m in Texas here, right?

So there’s all kinds of renewables, all kinds of, you know, up, down, up, down, up, down. We talk about duck curves and we can look at a graph. Yeah, that’s the entire grid. But when you talk about at the wind farm or solar farm level, there’s so much differing load. And now we’re adding batteries and we’re adding data centers and all that stuff.

So there’s, there’s multiple. Entry points, I think, to solve this. And one of ’em is, is like, is is Joe Shahan standing in front of Ercot and telling them how to fix their problems at a macro level. But what we, but I think what we wanna dive into here is there’s also filters and other [00:13:00] fixes from, you know, the abbs and the Siemens and the Schneiders of the world that can fix things at a local level.

So what are some of these problems that you see and then fixes that you prescribe to solve those problems?

Joseph Chacon: I must clarify, it’s not a utility problem unless the utility is using massive amounts of renewable energy. Um, with that said, though, uh, whoever makes the wind turbine or whatever the asset is, you’re gonna be required for the point of interconnect to do that IEEE five 19 study.

Um, what causes the problem is on the load side. Because you have the most classic case of this is a six pulse, uh, rectifier on the front end of a variable frequency drive. Um, before the advent of that, people would just put across the line starters or across the line contactors to turn on [00:14:00] a motor. And a motor is a very linear device.

The only issue you might have with that are dips and swells. Uh, or mostly dips for that matter. But when you put a variable frequency drive on there, which is a wonderful, wonderful device, it gives you absolute control over that motor, and you wanna put it in all day, every day. But when you put it in, you’re gonna wanna put a line reactor in front of it.

And if your VFD is here and your motor is so many feet away from your VFD, you’re gonna wanna put in different types of things as well. And those could be DVDT filters. Our sway filters ultimately. And I mean, sometimes you can just do a basic choke, but you’re gonna usually look at A-D-V-D-T filter or a sway filter between those two devices.

So those are what you’re gonna do at the source for where you are creating your harmonic content that gets reflected back up onto the utility. So those are very simple things to do that [00:15:00] in my opinion, are no-brainers. And also use shielded cabling. Um. I, I preach this a lot between your VFD and your motor use shielded cabling.

Um, now let’s talk about if you’ve got all this in place and you still have massive amounts of harmonic content, what do you do? I’m in love with the active harmonic filter. This is the best thing since sliced bread. And I don’t wanna oversell it because, uh, uh, my wife says, you talk about it so much that you make me think you’re overselling it and I don’t want it.

That’s not what I’m trying to do here. But there’s tons of people, uh, companies that make an active harmonic filter and that has the capability at the point of common coupling of completely neutralizing your harmonic content. And this is the part that I like the most. Power factor correction. So power factor is, uh, just basically a ratio of, uh, [00:16:00] real power and reactive power.

Um, you want it to be as close to unity as possible, and that’s what the utility likes. So another side effect of excessive harmonic content is also lower power factor, um, when you accurately measure it. So an active harmonic filter. Um, it’s kinda like, I forget which law. I think it’s Newton’s third law for every force, there’s an equal and opposite force to go with it.

So if I just push that there, I’m not pushing back on it. Right? So if you have a, let’s say you have, I don’t know, 500 hertz of harmonic content that’s constantly being injected. An active harmonic filter will come in and basically do that. It’ll also do it for other frequencies all at the same time, completely counseling them out.

It really is a, a wonderful, wonderful device. And you don’t have to put it in series with anything. You put it in shunt and that means you could get close to [00:17:00] your point of common coupling. So on. So a point of common coupling. It, you could be def you could define it anywhere, but if you were gonna put this in, uh, let’s say at a a, a solar plant.

You could put this in at the output of the central inverter, or if you got a string of series, um, a series of string inverters, you could put it at the switchboard there as well. Um, and it’ll neutralize the harmonic content that’s there and even downstream as you get further and further away from ect Harmonic filter.

Your THDV, that’s total harmonic distortion, voltage, and a little bit of THDI, total harmonic distortion. Current goes down as well, but at the point of common coupling, you are putting the cadis on that and squashing it. It’s a pretty cool device and I. I don’t sell them, but I help specify them.

Joel Saxum: So it’s like, it’s the, it’s the ultimate [00:18:00] noise canceling headphone for BOP.

Joseph Chacon: Yes. Perfect. That’s exactly the best analogy. I love that.

Joel Saxum: So you go on Amazon, you buy a set of BS seven fifties, and you put ’em over the cable. Right. Then it’s good.

Joseph Chacon: Very,

Joel Saxum: very

Joseph Chacon: similar technology. Yes. I, I love the analogy. I love the analogy.

Allen Hall: Yeah. But it’s magic because 20 years ago you really couldn’t do that.

Or if you wanted to, it was super expensive and. If the prices come down, they’re still expensive, but you’re trying to eliminate a more complex problem that you didn’t necessarily create, right? So a lot of these harmonics. Or coming out of equipment that probably did not really meet the spec to begin with, and you’re just trying to find an ultimate solution that gets the plant running again.

And that’s the key here. It’s gonna save you a tremendous amount of time and effort if you can use active suppression instead of trying to fix the a hundred inverters that are creating this problem. And,

Joel Saxum: and that’s

Allen Hall: the one

Joel Saxum: thing I want to touch on there, like, if, if, if this isn’t solved or if this is an issue and [00:19:00] you don’t use a certain fix.

Failures, the what are the components that will

Joseph Chacon: fail any and everything. I, I was, uh, gosh, I did a presentation of harmonics a couple of days ago, and I used the Bugs Bunny analogy of the gremlin in the airplane. Uh, so in the 1940s during World War ii, many of the pilots would say, we have gremlins in our system.

Um. Gremlins are kind of like harmonics. They just show up in all types of different places, even even on mechanical devices, uh, related to bearings and other things. Um, they, it just shows power supplies can start going, motor bearings can start falling. All types of things can start failing. So

Allen Hall: let’s talk about that.

There are a number of main bearings that are failing in wind turbines today that look like they have electrical discharge damage. And the, everybody who’s designing these systems, these wind turbines is pretty smart, right? There’s, there’s a lot of engineering that goes into a [00:20:00] wind turbine, but when you have undesirable harmonics, regardless of where they come from, can be from a SU piece of supplied equipment that those harmonics can show up on.

Mechanical devices like bearings, you can actually pick up harmonics physically from discharge, you’ll see discharges to bearings and. Uh, drive shafts all the things you wouldn’t expect. But here’s the one thing I wanted to talk to you about, Joe. Can you, can you kinda physically see like, oh, that’s an electrical discharge, or, oh, that’s a mechanical failure.

Are there differences between those two when it comes to mechanical failures from harmonics?

Joseph Chacon: In cases like that, that’s where you wanna pull, pull in a holistic RCA approach. Uh, kinda like the gentleman John we’ve been talking about before. Um, John is a great systems engineer and he would help isolate electrical, mechanical, environmental, things like that, uh, and look at the contributing factors [00:21:00] that come in to producing all of those things.

The answer is yes, it could. Um, but not every time. And it takes, uh, a certain amount of surgical precision to diagnose the root causes or combination of root causes.

Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s one of those Sherlock Holmes, uh, quotes, right? Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, everything else is. Possible. What is that?

What is that saying guys? It’s probable, there you go. Right It where you’ve, on the mechanical side, it seems like we’ve eliminated a lot of mechanical probabilities of, it could be something in manufacturing, it should be something in tempering, it should be something in coatings. And now we’re going down that rabbit hole of, I wonder if this is electrical discharge.

I wonder if the brushes are working. Do we need to install brushes? Do we need to add more grounding? In the towers to get rid of some of these or provide another path for the harmonics to go through. It’s a complex problem. But Joe, if they’re not bringing someone like you into help look at this problem, they’re not gonna solve it just by [00:22:00]

Joseph Chacon: eyeballing it.

Right? Right. And then finally, the most important consideration of all of this is, is economics. Um, and fin finance. Um, sometimes living with the devil, you know, is better. Then the angel, you don’t know. And uh, you notice I switched that up. Yeah. Everything has to have an ROI in a business case, and you can come in and solve this and probabilistically reduce all failures to six seven Sigma.

Um, but at what cost? Um, so what I try to do is help customers really dig into it electrically. And if, and if you got mechanical devices that are failing, then you’re gonna wanna look at it holistically. Um. In, in the case of solar and things like that, you know, you don’t have a lot of moving parts. Wind turbine’s a little bit more complicated.

Um, but at a facility, um, where you have motors and drives and things like that, um, it, it doesn’t always have [00:23:00] to be electrical or mechanical. Um, I, I became a thermal engineer over the, over the last few years, not because I liked thermodynamics. Because I had to keep my electronics cool and it was a discipline that I had to, to really get familiar with.

Um, the things related to bearings and other stuff like that. I’ve known some phenomenal bearing people, loads people through the years. That stuff I don’t understand. When you bring in a good system engineer and you’re able to holistically parse it out, uh, that, that would be the way to go on those things.

Joel Saxum: Absolutely. I like part of this conversation here, Joe, is that, um, okay, so this is, this resonates with Alan and I because we are talking with lightning protection people every day, right? Like, Hey, I have this issue, have this issue. There’s a specific fix or, or a, a prescribed fix for a lot of different things that can happen.

But it all needs to be based in a business case. If the business case doesn’t make sense. Or you can’t present a decent business [00:24:00] case to someone, you might as well just get off the phone. I, and, and I think that the wind industry really needs that, uh, renewables industry in general, but the wind industry really needs that if we’re trying to ’cause the goal, one of the goals of the, the uptime podcast here is to lower the, the LCOE if we can help make wind turbine or wind energy more competitive across the globe.

Beautiful. So the, the fact that you’re approaching business as business case forward, I really like to hear that.

Joseph Chacon: That’s good feedback. I like that.

Allen Hall: So Joe, I know we could go on all day and if you let me, I will. Uh, so we’re, we’re gonna have to invite you back because I think as Joel and I learn more about some of these harmonic problems that exist in turbines and, and also.

On the line, uh, we want to talk to you about possible solutions, what you can do about it, how to address it, even how to suss it out, diagnose it

Joseph Chacon: related to, to lightning. Uh, I’m sure all the time you’re constantly looking at, did the utility cause this, did the device cause this, or did lightning cause [00:25:00] this?

So bringing that harmonic aspect in and utility power, quality in general. Harmonics is just a subset of the overall power quality. Um. It, it definitely does help differentiate things from something happened electrically. What was it? You know, that, that, that level of knowledge I think goes a long way.

Allen Hall: Yeah, it sure does. So Joe, how do people get a hold of you if they need to do a harmonic analysis or just take a, a kind of a holistic look at what’s happening electrically in their turbines or in their solar facilities? My

Joseph Chacon: email is pretty easy. It’s josephchacon@padge.org. Um, my website is padge.org as well.

Um, I encourage people to check out the YouTube videos because that’s to demystify harmonics a lot and, uh, educate people. Uh, my goal is if people and technicians and engineers are educated. It helps them become better for [00:26:00] their companies. And, uh, you know, I do like making a buck, but more than that, I like seeing people succeed.

And, um, I have a lot of people in various industries, uh, not just renewables. Um, I wanna give them the tools to be able to do what’s best for their companies. And that’s what. Helps me sleep good at night is is doing that in education.

Allen Hall: So check out Joe’s website, it’s spelled padge.org and you can also check out Joe’s YouTube channel.

Same thing, Padge LLC. Just put into YouTube and it’ll come up. You can watch some of those videos on harmonics. Very interesting stuff, Joe. Appreciate you actually putting that up on the internet. Uh, it’s gonna help a lot of people. So Joe, thank you so much for being with us today. And yeah, we’ll talk soon.

Thank you, Allen. Thank you, Joel.

https://weatherguardwind.com/padge-llc-harmonics/

Renewable Energy

At This Point, No One Should Believe a Word that Comes Out of Trump’s Mouth

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2 days ago

August 21, 2026

Alice Rush

How Trump has any credibility with Americans–or the other citizens of planet–is a mystery that is impossible to unravel.

At This Point, No One Should Believe a Word that Comes Out of Trump’s Mouth

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What the 2026 Midterms Are Really About

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3 days ago

August 20, 2026

Alice Rush

It’s good to hear Bernie Sanders say what he did here, but it’s sad that it needs to be said at all.

Are we really interested in lower grocery prices if we’re living in a dictatorship?

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Sunrez Products Expand in Wind O&M

Published

3 days ago

August 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Sunrez Products Expand in Wind O&M

Bret Tollgaard, president at Sunrez, joins to discuss faster UV blade repairs, new leading edge materials, and growing OEM approvals. Reach out to sales@sunrez.com to learn more!

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: Brent, welcome back to the program.

Bret Tollgaard: Appreciate you having me back on.

Allen Hall: There’s been so much happening in the world of UV prepregs and UV adhesives over the past year. Particularly on LinkedIn, I’ve seen numerous repairs which have used your material, SunRes material, to fix some pretty decent, uh, blade problems.

Are you seeing, just seeing a, a much wider adoption now that everybody has basically agreed that UV is the way to go?

Bret Tollgaard: I, I really do think that it’s starting to become one of the go-to standards for a variety of repairs in the wind market. And yeah, it’s great to see both our prepregs and lights being used all over LinkedIn, showing the [00:01:00] capabilities of the materials and how happy customers are to use and adopt the materials.

Allen Hall: Yeah. The UV materials are, are getting adopted by OEMs. A lot of ISPs, a, a lot of operators now have it as a standard practice to use UV cured materials just because of the speed and the time that is saved. Uh, it’s, it’s remarkable how much time you’re saving, because the, the real kicker right now if you’re trying to do a repair, even in the summer months, let’s just say it’s warm outside and the temperatures are right and it’s calm winds, you’re saving multiple hours per repair.

What generally… How much time are you generally saving on a kind of a, quote unquote, “standard blade repair”?

Bret Tollgaard: More and more time, actually, with each session. So we might be saving 50 upwards of 80% of the labor of a traditional epoxy repair. Um, what we’ve been training companies to do more and more frequently is to actually pre-consolidate the entire repair patch downtower, whether it’s in the trailer or inside the tower itself.

Um, and so you can pre-consolidate, get [00:02:00] all the air out in between your layers, have the primer pre-applied to the backside. That way, when you’re actually uptower, it’s simply peel, stick, roll, and then cure it out with our UV light. Sub 10 minutes, uh, will get you a fully cured part.

Allen Hall: Wow. That’s remarkable.

Yeah, when I see those LinkedIn posts from all kinds of operators all around the world using your material I also noticed that the weather conditions may not be pristine like you would have to do with epoxy. So there, there’s like a band of temperatures that epoxy systems generally work in. But with the UV material, I’m noticing, I’ve s- I s- especially over the wintertime, I saw some cold weather repairs going on.

Is there any limitation really to the UV cured patches and materials in temperatures?

Bret Tollgaard: There, there really aren’t for the temperature ranges that people will actually be out and installing these. Some of my favorite photos are when it’s negative five Celsius outside and everyone’s got the big gloves, the big [00:03:00] scarves, the big warmers and everything, and they’re applying our prepreg materials, uh, in below freezing conditions and still curing with the same 10-minute cycle time.

Uh, another big advantage of our UV prepregs is everything’s already pre-wet out, so you’re not uptower with your fiberglass and your resin kicking off an epoxy or even some other, uh, you know, materials out there where it’s really hard to impregnate and get that saturation and kick off with UV. And so our prepreg repair patches really lend themselves to efficiency in the field, uh, over a really broad variety of, uh, ambient temperatures.

So some of the negative five, negative 10 C installs all the way up to the hot ones in Texas and India and Australia, where you’ve got these people and it’s 100 Fahrenheit or, you know, 35 plus C, and you still cure with the same consistency, the same cure rate, the k- same cure speeds, um, really, really makes it a very versatile system.

Allen Hall: It just gets rid of the variation and, and [00:04:00] that’s one of the items when we look at repairs. So we’re on the lightning side of this business where lightning damage happens, so we see a lot of repairs happen. We also see a lot of repairs that don’t look great. They’re, I mean, the vast majority do look great, but you get these occasional ones where they’ve tried to use epoxy in the wintertime and use a heat blanket.

It, it’s difficult to do. It, it just is because of the material, it’s very difficult to do. I’m recommending more and more that they use a UV cure material if they’re gonna go off and do it, particularly as they, uh, do what I would consider to be a temporary patch until they get where they can do more in-depth work when it’s warmer outside.

But it, it does really change the game because the ability to buy the material quickly is amazing. Uh, b- there’s no hazardous me- chemi- chemicals in, uh, the Sunrise material at all, so it can be shipped anywhere, anytime, overnight, on a airplane, on a truck, doesn’t matter. Does that really open up the marketplaces for the [00:05:00] Sunrise UV cure materials?

Bret Tollgaard: 100%. And because of the long shelf life as well, um, we stock and store all of the common, um, materials used for wind. The prepreg, the putties, the surface primers. Fiberglass also does a great job of stocking and storing things. And yeah, because these can ship as unregulated materials, we get calls for next-day air shipping all the time, all over the world.

And so whether it’s out here domestically, it’s going up to Canada, Europe, uh, Asia, Australia, um, it’s really, really simplifies the whole process from start to finish.

Allen Hall: Are there any special tools you need to use when applying a, a UV cured prepreg patch to a blade, or is it just standard existing tools? Is there anything unique there?

Bret Tollgaard: No. It’s kind of as simple as it gets. There’s no vacuum bag required. There’s no heat blanket required. To truly install the materials, you’re gonna take off the back, uh, layer of, of the film on the backside of the [00:06:00] prepreg, re-stack and consolidate your materials. Uh, you’re gonna consolidate that with a basic three-inch or six-inch bubble buster hand roller.

Every technician’s gonna know exactly what that is. Uh, it’s a simple piece of little rolling metal that, uh, simply rolls out any air between the, the repair patches. And then after that, you’re gonna grab a paintbrush, and you’re gonna spread some of our surface primer over the backside of the prepreg. So you got a hand roller, and you got a paintbrush That’s all you’re gonna need to get the material up onto the wind blade.

And then of course, to cure the material, you need a UV light to do so. The sunshine, although it will cure the material, you never have consistent sun, light intensity, you’re on the shady side of the blade, et cetera. And so we’ve developed a variety of UV curing devices to help facilitate that. So our standard in the industry right now is what we call our Gen 2 LED lamp.

It’s about the size of an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper. Um, but it’ll, it’ll cure several square feet at a time when you’re 14 to 20 inches or so away from that [00:07:00] surface. Uh, but in addition to that, we’re also working on a patent pending LED array system that is gonna be a broader… Right now, it’s about a half meter by one square meter surface area, and it’s gonna, um, emit a very, very uniform, uh, amount of light intensity across that entire surface all at once to make it even easier for the installers so they can just strap it to the blade, cure it for five minutes, and then move it over if they have a longer, uh, you know, one to two square meter repair.

Allen Hall: Wow, that’s remarkable. I, I have one of your lights, and I’m always shocked at how much light intensity there is because I’ve used other lights and seen other lights, and then they’re not nearly as bright or consistent across a, a piece of fabric, for example, where you just see uniformity.

Bret Tollgaard: That is certainly one of the challenges that we’ve actually encountered when people say, “Oh, well, I have a UV light.

I bought it on Amazon. I bought it from eBay. I bought it from somewhere where that 200 watt listed on that is not truly 200 watts, or the light intensity, [00:08:00] uh, that they, you know, claim to have. UV cure materials need the correct wavelength. They also need the correct light intensity on that surface to guarantee your depth of cure and to make sure that you’re truly bonding to the base substrate behind you.

The thicker you go, the more light intensity you’re going to need. So a lot of the knockoff materials really just don’t do it justice, um, and which is why we’ve, you know, intentionally built the LED curing systems that we have to cure with our prepregs, uh, and putties and adhesives. So they are all true one, uh, one single system.

Allen Hall: We’ve looked at different light systems here at Weather Guard, and I know we’re engineer- we’re an engineering group, right? So we’re gonna go look to see what these different lights are, and are they really truly putting out the frequency of light which is written down on the ad. It’s amazing, like, uh, the variation you get light to light.

It really depends on what the source is, but, uh, to test a light, just to test a light to make sure it’s putting out the right intensity at [00:09:00] the right frequency is super expensive. So you can buy a several thousand dollar sensor to check your hundred dollar light, or you could actually buy the right thing from SudRes and have the proper light because it does change the cure rate and what the result is.

So- Y- y- is it easy to tell, Brett, when I, if I have a light in the truck, do I know it’s the right frequency? How do I even tell that, uh, to know that I’m using the right stuff?

Bret Tollgaard: Well, if it says SunRes on the backside of that lamp, you have a guaranteed method of knowing exactly what that is. Um, we have the most broad industrial use UV lamp on the market, like, first and foremost.

There are several that cost four to five times what we do, but a lot of times they’re also a really small aperture, so they’re only curing a small footprint, which is why we’ve become the kind of gold standard for all UV cure repair solutions out there using a SunRes lamp. Um, we just make the best product, not to toot our own horn [00:10:00] too much.

Um, but it, it really serves the need of what these industrial customers in wind and other industries are looking for. Um, and I’m sure there are other systems out there. I’ve personally tried and tested dozens of different lamps out there to always see what’s on the market, and what we provide is just above and beyond performance-wise for the cost.

Allen Hall: And one of the, the questions that comes up with the light when we talk to operators, like, “Where do I get the light?” Well, you, you call Brett at SunRes and you buy yourself a light. The second question that happens is, has the OEM blessed this material? Have they validated the material? Has it been through material testing?

Has the OEM done structural loading on the material? Did I know that as a repair material, it’s actually gonna adhere to my polyester blade or my epoxy blade or whatever this thing is? Do I know that this is gonna work? Sunrise has been through a number of, uh, OEMs at this point. What’s the status of your OEM [00:11:00] relationships there?

Bret Tollgaard: Very, very solid, and constantly getting approved by more and more OEMs. Um, we’ve sold over 35,000 square meters of prepreg into the wind market alone. And with that has come a variety of, uh, you know, engineering approved jobs versus fully validated materials. We now have 20-year lifespans on a variety of different OEM, uh, wind parts.

And so our epoxy and polyester, we adhere phenomenal to both. And yeah, our prepregs are getting, uh, used more and more in every single application.

Allen Hall: I, I assume you can provide references if, if someone were to ask, like an ISP, “Can I talk to the OEM about this?”

Bret Tollgaard: Absolutely. Uh, and it, it’s, you know, no secret.

General Electric’s been one of the big pushers of UV cure materials now for a while, um, for both their epoxy and the LM polyester blades. Um, but there are several European OEMs that are actively, you know, certifying the materials as well.

Allen Hall: Oh, that’s a smart move on their part. [00:12:00] Uh, one of the considerations for using a UV material is training.

Uh, do I need to do special training for my technicians? Is it really different than epoxy? Do I have to do any training at all? What’s the level of skill that would be in- involved in using a, a UV prepreg?

Bret Tollgaard: The reality is, if you have any bit of experience of knowing what a resin and a fiberglass and wetting things out, UV just makes that job even simpler.

So all the repair technicians that have gone through repair academies, been trained on the, on site or on the job, that have gotten their hands dirty, as we like to call it, with making some, uh, composite repairs, UV is just gonna simplify the process even more. Um, in 2026 and 2027, we’re actually starting to work, uh, uh, more closely now with a variety of the blade repair groups or academies and training facilities to also get UV cure in people’s hands so they don’t experience, uh, for the first time when they’re out, you know, getting a job with one of these other [00:13:00] OEMs that are recommending use our material now instead of, uh, epoxy systems.

Allen Hall: Mm. And all the experience that’s happened at, at Sunrise, I, I don’t know if a lot of people realize that you’re a roughly 40-year-old company. You’ve been around a long time, although you’re nowhere near 40. But the company has been around a long time. What was the origin of SunRes? Uh, because it wasn’t necessarily in wind, right?

Wind is sort of an afterm- after-market kind of application where it kind of transferred over. But what, what was the core start of the business?

Bret Tollgaard: Yeah, no, we were founded in September of 1986. So in just a couple of weeks, we’ll actually hit our 40-year anniversary.

Allen Hall: Wow.

Bret Tollgaard: SunRes was originally founded, uh, in, uh, once again, the, the mid-’80s for just UV cure formulations in general.

Spent the first several decades, uh, of its life being primarily an R&D, uh, kind of based group, um, formulating specialty UV cure solutions for mostly thick wall fiber reinforced applications. So anything from [00:14:00] boat hulls to, uh, drones to, uh, you know, bathtub repair and saddle trees. Um, we’ve sold really the, a whole kind of gambit of very broad basic systems to incredibly advanced high precision, uh, you know, applications.

And so as we grew and evolved the, the formulas and the recipes to cert- uh, to solve certain needs, now we’re kind of elevating that to a more, uh, manufacturing based business and offering true repair solutions as opposed to just R&D and working on developing solutions to repair something.

Allen Hall: And that’s growing outside of just the pre-preg processing materials, packaging it up and shipping it.

And y- you’re now getting more into specific solutions in wind, which is really exciting. The leading edge erosion issue is plaguing a lot of turbine blades in the United States and, and globally. Australia has a big problem with it, and there’s a, some other places that I’ve seen some pretty [00:15:00] rough looking blades, India being another one.

Uh, the solution to go fix those blades has generally involved, uh, putting someone up on a rope, a- applying material, fiberglass back down, trying to repair holes in particular, and trying to cap that off. But now there’s some new materials that can speed up the process to at least get you back to a, a surface, a usable surface that you could then apply an LEP or whatever you decided to do there.

What do those new materials look like and, and how are they being used today?

Bret Tollgaard: Yeah, no, great question. So ultimately there are broad– uh, you know, a really, really broad, uh, array of challenges that wind in particular really kind of faces. And so developing UV cure solutions to fit more of those than just a small little repair patch or a crack has been something that we’ve been working on for a while with a variety of different groups.

Um, but leading edge in particular, not just protection, but also the rehabilitation of those leading [00:16:00] edges. So we’ve done that in a couple of different ways. Some have been some pre-consolidated repair patches that we’ve built, where a specific blade requires, um, you know, a, a design package to reinforce certain areas, whether it was, uh, too many ply drops in a certain zone or an area of high wear.

Uh, but the other ones kind of more recently are starting to build, I’ll call like a fiber reinforced type putty, where you’re actually filling gaps, filling holes, filling imperfections with a more structural repair solution before then coming over the top with an LEP for the protection of that blade long term.

And so being able to provide solutions for both, uh, hand, but then also robotics is something that we’ve been focusing on. So repair technicians can do it, but then also make sure that the, uh, robotics industry has the materials that they need to be able to do that in a fast and timely manner.

Allen Hall: So these new materials can be applied with a robot, I just heard.

How does that work? Is it a cartridge system or a liquid system? How– Is it sprayed on? [00:17:00] W- how does this thing work?

Bret Tollgaard: Ultimately, it’s whatever that robotics company says that they would like and need. And so we build, uh, certain things to meet different demands on both of those aspects. But some are spray, some are coated, some are troweled, uh, all of which though, uh, include applying a UV cure material, uh, and then curing it to then make sure that they get the correct, uh, you know, mechanical and thermal properties for that leading edge or that leading edge re- rehabilitation.

Allen Hall: That must be a huge time saver.

Bret Tollgaard: Phenomenally so. Uh, the robotics companies are, are pretty happy with the way that things are starting to unfold, and then same with the, uh, owner-operators. Like when you can go and you can have a robot Fix, sand, or sand, clean, fill that leading edge without a technician having to be up there.

Tremendous amount of time savings, and then also just liability and repeatability, um, which is always an important thing, is having extremely high quality throughout that entire process, uh, and then recording it and everything like [00:18:00] that too.

Allen Hall: Well, that’s the key to any leading edge repair that I’ve seen, is the repeatability and controlling the, uh, sometimes the uncontrollables, trying to add a little bit of restriction about what you’re doing, how you’re doing it to get the consistency in the product.

Because there’s a lot of products on the market right now, uh, that supposedly will do this thing But there’s– we have seen a variety of outcomes even for the same material. C- moving to something that’s a little more standard and, and particularly UV-based, where it’s stable, shelf-stable, right? I mean, th-there’s no expiration date necessarily.

You, you probably put a time limit on it, but it’s shelf-stable, so I have a, a barrel of it in the, in the pickup truck. I can probably still use it. But, uh, what am I thinking about when I start to make those decisions? Because this is all new to most of the industry. They haven’t seen this. What– some of the things should they be considering when they’re thinking about, “I got a leading edge repair.[00:19:00]

It’s kinda ugly. It’s probably cat three, maybe cat four. Where am I going here? Who am I talking to, and why am I thinking about UV?”

Bret Tollgaard: Yeah, I mean, ultimately it comes down to, you know, a variety of value that we provide the customers. Um, as you said, being shelf-stable is incredibly important. The reality is a lot of these repair materials aren’t being stored in a temperature-controlled warehouse.

It’s being stored in someone’s trailer, and they’re gonna use half of a cartridge, or they’re gonna use four prepregs, and they’re gonna have six more sitting on the shelf for two more months until they move to another job that they’re gonna go and do something else. And so the materials themselves need to have an incredibly long shelf life, but also be able to handle those varying temperatures.

Like if you’re out in the middle of Texas here in the United States, it can be 130, 140 degree Fahrenheit inside that trailer during the day, but at the same time at night, you can have temperatures below freezing in certain areas, and it needs to be able to withstand both of those extreme temperature environments.

Um, that being said, [00:20:00] you buy from a group like us or you buy it from Fibre Glast where it is stored properly, and it can be shipped next day to, to you on site. Uh, it simply, it, yeah, it simply helps, uh, everyone long term, uh, make sure that they have the materials that they need.

Allen Hall: I would be remiss not to talk about our Strike Tape Ultra product, which is a partnership between Weather Guard, Lightning Tech, and SunRez.

Uh, it’s a project that we’ve been working on for probably two years now, maybe a little bit longer. It, it’s been a tremendous amount of effort, engineering time and materials-wise, and learning about different, uh, performance of a, uh, particular resin system and trying to figure out what works. But, uh, there is now a solution, and SunRez is producing a lot of Strike Tape Ultra parts at the minute Really durable, based on Sunrise material, but you’re using not just our, our, our obviously our, our recent, uh, experiments and all the data, [00:21:00]but this goes back almost 40 years.

You’re, you’re bringing 40 years of knowledge to the table to come up with a solution for a really difficult environment.

Bret Tollgaard: Yeah, and we’ve had to certainly rely on the past experiences that we have learned along the way. Um, you know, part of the challenges of working for the last year or two years together on this was to truly make as robust and durable of a system as we can.

And so having this new 7303 vinyl ester-based system, uh, which we’re not only using for you but also using as the primary component for our LEP system, uh, it definitely has the durability and the longevity for, uh, your strike tapes, uh, in particular to be, uh, to withstand all the elements and all the abrasion and all the erosion that’s gonna come its way for years.

Allen Hall: Now, I, I’ve watched you at trade shows take a hammer to some of your prepreg materials and demonstrate you can cure it within a couple of minutes, and you’re hitting it with a hammer and it’s super tough. We’ve done that at Weather Guard with the Strike Tape Ultra. It’s [00:22:00] crazy durable, and I don’t understand the chemistry of what you guys do.

You’re experts in UV and all the chemicals and how to make this thing work, but it is truly remarkable how tough that material is and UV stable it is and how quick it is to cure and to get onto a blade in a couple of minutes. It’s quite remarkable, and the, the rain erosion performance of it has been crazy good.

Uh, it’s a real game changer.

Bret Tollgaard: We’re extremely proud of the way that, uh, this has all kind of unfolded, and it has been a long time to kinda work through and iterate through the different formulas. Um, but the combination of the extremely hard and durable system that we have as the overcoating combined with our UV cure adhesive, AKA surface primer, uh, to act as that really, um, gooey, high elongation, great stress distribution kinda medium, uh, to then get that into the blade, it’s the perfect one-two combo, [00:23:00] and being able to cure in just a couple of minutes is only, uh, icing on the cake.

Allen Hall: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s quite good. Uh, I know, uh, when people hear this podcast, you’re gonna get a lot of reach-out because we’re kinda getting near the end of the typical Northern Hemisphere season. It’s gonna get chilly here in about six to eight weeks since when we’re recording. How do people get ahold of you and start talking about repair patches and materials for this year, and also for next season?

Bret Tollgaard: The easiest way is gonna be reach out to us, uh, via email, info@sunrez.com, sales@sunrez.com. We’ll put you in touch with, uh, all the right people within Sunrez to make that happen for you. Um, and similarly too, groups like com- uh, Fibre Glast have been stocking and storing the material for years. They’re really, really great at tailoring the exact amount of material that you need for a given job site.

They’re willing to break it down to individual patches, single things of primer, putty. Uh, you come to us, you’re gonna have larger MOQs to be able to buy [00:24:00] boxes and rolls, uh, directly off the shelf. But at the same time too, we’re happy to get customers whatever products they need as quickly as they need, and put them in touch with the right people to do so.

Allen Hall: So you just Google Sunrez, S-U-N-R-E-Z, or just go to sunrez.com, and you’ll get to the Sunrez site, and you can learn a whole bunch about the materials of what is offered. But you need to, to call Brett and call the team at Sunrez, uh, to, to get the solution for you. And it is, uh, really great working with Sunrez.

It, it’s been a pleasure, honestly.

Bret Tollgaard: My, uh, my business development manager, Gerhard, will certainly have me say, “Let’s direct all that to Gerhard instead of Brett.” So he’ll be happy to get you all the info that you need. Um, but yeah, so ultimately, we’re an extremely customer-driven company, and we bend over backwards as often as necessary to get customers what they need in the time that they need it.

It’s something that we really pride ourselves on. Uh, it’s also how we developed all these new, uh, technologies and materials to, to make customers’ [00:25:00]lives easier in the field. And so even as all of our wind portfolios, you know, grow and expands for product line offerings, um, we’re certainly interested in learning about what your challenge in particular is, and how we can best help you solve that challenge.

Allen Hall: Yeah, so if you have a blade challenge right now, and most operators do, you better be checking out sunrez.com. Brett, it’s so great to have you back on the podcast. Love having you on, and we’ll speak again soon.

Bret Tollgaard: Looking forward to it. Thank you, Allen.

https://weatherguardwind.com/sunrez-wind-om/