Enerteck Expands Wind Services Across Canada
Alex Fournier, General Manager at Enerteck Wind Services, returns to the spotlight to discuss the company’s growth from specialized blade repair into a full-service wind maintenance provider. Fournier shares how Enerteck is positioning itself to support Quebec’s ambitious wind expansion plans while navigating the unique challenges of Canada’s shortened repair seasons.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow.
Allen Hall: Alex, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much guys for having me. It sounds like we had a busy blade season with Enerteck up in Canada. It’s just a different environment up there. What kind of, uh, repairs have you been working on this year?
Alex Fournier: Uh, really busy. Been some, uh, doing some transfer crack, open window and lighting damage, VGs, installation, polytech, erosion, uh, all that kind of stuff from road access on platform.
Um, so we been pretty busy. Yeah. What parts of Canada are you focused on right now? Uh, at the beginning of the season we trying to focus on Quebec ’cause the temperature is getting colder faster. Um, so usually we start with Quebec and then we’re making our way up west. So right now our blade season is pretty much done in Quebec, [00:01:00] so now we’re focusing in Ontario.
Uh, Ontario have way better, uh, temperature right now in Quebec. It might be around 15 to 20 degrees up north. Versus in Ontario that right now it’s around 22, 25 degrees Celsius.
Joel Saxum: Celsius being the big thing there. Right. For our, for our US listeners, it’s 25 degrees is really cold to us, but very nice to you.
Yeah. Thanks. It’s pretty cold.
Allen Hall: Yeah. I think for a lot of listeners, they don’t realize how short the blade repair season is in Canada. How many days do you really have it? It depends where you are, right? There’s some
Alex Fournier: site that, there’s still some snow in May. Um, but, uh, if, if, if we’re in a. Nice area. It can be from, uh, April, may to September, October, November.
You’re really pushing it. I think if, if you want to do, uh, blade work in November and que back, you need to have like a 360 platform with the heater and uh, and closed platform. Which we don’t have yet,
Joel Saxum: but yet, [00:02:00] yet is an interesting concept there. You say we don’t have that platform yet, but that kind of points to the eTech.
Uh, I mean, of course. Congratulations. A new, new role over there I think, clue us in on that. What is the new role?
Alex Fournier: So it’s general manager, so right now I’m taking care of the whole company, which is either composite or maintenance. Um, I’m doing boat. Um, so if you have any requests either on composite or maintenance and Quebec or candidate, just let me know.
But yeah, when I first started I was, uh, director of composite operation and then, uh. Climbing at the ladder to turn on Azure. Now
Joel Saxum: what it makes sense is eTech is, uh, expanding, you know, strategically expanding services. Right? So you guys, uh, of course when we were talking with you and you joined the team there, you had a composite.
So we, they just, this is your first big blade season. Sounds like it’s gone very well. Um, but the eTech is a company does a lot more than that. You off air, you’re clueing us in on some of the really cool things you guys are doing. Some, some stuff we’ve never actually really dealt with or heard too much of and wind, [00:03:00] but, um.
Yeah, share some of the new things and, uh, areas you guys are expanding into.
Alex Fournier: Yeah, for sure. Well, one of the big thing is Rob access. Um, coming from a Rob access background and as a level three, I really wanted to, uh, break that in, which can help us too with composite, but it can help us with other, uh, maintenance and a turbine like tire cleaning, uh, deck, both removal, all this stuff that you can access in the ladder, we can access by rope.
So. That was a big thing for us. Uh, also we’re doing now touring, tensioning, um, constriction as well. Uh, in Quebec there’s a lot of constriction sites coming up. Um, so we got our constriction license with inner deck so we can participate to construction. So. Composite is a big thing, but also everything related to maintenance.
Uh, we can do it as well and we’re about to do it.
Allen Hall: What is a construction environment in Canada? We’ve been most recently seeing a lot of good news from Canada regarding [00:04:00] offshore wind, and that is maybe a big push of putting gigawatts out off the coast of Nova Scotia. But what’s happening onshore in Canada, Quebec right now is pretty busy,
Alex Fournier: um, from last year to this year and ongoing year.
Um, there’s seven new sites coming up. Um, so we’re pretty busy. Um, and also the, the views of Quebec is to have 10,000, uh, megawatt by 2035. Hydro Quebec is signing big contracts, um, by operating and developing their own site too. Um, they just announced a site, I think it’s a thousand or 2000 megawatt that they wanna build, um, around, uh, second area that, that, that is up north.
So with all that, uh, I think Quebec’s gonna be really busy in the next, uh, couple years,
Allen Hall: and Antech is helping those new construction projects. How, because, but so many different phases from scooping the dirt, pouring the concrete. Uh, getting the towers up, getting the cells on, getting the [00:05:00]blades installed, all the pre-inspection, post inspection things that have to happen.
And then all the, uh, ohs that they see as they’re putting the towers together. Where are, are you guys focused? At our
Alex Fournier: side, we’re focusing on, uh, more quality control, more or less. Um, and pre-inspection and deliveries. Um, so when pieces come to site, inspect them. If there’s something wrong with them, we will let engineering know and, uh, they can do some action about it.
Um, receiving tool, uh, component blade, you know, uh, sometimes they get a little bit messy on the train or the boat, so we’re there to inspect them and repair them. If, if there’s something. Um, air quality control is a big thing, Joel.
Allen Hall: That’s what we’ve been talking about for years. It sounds like Alex is actually doing it.
That’s fantastic. How much work is that on a new site right now? What are you seeing as, uh, blades are offloaded from the trains or the trucks? I mean,
Alex Fournier: it’s, uh, it’s not all the time that the blade get banged up, but when it does, we’re at least we’re [00:06:00] there to, uh, repair it. But normally it’s, it’s pretty slow.
Um. It doesn’t happen too often, but when it happen, at least they have the manpower to, to repair it. And as of quality control, I mean, uh, in Quebec there’s the union too that is taking care of building the sites. Um, so we’re just there to help the union, uh, making sure that everything is, is made right.
Joel Saxum: I think that’s a good strategic initiative though, because you hear about, or, or Alan, like you said, our conversation we’ve been having, we should be inspecting these things properly when they arrive at site, da, da dah.
We, we talk about this and, and people will say, oh, we do that. Oh. Um, but for many times, like in the States, what I’ve seen is, is the person doing the receiving inspection is like what their training is. They’re trained to take the straps off, and that’s about it. And then they’re like, yeah, there’s a big white thing here.
Check, like, um, you know, to have an, to have an actual, uh, trained technician, trained subject matter expert, doing those qa QC inspections when they, [00:07:00] when those components arrive on site, is huge. And if I’m an operator, I’m, I want that, that’s what I want. I don’t want. Uh, a warm body telling me that it arrived.
Yeah, I know that. Um, but to have some, and then having the capabilities of it’s say, say it’s an Enerteck person, right? And they, and they’ve been around the, they’ve been around blades. They may be a blade repair technician, uh, accepting the blades at site and they go, we can fix this. This is how we can do this.
And then you have that continuity there, um, to make sure that these things are done right. They’ve been accepted. They’re good to go up tower, so you’re not. Uh, having delays in trying to mobilize a repair crew or, that’s a big thing. I know because sometimes people just don’t want to, they’re like, we’re not gonna repair this one because we need to get this thing hung so we’re not gonna deal with it.
You run into that stuff,
Alex Fournier: it’s not too bad. ’cause since we have experts that know what they’re doing, we can tell people like, look, you shall not, let’s say crane that blade like this, he should already repair it. Normally, like people, you know, they’re not that, uh, outta wrench that they will say, oh, let’s just do it anyway.
Um. [00:08:00] So it’s, it’s not too bad, but definitely having someone that know what they’re doing, it’s definitely a, an advantage there.
Allen Hall: One of the things we’ve been talking about also recently, and it seems to be a, a bigger and bigger issue, is, uh, icing systems or de-icing systems. And I’m really curious where Canada is heading in that realm.
Are new turbines arriving on site in Quebec? It seems like they would have to have anti-icing systems. What kind of systems are they? Getting, what are they thinking about? How are they planning ahead for some of the winters? Hey, Quebec, at
Alex Fournier: least it’s the power utility company. I drew Quebec that said you’re not putting a tower there if there’s no active, the icing system.
Um, so a paint doesn’t work ’cause it needs to be active, the icing system. Um, so yeah, the, the only two companies that was able to, uh, accomplish the mission of having turbine with the deicing system was STOs and Nordex. So big, uh, big shout out to them. Um, but what I heard that the are getting [00:09:00] is ema um, so I think Nordex and Vestus are equipped with ema
Allen Hall: and you’re coming up on, uh, winter season Really quickly, what’s the outlook like over the next couple of months and what are, what are customers asking you to go do?
Um, so in the winter for us
Alex Fournier: it’s pretty slow, at least in Quebec because I, Quebec have actually like a rolling that you’re not supposed to stop turbine, uh, in the winter. So. Unless it’s something major, um, you’re not supposed to stop a turbine. So that’s why we’re doing all the preventive maintenance in the summer.
Um, so when the winter gets here, we, we don’t need to stop the turbines. Um, obviously if it’s, if the turbine just shut down ’cause there’s a problem, like a pitcher or something, it’s okay to go, uh, troubleshoot it. But, uh, you’re not supposed to stop a turbine if it’s not supposed to be stopped.
Joel Saxum: So no planned outage is all winter long.
Yeah. What do the boys do then? They go ice fishing, is it, is that, is that what the plan is?
Alex Fournier: Well, first of all, the turbines are getting, uh, they’re pretty icy, [00:10:00] uh, coming from, uh, ice background. Uh, I seen some turbines in the winter and, and they get pretty messy. Um, so most of the time people cannot even access the turbine ’cause it’s too ice, ice tea.
Um. So, yeah, we’re, I guess it’s pretty, uh, pretty chill in the winter
Joel Saxum: for us. I wanna, I wanna rewind a little bit back to the, talking about icing and de-icing systems. Uh, Canada being, uh, its own kind of special market like that, right? Like the Scandinavian countries have the same issues and problems for the most part.
But if Nordex investors were the only two OEMs to qualify for the big hydro Quebec deal, ’cause that Hydro Quebec basically controls the power output in Quebec. Right. So they get to kind of put their stamp on things. So Nordex, I know Nordex has a, uh, uh, not a want, but like a strategic direction to be more like boutiquey.
Like, if you wanna change something, we’ll help, we’ll work with you to change it, to make it, you know, good for your locale. So, [00:11:00] and Vestas, I don’t know exactly what their active heating system is because I know that they have the operations with ICE kind of thing that they do, the algorithmic changes and whatnot.
But if an active heating system. Are they putting this on or will they be putting it on from the factory, or would it be put on, on, on site? Like, and if it’s active, if it’s, if it’s like a thermoelectric heating mat in the leading edge, or what does that look like?
Alex Fournier: Um, yeah, the, the both or them are coming straight from the factory with it.
Um, they don’t, I don’t think they want to do like, retrofit thread on site. So yeah, both of them are coming straight from the factory with it. Um, and yeah, from what I heard and seen, it’s uh, about, uh, I, uh. Speed in Matt. Um, so yeah, we’ll be in the leading edge a little bit, like, uh, a good friend at Wet Tech, a little bit the same, uh, technology.
And also I think Intercon have, Intercon has some DING system as well, so they qualified also, but. From what we’ve seen from the RFP coming out, it’s mostly Vestus and Nordex that will be [00:12:00] installed there. And Quebec,
Allen Hall: I wanna hop onto to the lightning question ’cause we’re a lightning company and I’m always curious what’s happening up in Canada?
What kind of lightning season has it been up in Canada? Honestly, it was not too bad.
Alex Fournier: Well, at least on the site that I was working at, uh, it was really good. Um, we, I know last year and the year before it was really rainy. Um, and this summer was actually like pretty good. So as of lightning, honestly, we didn’t have too much standby ’cause of lightning.
So it was, it was pretty good. Uh, when it was popping off though. It was popping off
Allen Hall: and the, and the wildfires. There’s been a number of wildfires up in Canada again this year. We were recently up in North Dakota at a site in, there was just an immense amount of smoke coming down from Canada. Are you experiencing difficulties with that in the wind area?
Dealing with some of the, the wildfires and the after effects of that in Canada we’re getting
Alex Fournier: affected in wildfires mostly, um, in the west. So BC I know they had a lot of [00:13:00] trouble a couple years ago with wildfires. Um. So far this year, I didn’t hear anything too bad at the beginning of the season. We had some co of fires in Quebec, but it didn’t really affect us.
No.
Allen Hall: Well, I’m wondering because one of the things when we were in North Dakota was there’s just a lot of partic in the air, and that tends to lead to leading edge erosion issues. Are you seeing more leading edge erosion issues up in Canada? Just in general, it depends where you are.
Alex Fournier: Um, and I talked with this with Polytech, uh, couple, couple months ago.
Um, but what I’ve seen from my side is, uh, a lot of farming area. I don’t know if it’s because when they, they put the machine in the field, like there’s a lot of dusts coming up. Uh, but every time that I’ve been working on farms that are closed to farming, uh, field, uh, we’re gonna see more erosion.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, we see that too.
Allen Hall: We were talking to some operators who said that, uh, aerial spraying may have something to do with some of the erosion issues, that the [00:14:00] chemicals that are being distributed over the farms may have some sort of impact on the leading edge protection. Do you notice that too? Or is that something that’s just, uh, lore old live tale?
Alex Fournier: Yeah, I don’t know. It’ll be a wild dead to, uh, to say that, uh, ’cause actually, like, I don’t know what, what the chemical is that they use. Maybe it can have an impact on, on it. My idea is that, uh, it will come from dust, uh. Some experts saying that it’s caused by the rain too, which I agree. Like, uh, when there’s heavy rain in place, that heavy rain, it will probably cause erosion.
But I think from my side that uh, the dust will, uh, have an impact on it.
Allen Hall: Is there anything being done to try to minimize that impact? Uh, you, you said you’re putting on some leaning edge protection. Is it working?
Alex Fournier: Yeah. Uh, the Polytech, I will say that is one of the best. Um, I, I, I love Polytech from the start, so shout out to the team at, at Polytech.
But, uh, yeah, they’re shells. They have the shells, um, that works pretty well. It’s [00:15:00] like you put on your blade and it’s good for 20, 30 years. Um, and also there new product, uh, Polytech, l onshore, like the, the tape, um, I think you put on your brain’s good for like 20 years, 15 to 20 years. So. It works pretty well.
And also the customer that we are working with right now has been a big fan from Polytech from a couple of years. He’s only putting that up and uh, it’s been working really good for him. So,
Allen Hall: so both shells and the, the film are working The difficulty or the, the amount of time it takes to install it? It’s, I’ve run across a couple of crews this year that have been.
Doing both those things. What is your experience on the install times and how they apply? Uh, install time is
Alex Fournier: not too bad. Um, I would say if, if you just need to do basic, uh, preparation, like sending and filling. Um, a day, a deeper blade. So three days per turbine can be easily, uh, doable. So it’s not too long though.
Allen Hall: Oh, okay. Yeah, so we, that’s [00:16:00] been my experience is it goes on pretty quick, but it really depends on how much blade damage there is before you start putting on any kind coating or protection. Right. Uh, and. Generally, what are you seeing when you get on site to some of these, uh, wind turbines? Are you seeing a lot of erosion before these they put protection on or are they trying to catch it early where it’s less expensive to do?
Alex Fournier: Um, some of them are trying to catch it early. I know some of the blades now are coming out with, um, leading edge protection already from the factory, so that’s good. Um, but what I’ve been seeing, it’s. Some of them are pretty aggressive. Uh, some of them you’ll need to do blade repair before you apply the air, the, the tape.
Um, but what I’ve been seeing is most of the customer will, will prevent it and, you know, before it gets too bad and they’ll say, okay, well, we’ll put a solution on the blade so we don’t need to do that every other year.
Allen Hall: Oh, wow. Okay. That’s a, that’s a quite a different approach. And what are the things you’re seeing happening?
Up north that we should know about in terms of [00:17:00] operations, maintenance, preventative maintenance in particular. Where is Canada heading? Where is Canada heading? That’s a good question.
Alex Fournier: We’re heading the same way as usual. Um, but like I said, I think, uh, what we do as actually in Quebec like that, we, we do pre all preventive maintenance in the summer.
So then in the winter when the winds are strong, uh, we can actually make more money. Um, I don’t know if it’s the same way in other province, but us in Quebec, uh, that’s how we do it. Preventive maintenance. In the summer we try to do everything. Substation, blade, uh, turbine maintenance, everything in the summer.
First of all, it’s more enjoyable to work. Um, I. Second, the, the wind is stronger in the winter. So that’s, I think that’s where they’re making a big box. It’s in the winter.
Allen Hall: The power production in cold weather is always really good. And the PPA prices in Canada are also pretty good, aren’t they? Pretty good.
But it’s fixed price. If
Alex Fournier: you compare to Europe that it’s like spot price. Um, and Quebec’s not too [00:18:00] good. They negotiate for a couple of years. Um, but yeah, I think, uh, that’s what we were talking about when I was, uh, in the deicing market. It was that like. In Europe with, you know, at deicing system they will be bulletproof because when they need power and the turbine all icy, the spot price go up so they can actually de ice and make the turbine run and make a bunch of money.
But that’s, uh,
Allen Hall: I dunno, it seems a no brainer to me. Secondarily to that, there’s, there’s an availability issue. Are you seeing more emphasis on the availability? For turbines, particularly as you get into the winter, winter months, that they expect a 96, 90 7% availability number. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, with, like
Alex Fournier: I said, with the preventive maintenance that they’re shooting, like big score with, uh, the availability.
Um, but of course, like, like I said, if some, some place, you know, they don’t have a deicing system or whatever. So if you have your turbine down for three months. Uh, [00:19:00] you’re probably not gonna shoot for availability, but I mean, it, it’s not, uh, it’s not all site that we’ll have turbine down for a while, but I mean, uh, until the weather gets, uh, warm again, it, it could take some times.
As you guys seen in Texas when the big ice storm come in, there was like, for two weeks everything was shut down until the sun is warm against sun.
Allen Hall: Yeah. And I’m wondering in Canada, because you’re so far ahead of things that are happening in the states, in a lot of aspects. The use of these anti-icing coatings, these sort of spray on rub on coatings, that getting a lot more activity around and seeing more and more and more places.
Have you had experience with that? Are you, are they trialing that up in Canada and what is the outcome of that? Uh, yes they do. Uh,
Alex Fournier: another farmer trying it, uh, my experience with it, uh, I had the chance to install it a couple years ago. Um. But at the same time, uh, [00:20:00]it will be, um, if you install it in a place that have a lot of erosion, uh, well then you’ll, you’ll apply your paint and then after a couple of, uh, summer, and then you’ll need to reapply again.
So if, if someone is okay to have people coming to reapply. Every year, every two years. Um, I mean, that, that’s good. But if, uh, if I was in charge of a wind farm, it will go for a more, uh, a more bulletproof approach. So we don’t need to come back every year. ’cause I mean, yeah, you need to mobilize team, you need to buy more product.
You, I would need to check the numbers. Uh, but, uh, on my side it’s, I, I see it as the same thing as when you buy a tent and you put some, uh, spree on it to make it, uh, water repealing. I mean, it will work for a couple of weeks, and then you’ll wake up with your feet wet. If there’s some farm owners that have different, uh, opinion and they, they apply it and it, it works for them, that’s awesome.[00:21:00]
Uh, but from my background, I think, uh, that, that will be the, uh, I’ll go for more like, uh. A better approach than paying.
Allen Hall: Well, I know having good Blade people up in Canada is really critical and Enerteck is a place to get them. What does your spring look like? Are you starting to get booked up already? Uh, spring is still pretty busy.
Alex Fournier: Spring is still pretty busy. Uh, but yeah, we’re starting to receive some bookings from next year, for next year, so that’s really good. Um, this year it’s been pretty late, like people were reaching to, uh, reaching out to us in like March. Um, but now I think that we made our name and, uh, we’ve been putting some stuff out there, so people are now reaching out, uh, right now to have some, uh, people for next year.
So that’s, that’s good.
Allen Hall: And you’re gonna be at some of the conferences up in Canada and around the world at least I see. In us once in a while. Where, where are you gonna be for
Alex Fournier: this winter? I’ll try to pass by, uh, [00:22:00] OMS, um, from ECP. And, uh, proud of the American clean power. And, uh, by the end, well, we’re already planning the end of next year, but, uh, we’re gonna be at Hamburg too.
Wow, that’s terrific. Yeah, from what I’ve seen is that European are always a low nudge in advance than, uh, everyone. So. We’re trying to go there to see all we can bring back, uh, that knowledge in Canada.
Allen Hall: So you’re everywhere. Well, that’s good. And if, if, if someone wants to connect with you and try to get scheduled for the springtime and get some blade repair or other work done with their turbines.
What’s the best way to reach you? LinkedIn is the best way. I’m always
Alex Fournier: on it. I’m a big fan. Uh, I I love it. So just, uh, shoot a text on LinkedIn and I will send you my email and we can get in touch.
Allen Hall: Yeah, so reach out to Alex Forney on LinkedIn, but you can also reach out to Enerteck on the web. What’s the web address?
Uh, enter take.ca, E-N-E-R-T-E-C-K and up in [00:23:00] Canada. Alex, we love having you on the program. It’s great to connect like this and I hope to see you soon in person. Oh yeah. That would be awesome. Well, thank you guys again for
Alex Fournier: having me, and it’s always a pleasure to be there and uh, I will see you guys soon.
https://weatherguardwind.com/enerteck-wind-services-canada/
My personal reaction to Trump flags is more of pity than offense. Life is tough enough without being deprived of a moral compass and even a meager level of intelligence.
In any case, we see such displays in ever-decreasing numbers, as Trump’s approval rating continues to fall, due to the president’s cognitive decline and brazen criminality.
One has to wonder how much more gas Trump has in the tank when he calls those who disapprove of him (especially blacks and women) “low IQ.”
Aren’t we approaching a point when this type of stupidity will cease to be effective?
There must be a bottom of the pit we’ve fallen into.
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
PowerCurve’s Innovative Vortex Generators and Serrations
Nicholas Gaudern from PowerCurve joins to discuss SilentEdge serrations with up to 5 dB noise reduction, Dragon Scale VGs for AEP recovery, and their approach to products that actually perform in the field. Contact PowerCurve on LinkedIn for more information.
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: Nicholas, welcome back to the show.
Nicholas Gaudern: Thanks, Allen. Always a pleasure.
Allen Hall: Well, there’s a lot of new products coming outta PowerCurve. And PowerCurve is the aerodynamic leader in add-ons and making your turbines perform at higher efficiency with less loss. Uh, so basically taking that standard OEM blade and making it work the way it was intended to work.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes. We
Allen Hall: like to
Nicholas Gaudern: think so. Yeah.
Allen Hall: And there’s a, there’s a lot of new technology that you’ve been working on in the lab that you haven’t been able to explore to the, introduce to the world, so to speak. Yeah. And we’ve seen some of it from the inside of, you know, you’re working behind the scenes or working really hard to get this done, but now that technology has been released to the world, and we’re gonna introduce it today, some new trailing edge.
[00:01:00] Components. Yeah. That really, really reduce the noise. But they, they look a little bit odd. Yes. There’s a lot of ADON dams going on with
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.
Allen Hall: With these. So what, what do you call these new trailing edge parts?
Nicholas Gaudern: So, so what you have in your hand here? This is the Silence edge, uh, serration. So this is our new trailing Edge Serration products.
Now, most people, when they think of training restorations, they are thinking of triangles.
Allen Hall: Exactly.
Nicholas Gaudern: These Dino tails. Dino Tails, that’s the Siemens, Siemens name for them. Pretty, pretty standard. You see ’em on a lot of turbines now. Sure. And they work, you know, they do do a job. They do a job. They reduce noise.
But like with lots of things in, in aerodynamics, there’s lots of different ways that you can solve a problem and some are better than others. So we’ve worked for a long, long time in the wind tunnel, uh, in the CFD simulations, and we’ve come up with this pretty unique shape. We think,
Allen Hall: well, the, the, the shape is unique and if you, if you look at it, there’s actually different heights to the, the triangle, so to speak.
To mix the air from the pressure and the [00:02:00] suction side to reduce the, the level of noise coming off the blade
Nicholas Gaudern: e Exactly. So we have, uh, we have an asymmetry to the part. We have these different tooth lengths. We have, uh, a lot of changes in thickness going on across the part. So it may be a little bit difficult to see on the camera, but these are quite sculpted 3D components.
They’re not, they’re not flat stock white triangles. No, no. There’s a lot of thickness detail going on here. We’ve paid a lot of attention to the edges. We’ve paid a lot of attention to these gaps between the teeth as well. So all of this is about trying to figure out what is the best way to reduce noise.
And something that not a lot of people will, will admit, but it’s true, is that as an industry we don’t really understand the fundamentals of how serrations work.
Allen Hall: It’s a complicated
Nicholas Gaudern: problem. It’s a really complicated thing. Problem, yeah. Yes. So trying to simulate it in CFD is an absolute nightmare. The, the mesh sizes required, the physics models required are really, really difficult.
So what we found is that you’re probably better off spending [00:03:00] most of your time and money in the wind tunnel. Yes. So, so we go to DTU, they have this wonderful, uh, air acoustic wind tunnel, the pool of core tunnel. It’s one the best tunnels in the industry for doing this kind of work. It
Allen Hall: is
Nicholas Gaudern: because you can measure acoustics and aerodynamics at the same time.
So this allows us to do a lot of very cost effective iteration for this kind of design work. So we know what’s important. You know, we’ve, we’ve studied all the different parameters of serrations lengths, aspect ratios, angles, thicknesses, all this kind of stuff. And it’s about bringing them together into a, into a coherent product.
So this is, this is a result of a lot of design of experiments, a lot of iteration, and combining wind tunnel and CFD to kind of get the best of both of those tools. So,
Allen Hall: so what’s the. Noise reduction compared to those standard triangular trailing aerations. Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: So there’s lots of different ways of, of thinking about noise reduction, but I think probably the most useful is the O-A-S-P-L.
So this is the overall sound pressure level. Right. Is kind of what [00:04:00]typically you’ll be measuring in an IEC test.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: And that’s measured in decibels, but a way to decibels because it’s important that we’re waiting to what the human ear can actually hear. Right. Perceive. Exactly. So that’s the numbers we report.
For the field test we’ve recently completed with Silent Edge, we’re seeing up to five decibels of O-A-S-P-L noise reduction.
Allen Hall: Okay. So what’s that mean in terms of what I hear on the ground?
Nicholas Gaudern: So that is an absolutely huge reduction. It’s multiple times of reduction because you know, decibels on a log scale,
Allen Hall: right?
Nicholas Gaudern: So five DB is is enormous. It’s
Allen Hall: a lot. Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: And what’s really interesting is that if you have a turbine that’s running in a noise mode, just one decibel reduction. Of power, sound, sound, power level might be three or 4% P loss. I mean, that, that’s, that’s huge. Think about that loss. So if you need to reduce noise by five decibels to get within a regulation, imagine how much a EP you have to throw away by basically turning down the [00:05:00] turbine to do that.
Allen Hall: That’s right.
Nicholas Gaudern: So that’s really what the, the business case for these kind of products is. It means you can escape noise modes because as soon as you use a noise mode. You are throwing away energy.
Allen Hall: You’re throwing well you’re throwing away profits.
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly.
Allen Hall: So you’re just losing money to reduce the noise.
Now you can operate at peak.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.
Allen Hall: Power output without the creating the noise where you have that risk. Right. So, and particularly in a lot of countries now, there are noise regulations. Yes. And they are very well monitored.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.
Allen Hall: We’re seeing it more and more where, uh, government agencies are coming out and checking.
Yes. ’cause they have a complaint and so you get a complaint. Oh, that’s fine. Or someone can complain. Yeah. You know, you need to be making your numbers.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yep. And, and the industry needs to be good neighbors, you know? It
Allen Hall: certainly does.
Nicholas Gaudern: Uh, we have to make sure that people are, you know, approving and comfortable with having wind turbines in their backyard.
Sure. And noise is a big part of that.
Allen Hall: It is.
Nicholas Gaudern: So yeah. Ap sure. That’s really important. Being a good [00:06:00] neighbor also important.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: Meeting the regulations. Obviously you have to meet the regulations. So this product, um, has been through a really long development cycle, and we’re now putting the final touches to the, to the tooling.
So this is available now.
Allen Hall: Oh, wow.
Nicholas Gaudern: Okay. Great. Um, and we’re hoping that in the next uh, few months we’ll be getting even more turbines equipped out in the field with, with the technology.
Allen Hall: So, oh, sure. There’s a, you think about the number of turbines that are in service, hundreds of thousands total worldwide.
A lot of them have no noise reduction at all.
Nicholas Gaudern: No. No.
Allen Hall: And they have a lot of complaints from the neighbors.
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly.
Allen Hall: Trying to expand wind into new areas, uh, is hard because the, the experience of the previous Yes. Neighbor
Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.
Allen Hall: Grows into future neighbors. So fixing the turbines you have out in sight today helps you get the next site.
I know we don’t always think about that, but that’s exactly how it works. Yeah, of course. Uh, we need to be conscientious of the people of the turbines we have in service right now. So that we can continue to grow wind [00:07:00] globally and more regulations on noise are gonna come unless we start taking care of the problem ourselves.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yep. And another really important thing with Serrations is that you have to design them so that they don’t impact the loads on the rest of the turbine.
Allen Hall: Right. And people forget about that.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.
Allen Hall: Can you just, can’t just throw up any device up there. And think, well, my blade’s gonna be happy with it. It may not be happy with that device.
Nicholas Gaudern: You have to really carefully understand what the existing blade aerodynamic signature is.
Allen Hall: Sure.
Nicholas Gaudern: How is that blade performing? What is the lift distribution across the span? Yeah.
Allen Hall: Right. Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: So what we do, and we, we’ve talked about it before we go and laser scan blades. We build CAD models, we build CFD models so we can actually understand how much lift a blade can take and what’s the benefit or the penalty of doing so.
So these serrations are designed by default to be load neutral. They won’t increase lift. They won’t reduce lift. That’s what
Allen Hall: it should
Nicholas Gaudern: be. That’s where you should start,
Allen Hall: right?
Nicholas Gaudern: And maybe there’s some scope to do something else [00:08:00] on certain turbines, but you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t guess. You, you need to calculate, you need to simulate, you need to think very carefully about that.
So that’s what we do with these, uh, with these serrations, we go through this very careful aerodynamic design process to make sure that they reduce noise and that’s it. They don’t increase loads, they don’t reduce AP by killing lift. And that’s, that’s an important aspect.
Allen Hall: Well, that’s the goal.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes,
Allen Hall: exactly.
I don’t necessarily want to increase power. I don’t wanna put more load in my blade, but people do that. I’ve seen that happen and man, they regret it.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, regret it. There’s, there’s some pretty wild claims out there as well about observations can and can’t do. And uh, like with lots of things, it’s important to just do the simulations, speak to some experts and, um.
Yeah, maybe take the, the less exciting path, you know, sometimes,
Allen Hall: well, no. Yeah. Well, less exciting path where I don’t have a broken blade.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly.
Allen Hall: Yeah. That’s a lot less exciting. It’s, it’s definitely more profitable. Now, the Dragon Scale Vortex generator has been [00:09:00] around about a year or so.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yep, yep.
Allen Hall: And the thing about these devices, and they’re so unique, interesting to think about because you typically think of a vortex generator as this being this little bit of a fence.
Where you are tripping the air and making it fall back down onto the blade.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.
Allen Hall: A really, it works.
Nicholas Gaudern: It works.
Allen Hall: But it’s it’s
Nicholas Gaudern: been around a long time.
Allen Hall: Yeah. Yeah. It, it does, it does do this thing. And they, they were, they came outta the aviation business. We use ’em on airplanes to keep air flow over the control surfaces so we can continue to fly even in close to stall conditions.
All that makes sense. And airplanes are not a wind turbine.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.
Allen Hall: So there’s different things happening there. So although they work great on on aircraft, they’re not necessarily the most efficient thing for a wind turbine where you’re trying to generate power and revenue from the rotation of the blades.
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly.
Allen Hall: So this is a completely different way of thinking about getting the airflow back onto the blade where it produces [00:10:00] revenue.
Nicholas Gaudern: And what’s really nice is to actually see this together with silent edge, because historically, and maybe not even historically. Serrations VGs, they’re triangles. They work, they do a job.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it in a different way. In a better way.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: And that’s the same principles from applying with Silence Edge and Dragon Scale. We want to work the flow in the most efficient way possible.
Allen Hall: Right. You’re trying to get to an
outcome.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly.
Allen Hall: Efficiently.
Nicholas Gaudern: We want to, we want to target very specific things on the blade, and that’s where you can see there’s a few different styles of Dragon Scale that we have on the table here.
We have some that are two fins. We have some that are three fins. We have different sizes, and this is because they’re tailored to different parts of the blade. So these three Fin Dragon scales, their focus is ultimate lift. We are creating a really powerful vortex through this combination of three air foils, if you imagine, um, the inside of a Turbo fan.
You have these cascading air force. [00:11:00] You look at the leading edge slacks on an aircraft. You look at the front wing of a Formula one car. It’s that kind of concept.
Allen Hall: It’s like that,
Nicholas Gaudern: and it’s these air force that are cooperating with each other.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: To end up with a more beneficial result. ‘
Allen Hall: cause an air force by itself does a function, but when you combine airflows together in the right way
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly.
Allen Hall: You can really control airflow efficiently, less losses. More of what you want out the backside. Yeah, exactly. It’s, it’s the backside you’re trying to work on, on a VG or, or dragon scales. You’re trying to create this flow which gets the airflow back onto the blade to create power. We,
Nicholas Gaudern: we want as much attached flow as possible and down exactly down in the roots of a blade.
We have to have really thick aerofoils, you know, blades about round. They’re basically cylinders.
Allen Hall: Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: And that, that’s essential, right? We have to have the blade take a lot of load into the root aerodynamically. They’re horrible.
Allen Hall: Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: So this is where these, uh, these powerful Dragon Scale VGs come into play because what they do is they’re [00:12:00] reenergizing the flow over the aerofoils, and they’re ensuring that that flow remains attached for much, much longer than if those bgs weren’t there.
So down in the root, you’ll get significant boosts to the lift that those sections can generate. And what’s more lift? It goes to more torque, it goes to more power, goes to more a EP. So these dragon scale VGs in the root are there to boost, lift, and boost EP out on the tip of the blade. Things are actually a little bit different because it’s way different.
You shouldn’t really have stall there to begin with if your blade’s been designed well.
Allen Hall: But if you have leading edge erosion exactly. Or some other things that are happening, you can have real aerodynamic problems.
Nicholas Gaudern: So yeah, as soon as you have erosion, uh, maybe your stall margin is not as big as you thought it was.
You’re starting to get some significant losses of lift Yes out towards the tip of the blade. So that’s where these, uh, TwoFin uh, variants come in. So it’s still a dragon scale vg, it’s still the same concept of these cascading error foils. Yeah, but these are [00:13:00] designed for basically ultimate lift to drag ratio.
Mm-hmm. So we don’t really want more maximum lift outta the tip. We kind of have enough, but what we do want is to keep stable attached flow and we want to do it for the less, uh, least drag penalty possible. So basically we want to get rid of as much parasitic drag as we can. These two fin dragon scales, we are seeing 25 plus percent improvements in lift to drag ratio.
Compared to a standard triangle vg. I mean that’s huge.
Allen Hall: That that is really
Nicholas Gaudern: huge.
Allen Hall: That’s huge, right? Because people have seen these, uh, triangular VGs in a lot of places. And one thing I’m noticing more recently is that those VGs, because they’re so draggy, they tend to flutter and they tend to break in just off.
Nicholas Gaudern: Interesting.
Allen Hall: So you’re having this failure mode because this thing is just blocking the air, getting the air to trip.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.
Allen Hall: It’s not efficient. It does have its downsides ’cause it is. D definitely drag. Just face it, it’s it, is it a draggy [00:14:00] 1940s technology? That’s what it is. Where with the dragon scales, now we’re doing things a lot more efficiently and thinking about how do I get the airflow that the blade designer originally wanted?
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes,
Allen Hall: because the blade designer, they’re really intelligent people. They’re, they’re sitting designing blades. But the reality is what you design is on an ideal airflow, and what you have out in service are totally different things. As, as it turns out, the shape of the airflow is not what you think it is because it comes out of the tool and there’s a lot of touching with by humans that are grinding on the leading edges and doing the things that have to be done to manufacture it.
So you don’t really have an ideal blade when it comes out of the
Nicholas Gaudern: No. You
Allen Hall: never do factory. No, you never do.
Nicholas Gaudern: And it’s not polished either.
Allen Hall: It’s not polished. Right. So
Nicholas Gaudern: when you go to the wind tunnel, you have a perfect profile. Yes. And it’s polished. And it works basically. It
Allen Hall: works great. It
Nicholas Gaudern: works great.
Allen Hall: The theoretical and the actual match.
Yeah. In reality they do. I think a lot of operators are not [00:15:00] connected with that reality of, Hey, that Blade should be producing this amount of revenue for me, and it’s not. And you hear that discussion all the time, particularly in the us. It should be producing this amount of power. I’m doing all the calculations.
We are not producing that power. Why? The blade length’s saying, but the power’s not coming out of it. Well take a look at your leading edge, take a look at your yard full of shape and realize you’re going to have to do something like dragon scales to get that E energy. Exactly. Revenue back.
Nicholas Gaudern: You need to do a full aerodynamic health check.
Basically you do. And see what are all the possibilities to improve my blade performance. And some of it is down to the fundamental shape of the blade,
Allen Hall: right?
Nicholas Gaudern: But some of it is down to blade condition. Yes. Blade Blade manufacturing quality.
Allen Hall: Yes.
Nicholas Gaudern: Uh, what kind of paint did they put on it? What day of the week was it made?
And all these things can be compensated for by VGs and you’ll get more revenue out at the end.
Allen Hall: You say? ’cause what happens? The, the, the scenario which is hard to visualize unless [00:16:00] you’re an A and emesis, is that there comes on the suction side, and it should be, in a ideal sense, rolling all the way to the back edge of the blade and coming off.
What happens is though, is that. When you get leading edge erosion is that the air flow actually separates. Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: It
Allen Hall: doesn’t
Nicholas Gaudern: always make it, yeah.
Allen Hall: Doesn’t make it to the back edge. Yeah. And so you can see that, especially if, if there’s dirt in the air, you can look on dirty blades, you can see where that separation line is, and a lot of operators have sky specs, images or Zeit view images, and then go back and look at the blades.
It takes two minutes to go. I have
Nicholas Gaudern: particularly down in the root, you’ll see it.
Allen Hall: Oh, in the root all the time. You, you
Nicholas Gaudern: see it really clearly that that separation line
Allen Hall: all the time, you really see that separation line. I’m seeing it more and more up towards the tip. Interesting. That’s where the lightning protection, yeah.
Systems sit.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.
Allen Hall: I see a lot of airflow that is not front to back on the suc. Well, you
Nicholas Gaudern: have a lot of three dimensional flow out there.
Allen Hall: You do towards the tip you do. And you realize how much power you’re losing there. And I think operators are just throwing away money.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly.
Allen Hall: So you could [00:17:00] put dragon skills on it very efficiently, very quickly.
Get that revenue back into your system and it’s gonna stay. So even if leading edge erosion happens, the dragon scales are gonna compensate for it. It’s gonna get the airflow back where it should be.
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly. And the nice thing about this is, you know, we are building on well over a decade of upgrading turbines with aerodynamic components.
Oh yes. So this technology stands on the foundations of all of that work. In terms of the materials, the work instructions. Um, the fatigue calculate, you know, everything
Allen Hall: Yes.
Nicholas Gaudern: Is built on thousands of installations that we’ve done. Yes. So, although it’s a new technology aerodynamically, it’s not really new in lots of sensors.
Allen Hall: Well, I look at it this way. If you turn on Formula One today and look at what the new generation of cars running around as you look at the, that front. Yes. Uh. Fin. Yeah. What do I call it? Air foil shape in the front. It’s super complicated.
Nicholas Gaudern: The sculpting of the [00:18:00] surfaces is really impressive,
Allen Hall: right? There’s a lot of thought going into those surfaces versus you turn on a Formula One race or go on YouTube and look at a Formula One race from the 1980s.
Yeah, it’s basically a piece.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.
Allen Hall: To provide down downforce. That’s it. The aerodynamics wasn’t really there, so we come a long way and a lot of that technology that happens in Formula One that happens in aviation eventually rolls down into. Yeah. Wind.
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly
Allen Hall: right. So we, we, although we are not designing Formula One style blaze today, we’re taking that same knowledge and information and we’re applying that back in.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. We’re
Allen Hall: secondarily we,
Nicholas Gaudern: which is a right thing to do. We’re taking, taking inspiration from all these different aerodynamic fields and, you know, picking the best
Allen Hall: Yes.
Nicholas Gaudern: From what’s available and just allowing ourselves to be a little bit more creative.
Allen Hall: Yes.
Nicholas Gaudern: And thinking outside the box a bit. There’s so many ways to do this as we’ve been saying.
And the import. And the
Allen Hall: data’s there.
Nicholas Gaudern: The data’s there. Exactly.
Allen Hall: The data’s there because you’ve been at the DTU Yep. Uh, wind Tunnel, which also has the acoustic piece to it. Yeah. So you have measured data from a reliable source. [00:19:00] You have field data, and you know, you put all these together, you’re gonna get that improvement back.
You’re gonna get your invest back, you’ll be more profitable.
Nicholas Gaudern: So Dragon Scale, focus on the AP. And that a EP will, uh, vary depending on the turbine.
Allen Hall: Sure.
Nicholas Gaudern: But we’ll assess the turbine and, and decide the best configuration, and then say silent edge. That’s the focus on the noise reduction. And we’re seeing up to five decibels OASP on the field.
It’s, which
Allen Hall: is crazy.
Nicholas Gaudern: It’s even more That’s really good that we were hoping for, you know?
Allen Hall: Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: So we, we know this is gonna be a, a great product.
Allen Hall: It looks very interesting.
Nicholas Gaudern: It does.
Allen Hall: It does it. It looks complicated and you think air airflow is complicated. It’s a compressible fluid. It’s not easy to, to just assume it’s gonna do what you think it is.
Yeah. You need to get into the tunnel. You need to replicate, you need to do all that work, which is expensive in time consuming. That’s why you go to someone like Power. Curver knows what they’re doing in the wind tunnel, knows how to measure those things and know when they’re getting nonsense. Out of their computer.
I
Nicholas Gaudern: mean, you, you’ll pay thousands and thousands of [00:20:00] Euros dollars a day to run a wind tunnel.
Allen Hall: You will.
Nicholas Gaudern: You’ve gotta Absolutely. You’ve gotta turn up with your plan in hand, that’s for sure.
Allen Hall: Oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think there’s a lot of assumptions because it, aerodynamics is hard. You know, you watch these blade spin around, you don’t realize how complicated these devices are.
They are complicated. Those air force shapes we are running today have been through a lot of history, a lot of history to get to where we are now. Now we’re just gonna take him into the next generation. This, we’re bringing ’em into the two thousands. In sort of a
Nicholas Gaudern: sense, what I’m hoping to see is, you know, with the OEMs, some OEMs do it already, but it’s important to think about these components when you’re designing new blades as well, you should because then that will allow you a much bigger design space to work in.
And
Allen Hall: a lot less customer complaints.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.
Allen Hall: Where’s my power?
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly. You know, these products, particularly the VGs, are really important tools for PowerCurve robustness. And some OEMs have known this for a long, long time.
Allen Hall: Yep.
Nicholas Gaudern: And you’ll see VGs on most of their blades. Mm-hmm. Others not so much. And that’s a design choice.
It’s a design philosophy. Um, and I think it may not [00:21:00] be the right one, you know?
Allen Hall: Well, I think the operators are asking to get the most out of their turbines. Yeah. Why shouldn’t they? They should be asking for that.
Nicholas Gaudern: I think for a, for a long time, and it’s not just in wind devices, like these have been considered, you know, band-aids fixes when you’ve, you’ve messed something up.
But I feel that’s a really negative way to think about products like this. They’re doing something that the kind of raw air fall shape on its own cannot achieve. Sure. Oh no. Right. You know, you might be able to mold some interesting stuff. Uh, as part of the blade, it’s very difficult to, to recreate the kind of aerodynamic effects that these products, uh, have.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: So they shouldn’t be considered bandaids or fixes. No. They should be considered opportunities. And ways that you can maximize performance and unlock areas of the design space that previously weren’t accessible to.
Allen Hall: Sure. Every possible component that deals with fluid air is moving this way.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.
Allen Hall: Jet engines, you look at jet engine, how much more is going into those jet engines today in terms of this kind of [00:22:00] technology?
Yeah. All the race colors, doesn’t matter what class, where it is, is all looking at this anything to do with aircraft, it’s all over this.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah,
Allen Hall: exactly. Or, or doing this today. It’s just wind that’s behind
Nicholas Gaudern: wind. Wind is
Allen Hall: significantly
Nicholas Gaudern: behind. No,
Allen Hall: it’s not magic. It’s proven technology. It’s
Nicholas Gaudern: just good engineering.
Allen Hall: Well, it’s good engineering and if you call PowerCurve, they’re gonna help you under to to, to understand what you have today and what you could have tomorrow.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.
Allen Hall: And how this, these devices will improve your revenue stream.
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly. You know, we will look at your blades, we’ll give you some good advice and maybe that advice will be that.
You know, a certain product isn’t right for your blade. Right. That’s fine.
Allen Hall: That’s an answer.
Nicholas Gaudern: That’s an answer.
Allen Hall: Yeah, it is.
Nicholas Gaudern: But let’s, let’s look at the blade. Let’s see what’s possible, and let’s just have a, have a proper conversation about it over some real data, some real
Allen Hall: facts. Right. I think that’s the key, and a lot of operators are afraid to talk about aerodynamics is it’s, it’s a difficult area to, to start the conversation on, right?
Yeah. But I think at the end of the day, when I work with PowerCurve, and I’ve worked with you guys for a [00:23:00] number of years, the answers I get back are intelligent and they’re not. Super complicated. This is what you’re gonna see. This is the improvement. And then we can, this is how we’re going to show you can get that improvement.
It’s not magic,
Nicholas Gaudern: no
Allen Hall: power crews backing up with data, which I think is the key, right? Because you’re the, you do hear a lot of noise in this industry about magical products that’ll do all these things. Particularly aerodynamic ones. Yes. PowerCurves, the ones really bringing the data.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. And we have, we have the track record now.
We have like we do 17, 1800 turbines. Should be over 2000 very soon with our products on. Yeah. So we have a lot, we have a lot of data to draw on to know that we’re doing a good thing.
Allen Hall: Well, and speaking of that, because one of the questions that always pops up is, well, we have put these new VGs or trailing edges on, are they gonna stay on?
How durable are they?
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. And that’s a, that’s a really important question to ask was it doesn’t matter how fancy aerodynamic product is, if it falls off the blade.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: So, you know, we’ve spent a lot of, uh, time and effort looking at how we should be fixing these products on. [00:24:00] So we use a, uh, a wet adhesive.
We specify a plexus adhesive to put our products in place. Really good adhesive. It’s a great adhesive and it means that they are not going anywhere. Basically. It’s a very, uh, forgiving adhesive. Uh, and it’s a very high spec. So we, we don’t use, uh, sided tape. We might have some of our products for some initial tack to help, you know, get the clear, the clear outta the line exactly.
But in terms of the bond itself, that is with a, a proper structural adhesive. So one thing that we are really proud of is that we haven’t got any, uh, reported failures of our panels over all the installations we’ve made. And that’s a combination of materials, but also geometry, work, instructions, adhesive.
It’s, it’s the full package. So it’s something that, um, yes, say we’re very proud of. And I think it’s, it’s a big part of what we do at PowerCurve, making sure the product is the right shape. Sure. But also making sure it stays on the blade.
Allen Hall: Well, you see it [00:25:00] from OEMs who have all kinds of aerodynamic treatments on there, and they’ll double set a tape to the blade, and then those parts are on the ground.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. And double-sided tape. You can get some really nice spec tape. Sure.
Allen Hall: You,
Nicholas Gaudern: yeah. But it’s not
a
Allen Hall: 20 year device.
Nicholas Gaudern: No. And the installation tolerance required on surface prep is really, really high. So it’s possible. It’s just harder. I think it’s riskier,
Allen Hall: it’s risky.
Nicholas Gaudern: So, you know, I think for us, the adhesive is, is the way to go.
And, and it’s been proven out by the, by the track record.
Allen Hall: And some of the things we’ve seen over in Australia is when trailing ulcerations have come off, it’s been a safety concern. So now you got
Nicholas Gaudern: absolutely
Allen Hall: government officials involved in safety because parts are coming up. Turbine.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.
Allen Hall: You
Nicholas Gaudern: can’t have these components flying, flying through the air.
That’s, that’s not safe.
Allen Hall: That’s because PowerCurve has done the homework.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.
Allen Hall: And has the track record. That’s why you wanna choose PowerCurve. So how do people get a hold of PowerCurve? How do they get a hold of you, Nicholas, to start the process?
Nicholas Gaudern: So, um, you’re welcome to reach out to us in lots of different ways.
We’re on LinkedIn. Uh, we have our website, [00:26:00] PowerCurve, dk, um, so yeah, LinkedIn websites. There’ll probably some links on this podcast as well to get in touch. But, um, yeah, whatever way works best for you.
Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s gonna be a busy season. So if you’re interested in doing anything with PowerCurve this year, you need to get on the website, get ahold of Nicholas.
And get started, uh, because now’s the time to maximize your revenue.
Nicholas Gaudern: Thanks a lot and great to talk to you,
Allen Hall: Nicholas. Thanks so much for being back on the podcast.
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