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The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 started Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). These are available when buying specific eco-friendly systems like solar hot water or heat pumps, small wind turbines, hydro systems, or solar panels.

When you get these Renewable Energy Certificates, you can sell them for cash or use them for a discount when you buy the eco-friendly system.

Different names like solar energy credit, solar credit, green energy certificate, or renewable energy credit are also known as RECs.

The Renewable Energy Target (RET) uses RECs to encourage more renewable energy. It was set up to add 9,500 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy annually by 2010.

There are two parts to the RET management RECs: the Large Scale Renewable Energy Target and the Small Scale Renewable Energy Scheme.

Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET)

The Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) encourages building substantial renewable energy power stations in Australia.

It does this through a market where Renewable Energy Certificates are made and sold. These certificates are called large-scale generation certificates (LGCs).

The idea behind LRET is to give reasons for making renewable energy power stations around Australia. These power stations make large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs), which they can sell.

The people or companies who buy LGCs are:

  1. Businesses under the RET (mostly electricity sellers) must buy LGCs from the market and give these certificates to the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) each year.
  2. Companies and individuals who want to show they’re reducing emissions, using renewable electricity, or using offsets like Australian carbon credit units.

LRET is valid till 2030.

Small-Scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES)

The Small-Scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) manages Small-scale Technology Certificates (STCs).

These are given to small renewable energy systems like home and small-business solar panels, solar water heaters, heat pump water heaters, and small hydro and wind systems.

Like LRET, SRES encourages people and small businesses to buy small-scale systems. The STCs made by these systems are sold to businesses under RET, who have to buy STCs to balance their emissions.

SRES is also valid until 2030.

How to Obtain Renewable Energy Certificates with Compliance Requirements

You must follow specific rules if you make or sell renewable energy in Australia. These rules are called compliance requirements.

Here’s what you need to do:

Make Renewable Energy: If you produce renewable energy, like solar or wind power, you must prove it. You do this by getting Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).

Sell RECs: If you sell renewable energy, you must also sell the RECs. It shows that you made renewable energy.

Buy RECs: If you’re a company that sells electricity, you need to buy RECs. It helps to support renewable energy.

Report to the Government: You must tell the government about the RECs you bought or sold. This is important for keeping track of renewable energy in the country.

By following these compliance requirements, you help Australia use more renewable energy and take care of the environment.

Benefits of Renewable Energy Certificates

Using Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) can bring several benefits to businesses in Australia.

Here’s how:

Environmental Impact:

Businesses can show their commitment to reducing their environmental impact by using RECs.

RECs prove that the business’s electricity comes from renewable sources like solar or wind power. It eventually helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.

Meeting Renewable Energy Targets:

Many businesses have goals to increase their use of renewable energy. RECs help them achieve these targets by providing a way to track and demonstrate their renewable energy usage.

It can enhance the business’s reputation as environmentally responsible and attract environmentally conscious customers.

Cost Savings:

In some cases, businesses can receive financial incentives or subsidies for using renewable energy and generating RECs.

Additionally, using renewable energy sources can lead to long-term cost savings on energy bills, as renewable energy often has lower operating costs than traditional fossil fuels.

Marketing and Branding Opportunities:

Businesses can use their commitment to renewable energy and RECs as a marketing tool. Displaying certifications or badges indicating the use of renewable energy can attract environmentally conscious customers who prefer to support sustainable businesses.

It can help businesses differentiate themselves from competitors and build a positive brand image.

Regulatory Compliance:

In some cases, businesses may be required by regulations or industry standards to use a certain percentage of renewable energy. RECs provide a way for businesses to demonstrate compliance with these requirements and avoid potential penalties or fines.

Energy Consumption Analysis

Analyzing the energy consumption of Australian businesses involves looking at various sectors and industries to understand how much energy they use and for what purposes.

Here’s a broad overview:

Manufacturing:

Manufacturing industries are significant energy consumers in Australia. They use energy for operating machinery, heating, cooling, LED lighting, and powering equipment.

Energy-intensive industries like steel, cement, and chemicals consume large amounts of electricity and fuel for production processes.

Commercial Buildings:

Offices, retail stores, hotels, and other commercial buildings also consume a considerable amount of energy. This energy is used for lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, and running office equipment such as computers, printers, and HVAC systems.

Transportation:

Businesses rely on transportation to move goods and services, contributing to energy consumption. This includes on-road transportation using vehicles fueled by petrol, diesel, or electricity and off-road transportation like shipping and aviation.

Agriculture:

Agriculture is another sector that consumes significant energy, particularly for irrigation, machinery operation, and processing facilities. Energy is used for powering tractors, pumps, refrigeration units, and other equipment.

Hospitality and Tourism:

Hotels, restaurants, and tourism-related businesses also consume energy for lighting, heating, cooling, cooking, and running appliances. Energy usage in this sector can vary depending on factors like occupancy rates and the size of the facility.

Information Technology:

With the increasing digitization of businesses, IT infrastructure plays a significant role in energy consumption. Data centers, servers, networking equipment, and other IT systems require electricity for operation and cooling.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs):

SMEs collectively form a substantial portion of the business landscape in Australia.

While individual SMEs may have lower energy consumption compared to larger enterprises, their cumulative energy usage is significant across various sectors such as retail, food services, professional services, and construction.

Analyzing the energy consumption of Australian businesses involves examining data on electricity, natural gas, petrol, diesel, and other energy sources consumed by different sectors.

This analysis helps identify opportunities for energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy adoption, and sustainability initiatives to reduce overall energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

RECs in Different States and Territories

States and Territories in Australia have their ways of supporting carbon farming projects and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Land Restoration Fund (LRF) helps landholders and farmers develop carbon farming projects in Queensland. The government buys “premium” carbon credits from these projects, which include environmental, economic, social, and First Nations benefits.

Western Australia’s Carbon Farming and Land Restoration Program offers funding for new carbon farming projects and grants for developing new carbon sequestration methods.

The Northern Territory supports greenhouse gas reduction activities on Aboriginal land through the Aboriginal Carbon Industry Strategy.

South Australia focuses on protecting and restoring coastal ecosystems through its Blue Carbon Strategy.

Tasmania provides grants and rebates to assist farmers in entering the carbon market and supports landscape and riverine health activities through the Landcare Action Grants Program.

Victoria’s Growing Jobs in Land Restoration and Carbon Storage program supports revegetation and carbon farming projects on public and private land.

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and New South Wales (NSW) focus on increasing renewable energy uptake and other initiatives to reduce emissions without separate schemes for carbon farming.

Each state and territory has an approach to support carbon farming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, depending on its priorities and resources.

The Price and the Effectiveness of RECs

The cost of RECs depends on how many are available compared to how many people want them. The price decreases if many RECs are available, but only a few want them. But the price goes up if there aren’t enough RECs for everyone who wants them.

Electricity retailers must buy RECs and give them to the Clean Energy Regulator annually. Sometimes, when the price of RECs is high, it’s cheaper for the retailers to pay a fine instead of buying enough RECs.

In Australia, we’re making more renewable energy. This means there’s more renewable energy available in the market and more RECs, too.

What does this Mean for Energy Buyers and Sellers?

After 2030, we need to think about how we certify renewable energy. By adding more qualities to the certificates, sellers can offer different types of renewable energy, and buyers can choose the ones that match their goals better.

Whether you’re building a project, selling electricity, or buying renewable energy, there will be new opportunities to explore in 2024.

Contact Cyanergy for any renewable energy needs for your business. Get a free solar quote today!

Your Solution Is Just a Click Away

The post Renewable Energy Certificates For Australian Business appeared first on Cyanergy.

https://cyanergy.com.au/blog/renewable-energy-certificates-for-australian-business/

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Renewable Energy

No Hungry Kids

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I just saw a question on social media: do you want your tax dollars going to feed someone else’s kids??

Yes.  I’d like to live in a world in which no kids go hungry, and I don’t have a problem contributing to create that world.

This may sound like a tall order, especially given the variability of wealth in the world’s countries.

But let’s stick with the U.S. for a minute.  In the US, nearly 14 million children live in food-insecure households, a statistic that has risen recently, with some reports indicating that one in five children face hunger.

This is disgraceful.

So again, yes.  Please sign me up to allocate a portion of my tax dollars to feeding hungry kids.

No Hungry Kids

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Renewable Energy

Wind Power Succeeds to Meet Energy Needs

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Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Wind Power Succeeds to Meet Energy Needs

While European wind giants like Maersk and Ørsted face cancellations and layoffs, America’s offshore wind projects in Virginia and Massachusetts are surging ahead, proving that genuine energy demand trumps political headwinds when the physics and economics align.

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 FacebookYouTubeTwitterLinkedin 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!

It’s an interesting time to be in wind energy….In a shipyard in Singapore, there’s a vessel worth four hundred and seventy-five million dollars. It’s ninety-eight percent complete, built specifically to install wind turbines off the coast of New York. And it’s just floating there… abandoned.

Maersk Offshore Wind walked away from the contract last week. Just cancelled it. Left Seatrium, the shipbuilder, holding a near-finished vessel with nowhere to go. The ship was supposed to build Empire Wind, but now lawyers are circling and nobody knows what happens next.

This is happening at the same time Orsted, the company that pioneered offshore wind energy, announces it’s cutting two thousand jobs. That’s a quarter of their entire workforce. In Germany, Eno Energy just filed for bankruptcy, leaving two hundred and eighty workers unemployed and the state government holding thirteen million euros in loan guarantees.

You might think the wind industry is collapsing.

But, you’d be wrong. Very wrong.

Thirty miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, workers just accomplished something remarkable. They hammered one hundred and seventy-six massive foundations into the Atlantic seabed, finishing the job in just five months… ahead of schedule… in what everyone agrees was perfect weather. And the weather along the East Cost of the US has been splendid this year.

This is Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, and when it starts generating power next March, it will be America’s largest offshore wind farm. Two-point-six gigawatts of power, enough for half a million homes.

But here’s what makes this story truly odd in today’s US political environment….

Republican Congresswoman Jen Kiggans from Virginia Beach stood up on the House floor last month to defend this wind farm. Not attack it… defend it. She explained that this project provides a five hundred million dollar power grid upgrade to Naval Air Station Oceana. She called it a matter of national security.

House Speaker Mike Johnson from Louisiana, oil country, personally told reporters he delivered Kiggans’ message directly to the President. “We want to do right by Virginians,” he said.

Think about that for a moment. In this political climate, a Republican Speaker is defending wind power. Why? Because Virginia desperately needs electricity. Data centers are consuming power at unprecedented rates, the military requires reliable energy, and this project has already created two thousand American jobs while pumping two billion dollars into the economy.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, something interesting is also developing. Chinese manufacturer Ming Yang Smart Energy just announced they’re investing two billion dollars to build a turbine factory in Scotland. They’re promising fifteen hundred jobs for Scottish workers, with production starting in twenty twenty-eight. The job creations and investment amount sounds great, but there are still many hurdles to overcome. The reliability and insurability of Ming Yang turbines is still a hot topic amongst wind energy engineers. And security concerns with Chinese turbines will surely raise eyebrows of the UK, EU and US governments. Only time will tell….

Remember that ship floating in Singapore? Here’s where the story gets interesting. Dominion has just taken delivery of Charybdis, the first American-built wind turbine installation vessel. When it finishes its work in Virginia, it will be available for other projects — like the Empire Wind project off the coast of New York. One company’s cancellation could become another’s opportunity. We shall see….

And before I forget, up in Massachusetts, without fanfare or political drama, Vineyard Wind has quietly reached fifty percent capacity. Thirty turbines are now spinning, delivering four hundred megawatts to the New England grid.

Here’s what years of covering energy markets has taught me: Politics is temporary, but physics is forever.

The companies struggling today made a bet that political support … and interest rates….would remain stable. The projects succeeding made a different bet entirely. They bet on need and they have flexibility.

Virginia needs power. The military needs energy security. Data centers need electricity to keep the internet running. And when genuine need meets engineering capability, politics usually steps aside.

That abandoned ship in Singapore won’t stay abandoned for long. Those unemployed German and Danish engineers will find new jobs.

Because here’s the secret that wind energy professionals understand but politicians sometimes forget: We’re not running out of wind, we’re running out of power….and money.

The move to lower cost power sources shouldn’t really be about politics anymore. It should be about pocketbook math. And the simple reality that our electricity demand is growing faster than older energy sources can supply.

Ultimately the winners in this industry won’t be the ones with the best political connections or the loudest voices.

They’ll be the ones who understand that when you’re building infrastructure designed to last generations, you’d better be building something the world needs and can afford for years to come.

https://weatherguardwind.com/wind-energy-needs/

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Renewable Energy

SkySpecs Customer Forum Recap with Josh Goryl

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Weather Guard Lightning Tech

SkySpecs Customer Forum Recap with Josh Goryl

Allen and Joel speak with SkySpec’s Chief Revenue Officer, Josh Goryl, at the SkySpecs Customer Forum. With record attendance, the forum emphasized industry collaboration, data amalgamation, and the application of AI for optimizing wind and solar renewable energy assets. SkySpecs announced their expansion into the solar industry, leveraging their established wind solutions to streamline data management and operational strategies across renewable energy sectors.

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 FacebookYouTubeTwitterLinkedin 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!

Allen Hall: [00:00:00] I’m Alan Hall, host of the Uptime Winner Energy podcast, and I’m here with Joel Saxon and Josh Gar, chief Revenue Officer with Sky Spec, and Josh brought us out this week to participate in the Skys Pick Customer Forum 2025, which as it turns out, has been the largest attendance this year.

Joel Saxum: Yeah,

Allen Hall: it’s grown every single year. Yeah. It’s a room full of people, all experts in blades all here to learn about the next generation of skys specs, blades and

Joel Saxum: CMS predict CMS predict analysis and that’s why it’s growing so much. Right. How, what kind of percentage of the capacity in the states do you think is represented here?

Allen Hall: We, we should have ran the number, I should have came prepared for this, but, um, I mean, I would say. 75%. Yeah. 80%. Okay. Yeah, that’s, you’re talking all the, all the big operators are, are here. Yep. I think, uh, 21 total organizations represented over 40 experts, blades, drivetrain, few senior management as well, and asset management [00:01:00] engineering.

So it’s an awesome, awesome group. We keep, uh, ev It’s tough though. Every year we have to step it up a bit, so we’re kind of, I think we’re outgrowing the space that we’re at here and excited for. Yeah, we’re bursting at the seams. Uh, last year Joel and I were invited to come and it’s the first time that we had been here and I thought, wow, this is a pretty full room.

And this year, like, okay, she’s back. We’re we’re, we are sitting next to the door right now because everybody is trying to learn what Sky Specs offers, what. Power do I have on my desktop right now, but also what is coming and there’s a lot of new product releases happening that were announced just this morning.

Yeah, and I think the cool thing too, that’s it’s not often you’re able to get this many experts from operators together in one room, and even more so ones that cut across drive, train, CMS, all main components and. It can be tough to kind of keep everyone engaged ’cause everyone’s a domain expert in different, different areas.

But the conversations have been been incredible and I think even within [00:02:00] organizations as, as, as well. And so we’re trying to learn how do we help our customers come together more and, and collaborate across. And even just having these discussions that want to discuss pulled out of is fantastic. Just some of that collaboration between even people that are, that are at the same company, they don’t see each other as much.

Joel Saxum: There, there’s some cultural things playing out here that are funny to me because if you’re in wind and you’ve bounced around, if you’re an ISP or you’re at an operator, you know, some of the players and kind of how they act, how they keep their, their, their poker hands close to their chest and stuff. So you see some people sitting at a table and you see, and I noticed this yesterday, like the psychological look of things sails, right?

Mm-hmm. So I’m kind of looking at people listening and stuff and, and the, the one of the persons from an operator that usually does play things close to their hands mm-hmm. Was just kind of sitting there listening. Everyone’s like, what’s your opinion? What’s your opinion? He was like, uh, what’s yours? But, but that being said, the, the collaboration here has been fantastic.

Uh, uh, we were talking with Matt Stead earlier and he was saying mm-hmm. He, uh, was a part of a conversation where someone from Canada, someone from the us they shared some [00:03:00] information and they were like, that’s a amazing, thank you. Let’s swap cards. Different operators, you know, sharing things. Uh, we sat in a couple of the breakout sessions and the breakout sessions.

Yes, we had a presentation. Yes, we were walking through solutions and problems, but they, they devolved into amazing conversations where everybody in the room just kinda like turned to each other and were like, what do you think? How could we use this? Could you use that? Does this make sense? Um, and it’s, and it’s, it’s engineers.

It’s all engineers. Oh yeah. They’re geared to solve the problems and that’s what’s happening.

Allen Hall: Yeah. And, and I think at a macro level, right? Like it’s, it’s a lot of the same themes that, that everyone’s seeing. We’re, we’re talking about the, the same things. And a lot of it is how do we continue to do. More with less as these fleets grow mm-hmm.

There’s different issues that pop up every, every year and just having a tier. To your point, even even last year, last night I was talking to somebody and after the conference they stayed in touch with each other for four months and were talking weekly mm-hmm. On just different, uh, tools and tricks that they [00:04:00] were using to be more, more efficient.

Nothing. Confidential to their, their own organization, but more so how are they more efficient with the tools that they’re, that they’re using. So that’s where a lot of the value is if there’s only so many blade engineers and CMS engineers in the industry. And so it’s important that there’s opportunities for them to learn from each other and they’re, they’re not really competing with one another.

Once a turbines or the solar panels are deployed now, it’s about operational efficiency. And delivering that power. So every operator is maximizing the revenue and you really can’t do that today without Sky specs. You need to have blade data, you need to have CMS data, you need to have, uh, power curve information.

Mm-hmm. Like how your turbines are performing before you can even make sense. So the engineers. To me are finally accessing tools on a almost universally, that they didn’t have five years ago. Yeah. That are empowering them way beyond what they ever thought would be possible.

Joel Saxum: You can’t optimize, uh, an industrial fleet on a spreadsheet.

No. You can [00:05:00] maybe maintain some things and look at some part numbers and figures, a couple things out model wise. Right. But, and I know some good people that are really good with spreadsheets. Yep. But you need, you need tools. You need to, uh, be able to amalgamate your data. You need to be able to look at, I mean, this is one of the big things we’re talking about here.

Um, predict, prevent, perform. Yep. Or did I do it backwards? I’ve gotten it wrong all week. Prevent, predict. Perform. Perform. There you go. There you go. So, so, but looking at this saying, okay, so we have a foundation, we need inspections, we need these things, right? That is the foundation of the data. We have to have collections, whether it’s, uh, inspections, scada data, CMS data, whatever that may be.

Yes. Okay. Now it’s amalgamated into a platform. Now we can see this stuff. Mm-hmm. Now we can start running predictive analytics. We can start visualizing things. Yesterday you and I said, and, and. On the performance monitoring breakout session, and the data that was in that thing was just like, what about this?

You could use this data for that. You could use it for that. This is a great idea here. Now, this morning we talked, or we listened to, uh, Alan Larson from your team say, we’re gonna marry that [00:06:00] performance data with CMS data. Yep. And we’re gonna be able to look at, here’s your performance drop. Here’s what your CMS data is saying, and get real insights out of it.

And it sounds. To me, like I don’t know any other solution that’s never been done in the industry before.

Allen Hall: No, and and I think to your earlier point, it starts with that baseline and that health record and to be able to see, we’ve all been in the industry for some time now, and the level of maturity, even just year over year, we finally start to see it.

Right. And so another thing they brought up this morning was even just. Uh, preventative inspection programs. Years ago, it was, you know, maybe we’ll do 25, 30% of the fleet each year. And then after four or five years, we inspected everything. Well, it’s, it’s not that simple, right? There’s different makes and models, different risk tolerances.

Mm-hmm. And the arrangements with third parties is, is different. So, um, it’s, it’s kind of that intake valve and having all that data in, in one place. And, uh, fortunately we’re seeing most of the operators have taken big, big leaps over the course of the [00:07:00] last couple years to have all that data in, in one place.

And then from there it’s like, okay, how do I start to see trends. Across main components and optimize the repair windows. And now it’s about the fine tuning. And I think we’re getting there as, as an industry. And that’s why we, that’s one of the things we talked about. We’re excited about jumping into the solar and battery battery storage space.

’cause our customers said, Hey, a lot of these problems that we saw in wind and what you guys solved in blades and drivetrain, solar’s been in hypergrowth mode. We’ve done a lot of inspections, but data’s everywhere. Help us solve that problem.

Joel Saxum: Let’s pause there for a second. That’s a huge announcement.

Let’s do that announcement here.

Allen Hall: Yeah. So here, that’s what we announced now this morning, so we’ll, we’ll definitely have, have, uh, have, have more information very, very soon, soon on. Um, things have been moving, moving fast over the course of the last, last few months, but the reason why we’re, we’re diving into it is because, um, really we’ve al always been about following our customers and [00:08:00] helping them solve their, their biggest problems.

And we’re starting to hear, uh, that they want to bring the playbook. From wind, from wind o and m into, into solar. Um, again, earlier we were talking about how SCADA teams are not just looking at wind data. Mm-hmm. It’s across all their generating assets. And having one place for all that data is, is very, very important.

And I think where we can help our customers is getting all that data into one place and going from. Data capture to work order in whatever system that you have. It could be an ERP system, it could be, it could be in horizon, but there absolutely is a, is a need in that, in that space and we think we can really help out.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. Listening to the, uh, new, new Sky spec, C-C-E-C-T-O this morning, Ben Toan, he was talking about some of the architecture moves that you guys are making in the background to be able to make that, I don’t want, I don’t wanna simplify it, this, this far, but the copy paste of the wind playbook. Two Solar makes, it makes it easier for the future of if expanding [00:09:00]into other silos, doing more things, uh, making that platform.

One login. We can manage all of our assets and um, and do it the same way. Right. So as you guys have expanded in the last few years with. Inspections, tech enabled insights from the, the, the SMEs that are here, um, into the, using the digitalization tools and the qa qc process. We talked a bunch about that and, and your repair vendor management yesterday.

Yep. But being able to take all of those things that you guys have perfected and built over the years and wind. And boom, immediately be able to deploy that into solar. That’s gonna be a game changer for some people.

Allen Hall: Yeah, we’re, we’re super excited about it. And, and that’s what, so Ben Tor, who’s our, our new Chief Technology Officer is, talks a lot about a, a common data model and being able to, as we, as we start to scale.

It’s not just about a, a blade or a drivetrain gearbox, it’s, it’s about more, more than that. And being able to put in the solar data, whether it’s the panels, inverters, combiner boxes, and that ex expands further, right? And the battery storage and [00:10:00] other power generating assets. And I think that’s where we can, we can really help out.

So it’s kind of taking a step back a bit and thinking about, okay, how do we think about that model holistically, mm-hmm. Across renewable, uh, renewable assets. So excited for it. But again, don’t wanna get too far out over our skis here. So the first, first step is, is solar and, and working in partnership with our, with our customers on that.

And I think it’s big because a lot of the engineers we’ve been working with for the last several years that have been primarily wind focused, blade focused. Yeah. When you talk to them today. They’ll say, oh yeah, and I have a solar site that I’m now responsible for. Mm-hmm. And so they’re trying to learn the solar aspects pretty quickly, but staying in the same platform is huge because it reduces the cycle, learning cycle Yeah.

By quite a bit.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. I, we, and this is a, a, we’re gonna make a, well, let’s make a side announcement. Yeah. We just added another team member to the weather guard team. I hear you. You’ll hear more about that here in the next, in the coming weeks. But, uh, she came from a team that managed wind solar. And [00:11:00] battery storage with the same engineering group.

Right. And I think that that, like you said, is becoming onshore and offshore. Mm-hmm. It is becoming more and more common. Right. So you’re seeing that be engineering resource. We always talk about the shortage of technicians. Mm-hmm. But there’s a shortage of engineers and it’s shrinking in a lot of pools.

Yep. Right. There’s a lot of people who, one big beautiful deal thing, trying to cut budgets, changing operating models. So engineers are being asked to do more. The more with less thing, right? Yep. They’re being asked to do more with less. Well, how do you do that? You don’t do that by using spreadsheets. You do it by using a, a common tool set with the architecture that works together in something, you know, and one place that you can manage all these things.

Allen Hall: Oh, yeah. It’s the only way to do it. And as we go forward over the next year, what I’m really interested in is what new concepts, ideas, platform updates. They get implemented by the operators because you, you always come out every year. Mm-hmm. We talk to Sky Specs and we, we see all the new things that happen and then we wait for the, the feedback and then we get to the customer [00:12:00] forum.

You see what they just used over the last year, they’re gonna be more hungry for more data than ever before. Mm-hmm. Even though they may be a little bit on a reduced staff. So that puts a big onus and burden onto Skys specs to not just provide data. Well, here’s all the drone images. No, we need to be able to give you insights as to what is happening and what I should be doing about it.

That’s the benefit of being with Skys specs. Yeah. I, I think, I think that’s huge. Right. And definitely there’s always a, a call to move faster and faster. Yeah. Because there’s, there’s a lot of challenges. A year ago, we were sitting in this room and we talked a lot about internal inspections, and we were on a journey.

Ingesting that third party ingest, uh, data, but customers are like, Hey, it’d be really great if you had a robot for that too. Yeah. So, and now it’s sitting right out here’s sitting out there and our robots are very busy. So, yeah. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s stuff like that where it’s, it’s continuing to get that feedback.

We get it at forums like, like this. Right. And, um, for us too, especially as we get into those other spaces like doing. An [00:13:00] external drone inspection of a blade is just one piece of the puzzle, right? There’s a lot of other data streams that are critically important, and even it’s especially important in solar when there’s different data capture methods.

And again, our big focus is gonna be on that JE ingestion. Mm-hmm. And getting all that data into, into one place. Um, maybe in some cases we’ll do the data capture, but customers are sitting on a ton of data already. Right. And so it’s helping them digitize it, get it into that common data model, and then connect it to their work order system.

That is key. And there’s a lot of automation and rules that kind of go in to trigger the optimization. And that’s where I think we’re, we’re good at. And some of our customers have seen that success and wind and that value case. And that’s what it’s about for, for, for solar. So it’s an exciting, exciting time.

I’m gonna put you on,

on

Joel Saxum: the hook here. Okay.

Allen Hall: All right. So

Joel Saxum: our producer Claire, make a short outta this. We’re gonna put it on LinkedIn. Okay. This morning we heard and we saw a slide and some promises that said, expect transparency from skys specs. [00:14:00] So we’re here talking about all kinds of awesome developments.

Yep. A lot of things happening. Probably the most active product roadmap I think that I’ve seen at Skys specs. Mm-hmm. In since I’ve been around wind. Right. So. Expect more information. Q4, Q1, 26. Things rolling out. Um, you know, the, the, the jump into solar, some more CMS things, some the financial asset modeling.

Expect to hear more about that.

Josh Goryl: Mm-hmm.

Joel Saxum: Um, a repair vendor management, possibly moving into other components than just blades. Like there’s going to be a lot of announcements and the transparency promise, we got it this morning. Yep. We’re recording it now.

Allen Hall: Yeah, yeah. Well, you, you got it here, but I will say I have to leave some, uh, some stuff for the audience so they come, set out calls and do all that.

But yeah, to your, to your point, we’re super thrilled for what’s, what’s, what’s ahead. Um, so Alan, Alan Larson, who leads, leads product here, he had a, he a great presentation on some of the things that we’re gonna, we’re gonna be doing and you, we hit [00:15:00] on a lot of them. So solar. We have a, we have a POC now, uh, working with, with customers all already.

So we’ll see more of that in in 2026. Uh, thrilled to continue to work closer and closer with you guys at, at Weather Guard and a logic ping. And on the lightning stuff we’re going deeper and deeper into a lot of these lightning work workflows. It’s a big problem, right? Big, big problem, right? You, you guys know more than more than anyone.

And so bringing all that data into the horizon platform is, is, is, is key. So we’re, we’re, we’re thrilled about that. And then I think what’s also important is that we continue to do and improve what we’re good at. So even on the, the inspection side, I think there’s a lot that we can do in collaboration with customers to optimize those workflows.

So there’s a lot less kind of human in the loop, uh, because we have to continue to, to scale. And, um, we have amazing SMEs in this, in this industry, and it’s helping empower them to do, to do more. There is a [00:16:00] lot more inspection data than anyone could have ever imagined at this, at this point. And as an industry and as a company, we’ve gotten very good at, uh, moving faster, but it’s continuing to, to optimize and use AI and different tools.

Tools like that. Yeah. And I wanna talk about the AI. This, uh, improvements that have been made over the last year. There was a presentation yesterday talking about how to use AI to suss out images to make sure you’re getting what you’re paying for mm-hmm. On repairs. That was a monumental task, just listening to the engineering discussion of what it took to do that analysis.

How much AI comes in in 20, late 20, 25 into 26. Is that where the industry is headed? Because. Of the mass, massive amounts of data from every turbine. The images are so much better than they were three years ago, and they’re just, we’re taking more pictures. We’re doing it quarterly. Mm-hmm. So a yearly, or we’re not doing a third of the farm, we’re doing the whole farm year and the repair reports.

That was the big thing. Yeah. And the repair reports u the PDFs for ai. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So the, the, the data stream comes in and it’s, it’s huge. Are [00:17:00] you then thinking more AI over the next couple years, just so we can get that condensed data set down? No question. And in all areas we have to, and I think every organization is thinking about their Ai, AI strategy.

And, and for us it’s, it’s kind of going back to first principles and thinking on a workflow level. Right, and so there was a use case yesterday where we were talking about okay, reviewing images a lot more efficiently from the field. There’s thousands of PDF reports from rep from repair reports that our customers are trying to digitize.

How do we use AI to to do that? So we see those improvement. It feels like every couple weeks there’s something new that helps our team. And we’re trying to put more of those tools in the hands of our, our customer, but customers. But that is, um, one of the key pillars of our, of our strategy because we know we need it.

We know our customers need it, and how do we do that to together? So. What I will say, it’s not just AI that spits out the, an the right answer every single time. Right. Right. We, we always have, have, have work to [00:18:00] do, but we kind of think about it on a, on a workflow level and, and, um, how does it help us and everything we do every, every day.

Joel Saxum: Hmm. And the addition of Ben Torquing to the team is, is gonna spur that along. We, we heard from him this morning, man. That guy’s got it going on.

Allen Hall: Oh yeah, Ben, Ben, Ben has been fantastic. So Ben, uh, has been with us for about two months now. He’s our new Chief tech technology officer, and he is an AI background, uh, enterprise architecture background.

So that’s one of the other areas too, even outside of e uh, AI is being able to integrate to other third party platforms. We deal with utilities and IPPs. There’s a lot of big systems and being able to do that in a flexible way. That’s, that’s quick. Um, and, and works best for, for both sides. We know it’s not realistic that every single person every day is working in horizon.

Um, but it’s getting all that engineering and asset management data into the, into the right hands and doing that through some of these third party connections. So another area [00:19:00] where we’re gonna continue to, to level up and, and grow as an organization. So if you’re an asset manager and you are not using Skys specs, I don’t even know who that would be today.

But if you’re an engineer, you’re not actively on the Horizon platform and or if you’re on the Horizon platform and you wanna learn all the things that you missed this week. Yeah. How do they get ahold of you, Josh, to get the update? Yeah, I would say, um, I’m definitely gonna, I’ll leave my kind of contact information behind.

You can contact me directly. Always our sales teams. We have a sales@skysspecsdot.com, that goes to all of our account account executives and our technical sales manager. So depending on the, the area of need, we’d be happy to kinda set up, even if it’s just a discovery call and, um, with no agenda to kind of help and assess.

What you have, have going on, and I’m sure there’s areas where we can, we can help and yeah, if you have solar assets, you better be calling Skys picks now and getting that turned on. That’s right. Yeah. We’re, we’re super, super excited. And I think too, like we’re, we’re in it to, to learn and we know everyone has a different [00:20:00] operating strategy and may think about, uh, the world a little bit differently.

And so it’s important that we, we kind of take a step back and, and learn from you all. So we’ve kind of always taken that, taken that approach. And we can move fast too. Josh, you love having you on the podcast and love being at the customer forums. They’re very, yeah. Thanks for the invite. Uh, yeah, they’re eye-opening every single time and, uh, we get to talk to so many people.

So, Josh, thank you so much for inviting us and, and thanks so much for being on the podcast. No, the thing I’ll say too is, I, I can’t thank the two of you and, and Claire enough and just kind of the, the level of support and engagement and you guys have really helped level up our forum the last couple years.

So it means a, means a ton.

Joel Saxum: Thanks. Appreciate it.

https://weatherguardwind.com/skyspecs-customer-forum/

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