The South Carolina General Assembly has finalized sweeping energy legislation (the “South Carolina Energy Security Act”) to increase electric bills to finance major new fossil gas pipelines and power plants primarily serving large energy users. If built, the new pipelines and power plants will set the state on a course in which two of its three major utilities depend on fossil gas for over half of the electricity they generate. This move will tie the state’s economy to highly volatile international gas markets. Unfortunately, key consumer protections needed to prevent unfair cost shifting onto smaller customers were stripped out of the bill at the last minute. The Act also includes clean energy provisions championed by SACE and its allies that may streamline the expansion of solar energy and expand energy efficiency efforts. Throughout many legislative ups and downs over a two-year effort, SACE worked closely with many allies across South Carolina to remove numerous additional damaging provisions from the bill.
The new Act began two years ago when utility companies claimed that state government oversight of utility activities was impeding economic development. Utilities particularly chafed at laws requiring review and approval of their long-term plans, which were enacted seven years ago after two utilities spent $9 billion on building a nuclear plant that they abandoned halfway through completion. Customers will continue paying for that unfinished power plant on their electric bills for decades.
However, the legislation evolved over the past two years into a response to huge projected electricity needs associated with new computer data centers. The projected growth in energy needs due to data centers exceeds any energy growth seen in the United States for over 20 years. This projected load growth is driving utility companies across the Southeast to rush to build fossil gas power plants and pipelines to feed them, and to delay closure of multiple aging, expensive coal-fired power plants.
Less Oversight of Utilities
The Act removes key oversight of the prudence of utility companies building new fossil gas plants. For instance, in a deeply unwise move, the Act provides that air, water, and Public Service Commission permits for major new utility infrastructure would be “deemed approved” if the relevant state agency fails to act on an application within six months. It also exempts certain power plants under 300 MW from the certificate of need process, allows the cost of power plants up to 250 MW to be added to rates between rate cases, and authorizes the Public Service Commission to approve ratepayer financing during construction of even larger power plants. Plants in the Southeast in this size range are generally gas-fired plants that can easily exceed $400 million in cost.
SACE believes that any automatic, “deemed” approval threatens to impose costs and pollution on the general population without the necessary legal and factual foundation. Further, because renewable resources tend to cause less air and water pollution, reduced permitting scrutiny inherently favors polluting fossil energy. SACE also believes it is unwise to charge ratepayers automatically for major power plants during construction. Any ratepayer charges before the plant operation should be carefully vetted and likely allowed only, if ever, after the plant is substantially complete. Ratepayer financing of construction costs prior to completion was at the heart of the $9 billion nuclear scandal that led to the enactment of South Carolina’s resource planning law.
Expansion of Fossil Fuels
The Act also authorizes a state-owned public power company, Santee Cooper, to join Dominion Energy South Carolina to build a major new fossil gas combined cycle plant (2,000 MW) on a former coal plant site next to the Edisto River. SACE testified that construction and operation of a plant of this size would be risky for captive utility customers. The construction timeline would depend on the completion of years of uncertain gas pipeline and electric transmission projects. Natural gas prices are also volatile and subject to increasing price pressure from the international gas export market.
Just while the bill was being developed, the effect of a federal trade war and the rush to build power plants to serve data centers has roughly doubled the cost of gas-fired power plants, adding further risk to a project already expected to cost billions of dollars. Perversely, rather than inspiring a search for other ways to meet the power demand, such cost increases could swell the utility rate base that is the basis for determining utility profits under the state regulatory system.
By authorizing a specific plant and its further provisions, the Act threatens to fundamentally undermine the review of long-term utility plans (“Integrated Resource Plans”) in South Carolina. Rather than constraining planned power plants to the amount needed to meet a carefully vetted recast, the bill opens the door to plants built for inherently speculative economic development projections. Longstanding econometric forecasting methods already account for economic growth. Even so, load forecasts often turn out to be on the high side. The new language encourages adding uncertain (and usually secret) possible economic development projects to these forecasts, creating a greater risk that consumers will pay for unnecessary power plants.
Protecting Profits, not Customers
Rather than shielding consumers from potential cost overruns or unwise decisions, the Act creates a new electric rate process focused on protecting shareholder profits. The new process requires annual rate adjustments to maintain utility profit margins every year. This process will nearly always raise rates, even during an economic downturn or recession, when families and non-utility businesses are belt-tightening. Utilities requested the new rate process in order to finance the expected major new power plant additions.
Despite warnings from the AARP, the state Consumer Advocate, the representative of large industrial customers, SACE, and others about potential excessive rate increases, the head of the state government agency charged with investigating utility rate increases (the “Office of Regulatory Staff,” or “ORS”), testified that that rate stabilization could be implemented fairly under ORS oversight. The ORS claimed that customers actually requested the new rate process at hearings under questioning by utility lawyers. Legislators accepted this characterization, and only time will tell whether the new process becomes a “runaway train.”
The Act’s additional “economic development rates” section also poses a significant danger of cost shifting for most electricity consumers. For the largest new industrial customers—those with a load exceeding 50 MW—the bill would allow the Public Service Commission to approve special low rates that are 25% below the incremental cost to serve them (the “marginal cost,” which itself is often manipulated to be well below the actual cost of service). These large customers already pay low rates for bulk power service, but the new law encourages even lower rates for the biggest companies, the costs of which would be borne by other smaller ratepayers. Even a single large customer could shift tens of millions of dollars of cost onto families and small businesses. To compound this problem, the bill also allows the new large industries’ competitors to get the same rate discount, potentially multiplying the cost-shifting to small customers.
It’s Bad, but It Could Have Been Worse
Overall, the combination of potentially inflated load forecasts, “deemed approval” for power plants, legislative support for a specific multi-billion-dollar project, cross-subsidies for the largest industries on the backs of small ratepayers, and automatic rate increases creates an obvious, clear, and present danger. South Carolina consumers risk being saddled with high costs and unnecessary pollution for a speculative buildout of fossil-fueled infrastructure.
While these changes in South Carolina law are bad for consumers and the environment, they could have been worse. The original House-passed bill authorized utility companies to construct up to three new “small modular” nuclear reactors and pass them along to their customers, including potential costs after abandonment. While SACE does not advocate for shutting down existing nuclear power plants at this time, we believe it is harmful to both ratepayers and the environment when utilities spend billions of dollars on the promise of clean energy and produce nothing. Senators removed this provision partly based on the strength of SACE testimony that it risked repeating South Carolina’s recent $9 billion nuclear fiasco. SACE noted that the only actual attempted small nuclear reactor in the U.S. (in Idaho) was recently abandoned when its cost to complete also reached $9 billion. Nevertheless, the final bill retains language establishing that it is South Carolina policy to encourage development of nuclear plants, including small modular reactors and even fusion projects that are not commercially available anywhere in the United States.
Senator Tom Davis, in particular, also led multiple efforts on the Senate floor to remove highly damaging provisions from the original House version of the bill. The House initially accepted utility-drafted language that would override the current practice of allowing intervenors in Public Service Commission proceedings to access utility company software to review projected energy scenarios. The House language would have effectively precluded public-interest non-profit groups from reviewing utility plans by imposing software licensing costs that could exceed $100,000 per proceeding. Senator Davis’s amendment, however, produced a compromise allowing intervenors to review utility software for a smaller fee.
The House bill also originally included utility-requested language that threatened to repeal the right of intervenors to appeal Public Service Company decisions. A Davis amendment removed this language.
The House bill also would have effectively shut down the development of new solar power plants across much of the state by restricting contract lengths to 5 years, but a successful Davis amendment rejected this change. The House also attempted to remove local permitting review for most utility-scale solar plants and impose new state review requirements on any plant over 150 acres. Instead, Senators worked out a new system of setback requirements for solar development.
Positive Provisions Affecting Clean Energy
The two most important provisions concern utility-scale renewable energy procurement and utility-funded energy efficiency programs.
The most important renewable energy provision stems from another Davis amendment. Utility companies must issue periodic RFPs to competitively procure renewable energy and energy storage to fulfill their own filed, approved renewable energy plans. While it may sound duplicative to tell a utility company to execute its own renewable energy plans, Dominion Energy has a history in South Carolina of gaining approval for plans to purchase renewable energy, and then refusing to issue an RFP to follow through. Dominion has also levied legal attacks on specific projects after signing a contract to purchase the energy from them. Further, in recent “all-source” RFPs run by Dominion allowing either renewable or fossil energy to submit bids to compete, the only result has been Dominion’s own affiliate winning every bid and then seeking approval to build its own fossil power plants. Faithful implementation of the Davis renewable energy provisions could lead to thousands of MW of renewable energy at the best available market prices, reducing pollution and bringing customer bills down. Still, time will be needed to gauge the result.
The Act also declares that it is in the public interest for utilities to expand energy efficiency and other demand-side management programs. More specifically, it authorizes the Commission to approve procedures under which utilities will plan for and implement all cost-reasonable, prudent, available and cost-effective energy efficiency programs. It also allows approval of programs targeting low-income customers that do not meet cost-effectiveness tests. The Commission is also authorized to appoint a third party to administer a utility company’s energy efficiency programs if it fails to meet these requirements. While the Senate initially passed a Davis amendment that would set a statutory minimum target for utility programs to help customers save energy, the House rejected this numeric target that would have made the energy efficiency provisions easily enforceable. Implementing the remaining provisions will be up to the Public Service Commission. Similar legal requirements in other states have led to robust programs with very high levels of achievement, but as with the renewable procurement provision, the proof will be in the pudding.
Another demand-side management provision authorizes the Commission to approve utility demand-side management programs that include customer renewable energy and energy storage. This provision could enable virtual power plant or solar plus battery demand response programs, which the South Carolina Commission previously rejected. In addition to helping the utility meet peak loads, these programs can help customers be more resilient in the face of power outages.
Another significant positive renewable energy provision raises the current statutory cap on the size of behind-the-meter solar projects for commercial customers from 1 MW to 5 MW. If faithfully implemented, this provision could substantially expand the commercial customer-owned solar market in much of South Carolina.
The Act also requires utilities to include more information about transmission planning in their Integrated Resource Plans.
A further provision may be a “sleeper” that could produce nothing or could produce major positive impacts: The Act “encourages” utilities to work with very large customers to “explore cost-effective, efficient bulk power solutions.” Such solutions might include battery storage, renewable energy, or other generation co-located at the site of data centers or other large industrial energy users. This section of the Act also “encourages” but does not expressly require utilities to protect other consumers against cost-shifting.
Opportunities missed
While clean energy gained a few modest victories, consumer protection did not. The Senate initially required that new data centers pay for the new infrastructure needed to serve them, but senators dropped this requirement in negotiations with the House.
The Senate also initially endorsed landowner protection provisions that would require public notice and specific notice to landowners when a major utility infrastructure project is likely to result in taking private property through eminent domain. While these protections were passed unanimously in the Senate, they were entirely abandoned during House negotiations.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey also attempted to pass an “industrial choice” amendment allowing data centers and other large industrial customers to choose their own energy supplier and contract for their energy needs. This amendment was defeated through intensive utility company lobbying, which also appeared to dissuade Senators from offering other market-based reforms proposed by SACE and others. The Southeast thus remains the only major part of the country that lacks a fully functional regional wholesale energy market.
SACE also urged House and Senate Committees to end the practice under which utilities can pass through 100% of fuel costs to consumers. SACE urged the inclusion of a fuel cost-sharing mechanism to give utilities “skin in the game” and manage fuel costs rather than using captive customers as insurers against wild swings in costs. Still, no member was willing to offer the amendment in the face of strong utility opposition.
Likely Outcome: Higher Bills, More Pollution
The Act as a whole included every major stated goal of South Carolina’s utility industry, particularly as it pertains to expanding fossil gas pipelines and power plants: streamlined permitting, an automatic rate increase process, endorsement of economic development as an independent basis to approve utility investment, legislative authorization for a major joint power plant project. Despite recent history in South Carolina, the Act also widely embraced nuclear power, including unproven and non-commercially available technologies. More positively, it accommodated the continued existence of the solar industry, including streamlined procurement of renewable energy and battery storage insofar as it is included within utility company plans, and a pathway for 5 MW customer-based solar projects. It included promising energy efficiency language, but left implementation uncertain. It provided a vague, potentially significant path for the largest industries to develop their own energy sources in coordination with utility companies. Overall, the more certain impact of the legislation will be higher bills and more pollution, with some opportunities for clean energy expansion to ameliorate cost and environmental impacts.
The post Sweeping South Carolina Energy Legislation Embraces Fossil Gas and Nuclear, Mixed Bag for Clean Energy appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Wind Industry Operations: In Wind’s Next Chapter, Operations take center stage
This exclusive article originally appeared in PES Wind 4 – 2025 with the title, Operations take center stage in wind’s next chapter. It was written by Allen Hall and other members of the WeatherGuard Lightning Tech team.
As aging fleets, shrinking margins, and new policies reshape the wind sector, wind energy operations are in the spotlight. The industry’s next chapter will be defined not by capacity growth, but by operational excellence, where integrated, predictive maintenance turns data into decisions and reliability into profit.
Wind farm operations are undergoing a fundamental transformation. After hosting hundreds of conversations on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, I’ve witnessed a clear pattern: the most successful operators are abandoning reactive maintenance in favor of integrated, predictive strategies. This shift isn’t just about adopting new technologies; it’s about fundamentally rethinking how we manage aging assets in an era of tightening margins and expanding responsibilities.
The evidence was overwhelming at this year’s SkySpecs Customer Forum, where representatives from over 75% of US installed wind capacity gathered to share experiences and strategies. The consensus was clear: those who integrate monitoring, inspection, and repair into a cohesive operational strategy are achieving dramatic improvements in reliability and profitability.
Takeaway: These options have been available to wind energy operations for years; now, adoption is critical.
Why traditional approaches to wind farm operations are failing
Today’s wind operators face an unprecedented convergence of challenges. Fleets installed during the 2010-2015 boom are aging in unexpected ways, revealing design vulnerabilities no one anticipated. Meanwhile, the support infrastructure is crumbling; spare parts have become scarce, OEM support is limited, and insurance companies are tightening coverage just when operators need them most.
The situation is particularly acute following recent policy changes. The One Big Beautiful Bill in the United States has fundamentally altered the economic landscape. PTC farming is no longer viable; turbines must run longer and more reliably than ever before. Engineering teams, already stretched thin, are being asked to manage not just wind assets but solar and battery storage as well. The old playbook simply doesn’t work anymore.
Consider the scope of just one challenge: polyester blade failures. During our podcast conversation with Edo Kuipers of We4Ce, we learned that an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 blades worldwide are experiencing root bushing issues. ‘After a while, blades are simply flying off,’ Kuipers explained. The financial impact of a single blade failure can exceed €300,000 when you factor in replacement costs, lost production, and crane mobilization. Yet innovative repair solutions, like the one developed by We4Ce and CNC Onsite, can address the same problem for €40,000 if caught early. This pattern repeats across every major component. Gearbox failures that once required complete replacement can now be predicted months in advance. Lightning damage that previously caused catastrophic failures can be prevented with inexpensive upgrades and real-time monitoring. All these solutions are based on the principle that predicted maintenance is better than an expensive surprise.
Seeing problems before they happeny, and potential risks
The transformation begins with visibility. Modern monitoring systems reveal problems that traditional methods miss entirely. Eric van Genuchten of Sensing360 shared an eye-opening statistic on our podcast: ‘In planetary gearbox failures, they get 90%, so there’s still 10% of failures they cannot detect.’ That missing 10% represents the catastrophic failures that destroy budgets and production targets. Advanced monitoring technologies are filling these gaps. Sensing360’s fiber optic sensors, for example, detect minute deformations in steel components, revealing load imbalances and fatigue progression invisible to traditional monitoring. ‘We integrate our sensors in steel and make rotating equipment smarter,’ van Genuchten explained.
Other companies are deploying acoustic systems to identify blade delamination, oil analysis for gearbox health, and electrical signature analysis for generator issues. Each technology adds a piece to the puzzle, but the real value comes from integration. The impact of load monitoring alone can be transformative.
As van Genuchten explained, ‘Twenty percent more loading on a gearbox or on a bearing is half of your life. The other way around, twenty percent less loading is double your life.’ With proper monitoring, operators can optimize load distribution across their fleet, extending component life while maximizing production.
But monitoring without action is just expensive data collection. The most successful operators are those who’ve learned to translate sensor data into operational decisions. This requires not just technology but organizational change, breaking down silos between monitoring, maintenance, and management teams.
In Wind Energy Operations, Early intervention makes the million-dollar difference
The economics of early intervention are compelling across every component type. The blade root bushing example from We4Ce illustrates this perfectly. With their solution, early detection means replacing just 24-30 bushings in about 24 hours of drilling work. Wait, and you’re looking at 60+ bushings and 60 hours of work. Early detection doesn’t just prevent catastrophic failure; it makes repairs faster, cheaper, and more reliable.
This principle extends throughout the turbine. Early-stage bearing damage can be addressed through targeted lubrication or minor adjustments. Incipient electrical issues can be resolved with cleaning or connection tightening. Small blade surface cracks can be repaired in a few hours before they propagate into structural damage requiring weeks of work.
Leading operators are implementing tiered response protocols based on monitoring data. Critical issues trigger immediate intervention. Developing problems are scheduled for the next maintenance window. Minor issues are monitored and addressed during routine service. This systematic approach reduces both emergency repairs and unnecessary maintenance, optimizing resource allocation across the fleet.
Turning information into action
While monitoring generates data, platforms like SkySpecs’ Horizon transform that data into operational intelligence. Josh Goryl, SkySpecs’ Chief Revenue Officer, explained their evolution at the recent Customer Forum: ‘I think where we can help our customers is getting all that data into one place.
The game-changer is integration across data types. The company is working to combine performance data with CMS data to provide valuable insights into turbine health. This approach has been informed by operators across the world, who’ve discovered that integrated platforms deliver insights that siloed data can’t.
The platform approach also addresses the reality of shrinking engineering teams managing expanding portfolios. As Goryl noted, many wind engineers are now responsible for solar and battery storage assets as well. One platform managing multiple technologies through a unified interface becomes essential for operational efficiency.
The Integration Imperative for Wind Farm Operations
The most successful operators aren’t just adopting individual technologies; they’re integrating monitoring, inspection, and repair into a seamless operational system. This integration operates at multiple levels.
At the technical level, data from various monitoring systems feeds into unified platforms that provide comprehensive asset visibility. These platforms don’t just display data; they analyze patterns, predict failures, and generate work orders.
At the organizational level, integration means breaking down barriers between departments. This cross-functional collaboration transforms O&M from a cost center into a value driver. Building your improvement roadmap For operators ready to enhance their O&M approach, the path forward involves several key steps:
Assessing the Current State of your Wind Energy Operations
Document your maintenance costs, failure rates, and downtime patterns. Identify which problems consume the most resources and which assets are most critical to your wind farm operations.
Start with targeted pilots Rather than attempting wholesale transformation, begin with focused initiatives targeting your biggest pain points. Whether it’s blade monitoring, gearbox sensors, or repair innovations, starting with your largest issue will help you see the biggest benefit.
• Invest in integration, not just technology: the most sophisticated monitoring system is worthless if its data isn’t acted upon. Ensure your organization has the processes and culture to transform data into decisions – this is the first step to profitability in your wind farm operations.
Build partnerships, not just contracts: look for technology providers and service companies willing to share knowledge, not just deliver services. The goal is building capability, not dependency.
• Measure and iterate: track the impact of each initiative on your key performance indicators. Use lessons learned to refine your approach and guide future investments.
The competitive advantage
The wind industry has reached an inflection point. With increasingly large and complex turbines, monitoring needs to adapt with it. The era of flying blind is over.
In an industry where margins continue to compress and competition intensifies, operational excellence has become a key differentiator. Those who master the integration of monitoring, inspection, and repair will thrive. Those who cling to reactive maintenance face escalating costs and declining competitiveness.
The technology exists. The business case is proven. The early adopters are already reaping the benefits. The question isn’t whether to transform your O&M approach, but how quickly you can adapt to this new reality. In the race to operational excellence, the winners will be those who act decisively to embrace the efficiency revolution reshaping wind operations.
Unless otherwise noted, images here are from We4C Rotorblade Specialist.
Contact us for help understanding your lightning damage, future risks, and how to get more uptime from your equipment.
Download the full article from PES Wind here
Find a practical guide to solving lightning problems and filing better insurance claims here
Wind Industry Operations: In Wind’s Next Chapter, Operations take center stage
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics
Chris Cieslak, CEO of BladeBug, joins the show to discuss how their walking robot is making ultrasonic blade inspections faster and more accessible. They cover new horizontal scanning capabilities for lay down yards, blade root inspections for bushing defects, and plans to expand into North America in 2026.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow.
Allen Hall: Chris, welcome back to the show.
Chris Cieslak: It’s great to be back. Thank you very much for having me on again.
Allen Hall: It’s great to see you in person, and a lot has been happening at Blade Bugs since the last time I saw Blade Bug in person. Yeah, the robot. It looks a lot different and it has really new capabilities.
Chris Cieslak: So we’ve continued to develop our ultrasonic, non-destructive testing capabilities of the blade bug robot.
Um, but what we’ve now added to its capabilities is to do horizontal blade scans as well. So we’re able to do blades that are in lay down yards or blades that have come down for inspections as well as up tower. So we can do up tower, down tower inspections. We’re trying to capture. I guess the opportunity to inspect blades after transportation when they get delivered to site, to look [00:01:00] for any transport damage or anything that might have been missed in the factory inspections.
And then we can do subsequent installation inspections as well to make sure there’s no mishandling damage on those blades. So yeah, we’ve been just refining what we can do with the NDT side of things and improving its capabilities
Joel Saxum: was that need driven from like market response and people say, Hey, we need, we need.
We like the blade blood product. We like what you’re doing, but we need it here. Or do you guys just say like, Hey, this is the next, this is the next thing we can do. Why not?
Chris Cieslak: It was very much market response. We had a lot of inquiries this year from, um, OEMs, blade manufacturers across the board with issues within their blades that need to be inspected on the ground, up the tap, any which way they can.
There there was no, um, rhyme or reason, which was better, but the fact that he wanted to improve the ability of it horizontally has led the. Sort of modifications that you’ve seen and now we’re doing like down tower, right? Blade scans. Yeah. A really fast breed. So
Joel Saxum: I think the, the important thing there is too is that because of the way the robot is built [00:02:00] now, when you see NDT in a factory, it’s this robot rolls along this perfectly flat concrete floor and it does this and it does that.
But the way the robot is built, if a blade is sitting in a chair trailing edge up, or if it’s flap wise, any which way the robot can adapt to, right? And the idea is. We, we looked at it today and kind of the new cage and the new things you have around it with all the different encoders and for the heads and everything is you can collect data however is needed.
If it’s rasterized, if there’s a vector, if there’s a line, if we go down a bond line, if we need to scan a two foot wide path down the middle of the top of the spa cap, we can do all those different things and all kinds of orientations. That’s a fantastic capability.
Chris Cieslak: Yeah, absolutely. And it, that’s again for the market needs.
So we are able to scan maybe a meter wide in one sort of cord wise. Pass of that probe whilst walking in the span-wise direction. So we’re able to do that raster scan at various spacing. So if you’ve got a defect that you wanna find that maximum 20 mil, we’ll just have a 20 mil step [00:03:00] size between each scan.
If you’ve got a bigger tolerance, we can have 50 mil, a hundred mil it, it’s so tuneable and it removes any of the variability that you get from a human to human operator doing that scanning. And this is all about. Repeatable, consistent high quality data that you can then use to make real informed decisions about the state of those blades and act upon it.
So this is not about, um, an alternative to humans. It’s just a better, it’s just an evolution of how humans do it. We can just do it really quick and it’s probably, we, we say it’s like six times faster than a human, but actually we’re 10 times faster. We don’t need to do any of the mapping out of the blade, but it’s all encoded all that data.
We know where the robot is as we walk. That’s all captured. And then you end up with really. Consistent data. It doesn’t matter who’s operating a robot, the robot will have those settings preset and you just walk down the blade, get that data, and then our subject matter experts, they’re offline, you know, they are in their offices, warm, cozy offices, reviewing data from multiple sources of robots.
And it’s about, you know, improving that [00:04:00] efficiency of getting that report out to the customer and letting ’em know what’s wrong with their blades, actually,
Allen Hall: because that’s always been the drawback of, with NDT. Is that I think the engineers have always wanted to go do it. There’s been crush core transportation damage, which is sometimes hard to see.
You can maybe see a little bit of a wobble on the blade service, but you’re not sure what’s underneath. Bond line’s always an issue for engineering, but the cost to take a person, fly them out to look at a spot on a blade is really expensive, especially someone who is qualified. Yeah, so the, the difference now with play bug is you can have the technology to do the scan.
Much faster and do a lot of blades, which is what the de market demand is right now to do a lot of blades simultaneously and get the same level of data by the review, by the same expert just sitting somewhere else.
Chris Cieslak: Absolutely.
Joel Saxum: I think that the quality of data is a, it’s something to touch on here because when you send someone out to the field, it’s like if, if, if I go, if I go to the wall here and you go to the wall here and we both take a paintbrush, we paint a little bit [00:05:00] different, you’re probably gonna be better.
You’re gonna be able to reach higher spots than I can.
Allen Hall: This is true.
Joel Saxum: That’s true. It’s the same thing with like an NDT process. Now you’re taking the variability of the technician out of it as well. So the data quality collection at the source, that’s what played bug ducts.
Allen Hall: Yeah,
Joel Saxum: that’s the robotic processes.
That is making sure that if I scan this, whatever it may be, LM 48.7 and I do another one and another one and another one, I’m gonna get a consistent set of quality data and then it’s goes to analysis. We can make real decisions off.
Allen Hall: Well, I, I think in today’s world now, especially with transportation damage and warranties, that they’re trying to pick up a lot of things at two years in that they could have picked up free installation.
Yeah. Or lifting of the blades. That world is changing very rapidly. I think a lot of operators are getting smarter about this, but they haven’t thought about where do we go find the tool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Allen Hall: And, and I know Joel knows that, Hey, it, it’s Chris at Blade Bug. You need to call him and get to the technology.
But I think for a lot of [00:06:00] operators around the world, they haven’t thought about the cost They’re paying the warranty costs, they’re paying the insurance costs they’re paying because they don’t have the set of data. And it’s not tremendously expensive to go do. But now the capability is here. What is the market saying?
Is it, is it coming back to you now and saying, okay, let’s go. We gotta, we gotta mobilize. We need 10 of these blade bugs out here to go, go take a scan. Where, where, where are we at today?
Chris Cieslak: We’ve hads. Validation this year that this is needed. And it’s a case of we just need to be around for when they come back round for that because the, the issues that we’re looking for, you know, it solves the problem of these new big 80 a hundred meter plus blades that have issues, which shouldn’t.
Frankly exist like process manufacturer issues, but they are there. They need to be investigated. If you’re an asset only, you wanna know that. Do I have a blade that’s likely to fail compared to one which is, which is okay? And sort of focus on that and not essentially remove any uncertainty or worry that you have about your assets.
’cause you can see other [00:07:00] turbine blades falling. Um, so we are trying to solve that problem. But at the same time, end of warranty claims, if you’re gonna be taken over these blades and doing the maintenance yourself, you wanna know that what you are being given. It hasn’t gotten any nasties lurking inside that’s gonna bite you.
Joel Saxum: Yeah.
Chris Cieslak: Very expensively in a few years down the line. And so you wanna be able to, you know, tick a box, go, actually these are fine. Well actually these are problems. I, you need to give me some money so I can perform remedial work on these blades. And then you end of life, you know, how hard have they lived?
Can you do an assessment to go, actually you can sweat these assets for longer. So we, we kind of see ourselves being, you know, useful right now for the new blades, but actually throughout the value chain of a life of a blade. People need to start seeing that NDT ultrasonic being one of them. We are working on other forms of NDT as well, but there are ways of using it to just really remove a lot of uncertainty and potential risk for that.
You’re gonna end up paying through the, you know, through the, the roof wall because you’ve underestimated something or you’ve missed something, which you could have captured with a, with a quick inspection.
Joel Saxum: To [00:08:00] me, NDT has been floating around there, but it just hasn’t been as accessible or easy. The knowledge hasn’t been there about it, but the what it can do for an operator.
In de-risking their fleet is amazing. They just need to understand it and know it. But you guys with the robotic technology to me, are bringing NDT to the masses
Chris Cieslak: Yeah.
Joel Saxum: In a way that hasn’t been able to be done, done before
Chris Cieslak: that. And that that’s, we, we are trying to really just be able to roll it out at a way that you’re not limited to those limited experts in the composite NDT world.
So we wanna work with them, with the C-N-C-C-I-C NDTs of this world because they are the expertise in composite. So being able to interpret those, those scams. Is not a quick thing to become proficient at. So we are like, okay, let’s work with these people, but let’s give them the best quality data, consistent data that we possibly can and let’s remove those barriers of those limited people so we can roll it out to the masses.
Yeah, and we are that sort of next level of information where it isn’t just seen as like a nice to have, it’s like an essential to have, but just how [00:09:00] we see it now. It’s not NDT is no longer like, it’s the last thing that we would look at. It should be just part of the drones. It should inspection, be part of the internal crawlers regimes.
Yeah, it’s just part of it. ’cause there isn’t one type of inspection that ticks all the boxes. There isn’t silver bullet of NDT. And so it’s just making sure that you use the right system for the right inspection type. And so it’s complementary to drones, it’s complimentary to the internal drones, uh, crawlers.
It’s just the next level to give you certainty. Remove any, you know, if you see something indicated on a a on a photograph. That doesn’t tell you the true picture of what’s going on with the structure. So this is really about, okay, I’ve got an indication of something there. Let’s find out what that really is.
And then with that information you can go, right, I know a repair schedule is gonna take this long. The downtime of that turbine’s gonna be this long and you can plan it in. ’cause everyone’s already got limited budgets, which I think why NDT hasn’t taken off as it should have done because nobody’s got money for more inspections.
Right. Even though there is a money saving to be had long term, everyone is fighting [00:10:00] fires and you know, they’ve really got a limited inspection budget. Drone prices or drone inspections have come down. It’s sort, sort of rise to the bottom. But with that next value add to really add certainty to what you’re trying to inspect without, you know, you go to do a day repair and it ends up being three months or something like, well
Allen Hall: that’s the lightning,
Joel Saxum: right?
Allen Hall: Yeah. Lightning is the, the one case where every time you start to scarf. The exterior of the blade, you’re not sure how deep that’s going and how expensive it is. Yeah, and it always amazes me when we talk to a customer and they’re started like, well, you know, it’s gonna be a foot wide scarf, and now we’re into 10 meters and now we’re on the inside.
Yeah. And the outside. Why did you not do an NDT? It seems like money well spent Yeah. To do, especially if you have a, a quantity of them. And I think the quantity is a key now because in the US there’s 75,000 turbines worldwide, several hundred thousand turbines. The number of turbines is there. The number of problems is there.
It makes more financial sense today than ever because drone [00:11:00]information has come down on cost. And the internal rovers though expensive has also come down on cost. NDT has also come down where it’s now available to the masses. Yeah. But it has been such a mental barrier. That barrier has to go away. If we’re going going to keep blades in operation for 25, 30 years, I
Joel Saxum: mean, we’re seeing no
Allen Hall: way you can do it
Joel Saxum: otherwise.
We’re seeing serial defects. But the only way that you can inspect and or control them is with NDT now.
Allen Hall: Sure.
Joel Saxum: And if we would’ve been on this years ago, we wouldn’t have so many, what is our term? Blade liberations liberating
Chris Cieslak: blades.
Joel Saxum: Right, right.
Allen Hall: What about blade route? Can the robot get around the blade route and see for the bushings and the insert issues?
Chris Cieslak: Yeah, so the robot can, we can walk circumferentially around that blade route and we can look for issues which are affecting thousands of blades. Especially in North America. Yeah.
Allen Hall: Oh yeah.
Chris Cieslak: So that is an area that is. You know, we are lucky that we’ve got, um, a warehouse full of blade samples or route down to tip, and we were able to sort of calibrate, verify, prove everything in our facility to [00:12:00] then take out to the field because that is just, you know, NDT of bushings is great, whether it’s ultrasonic or whether we’re using like CMS, uh, type systems as well.
But we can really just say, okay, this is the area where the problem is. This needs to be resolved. And then, you know, we go to some of the companies that can resolve those issues with it. And this is really about played by being part of a group of technologies working together to give overall solutions
Allen Hall: because the robot’s not that big.
It could be taken up tower relatively easily, put on the root of the blade, told to walk around it. You gotta scan now, you know. It’s a lot easier than trying to put a technician on ropes out there for sure.
Chris Cieslak: Yeah.
Allen Hall: And the speed up it.
Joel Saxum: So let’s talk about execution then for a second. When that goes to the field from you, someone says, Chris needs some help, what does it look like?
How does it work?
Chris Cieslak: Once we get a call out, um, we’ll do a site assessment. We’ve got all our rams, everything in place. You know, we’ve been on turbines. We know the process of getting out there. We’re all GWO qualified and go to site and do their work. Um, for us, we can [00:13:00] turn up on site, unload the van, the robot is on a blade in less than an hour.
Ready to inspect? Yep. Typically half an hour. You know, if we’ve been on that same turbine a number of times, it’s somewhere just like clockwork. You know, muscle memory comes in, you’ve got all those processes down, um, and then it’s just scanning. Our robot operator just presses a button and we just watch it perform scans.
And as I said, you know, we are not necessarily the NDT experts. We obviously are very mindful of NDT and know what scans look like. But if there’s any issues, we have a styling, we dial in remote to our supplement expert, they can actually remotely take control, change the settings, parameters.
Allen Hall: Wow.
Chris Cieslak: And so they’re virtually present and that’s one of the beauties, you know, you don’t need to have people on site.
You can have our general, um, robot techs to do the work, but you still have that comfort of knowing that the data is being overlooked if need be by those experts.
Joel Saxum: The next level, um, commercial evolution would be being able to lease the kit to someone and or have ISPs do it for [00:14:00] you guys kinda globally, or what is the thought
Chris Cieslak: there?
Absolutely. So. Yeah, so we to, to really roll this out, we just wanna have people operate in the robots as if it’s like a drone. So drone inspection companies are a classic company that we see perfectly aligned with. You’ve got the sky specs of this world, you know, you’ve got drone operator, they do a scan, they can find something, put the robot up there and get that next level of information always straight away and feed that into their systems to give that insight into that customer.
Um, you know, be it an OEM who’s got a small service team, they can all be trained up. You’ve got general turbine technicians. They’ve all got G We working at height. That’s all you need to operate the bay by road, but you don’t need to have the RAA level qualified people, which are in short supply anyway.
Let them do the jobs that we are not gonna solve. They can do the big repairs we are taking away, you know, another problem for them, but giving them insights that make their job easier and more successful by removing any of those surprises when they’re gonna do that work.
Allen Hall: So what’s the plans for 2026 then?
Chris Cieslak: 2026 for us is to pick up where 2025 should have ended. [00:15:00] So we were, we were meant to be in the States. Yeah. On some projects that got postponed until 26. So it’s really, for us North America is, um, what we’re really, as you said, there’s seven, 5,000 turbines there, but there’s also a lot of, um, turbines with known issues that we can help determine which blades are affected.
And that involves blades on the ground, that involves blades, uh, that are flying. So. For us, we wanna get out to the states as soon as possible, so we’re working with some of the OEMs and, and essentially some of the asset owners.
Allen Hall: Chris, it’s so great to meet you in person and talk about the latest that’s happening.
Thank you. With Blade Bug, if people need to get ahold of you or Blade Bug, how do they do that?
Chris Cieslak: I, I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place to find myself and also Blade Bug and contact us, um, through that.
Allen Hall: Alright, great. Thanks Chris for joining us and we will see you at the next. So hopefully in America, come to America sometime.
We’d love to see you there.
Chris Cieslak: Thank you very [00:16:00] much.
Hillsdale College is a rightwing Christian extremist organization that ostensibly honors the United States Constitution.
Here’s their quiz, which should be called the “Constitutional Trivia Quiz.”, whose purpose is obviously to convince Americans of their ignorance.
When I teach, I’m going for understanding of the topic, not the memorization of useless information.
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