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Wind Energy Conferences: Are They Worth it?
Rosemary just got back from a conference and, like many of us recently, feels discouraged. Attendees and meetings were insightful, but the presentations and panels lacked impact. Allen has often felt the same. The two unpack their issues with recent wind energy conferences and discuss possible solutions to make them more valuable.
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Allen Hall: Welcome to the special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, along with my great co host, Rosemary Barnes, who is just back, fresh back from the Australia Wind Energy 2024 Conference in, of all places, Melbourne, Australia. And Rosemary and I were just talking offline about some of the proceedings and the events that happened in Melbourne, and I thought it’d be a good discussion to get out into the greater uptime audience.
Rosemary, first off, welcome back, and can you give us just a couple of just top level what was going on in Melbourne australia at this wind energy conference?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, it was actually really focused on offshore wind this time. We I would say two thirds, three quarters, maybe more of the sessions were like explicitly about offshore wind, it seemed, and when it wasn’t explicitly about it, then people were trying to shoehorn it in, which.
On the one hand, it makes sense because that’s the, next big exciting thing coming. But on the other hand, we have literally zero offshore wind currently, and we have many things that could be improved with our current onshore wind rollout. I did think that there, it was a bit unbalanced in that way.
This conference, it was amazing in terms of everybody shows up to it. I, I think I was just back to back meetings the entire time really targeted at all the people that I, Wanted to talk to for, the various projects that I’ve got going on. So in that sense, it was incredibly successful and and had a great time.
But yeah, when I did find the time to step into some of the presentations, which is what you pay for after all, it’s 1, 500 for two days. And yeah, the sessions that I went to, they’re just getting. Worse and worse. It feels less and less like anybody cares what the experience is like for the attendees, what they might be hoping to get out of it.
And it’s just purely about extracting money from everybody, extract money from the exhibitors, extract money from the sponsors, extract money from the keynote speakers. People don’t realize that the keynote speakers are all, they’re all paying to stand up there and speak to you like, like a lot.
Yeah, pretty significant amount. And some of them are good, but you don’t know ahead of time. And for the most part, people pay their 10 grand or whatever it is and stand up there and give you a sales pitch. And that’s not valuable to the majority of the audience. Yeah, another complaint just on the panel discussions.
The panels are just way too big. You have a panel with 10 different people on it you spend half of the session just introducing everybody and then they’ve got to give their little pitch about their company because they’ve got to get something out of it. And then, yeah, there’s not, there’s too many people to have an actual discussion, usually not many, or maybe not any questions from the audience, certainly not addressed in a meaningful way.
And you have sessions like a session on, it sounds like it should be interesting session on supply chain challenges. That’s a huge challenge for for wind everywhere in the world at the moment including Australia. And. You have a, an hour long session and they mentioned the word supply chain, but it’s just Oh yeah, and obviously supply chain is an issue.
And then, move on to talk about something else.
Allen Hall: And let me ask you about that. Let me ask you about that because I’ve been to a number of conferences this year and I don’t want to name the ones I’ve been to specifically, but the attendance in the discussions was quite small, typically, unless it was a technical subject, something that people were having problems with out in the field.
Thanks A couple I remember from this year or last year was like concrete foundations and problems with concrete foundations on turbines, right? That’s a big issue. Another one was lightning damage or qualification of damage to blades and trying to quantify what’s cat one versus cat five.
Trade and industry standard, that was well attended. But some of these that are policy driven or politically driven discussions are just not well attended. Is that the same thing you’re seeing on Australia?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. It’s actually interesting that you should mention foundations because that was the sole good keynote that I saw was a guy from total ground engineering who has a, his He presented some very compelling information about why the current standards for foundations are becoming less and less appropriate as the turbines get bigger and presented some innovative solutions towards that.
So that was a win. That was probably the sole interesting thing that I actually learned from sitting in the audience. Yeah, I and you’re right that they’re not very well attended because probably everyone is thinking the same thing as me, that this is not the point of the conference anymore.
The point is that people that you meet and yeah, early, like a few years ago when I moved back to Australia and I found myself with no network in Australian wind industry. So I went to the conferences and, I needed to Randomly chat to people and bump into people and pull people aside after a presentation to talk to them.
But this time, every single conversation I had gotten in touch with them. Either I already knew them or I had planned out ahead of time and got in touch on LinkedIn. So yeah, I’d say that the last bit of value that’s left at these, the conferences that way that they’re being run is the app that they have where you can actually, search by company, say who’s going to be there from the different companies and then.
You figure out who you want to talk to and send them a message. They also had a semi cool feature where you can send a meeting request. And if you put your availability in the calendar, then it will hook you up and you go into this room. It had a real speed dating vibe about it.
Everyone’s just like awkwardly looking around for who they’re supposed to be meeting. And then, yeah which, yeah, it was funny but that’s actually useful. But yeah, it’s just, it is becoming pretty hard to justify the price and. I don’t know. It’s been years since I went to a European conference.
So maybe they’re following this same same business model as the Australian and American ones now. But the last one I went to in Europe, it was really about the information, that they had people presenting and they would ask people to talk because they thought they had something interesting to say, not because they wanted them to pay a lot of money.
To get up there and talk. Yeah, so I just really think that they’ve got to rein it in a little bit. Get at least keep your panels of a moderate size. I know you’ve got to let every sponsor have a spot on the panel, keep it at a size that where it’s possible to have some sort of interesting communication happening.
Get a moderator that actually knows how to moderate with the audience in mind, okay. Given the session title and the participants, what are the audience going to want out of this? And then, keep people on track. Don’t allow it to become just like a a sales broacher of them, verbal sales broacher for their company talk about the things that people are hoping to learn about otherwise, are people going to keep on going?
Maybe it’s irrelevant, but I would have thought that exhibitors are only paying because. The number of people that come through the door and the same with the sponsors of the conference. They’re not going to want to sponsor. Yeah. Like 10, 000 keynote that has three people in the audience attending.
I could, you know what? They could better spend that money on sponsoring social media content instead and get a much wider view. Yeah. Viewership, listenership.
Allen Hall: Let me ask you why you think this is, because I have a couple of thoughts and I’m going to throw some at the wall here and you tell me what sticks.
First, is that they choose conference venues that are super exclusive slash expensive, like overly done. And so those conference places cost an enormous sum of money to book, to hold, and to then to make some money on as a conference exhibitor or a conference holder. The economics are not in your favor when you do that.
Used to be when we held conferences, I’ve been to a lot of Holiday Inn, Ramada kind of conferences in the United States, a lot less expensive, more attendance just because the entrance fee went down, then the hotel wasn’t as expensive. I think cause you’re, you mentioned the 1, 500 to attend.
There’s a reason why that is, I, was it one of those fancy Melbourne hotels or conference centers?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Yeah. It’s in the Melbourne convention center, which they all, they always are that. Yeah. They’re all there. And then. It’s fine. It’s nice, but it’s also expensive. You want to stay close.
So then your accommodation is expensive too.
Allen Hall: See that, that, that doesn’t help the attendees. So if you want people like Rosemary and me to attend, you need to be usually a notch down from that, generally speaking, because 1, 500 is 1, 500. It’s, it is real money. That if we’re a small business, both of us run small businesses, our own business, 1, 500 comes right out of our pocket and it better be worth it.
And what Roseberry is saying, and I think what I’m saying is it’s not worth, some of these conferences are not worth it right now.
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And it’s the time cost as well. Everybody’s the same. And actually I did meet up with a few people that are like, Oh my God, did you buy a delegate’s pass?
Why would you do that? It’s obviously you only need the exhibition pass. So that let. Yeah. Okay. I am. I’m starting to come around to that, but I do think that for 1, 500, if you had good sessions it should be allowing you to put your finger on the pulse and figure out, what’s the vibe of wind energy in Australia at the moment.
What are the big problems people are having and then, some potential solutions, some people talking about things that are coming up that you might not have heard about yet. I do think that there’s a lot of value in that, but they’re not trying to get good speakers. And not trying to make it good for attendees.
And I just think surely it can’t continue much longer of this because it’s worse and worse every year.
Allen Hall: So let me ask you about this, the second question I had about attending. Is it because the speakers are less technical? More salesy, more executive office people rather than frontline direct hands on knowledge of what are their expertises, be it blaze, be it nacelles, generators, whatever.
That it then draws less of a crowd because then you do think, yeah, I’m going to see an executive vice president for this large operator. It’s maybe interesting, but I’m not going to take anything really out of this.
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, and because they’ve all, they’re just giving the same talking points that they give.
Yeah, the higher level, the less interesting, probably, or less. Surprising what they have to say is going to be, I think personally, yes, I prefer, yeah, the European conferences that I used to go to did tend to be a lot more technical and I personally like that, but I’ve also been to some that are more based at a, at a higher level industry in general, because even though, yeah, I’m a really technical person, I still need to know what’s happening in the industry here.
Yeah. And in Australia, there’s not, no one’s designing wind turbines in Australia. We’re buying them and installing them and, I still need to know, Oh, what’s the problem this year? Is it community acceptance of new wind farms? Is it getting enough cranes on site? Is it transmission?
Is it yeah, like lightning damage causing problems on sites or, Anything like that I still want to yeah get my finger on the pulse. That’s a big part of why I would go to a conference like that. And it did, we did get that to a certain extent in this conference but yeah very little.
And yeah, even this same conference a few years ago was better. It still annoyed me at the time, but
Allen Hall: Do you think these exhibits and conferences need a steering committee to help guide them as to what would be important topics to discuss? I feel like we’re missing that right now.
Rosemary Barnes: I think with this particular conference, it’s not it’s an international conference organization group.
They’re not Australian. And I think that it shows that they are Not really, like conferences are nicer. If I think of, for example one conference that used to go to a lot in Europe was Winter Wind and it’s about, yeah, like wind turbines in cold climates. Have you been?
Allen Hall: Yes, I have.
Rosemary Barnes: The organizers were all from, yeah, the Nordics.
They really cared about. Making sure that wind energy was suitable for these cold climates and that the technologies were improving. And, like they started the conference because they wanted to improve knowledge and improve the the state of the industry in that niche.
And so it kind of permeates through the whole thing. They invite speakers who they’ve, cause they’re like involved in the field and they’re paying attention all year round to who’s saying what, and then, they’ll pick out, oh, this person has something really interesting to say, let’s invite them to be a keynote speaker.
And, it’s it’s just a totally different experience. And I can’t even recall the cost of it. It’s not like it was a cheap conference. It wasn’t in a shoddy venue or anything like that. There were, all these in beautiful places. One time I went to one at at Aura.
Actually, you went to one at Åre too, I remember saying. Yeah, it’s like a ski, Swedish ski resort. The conference venue has saunas on the, bottom floor and so it’s not, they’re not cutting corners on, that aspect of the conference junket, but the value that you get, if you want to know, if you’re entering that kind of part of the industry that you need to know about what matters in cold climate wind.
You’re guaranteed to find that out there. And if you go year after year, you are guaranteed to find out, what has the progress been and to meet relevant people and everything. So I just think that it’s much easier to get a good value conference from a, like a small organization that is really dedicated to, The topic of the conference, we need someone within the Australian wind industry to start up a better conference.
Allen Hall: And. Do you think that the attendees are mostly technical people or sales people, or is it a 50, 50 mix there?
Rosemary Barnes: There’s so few technical people in Australia. Like it’s just the industry is not technical here, if that makes sense. Not nearly to the definitely not to the extent of Europe and not even nearly to the extent of the U. S. So you never hear people like that presenting.
Allen Hall: Because that, I think that was the key to Winter Wind the last time I attended. It was focus on this problem. Let’s hear some solutions to this problem. Let’s try to understand the problem a little bit better. Here are some possible ways to address this.
So it was a problem solving session and I think you were right.
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And they come in from all different sides as well, cause they’ll have the, like I was there representing LM wind power. And like I didn’t even present every year because you didn’t always have something new to say, but you are basically, doing the company line, giving us the sales brochure and presentation format.
Yeah. Okay. Those sessions were usually a bit boring, but then they would also invite people who were operating wind farms and they’d be like, Oh, we have, brand X turbines and their icing system sucks. Look at all the different ways that it sucks. This is all the ways that it broke. And it, it’s so valuable, that information, because obviously, no one the manufacturer of that system is not going to, broadcast that knowledge.
But that’s how, yeah the industry can improve and what problems there are, then many people can, step in to solve them.
Allen Hall: Isn’t it fun when you see a contrarian point of view at these conferences too, like you see the OEMs and they have a certain sort of cadence to them and they’re pretty similar.
Then you get this one rogue scientist or engineers that comes in and just goes, I’ve worked out in the field, I’ve used these components, they’re terrible, here’s why, and this is what we should be doing about it. Those sort of discussions set the tone for the conference, I think. In terms of how good you feel about when you leave them Oh, something happened.
It may not have been, I may not agree with this person, but at least I now am thinking about this problem in a wider context. And that helps move the industry forward. Did you feel like the industry moved forward after you finished the conferences in Australia?
Rosemary Barnes: No. No, and I don’t recall hearing a rogue voice either.
Allen Hall: Yeah, that’s the, I think that’s the issue, right? Is that we need a Rosemirror on the panel to go, that’s garbage, and here’s why, and this is what we should be doing about it. Gets the discussion going, gets the blood flowing, gets people into seats. That kind of discussion.
Rosemary Barnes: They mention supply chain, they mention transmission, but they’re not really, um, there’s no, I didn’t hear anything new, any new ideas for solving that, any anything that would really, that I feel would like really give people the knowledge and the drive that they need to go out and, make things happen in those spaces.
So I think it’s a wasted opportunity.
Allen Hall: All right. So how do we make these conferences better?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. So I think the first thing is that just choosing which ones to go to. Then the organizers of those conferences should be making sure that they are focused on what the attendees are getting out of it.
And that probably means. Picking good keynote speakers based on what they have to say, rather than what their their job title is, how, high up their job title is and also when you’re going to have panels, keep the panel to a meaningful size, make sure everybody is actually going to talk about the topic that people have come to listen to them talk about and get moderators for the panels that actually know how to keep everything focused on, what’s providing value for the audience.
Allen Hall: Yeah I’m with you on that I think keeping the costs down, I’m okay going to a lesser hotel to have a conference, totally fine, because I’m not there to it’s not a vacation for me. It is a learning experience, and it’s a vacation for some, obviously, we’ve been to some conferences in San Diego, and the reason a lot of people go there, especially from Denmark and cold places, is because it’s a nice, warm, sandy beach to be on for a while, so a vacation spot does turn into more attendance.
However, in those conferences that I’ve attended, the sessions, no one’s in them. They’re all out at the beach, so that’s a problem. So again, getting back to What the conference is about, what the talks are about, they need to figure that out and get that I think a committee together that is our industry people that said, these are the hot button topics that will bring people in and focus on those.
And you’re right, Rosemary, the moderators is a big problem. And when you just ask a person that was sitting at a desk at a large OEM or an operator and that’s their, their day job is running this thing. And then you ask them to be in front of this group of people and to hold this panel discussion.
That’s not their expertise. They may not be that good at it. And it just leads to this kind of wishy washy discussion that doesn’t really go anywhere. And I think you and I have been on too many of the, seen too many of those and we’re like, oh, that’s shame. If they had a good moderator here. There’ll be a lot more information coming out of it because the people, the panel people up on the dais there are smart.
They have information in their head. You need to extract it out. You need to give them the opportunity to speak their knowledge and get out of the way. The best moderators are the ones you don’t remember. Those are the best. And sometimes we just don’t have that. It’s hard, right? You and I speak a lot on YouTube and the internet and on podcasts.
It’s hard, right? It’s not an easy thing to do.
Rosemary Barnes: And I feel I would be unfair if I didn’t mention there are quite a few good Australian conferences, but none just focused on, on wind as far as I can recall. Anyway, there’s yeah, the clean energy council does some good events and I am kicking myself about not going, I don’t have the energy to go to another one next week.
So yeah there is that one. There’s a smart energy council also. Does good events. And there was one called all energy, which is pretty good too, but they’re all like more, more broad, can’t get into the technical stuff. And then, the other one, it’s not a conference that’s the event, but the everything electric show that I’ve done a couple of times from the guys from fully charged show.
Yeah. They’re incredibly audience focused and yeah, they take great care in making sure they get good moderators. Yeah, they get a lot of YouTubers to come and present because, they know how to make it fun for the audience. And they’re appealing, they’re not appealing to a professional audience.
They’re appealing to just, people who like, like cars, like home electrification. Yeah, and, the exhibitions, they’re fantastic, but so are the presentations, and I think that’s a pretty good example of how, like, why can’t it be more like that for professionals too we could also enjoy ourselves and learn a lot.
Allen Hall: Rosemary, this has been great. I’m glad you gave us the post exhibition conference data dump. Because I think we all have been thinking this the last couple of years about these conferences we’ve attended and have invented. And so I think we hit you at just the right time.
Rosemary Barnes: Yes, I’m feeling good.
I got through it, but yeah, you definitely did catch me at the right time if you wanted a big rant.
Allen Hall: Thanks Rosemary for being on the podcast. We love having you as one of our co hosts and we’ll see you next week.
https://weatherguardwind.com/wind-energy-conferences-are-they-worth-it/
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Vestas Shares Jump 20%, UK Blocks Ming Yang Factory
Vestas doubles second quarter profit and adds €4.7 billion in market value overnight. Plus EnBW finishes He Dreiht after a V236 blade break, the UK blocks Ming Yang’s Scottish factory, and India rules turbines are movable goods.
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The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit StrikeTape.com. And now, your hosts
Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, Matthew Stead, and Yolanda Padron. And three out of the four of us will be in Melbourne Australia talking to a number of operators and interested parties about WOMA 2027. Matthew, where will we be the couple of days we’re in Melbourne?
Matthew Stead: So, um, first of all, we’ve got the Pullman, uh, East Melbourne, which is, uh, where the venue will be for, for 2027. Um, so that’ll be our home base. Um, we’ve got around about eight meetings planned already. So what we’re doing is we’re talking to the operators and a few other industry, um, players about [00:01:00] what we need to talk about, how we’re gonna move the industry forward in Australia.
Uh, so it’s gonna be jam-packed, but there’s a little bit of time left on the Friday afternoon if there’s any late-minute, um, people that wanna get in contact and catch up with us, um, for next Thursday, Friday, or actually Friday. Uh, so yeah, it’s gonna be a, a jam-packed time. I think we’re gonna be tired, too many coffees, and talking to all the key, all the key operators, uh, about what they wanna hear about and how we can move the, the industry forward.
Allen Hall: And if someone wants to put an input into the WOMA panel about what will be discussed at WOMA 2027, Matthew, how would they do that? How do they get ahold of you?
Matthew Stead: Well, we have a wonderful website, and that’s got all the details you could ever want. Um, you can also register on the website, so please register.
Otherwise, um, I’m sure we’re gonna be a sellout this year for sure. So woma2027.com.
Rosemary Barnes: I just wanna add that when people talk to [00:02:00] me about the event, they always say how they love that the topics are so relevant, and the reason why that they’re so relevant is because we make sure to go around to operators and find out what are the issues that they’re really dealing with.
So anybody that’s thinking of attending, even if you can’t, you know, meet us up, meet up with us in Melbourne, get in touch and tell us what are the, yeah, what are the topics that you’re struggling with that you’re not, um, you’re having trouble finding enough information, having trouble finding the people that can help you.
And y- yeah, like we take all of that information, and that’s how we come up with our agenda each year. And yeah, I mean, for us, that’s the, the main thing is that this has to be really relevant, up-to-date information for the industry, and we need your help to make sure it stays that way. I
Matthew Stead: mean, that’s what we’ve done the last two years, so this is– we’re just repeating the formula, um, listening to the operators and getting the good topics and the good speakers.
Allen Hall: Well, Vestas has had a good quarter. Uh, the, for the last couple of years, honestly, s- [00:03:00] Vestas has been really thin on margins. There was questions about it continuing on. Rising costs mostly, uh, supply chains, especially during COVID, were bad. Uh, and, uh, but for the most part, the shareholders stayed attached.
Well, that story is changing rapidly. The world’s largest turbine maker posted second quarter operating profits of $400- €46 million, more than double what the analysts had expected, and it’s raised its full-year margin guidance alongside half-year results for the first time in a decade. The shares climbed about 20% in Copenhagen, adding roughly €4.7 billion of market value in a single session.
Now, the chief executive, uh, Henrik Andersen, ha- put it plainly to, uh, uh, in a couple of news sources that something much bigger is happening and Vestas is gonna be the, the leader in wind. That’s how I read it, that everybody [00:04:00]at Vestas was super happy with the, the change in direction and things were moving up steadily.
But a 20% jump in a day is remarkable. You don’t see that in large industrial businesses like wind energy. Matthew, this has real implications on what happens next for Vestas because success like this usually means more orders.
Matthew Stead: Yeah, I wonder what’s going on under the hood there. Um, I mean, Vestas is a quality company, although, although can I just do a quick segue?
How many turbines were installed in Denmark in the last, uh, two years? Like last year and the year before?
Allen Hall: I don’t know. How many?
Matthew Stead: I believe it was eight turbines installed onshore in Denmark last year, and the year before it was 12. So, you know, maybe, maybe Vestas needs to focus on their own backyard a little bit as well.
Allen Hall: I’m not sure there’s a lot of opportunity there. Yeah, onshore.
Matthew Stead: How can you ever be full? I mean, there’s always, um, [00:05:00] uh, you know, um, you know, resiting or, um, you know, upgrades and-
Rosemary Barnes: You know what? Allen and I are probably gonna get some time in Jutland, uh, later this year, um, and that area and the old wind turbines there was actually the inspiration for my whole YouTube channel.
It just, ’cause there’s, you know, there’s turbines there from, the earliest one is, um, from the ’70s and still going. I think it’s one and a half megawatts, actually huge for, for that time. Um, and it was like community made, um, at Tvind. But anyway, I’m interested to revisit the site and have a look and see are these, you know, all these old turbines still there.
It’s only, like six years since I went through and did the experience but for the most part, they don’t seem to be yet pulling down the, the small old ones and putting up big ones. There’s a lot of, a lot of them are community owned. Um, and yeah, I mean, Danish people love wind turbines, but there’s only so many that you can have onshore.
Like, people are happy to live near them by, you know, the standards of people in other countries, but you don’t want [00:06:00] one in your literal backyard. I think that there is, there, there is a, a limit to how many more onshore wind turbines that you can get in that area and offshore expansion is the more likely way to go.
Um, and also I think it’s, it’s, it’s good to recognize that if you have a domestic only or a domestic first strategy, that will only get you so far and then you have to expand, and I think Denmark did that really well. I think Germany a little bit less. I think that Enercon were a bit surprised, um, by their strategy.
It, uh, they had a real hard time anyway when they had to transition away from mostly Germany to getting overseas. And obviously, like if you look at China, they have most of their installations are in China. They are trying so hard to get outside of China because it’s not, like even a market as big as China, it’s got decades to go before it will be full.
Um, you can still recognize that that’s not your, like long-term strategy for growth has to involve expansion, I think.
Allen Hall: I think Vestas, regardless of what happens in Denmark, is making a play for the United States. That seems to be [00:07:00] where a significant effort is happening at the moment and on offshore. Their– Vestas seems very excited about the offshore opportunities.
Of course, there’s a ton of wind turbines gonna be installed in the UK and, and all around Northern Europe. Offshore, the opportunities to buy turbines, there’s only a couple that you could get today. Uh, uh, the GE Vernova offerings I, I don’t think are gonna fit the mold, and I don’t know if GE’s even actively selling.
So their competitor realistically is Siemens Gamesa, which does seem like the smaller player at the minute versus Vestas, which is heavily pushing the V236 and will fill order books like crazy, I think, uh, just based upon the, the history they’ve had and everybody knowing who they are. So Also on the move in Australia, right?
Vestas is huge in Australia right now.
Rosemary Barnes: I think it’s really good that their, um, yeah, finances, uh, are [00:08:00] looking a bit better ’cause it’s been funny. Like, I tried early on in my wind career to invest in, you know, wind turbine manufacturers knowing that there would be immense growth, and I was right. There, there was immense growth.
Not that that was so hard to figure out that there would be, but it did not lead to any kind of, um, return on, on anything, you know. Like, that did not keep pace with the just general market. Um, so I, I stopped trying to, stopped trying to invest to that. But it has been really, really hard for the companies to, you know, raise money or y- you know, do any of the things that they need to do because they’ve always, like, they’re growing, growing, growing, but finances has been so tight that it has been a real constraint on the amount of engineering that they could do, and I really hope that Vestas are gonna take this opportunity that they’ve got compared to, you know, a lot of the other manufacturers.
Vestas do have really strong, um, innovation and, yeah, engineering capabilities for doing– you know, developing new technologies and improving them, and I really hope that they’re taking this opportunity to build that up. There are a lot [00:09:00] of very good engineers with a lot of experience in the industry in that area that are working in other fields at the moment because, you know, there’s been a lot of contraction in Denmark.
So I don’t know, it seems like a really good time to hire back some of that really in-depth knowledge and, yeah, get a- get ahead of, you know, some of the future quality problems. We’re going through such a hard time at the moment from the fast development that happened in the 20-teens when there wasn’t a whole lot of money around.
We’re dealing with quality problems now, so, you know, maybe we can get ahead and not have the next round of them if we can invest in just a lot more, uh, engineering capacity.
Allen Hall: When you have success like Vestas has, usually the upper level management and some of the executive team starts getting pilfered, that they’ll get offers to repeat that success at another company, and it sounds like that process has started already.
There’s a couple of executives that have recently departing or are in the midst of departing from Vestas. [00:10:00] I would see that continuing f- at least for the next six months, uh, because everybody wants to repeat that, right? If you can get a 20% increase in your valuation overnight, uh, I can, I can list a number of companies, regardless of industry, that would love to participate.
Even in a 5% increase, that would be remarkable. So, um, Vestas is gonna have a hard time holding onto this. That’s just the nature of the business where things are successful, people will wander. And Rosemary, I, I think they’re– And Yolanda In, in my book, Vestas should sort of s-stand down and just make quality products.
I’m not sure you sh-should tinker too much at the time being and just make the good stuff better. That seems like a way to really increase profits.
Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I mean, solving a lot of the issues that– And, and that’s not just a Vestas exclusive thing, right? All of these OEMs have some sort of issue that maybe– I know Rosie’s touched a lot on, on it, where [00:11:00] you build this version A and then version B solves one of the small little issues, but now it creates another little problem, and then you have version C, and then everything just kinda has its own niche little issue, um, that really expands over time.
So if they could solidify what they already have in, in a, in a model that, that would help them just even keep a lot of their customers, I think that’d be great, and it would help, certainly help them, um, not continuously, like, rotate around the customers, ’cause it almost feels like, at least in the States, right, you, you get GE to be really, really strong and have a huge market share, and then GE starts focusing more on gas turbines, so then they all go onto Vestas, and then they all go onto Ontara now.
Um, and then just, you know, just kind of everybody starts cycling through them because they just kind of want something that’s better quality than what they’re getting in the long haul.
Matthew Stead: Allen, you, you talked about you think there’s something big under the hood. I think you, you [00:12:00] thought that maybe Vestas was angling towards something or being quite bullish.
Do you think that they might take over GE Vernova?
Allen Hall: I don’t think they’re gonna grab Vernova, and I don’t think Vernova is for sale at the minute, but I wonder if Siemens Gamesa is, or Nordex. I mean, Nordex has done terrific the last couple of quarters and is making inroads in places that I didn’t think possible three, four years ago.
Uh, the European marketplace is be- becoming really unique in that sense that there’s a lot of money being put out. But is there a sole perfect solution for Europe? Not at the minute, ’cause you got two competitors there, and then China trying to, to work its way in. Will the Europeans come together and form something more united, even if it’s just a partnership, a loose partnership, versus letting China on the shores?
We’ll see. 64 of the largest machines that Vestas has builds are standing off the German coast, but one blade is missing a [00:13:00] piece. We’ll talk about that when we come back.
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Allen Hall: Well, Germany’s largest offshore wind farm is now fully installed, and EnBW confirmed this, uh, past week that all 64 of the Vestas V236 15-megawatt turbines are s- standing at the He Dreiht wind farm about 85 kilometers northwest of Borkum. Uh, 960 megawatts, [00:14:00] 2.4 billion euros invested. Man, these offshore projects are expensive to get installed.
Uh, so it’s power for roughly 1.1 million households, and there’s no state subsidy behind any of it. And so this is a little bit of a u- unique situation. Uh, th- well, the one footnote about the wind farm is they had a V236 blade break and fall into the North Sea, and they had fished it out and I think I passed along s- pictures that I saw online of, uh, one of the police boats pulling the shear web out of the water I don’t know what to think anymore about some of these offshore blade issues.
Obviously, Vestas is very conscientious about it and will be doing RCAs and engineering reviews and all the above to go identify what the problem is. But it does just lead to a little bit of a pause of do– what is going on for some of these offshore [00:15:00] wind blade installations or, or whatever’s causing these blades to break?
Do we have a good handle on it? Yolanda, is– are we following up on all the design details so that we can prevent these things in the future?
Yolanda Padron: I mean, I’d, I’d hope you’d be following up on the design, right? Like, and, um, but I think there is still a little bit of a disconnect from, from what we’ve seen, and again, not just Vestas exclusive, um, between the people who are designing and the people who are manufacturing, the people who are in operations, right?
So, uh- The, from what we’ve heard, uh, this could have potentially been a, um, partially because of a transportation issue, which is what happens a lot in onshore. It’s a lot more common than we would like it to be. Um, and so that even goes beyond what would go on in the design studio and what would go on in the manufacturing and what would [00:16:00] go on even just for the people that are running the site, right?
So, so some sort of, um, in between, uh, EPC error. Um, but yeah, I just think that, like in a lot of industries, there should be a lot more communication between all of these teams on the lower level, so that way a lot of these problems can, can be avoided.
Allen Hall: I’m wondering if it’s actually an issue on the, the testing side.
And, uh, the one question that just popped up, and we saw from the ORE Catapult, uh, survey that’s being conducted at the moment, and if you haven’t participated in that, you just visit ORE Catapult and answer some of the survey questions. But torsion on a blade, which is very difficult to test for, and it really isn’t tested for today, but does happen during the move and the transportation of these big offshore blades.
Is it one area that we need to do a little more work in or maybe spend some more time focusing on it to see what is happening as blades are [00:17:00]moved?
Rosemary Barnes: The thing about te- torsion is that it is much more significant as blades get longer. I can’t, I can’t remember the equation off the top of my head, which is, um, bothering me.
But I think it scales with, like, the fourth power or something of, of length. And so whilst it was always a bit of a problem, it’s much more of a problem as it gets, as blades get bigger. I mean, they’ve never, like, fully tested a blade, and there was always a lot of reliance on, hey, y- you know, like we’ve tested certain things that is possible to test in a test facility on the ground.
But they also rely on their decades of experience of how blades actually behave in the field. But, you know, remember, that’s a real lagging, lagging indicator because y- you know, their decades of experience is mostly with lots smaller blades. Now, blades are really different because they’re longer and different effects are, are taking over.
It’s not just, uh, torsion, but it’s also the laminates get much thicker, and then y- you know, you, you have issues with the way that they’re curing, [00:18:00] and there’s a lot more just space for, um, defects to be present in a really thick laminate All of those things add up. Oh, yeah, then add in addition, like new materials, carbon fiber is new, and then new ways of producing it, you know, pultrusions, um, all kinds of different materials like balsa’s being replaced with foams and, um, like, you know, 10 times that number of what sounds like a small innovation, but all of these things have the potential for damage and don’t have a really long track record in the field to be able to kind of calibrate.
We do need to remember that, like, when you do something new, things are gonna break, uh, sometimes, they’re gonna fail sometimes. If they don’t, then you’re definitely being too conservative, and your product is costing more than it should, and nobody wants more expensive wind energy, right?
Matthew Stead: Rosie, Rosie, I, I know you’re doing some, some excellent work on, um, industry studies around erosion and temperature and so forth.
Um, I just wanted to let a little secret out of the bag that, um, in the future there will also be some [00:19:00] other studies on torsion and blade twist and blade dynamics. So, um, just a few things are in, in train at the moment, which I can’t share, share, but, uh, watch this space around better understanding blade twist.
Allen Hall: The Hydride wind farm runs on European turbines, but the next one might not. Two governments with two very different answers on who gets to build Europe’s wind fleet.
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Well, two countries and two decisions, one question. In Scotland, the UK government blocked plans for the Chinese manufacturer Mingyang to build a turbine factory, uh, near Inverness on national security grounds. 1.5 billion pounds of investment, up to about 1,500 jobs. And First Minister John Swinney has asked the new prime minister to reconsider.
And the UK energy secretary minister called that request irresponsible. Meanwhile, up in Denmark, Vattenfall has just won two offshore wind farms and will not say whether it will buy European turbines. Danish suppliers are not taking that quietly. So [00:21:00] the Scotland question about the Mingyang factory is at least being discussed again with the new prime minister in the UK.
It does seem like there’s a lot to do and get the government formed and make all this stuff happen. But I don’t see a Burnham administration changing the outcome for Mingyang, but I could be wrong. At the, the same time, Vestas is pushing for a more Eurocentric focus and to really keep out the Chinese.
Uh, something has to give here pretty soon.
Matthew Stead: I actually think Mingyang should, um, set up a factory in Scotland. I, I mean, what’s wrong with that? I mean, uh, why is that a security issue?
Rosemary Barnes: Set up the factory and put the, like, whatever you’re worried about, put protections in place for it, require it to be a local joint venture or whatever.
You know, we’ve seen the blueprint in many of what used to be, you know, less rich countries. That’s how they, you know, got a head start on some of these technologies. It’s not like, I don’t think that China [00:22:00] has a head start on wind, wind turbine technology, but they certainly have different ways of doing things that, um, yeah, we could, we could learn from.
But I think across the board, wind turbines, batteries, solar panels, whatever, let them set up factories, put the rules in place that mean that your country benefits from it and you’re getting the, you know, the information transfer.
Yolanda Padron: Do you think that’ll, like, impulse a lot of these more established European companies to maybe start fixing some of the issues that they’ve known about for, for a while, um, particularly regarding the blades and everything that we’ve talked about earlier?
Like, there’s enough competition there, so maybe they need to start looking a little bit more deeply into their problems.
Allen Hall: Do we think that Chinese operations have been out front, forward, honest, I’ll even use, about their blade issues?
Rosemary Barnes: No, but this is a good way to find out, isn’t it?
Allen Hall: Governments decide who is allowed to build a turbine after a discussion on Scotland.
Uh, but, but [00:23:00] occasionally, a court decides what a turbine legally is. India has just settled that question, and the reasoning should be of interest to anybody who ships machines across a border right after this. As wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial and let’s face it, difficult. That’s why the Uptime Podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine.
PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high-quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit peswind.com today. A tax fight in India has produced a definition every turbine supplier should read.
Is a wind turbine bolted to a concrete foundation movable goods, or is it immovable property? State tax authorities argued immovable, which would have [00:24:00] taxed erection and commissioning contracts at 18% instead of 5%. The Andhra Pradesh, uh, High Court disagreed, and on the 12th of August, the Supreme Court declined to interfere.
The reasoning rests on something this whole industry takes for granted. A turbine can be taken down, moved, and put back up. So a turbine is a movable object, and it has less taxation. Bonus. So this is a really interesting discussion that’s happening in India because it’s probably symptomatic of things we’re seeing elsewhere across the world about taxation for wind turbines, right?
That, um, if there’s a way to tax a wind turbine, we’re gonna try to do it. This is a unique way, uh, that happens in India where depending on if it’s permanent or movable, the tax rates are different. I, I guess that would apply to a lot of components inside a wind turbine too, Matthew, don’t you? Like the, the generator, the, the big heavy things, [00:25:00] gearbox, generator, blades, rotors, tower sections, would be taxed at a, a lesser rate.
Matthew Stead: I agree with the court case that it’s all movable and, uh, you can actually buy turbines on the secondhand market, can’t you? I mean, if I wanted to buy, yeah, whatever, whatever, I could buy one and, and put it up in my backyard if I had a bigger backyard. Um, so yeah, I vote for movable. I vote for lower taxes.
Yolanda Padron: The way that it would work a lot of times in the US is, I mean, it’s, you pay, the company itself pays a lot less than they would’ve over time, right? Just by pure, the, the regular kind of tax laws. Um, but the community, there’d be just direct donations to the community, so then they’d get, uh, like money would actually come into the community where the turbines were being built instead of just distributed around the state, which I mean, in a state as big as Texas, it gets, um, but easier for that c- um, that county to get a lot more, uh, funding than they would typically get if it was [00:26:00] through a big enough area.
Um, but yeah, no, I agr- I completely agree with you guys that, that this should be a movable good. I mean, how many times have we seen, uh, even just a blade, um, that it looks like it’s, uh, just a, a failed blade that they have to go in and replace, and then they take it out, fix it, and then just bring it back to the same site or take it to another site across the country.
And, and to that point, like if you were to h- judge it as something that’s immovable, would then any blade replacement just not be taxed? Because then it’s, you’re moving that one component and two, but it’s essentially the same turbine. Like, I don’t know how that all would make sense.
Allen Hall: I think the Uptime Supreme Court agrees with the Indian Supreme Court that wind turbines are movable, and that’s good.
Well, that wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. [00:27:00] Reach out to us on LinkedIn. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show.
And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For Rosa, Yolanda, and Matthew, I’m Allen Hall. We’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.
Can’t swear that the story here is authentic, but it sure rings true.
Vermont is a somewhat quirky state, but it protects its citizens very well. FWIW, this is where I want MY tax dollars going too.
Florida is a deeply red state that, true to form, wants as much ignorance as it can possibly produce. Educated people aren’t voting for people like Ron Desantis.
The GOP is asking American voters to believe that “radical left Democrat extremists” are leading the country into socialism/communism. They’re hoping that this fear will outweigh the electorate’s understanding of the damage that Trump, with help of congressional Republicans, is inflicting on this nation in the form of the war in Iran, destroyed relations with allies, inflation, shoddy education, environmental collapse, and threats to Social Security and Medicare.
As we all know, the rate at which a lie becomes accepted as true is a function of the frequency that it is repeated. And God knows, we see this crap about communism every time we turn around.
But this looks like an unwinnable battle. Virtually no one wants to abandon free enterprise. Moreover, Trump’s abysmal polling numbers reflect the fact that is largely despised as a criminal–the most corrupt figure in U.S. history.
How would you like to be campaigning to retired baby boomers on the platform that we cannot afford Social Security any longer, because we’ve siphoned off huge amounts of money, like our president’s “vanity war,” with only further downside in sight, that is costing $1 billion a day?
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