Published

1 year ago

March 28, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

AC883 Solves the Spare Parts Crisis

Lars Bendsen joins the spotlight to discuss how AC883 helps operators source turbine parts to cut costs and reduce downtime. AC883 can offer faster response times and better pricing than manufacturers based in Europe. Lars shares how his company’s approach helps prevent extended turbine downtime by providing quick access to critical components.

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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!

Allen Hall: In the wind industry, a turbine standing still often means one thing, waiting for parts that should be readily available. This week on the uptime spotlight, we’re joined by Lars Benson of AC 8 83, which is based in Canada. AC883 has direct connections to manufacturers in Denmark where most critical worm turbine components are actually produced Lars shares, house site operators can cut costs and dramatically reduce downtime by bypassing the OEM middleman and sourcing parts directly from the original suppliers.

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on wind Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Lars, welcome back to the show. Thank you. Spare Parts is a huge issue all over the world, but it seems like in the US and Canada, there’s always a shortage. They’re looking for spare parts. They don’t know where to get them, and the easy answer has been to call the original equipment manufacturer in terms of the GE Vestus Siemens, cesa, Nordex, whoever that may be, and just to place a order.

There are other opportunities out there. What happens when a wind side in Texas just decides to buy from the wind turbine manufacturer? How much are they paying overpaying for that part?

Lars Bendsen: I can’t say exactly on on dollars and cents, but but we know the markup from the OEMs.

Then they’re not shy of earning money on that, those parts. And yeah, so it’s very simple. We can get those parts directly from Europe directly from the suppliers to the OEMs.

Allen Hall: Yeah. And if I’m an operator, and I haven’t been over to Denmark to look at the situation there, a significant number of critical parts are actually manufactured in Denmark or in the surrounding areas.

You have no way of knowing that if you own the turbine,

Lars Bendsen: that’s true. You don’t. Somehow the OEMs have been really good and keeping a bit of cloud cloudy around that area. It’s actually pretty simple. They all produced either in in Denmark and Germany for basically all turbines. GE turbines is a target turbine from Germany that that they bought back when.

So that’s why sim that’s a German turbine as well. It’s not a US turbine at all.

Allen Hall: And the supply chain has remained that way for a long time.

Lars Bendsen: It’s a BP parts. It’s standard parts. There’s no rocket sites in it. Of course, there’s some legacy some software parts and stuff that we could be desk, some, what we call it electronic boards, which software on, of course we can’t do that.

That’s fair enough, right? That’s actually where the OOM has its value. That’s totally good.

Joel Saxum: I think part of the reason that you see this, that gap there in the industry is the simple fact that, and I don’t take this as a slight Lars because I love your website and what you guys do for marketing and branding, but in that corner of the world, and Alan, you and I were just talking about this couple of German companies we’re talking about they’re not that good at global branding and global marketing.

As a unit like culturally, so you don’t see really what’s going on almost behind that curtain as an American, when you log in and go I need some breaks, or I need this, or whatever. You don’t see that manufacturer’s website pop up. You may see an AC 8 83 pop up that says, Hey we have we sales spare parts.

But you just don’t as an American and to be honest with you. Running around the United States talking to all these wind site operators, they’re so dang busy with their day-to-day life and solving the, putting out the fires and the problems that they have every day, that they don’t have time to go search for that stuff.

So what do they do? They just call their procurement or the person that they know and they say, Hey, get me this. And if they end up overpaying for. 10, 20, 50% or whatever. It got the turbine back up and runway because uptime is king. So what else are you guys doing to strategically work with your clients and your customers to make sure that they don’t have to do that?

Lars Bendsen: Generally speaking, I agree with larger countries let it be germinated. But the US and Big Canada they have such a big inner market. They’re horrible in doing export, generally speaking. They’re not good at it. They’re really good at producing stuff and doing the take care of their own stuff.

Denmark, I think it’s 97% is export or being produced in Denmark, something like that. Because we have five, 5 million people, there’s no inner market we need to get out there where the market, inner market in US and Canada and Germany is so big. You don’t, we don’t need export. We’re not real good at it.

And don’t call Canada US export. It’s not export, it’s the in the market. So far,

Allen Hall: the turnaround times from the OEMs tends to be slow if they have the part in stock and there’s so much demand at for some specific parts that they don’t always don’t have it sitting on a shelf to send to you, which is a huge problem.

So you have to develop a subsequent chain, a supply chain, and why not go right to the source? Which is gonna be in Denmark for the most part. Why not do that as to source the actual part instead of an imitation part or a refurbished part, which I’ve seen more of recently. You can actually get the real part.

Lars Bendsen: It’s still surprising me sometimes. We hadn’t known em last year. They just closed their warehouse for three months. We just closing them. We cannot supply it for three months. How’s that gonna work? This wasn’t a European summer thing, was it? No, that was gonna be six weeks. That’s only six weeks. No, it was exactly in the fall, I think it was.

And they just decided to close it for three months. And I don’t understand this, OEMs should earn $0 on the turbines itself. They’re earning money on the service and the parts look at the accounting on vest and seems real. They’re earning no money. It’s only on their aftermarket and vest, in all fairness, are extremely good at it.

Really good at it. They have 75% or whatever the accurate number is covered of the fleet with service and parts is great. So we are not hunting as much vessel because why would we find that needle in the haystack where you could say that Siemens and ge they have less percentage, way less, maybe half of that depending on countries, et cetera and areas.

But still, again, how can you allow yourself to just close your warehouse to three months?

Joel Saxum: That’s crazy. Do let me ask you something about that, Vesta the vests setup ’cause in my mind, okay. I worked with a Danish company, very process driven, very controlled. There was step changes in gates and, everything was mapped out very well in how the company operated.

So do you believe that the, one of the reasons that Vestas may have a really good control of spare parts inventory and the direct connection to those sites is because they sign those. 20, 25, even 30 year FSAs. Is it all based on this overarching business model that, that encompasses that and the others aren’t just, aren’t doing that?

Lars Bendsen: I don’t know. I think it’s I think everybody wants to do it. That’s just my 2 cents. I’m not an expert in that area, but my 2 cents is that vessel has the power to demand that. And they’re not selling any new wind farm without a service contract, whatever’s 5, 10, 15. They do not. Where some of the wind inside the smaller, they have less power.

The owners say, you know what, that’s all well and good, but then we’re not gonna buy your turbines. And then GE and Siemens has to cave in a little bit. That’s my 2 cents.

Joel Saxum: I think strategically like GE with having expanded in their service thing and then now changing it to the hub and spoke model, like I think that this is my 2 cents, right?

I think GE saw some bloat. In what was happening in service. And I’m not gonna say parts ’cause I don’t think that’s true, but service and this FSA and I think that GE is actually strategically pulling back from signing these FSAs. And because some of the stuff with, we’ve heard horror stories with, and this isn’t just ge, it’s all the OEMs with, liquidated damages, catching up with people and those kind of things because they don’t have access to spare parts.

So they don’t have access, they don’t have the service people to get out there quick enough. So it’s a, there’s a large problem in the industry and I would say that if you’re a wind farm operator or wind site supervisor, technician, whatever, it’s at some point in time, you’ve felt the pain of not having that spare part that you need to get your turbine up and running.

And that’s where a C 83 comes into play.

Lars Bendsen: Yeah, I agree, but I also believe that some some owners are too small that the OEMs even care. We have seen some horrible example that, you know. Care list. That sales person sold that wind farm. That’s it. He can care list and the aftermarket people sitting in Denmark and they are, they’re closing at four o’clock eastern as it’s four o’clock.

It’s not four 10. It’s four o’clock.

Joel Saxum: So if you’re in the central part of the United States, you need to be on the phone by 7:30 AM Otherwise you’re not getting your stuff.

Lars Bendsen: No. Or on Fridays is close by noon, so forget about it. You get an answering machine, so you can’t even call on Fridays.

So that happens. We have a policy, we pick, we always pick up the phone, we all always answer our emails. We don’t have an out on office, not on purpose. At least doesn’t exist so I think it’s more avail, be available and go the extra mile instead of just sitting for a number. There are might be two picture lenders.

Let’s take an assemble of that. There’s four different vendors, which the same A nine B number from Siemens. There are four different A nine B sorry, producer of a nine BXX, x. So you can pick the most expensive one. You can pick the cheapest one, pick whatever you want. And there’s probably a reason between something, a correlation between quality and price often this.

So yeah. It’s about knowing those manufacturers and have access to them. Yeah. And we are, I think we’re pretty good at it.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. As I’m gonna put my wind farm operator hat on for me that, that’s that triangle. Good. Fast and cheap. Pick two. I. That’s what I always look at.

Two outta three. Yeah. But having someone in the corner, like AC 80, 83 that knows, hey hey Lars, I need this part. Great. Okay. I can get it from one of these four people. Here’s the cost for all four of ’em. Here’s the quality of our opinion and the track record we’ve seen, and here’s the lead time.

’cause that’s always the big one. If it’s a reactive situation where I need a part now, which we hope we’re not doing as much reactive as proactive, but if it’s a reactive part and I need it now, I need to get that turbine back up and running. You guys have the answers to those questions.

Lars Bendsen: Yeah, I think I agree with you that’s the reactive part of it and that happens.

SC actually happens a lot and I think we are back to what you said around before, that everybody is so lean, that site manager don’t have that extra person to source those parts. And all of a sudden we have a turbine down, we are missing one animal meal for $500. How can that happen? And of course you could be unlucky as well.

I totally get that part. We are trying to be more proactive. So if we have a major owner that have 20 or 30 sites, because you see they use the same parts, all of them. So one, don’t, we bundle out procurement instead of taking one off all the time. We spending a ton of time with one off $500. Procurement and it takes too much time and it’s too expensive for everybody involved.

There are some suppliers now I got actually hit by it. Some suppliers in in Denmark now they have a minimum or a quantity, or you get a fee, extra fee on it. So you can order a one animal meter used as an example without, is a 250 or $300 fee on it for handling the order. We’ve seen that as well.

Joel Saxum: So reactive is a lot of where the market sits, but how are you guys working with customers to be more proactive in their strategies for spare parts?

Lars Bendsen: As in the back office say GaN, Sydney, et cetera, they’re extremely data driven. We can see the history of what had been quoted, what had been ordered, what pricing has been ordered, when was it, et cetera.

So we know the history. I said, why? We can see we are buying 40. Why do you buy one or two design? And even if that person cannot do it, we’re still gonna buy five or 10. So we have something that helps our what call it procurement power. We leave it un stock because we are trying to avoid, has too much in stock and we do not wanna have obsolete parts either.

So that’s the kind of the balance we have, we are finding.

Allen Hall: Lars, can you gimme a sense of what kind of parts you can acquire or from the original equipment manufacturer? In Denmark,

Lars Bendsen: we just set up a big agreement with one of the main the major filter suppliers. Now we have a nine p numbers for all fillers in the world and for western fillers where we have all fillers and it’s a fraction of the price we’re paying today.

Fraction, pit cylinders motors, gears, et cetera. We are staying away from major components. We’re staying away from from gear boxes, generators, habit supply, main shaft and bearings for simul because that’s the focal point. So that’s, we could do that. But gearbox, generators it’s not worthwhile for us to do it.

We don’t add any value. You could get that part. It’s just a part number. We can’t add any value at all. So decided of staying away from it. We don’t wanna take the risk for a small portion of dollars.

Allen Hall: And if I’m sitting at a wind site and I’m getting requests for a specific part, how does that process work?

So I’m calling Sydney at your site or go, or getting ahold of you on LinkedIn. Then how does that work? How does that procurement system work? How do you navigate that? Because it sounds like you have some of the parts sitting on the shelf. Some you have to go acquire and negotiate.

What’s that process look like?

Lars Bendsen: The process is that you’ll get an email we got your R fq, we’re working on it right now. You’ll get an email within an hour that we have. It don’t, we won’t leave you high and dry. We are responding and then we are gonna source it right off the bat. If you don’t have it, and within a day or two you will have an answer back with a, with the price and lead time.

Allen Hall: Okay. So that’s a really short response time because usually it takes several days to get someone to re return that phone call.

Lars Bendsen: Yeah, so that’s the thing. Availability is key, right? Availability to the parts availability is key and it goes for the parts as well. You said lead time? We get way short on lead time, but call the manufacturers directly.

Waste or,

Allen Hall: and the, obviously the equipment manufacturers must have stock on the shelf. They have to do that so that those parts do exist. We just didn’t know where to find them until we called AC 8 83.

Joel Saxum: That’s a story that you hear a lot in the United States, right? Again, Alan and I travel wood Farm.

Oh, these, there was some German guys here. There was some Danish guys here. It’s always German and Danish. We had to get these special bolts from Germany, or we had this. So now everybody has their own Danish guy that they can call Lars that person Yeah. That has the connections to, to the mainland, to the motherland that can get these things for ’em, because that’s the troubling part.

Like we said, you don’t have time to, procurement is tough. Strategic procurement is difficult. Even people that are doing procurement at a large scale in an organization, say you’re in the back office and you’re the procurement person. They’re dealing with so many things that to find this one part at one of these few manufacturers over in Denmark, that’s difficult.

So now you have every, everybody that’s listening here has the connection to that dane that has the connections over there and can get it done for ’em.

Allen Hall: One of the big criticism in the United States and Canada is that when anybody drives by a wind farm and turbines not operating.

It’s just, it’s a knock on the industry. And the most times that is occurring is because they’re waiting for a spare part, honestly. Real simple stuff. Filters, for example, is a good one, right? And parts that they can’t get the hold of, but they just don’t know how to acquire them. And now they’ll listen to the podcast.

This is the way to do it. You call ours, you call Sydney at AC eight eighty three and you get this process started and then at that same moment I know Sydney is really sharp. She’s gonna provide you the list of things you can get. So she, you tell her, Hey, I got a GE two X machine. She says here’s the list of parts we can get for you.

Wow. That just saved my life for most procurement people. And that’s a personal, Sidney is not your friend for life because she is saving you. A lot of money and a lot of time, and a lot of hassle, which is the point, right? This is why everybody goes to AC 83 because it’s simple, easy to get things done.

Lars, how does an operator a site supervisor, a procurement person, get a hold of you to start ordering some of their spare parts through AC883?

Lars Bendsen: You have a website, ac883.com or my email, lars@ac883.com

Allen Hall: And you can also reach Lars and AC 8 8 3 at contact at ac883.com. The website’s great, so get ahold of Lars, get ahold of Sydney, get your projects moving.

Again, Lars, thank you so much for being back on the program. We love having you. Thank you. Thanks.

https://weatherguardwind.com/ac883-spare-parts-crisis/

Renewable Energy

The Trump Delusion

Published

2 days ago

May 7, 2026

Alice Rush

As shown here, there are (formerly credible) people who are telling us that Trump is restoring Americans’ trust in government.

Do they truly believe this?

The Trump Delusion

Renewable Energy

When Truth No Longer Matters

Published

2 days ago

May 7, 2026

Alice Rush

One of the casualties of the post-truth era is that the statements of our “leaders” no longer are required to have any basis in fact. What Jim Jordan says here is a fine example.

When he says “better” here, is he referring to runaway inflation? Trump’s purposeless and illegal war with no end in sight? His blatant corruption and criminality? His having, quite successfully, divided the American people into groups that hate each other? The enrichment of billionaires at the expense of the working class? The carefully engineered collapse of the environment so as to favor his donors in fossil fuels? The demise of the U.S. educational system?

Please be clear.

When Truth No Longer Matters

Renewable Energy

CNC Onsite Cuts Repair Costs With Uptower Machining

Published

2 days ago

May 7, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

CNC Onsite Cuts Repair Costs With Uptower Machining

Søren Kellenberger, CEO of CNC Onsite, joins to discuss uptower yaw gear repairs, flat tower flanges, and replacing 1,000 blade root bushings across 26 turbines.

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!

Allen Hall 2025: Soren, welcome back to the podcast.

Søren Kellenberger: Thank you, Allen, and, uh, nice doing it, uh, face-to-face- Yes, it’s great … and not as a team, uh, call. Right. That’s

Allen Hall 2025: true. Yeah. You’ve been doing a good bit of traveling, and you’re the new head of CNC Onsite.

Søren Kellenberger: I am, yes.

Allen Hall 2025: So congratulations on that.

Søren Kellenberger: Thank you very much.

Allen Hall 2025: And all the exciting new things that CNC Onsite [00:01:00] is doing, plus all the things you have developed and are now out in the field implementing, the, the list goes on and on and on.

I’m alwa- every time I talk to you, “Oh, we got a new-” Yeah … “machine to do something uptower.” So it’s all uptower, which is the, the beauty of CNC Onsite. You’re thinking about the operator and the cost to pull the blades off and do lifting the cell off and all those things. If we can do it uptower, we can save 30, 40, 50% of the cost of a repair.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: That’s where CNC Onsite is just really killing it. You guys are doing great. Thank

Søren Kellenberger: you. Of course, we like what we do, but, uh, thank you.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, it’s good, it’s good. And, and so w- let’s talk about the things that I know about, and we’ll start there, and then we’ll go to all the new things you’re doing.

So the one that I see a lot of operators asking about is yaw tooth. Yeah.

Søren Kellenberger: Uh,

Allen Hall 2025: deformations, broken teeth on the yaw gear. That’s a big problem. And when I talk to [00:02:00] technicians, and I have them texting me about this, like, “Oh, well, I just weld on the gear back on, weld the tooth back on.” That’s a short-term solution.

That’s not gonna be long-term. The long-term solution is the CNC Onsite. Can you explain what you do to permanently fix these yaw gear problems?

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. So what we do is actually we start by getting information about the, uh, original yaw ring, so the dimension of the teeth, and we get some load data. And, uh, then we start designing a replacement segment.

Uh, so what we ac- the process is actually that we bring a CNC controlled machine uptower, mount it on the yaw ring, and then we mill away that worn area, uh, creating a small pocket. And then those, uh, segments that we have designed, they are prefabricated. We bring them up and mount them in, in that, uh, pocket and bring the- The yaw ring back to where it’s, you can say, original design, uh, [00:03:00] that way.

Yeah

Allen Hall 2025: It’s better than the original design, ’cause you’re actually putting in better teeth than the, the manufacturer did originally.

Søren Kellenberger: True. Yeah, yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: So that happens, so you’re, you’re machining out those old teeth, broken teeth, putting the new set of teeth in th- and that all bolts in, and that’s it. That’s it.

But the, the difficulty is getting the machinery uptower to do that. That’s where a lot of your, your technology comes from, is getting this very accurate, uh, well-defined machine uptower and doing very controlled grinding and milling. Yes. So can you explain what that system looks like? If I’m gonna grind off those yaw, broken yaw teeth, how big is that kit?

Søren Kellenberger: It… Obviously, it depends a little bit on the turbine size. Sure, okay. Yeah. So, uh, it, so the, the newer five, six, uh, 10 megawatt turbines have larger teeth, so yeah, there you need a, a larger machine.

Allen Hall 2025: Okay.

Søren Kellenberger: But let’s say for, uh, Vestas three megawatt, the, the [00:04:00] complete machine weighs about 250 kilos. That’s it? So yeah.

So it, it comes up in smaller components. We just use, uh, the, the internal crane in, in the nacelle, and, uh, then we can lift the components to the yaw ring, assemble the machine, and then we are basically good to go. So it take, takes less than a day to get everything up and, uh, get set and be ready to, to machine.

Allen Hall 2025: So if you wanna fix a yaw gear problem, how long does it take from start to finish to get that done?

Søren Kellenberger: It typically, it takes one day to get everything up and get ready, and then per six teeth, which is a typical segment, it takes about a day to machine that. Okay. So, uh, let’s say you have, uh, somewhere between 10 and 15 teeth, it’s, uh, two to three segments.

So we do that in a week. Um-

Allen Hall 2025: Wow … and- ‘Cause the alternative is call a crane, have them lifting the cell off.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Take the yaw gear off, put a yaw gear on, if you can find a yaw gear. Yes. Put the nacelle back on. [00:05:00] Well, and I guess obviously the rotors are coming down too, so- Yeah. You’re talking about- Yes

hundreds of thousands of dollars in downtime. Yeah. It’s a big ordeal. The CNC Onsite method is so much easier.

Søren Kellenberger: We will just put our equipment in the back of our truck- … and then, uh, we’ll, we are ready to mobilize in a few days. So yeah, we can significantly, uh, bring down the downtime and, and as you said, the crane cost is of course extremely high.

And then you can add all the project management. You know, con- do I actually have my access roads, uh, still available? Right. Is the crane pad intact? And all of that stuff you need to organize. You can just forget about that and, uh- And

Allen Hall 2025: get it done …

Søren Kellenberger: get it done. Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. There’s, there’s a lot of owners, we, everybody knows who the machines are that have the, the, the yaw tooth problem.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: So if you’re one of those owner operators, you better get ahold of CNC Onsite. Now, flanges on tower sections. It’s become a, a really critical issue. You hear a lot of, of [00:06:00] operators, OEMs talking about, “I’m putting together these tower sections and those flanges don’t really meet up quite right.”

Søren Kellenberger: Yep.

Allen Hall 2025: “I’m creating uneven torque patterns, bolt pat- my bolt tightening is not quite right.”

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: And it never really seats right, so you have this mechanical, built-in mechanical problem. CNC Onsite is now fixing that so those flanges are actually really flat. Really flat, yes. ‘Cause that’s what you need.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. They’re highly loaded.

Søren Kellenberger: If, if you want, uh… If you want your joints to be, uh, basically maintenance free, uh, we can, uh, achieve that with machining the flanges. And then, of course, you need to be in control with your bolt tightening process. Sure. But if you do those two things, you can have maintenance free bolted connections, and there’s so much money to be saved in the operations.

Um, and of course, when you have these bolts that end up fatiguing, some of them don’t get caught in time and you end up ha- having a catastrophic failure on the turbine. Uh- We’ve [00:07:00] seen that … because you have that zipper effect. Once a bolt starts breaking, the neighboring ones take that extra load and it accelerates really quickly.

Uh, yeah. Sure does.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. It’s a very serious situation, but it starts with this very simple solution which is just make the flange flat.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. But I think it’s some… a part of the issue is that those buying the towers aren’t necessarily responsible for the operational cost of maintaining that bolted connection.

So they might save a little bit of money when they buy the tower sections with rougher tolerances, but you will spend the money 10 times in the operations. Uh, and, and that’s, I think that’s where some of the operations, uh, re- the, the, those responsible for operational costs should, uh, get a little bit more CapEx spend, uh- Oh, sure.

Yeah. And, and then, uh, actually save a lot of money and, and reduce risk. Uh, it’s a huge, huge risk

Allen Hall 2025: It’s, it’s one of those lessons learned. You [00:08:00] don’t know that they should be flat. You shouldn’t know… You don’t know your flanges should be flat until you experience the problems, and then you want all your flanges flat from here on out.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: But there’s only one way to do that really, and that’s to call CNC Onsite to come in and to make them flat.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Because it’s a difficult thing to do. You really need to have the machining prowess and the tight tolerances that CNC Onsite’s gonna deliver in a tool that can actually be adapted to that tower ring and make those surfaces flat.

It’s complicated. Exactly.

Søren Kellenberger: It is. Uh, but that is what we do every day, so, uh- Yes, I’ve noticed … yeah, so

Allen Hall 2025: so- You take on those challenges

Søren Kellenberger: So we are optimizing our machines to be not only fit for one-offs, but actually to go into a manufacturing, uh, process. So we have op- optimized our machines a lot with, uh, automatic alignment and, uh, stuff like that to, to really make that process, uh, easier.

Because it has been considered that when you had to machine a flange, you weren’t in [00:09:00] control with your production, uh, processes. But I think that is, um, a bit of a misinterpretation. It’s, it’s a little bit like saying when I have a casted component, I cannot get a bearing fit, uh, in my cast process. That’s not because your cast process is wrong, there’s just some limitations to what you can do.

Sure. And it’s basically the same here. Yes. And, and if you apply that con- uh, planned machining, you can gain some real benefits, uh, later on and the cost will, of course, drop dra- dramatically if you plan it, rather than call for one, uh, every time you have one that is out of tolerances and, and you can even narrow those tolerances down and get the benefits from maintenance-free bowler connections.

Allen Hall 2025: Right.

Søren Kellenberger: Uh-

Allen Hall 2025: Right, ’cause you’re gonna pay for it for the next 20, 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. That’s absolutely right. Now, you’re getting involved in some of the safety aspects of operating a turbine. Uh, some of the pins and the lockouts on the low-speed gearboxes get a little worn over time, so the hole [00:10:00] you put the pin in gets worn.

There’s a lot of loads on that and- Yeah … it starts to oblong out and eventually, if you’re trying to work on that gearbox, you’re trying to keep that and your technicians safe, which is what you’re doing- Yeah … that lockout pin doesn’t quite fit in the hole and it creates a little bit of a safety risk.

Yeah. So now CNC on-site’s coming in and saying, “Hey, wait a minute. We can realign that, clean that hole up, make that safe again.”

Søren Kellenberger: Yes.

Allen Hall 2025: Explain what that looks like and what that process is to do that.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. So again, it’s the same thought like with the, with the O-ring, uh, that instead of bringing a component down and trying to fix it, we have designed some machinery we can bring uptower and then make that repair.

So basically what we do is that, that we mill that hole a little bit larger and then we bring a bushing, uh, that we, uh, freeze into that hole- Okay … and to recreate that tight fit again with a, with a locking pin. Uh, so it’s, it’s not that [00:11:00] complicated, but you still need to know, of course, what you are doing.

So finding the center of the original hole is one of the critical things because you want the center of the new ring to be in that same position- Sure … to make sure it fits with the pin

Allen Hall 2025: right. So- Right. You can’t just take a drill up there and try to clean out that hole. No, no. That is not the way to do that

That,

Søren Kellenberger: that

Allen Hall 2025: won’t work. No, no . I’m sure it’s been tried, but- Yeah … no, you wanna have accurate mach- actual, uh, tight tolerance machinery up there to, to align that hole, drill it properly, put that insert back into that spot- Yeah … which is gonna be a hardened insert so it’ll last longer, right?

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah, yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: So once you do that, y- it’s a permanent fix to a otherwise nagging problem.

That’s wonderful.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: So, th- again, that kit just goes right uptower, right up the, the lift, right up the cl- crane- Exactly … and bang, you’re done. Yeah. Okay.

Søren Kellenberger: So all our machines are designed to be able to be lifted with the internal crane-

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah …

Søren Kellenberger: of that specific nacelle.

Allen Hall 2025: Okay.

Søren Kellenberger: So obviously as the cells go bigger, they have more load cap- uh- Me too

load capacity. Yeah. So for the smaller [00:12:00] turbines, the machines come in, in a bit smaller parts- Okay … so that we are sure we stay within that 250 or 500 kilogram or even whatever the limit is of, of that- Yeah, yeah, yeah … crane. And then we can, uh, reassemble everything uptower and still do tolerances within a few hundredths of a millimeter.

And, and I think that is, that is really the core of, of what we do that, that we can achieve those workshop tolerances on site, um-

Allen Hall 2025: It’s crazy when I tell people that. I say, “Well, you know, CNC on-site, they can’t… I mean, those, those tolerances can’t be that tight.” And I say, “No, no, no, no. They’re talking about, you know, fractions of a millimeter,” which in, in American terms means fractions of a mil.

Yeah. That’s 1/1000th of an inch. That’s the tolerance you’re doing.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Uh, and that means quality at the end of the day. If you can machine things that tight, that means what you’re getting is gonna be right for that job. Yeah. It’s gonna fix that, fix that problem permanently, which is the goal. Yes. Don’t recreate the problem.

Just fix it once and be done. Now, blade root [00:13:00] inserts, huge issue. CNC on-site has been developing tooling to drill out those existing inserts and, and put in new inserts, and you’re having success with that.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: That’s a… it seems like a complicated process, but you have owned that quite well. Talk about what that machinery looks like today, how you’re doing that process, and what have you learned from doing some, uh, field work.

Søren Kellenberger: It’s, uh… we actually, we’ve, we’ve developed two different machines now. Okay. So we, we have, we have one that is, uh, fully CNC controlled, uh, when you need to do a lot of bushings. Yeah. Um, that one takes a bit more, uh, time to set up, but, but, uh, each drilling process is, is really fast. Uh, and then we have developed a semi-automatic machine as well, uh, which is a little bit easier to mount, mounts directly on the blade.

And it’s, uh, really perfect when you only have smaller areas of the, the blade root where you don’t need to replace all bushings- But maybe typically it’s, it’s in the high load [00:14:00] area, which is 15 to 20 bushings maybe. Right. Something like that, right? Yes.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah.

Søren Kellenberger: So, so there we can just mount it directly on the blade and, and then drill from, uh, from there.

Um, and it works really well. We completed, uh, the first large scale, uh, commercial, uh, project, uh, together with our good friends from, uh, We4C. Uh- Right.

Allen Hall 2025: Yes.

Søren Kellenberger: And, uh, and now we are producing, uh, two more drilling machines- Oh … uh, for, for new upcoming, uh, projects also together with, uh, the guys from, from We4C.

Allen Hall 2025: Wow.

Søren Kellenberger: So now it’s, it’s starting to, uh, to pick up. Um, it’s been a relatively long process, and I guess no one really wants to be the first mover on, uh, on new technology, right? Right. So we’ve had a lot of questions. Oh, that… And that looks interesting, but how many, uh, turbines, uh, or how many blades have you repaired?

And it’s been up until now, well, it’s only tested in the lab. Uh, but now we have the first, uh, large scale commercial, uh, project with, uh, 26, uh, turbines, [00:15:00] uh, repaired and, uh, and 1,000 bushings, uh, that were replaced, uh, across those, uh, 26 turbines. So-

Allen Hall 2025: Wow …

Søren Kellenberger: so I guess that is now large scale. Uh-

Allen Hall 2025: That’s large scale.

Yeah. Yeah. I would consider 1,000 a large scale test. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And that brings all those turbines back to life.

Søren Kellenberger: Absolutely. They are up running, uh, full power again, so, uh, that is, uh-

Allen Hall 2025: That’s huge …

Søren Kellenberger: really nice.

Allen Hall 2025: For the operator, I’m sure they love that.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. And, and of course, uh, there’s, there’s been a lot of discussions about blades and, uh, bla- the, the waste, uh, issue you have on, on worn- Oh

out blades. Sure. So by being able to fix them instead of replacing them, not only is the, the cost for fixing a blade a lot lower than buying new ones, uh, but, but also from a, an environmental perspective. The not having to scrap them and create that waste is, uh, is also a nice, uh,

Allen Hall 2025: thing. Yeah, it’s one of the things that pops up more recently about replacing blades, and I think the [00:16:00] industry and the operators are pushing back on that.

Uh, because a lot of times the OEM wants to replace a blade, it’s just easier for them to do.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: But the reality is, is that yeah, you’re creating this additional problem. What are you gonna do with the disposal of this blade? Do we really need to do that? Is it so far gone that I can’t recover it? I think a lot of times, especially with fiberglass blades- Yeah

you can bring them back to life.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Just with a little bit of engineering, uh, prowess and some good machinery- Yeah. You can, you can make magic happen, and that’s what CNC OnSite is doing. So that, that’s really amazing that, uh, you’re starting to get more adoption of that on, on the blade root inserts. I know across the United States there’s all kinds of issues, and you’re proving it out.

I think the adoption rate in America and all over is gonna really step up. Now, uh, you always have some cool new project, sort of top secret. What are you working on that the world needs to know about?

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. W- I mean, we are constantly, uh, [00:17:00]expanding our, our line of services. Uh, so- Sure … so we are just out there trying to listen to what kind of issues do we see in, in the industry-

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah

Søren Kellenberger: and how can that be fixed, uh, uptower. So, so some of the, the latest, uh, innovations we’ve been doing is a, a new machine on, um… to, to do shaft milling. Uh, so that c- that can be on generator shafts, uh, for instance. There are some machines out there, but we’ve decided to go, uh, against CNC control- Okay

because it gives us a lot of, uh, opportunities both on, on speed, uh, of the process. It’s a more safe, uh, way to, uh, to do it.

Allen Hall 2025: Sure.

Søren Kellenberger: And we can actually also do different, uh, shapes on the shaft, so, so we can do more advanced, uh, repairs. Okay. We, we don’t need to stick to a certain diameter all the way. Now we can, we can mo- make grooves, and we can do, uh- Really?

all sort of sorts of stuff, uh- Oh … along that process because it’s CNC controlled.

Allen Hall 2025: Oh, sure. Okay. Um, and- Boy, okay. That makes a lot of sense. So you can actually take a, a, a basic, [00:18:00] basic, basic design of a shaft and make modifications to it- Yeah … to extend the lifetime and make it work better.

Søren Kellenberger: Yes. So typically we would mill down, uh, the shaft and- Sure

install a sleeve- Sure … to recreate a, a bearing fit, for instance.

Allen Hall 2025: Right. Yeah.

Søren Kellenberger: But we have possibilities to, uh, to create, um, grooves or anything that would do a stress relief or whatever you need, lubrication, or if you, if you want to do something, uh, afterwards, we, we can do that with, uh, with our machines.

Uh- Yeah. So yeah, we, we have some new machines for, for hollow shaft, uh, machining, so we can do stuff, uh, inside the main shaft, for instance. We can do stuff on the, the outside, as I mentioned on, on the generator shaft, but that could be on the gearbox as well. So- Sure … sometimes we see issues on the main shaft to, to gearbox, uh, connection.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah.

Søren Kellenberger: We are able to, to fix, uh, those, uh, things uptower. Wow. And, uh, so yeah, lot of new, uh, stuff being, uh, developed.

Allen Hall 2025: That’s, that’s awesome.

Søren Kellenberger: [00:19:00] Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: And I, I know you guys are busy, but- If somebody wants to get ahold of CNC Onsite and get work done this year, they better be making phone calls to you- … quickly. So I, I know your order book is filling up and you’re, you’re having to devote crews and machinery and time.

Yeah. How do people get ahold of you and get on that contact list and can start working the process?

Søren Kellenberger: I would say go into, uh, cnconsite.dk and, uh, there we have all our, our contacts. Uh, so just reach out. There’s a, yeah, formula you can, uh, fill in, uh, or you can find our direct contacts in our webpage, and, uh, then we can start looking at it.

So we are quite busy, but we are always- Yeah … open for, uh, discussions and, uh, yeah. That,

Allen Hall 2025: that’s a problem with being successful, is you’re just always busy running around trying to take care of problems, and that’s the thing, is that everybody I talk to that’s used CNC Onsite loves it-

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah …

Allen Hall 2025: and loves the process and loves the work you do.

So there’s gonna be a lot more phone calls and a lot more orders coming your way, and that’s- Yeah … that’s awesome. [00:20:00] Soren- Yeah … it’s so good to see you again and it’s so good to see you in person. Yeah. And congratulations on the promotion and everything that’s happening at CNC Onsite.

Søren Kellenberger: Thank you, Allen. It’s a pleasure.