Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Vattenfall Ad, NextEra’s US Wind Strategy

The crew discusses Vattenfall’s ad featuring Samuel L. Jackson and explore NextEra Energy’s strategies amid regulatory changes. They also highlight the importance of inspections and CMS and Rosemary’s takeaway from an Australian wind conference.

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Speaker: [00:00:00] You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here’s your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxu,, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast from the Queen City, Charlotte.

North Carolina. I have Phil Totaro in California, Joel Saxum’s back in Texas, and Rosemary Barnes is here from the great country of Australia where Joel and Rosemary, along with Matthew Stead, will be rolling along the countryside visiting with. Wind turbine operators here soon, right

Speaker 3: Yeah, so the, the 11th through the 14th, uh, we’re gonna be jumping down to Melbourne because of course that’s, that’s wind central for operators and, uh, ISPs in Australia.

And we’re gonna be talking about all kinds of stuff with, uh, anybody that listen to us talk. So if you’re listening here, uh, and you’re in [00:01:00] Australia, connect up, uh, joel.saxo at uh, wg lightning.com. Uh, we’ll get some meetings set ’cause we want to, we want to hear what issues are happening down there, right?

What can we help with? What can we solve? Of course, Alan and I on the lightning side here, Rosemary is an independent expert engineer for you name it, in turbines. Uh, and our friend Matthew Stat over at iLogic Ping in the CMS space. And amongst the three of us, we also have a huge network, right? So if we’re, if we’re, if we getting into conversation, getting a chance to chat, tell us what.

You got for problems and we’ll help you solve ’em. So we’ll be down there the 11th or the 14th of August. Uh, reach out.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so there’s a lot happening in Australia at the minute. It’s starting to come out a winter, getting into blade repair season that is, uh, about to fire up in Australia. A lot going on around the world.

And today is Wednesday when we’re recording. And this is the day where Vattenfall released their Samuel L. Jackson. Add, it’s about a minute long [00:02:00] and you see Samuel L out on the shoreline with a bag of what? Seaweed chips. Joel, is that what they are? Or crackers of some sort?

Speaker 3: Yeah, a hundred percent. I gotta be, I’ll be a little bit, little honest with you.

I had some of those, not the same ones, not the Vattenfall ones, but I had some the other day just to try ’em out. They’re not my flavor. I’m gonna be honest with you. Don’t they just taste like sea salt? They taste like seaweed.

Speaker 2: That’s what it is.

Speaker 3: I know, but they’re, they’re not that awesome.

Speaker 2: But these, uh, crackers were the output of the seaweed and all the things growing around the offshore wind turbines.

I, I assume it’s just seaweed, right, Joel? It’s not anything else but seaweed. There’s no fish involved in that. It’s kelp. But see, like kelp, so

Speaker 3: like offshore kelp farming is a complete industry. Right. It’s just like offshore fish farming. They put these lines out, it grows on the lines, and then they pull it in and they harvest it.

This is a regular thing, however, having infrastructure out in the water, IE turbine foundations helps with all of these things. It’s structure there that protects ’em from, um, [00:03:00] currents and it, and it’s also things to hook lines too. So there’s a. There’s a symbiosis of offshore wind farms and the kelp farming community, and they’re showcasing this in the VA Vattenfall ad, kind of showing the value add of turbines of outside of all of the decarbonization of the grid and things we’re doing for renewable energies.

There’s also things in the, uh, blue economy, blue economy is the term for like ocean.

Speaker 2: There was a lot blue with that ad and it had nothing to do with the ocean. We just played it for rosemary, the unedited version or the un bleep version. Rosemary, what did you think of that ad?

Speaker 4: I really liked the video and what made, what was most amusing to me was imagining the pitch meeting at, you know, like a, some boardroom in Sweden.

Somebody had to pitch that video. Not only selecting Samuel Jackson, I, it’s not, doesn’t immediately come to mind when I think of wind energy and yeah, I mean, people will have to watch a video for themselves to see why I think that’s so funny. But definitely well [00:04:00] worth that minute or so of your life that that will take up.

Speaker 2: Well, is it, is it something that American Clean power should have done about six weeks ago? I just thought it was odd that Vattenfall was the one to pick up the baton and run with it instead of who, who we would normally think as being the thought leader in the United States. American clean power.

Speaker 3: I was thinking about a CP back when that was happening, and I, and I thought, what, what’s, what’s their response gonna be?

And their response was, we put out a statement. Okay. What does that do? Like, what’s the point here? Like you’re putting out a statement like, I, I don’t know. What’s that gonna accomplish? What are you gonna do with this? What is the action out of it? What is the, where are you, uh, standing up on a soapbox or like trying to get something changed?

Like, it, it does nothing for me.

Speaker 4: Yeah. I, I imagine a CP would be too worried about offending somebody with that ad. I, I would find it actually more surprising to come from them than, than from Sweden or, um, yeah, any other country. [00:05:00] But also, I don’t know, I don’t, uh, I don’t see a lot of impact from a CP and maybe it’s just, you know, obviously they’re not my organization.

I’m not, I’m not in the us I’m not doing a lot of work in the US so, um, I’m probably out of the loop. But, you know, the events don’t seem particularly, uh, I don’t know, I don’t come away energized like I do when I go to a lot of European events and our own events that we do in, in Melbourne. I was also at another really great one in Australia last week, uh, about renewables and agriculture, and that was fantastically energizing with a totally, uh, diverse group of people from all kinds of backgrounds, sharing ideas and actually, um, you know, like raising problems that need to be solved and figuring out the ideas to do it.

People sharing success stories. It was, you know, like a, it was a conference that is. Like, that’s the reason why conferences should exist for that sort of thing. I met so many interesting people, some of [00:06:00] who I really want to get on the show to talk about things like, you know, what’s it actually like to have a wind farm built in, um, built through your property or transmission.

Um, and then yeah, as well as. You know, there was a dairy farmer who had a couple of micro wind turbines on her site, uh, for example, along with lots of people with solar power and batteries. And, um, yeah, I even visited a, a piggery that’s got biogas recovery and, uh, using that to power the, um, the pig sheds.

So it’s kind of like circular. Um, so much cool

Speaker 3: stuff there. Did you refer to the pig farm as a piggery?

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker 3: I wanna make sure I got that correct.

Speaker 4: Is it

Speaker 3: what, not what do you call pig farms? What do you call pig farms? Pig farm. That you bring up. A good point there, because this, this happens to us in the states sometimes, like if you go to the same conferences, for the most part you see the same people at the same conferences.

You have a lot of the same conversations. It’s of course great to catch up. I’m talking, I’m talking from the. From, you know, the, the, the, the commercial role. It’s of course great [00:07:00] to catch up with people and have touch points and have your meetings ’cause everybody’s in the same spot. But it’s pretty rare anymore, like say in the wind industry, at least in the United States, that you go to an event and you leave there and you’re like, oh, I got all these.

These new people to talk to and I got all this new information and like this new technology, this new innovation, like that doesn’t happen that much. But I will, I’m gonna go back to what you said. When I go to win Europe and when I go to Hamburg, like I do leave those events feeling a little bit more like that because more it seems like more things, new people, new ideas, different ideas, different people.

Um, I don’t know. I, I mean, Alan, do you feel the same way?

Speaker 2: I enjoyed the event up in Canada. I went about a year and a half ago, just because it was different. New people, new concepts, new ideas, different approaches. Hamburg was the same way. And the Australia event was very similar to that, just really different approaches to a difficult problem as an engineer.

I love to hear that. And Rosemary, [00:08:00] I know you like to pick up all those new technology pieces. Was there anything good on the technology front at that conference?

Speaker 4: Uh, there wasn’t so much, uh, like new technology, but people using technology definitely. And just some, um, like annoying obstacles to using it well, but the most interesting thing for me and what I think that other.

Conferences can learn from. It’s like you, you guys are probably the same as me, where every conference you go to these days, they talk a lot, a lot, a lot about social license, community acceptance for new projects, and everybody is very sincere in believing that this is an important problem that the industry needs to solve.

Especially, you know, we’re developing new wind farms and also transmission, but I just hear the same, you know, the same executives saying over and over again how important it is. I don’t hear anything new ever. At this conference? Yeah. It just actually included people who have been through this process.

Like I talked to one guy who has five wind farms on his side. He’s like, it’s great. I love having the wind [00:09:00] farms, but gee, the construction process was a, a pain and they did some really annoying things. And you know, that’s the, that’s the people that we need to get, um, into the other kinds of conferences where the executives go to.

Like you don’t, you can bring the right people that you want to your conferences. You know, you don’t just have to just see who comes based on ticket sales. You can say, Hey, we wanna talk about community acceptance. We need to bring some people from rural communities that express, you know, all sorts of different problems so that executives and professionals can hear those problems.

And then, you know, like. We’re engineers. We’d love nothing more than to know about a problem and then solve it.

Speaker 3: I think it’s, that’s interesting too, Rosemary, when I went down to the Texas Senate and, uh, testified here back two, three months ago, I got to connect with a lot of people that I normally would never run into.

Some of them were landowners from out in West Texas and stuff, and they were talking about the benefits and like how things actually happen as a landowner and from our, from [00:10:00] basically most people in the industry, unless you’re a psych supervisor or a wind tech. You don’t actually run into these people that are, you know, regularly affected or regularly deal with these things day to day.

So I think it’s important to get their, their opinions, their thoughts on, you know, as affected landowners or non-affected landowners, right? To, to hear these people out. But it’s hard to get that, um. That audience? Correct? Like a, from an industry standpoint,

Speaker 2: are you worried about unexpected blade root failures and the high cost of repairs?

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Field tested on over 3000 blades. It’s proven reliability at your fingertips. Choose Eco Pitch for peace of mind. Contact [00:11:00] Onyx Insight today to schedule your demo of Eco Pitch and experience the future of blade monitoring. Well some recent news from Next era. And as we all know, next era is the largest player in renewable energy in the United States.

And despite widespread. Industry concerns, uh, NextEra’s Energy’s executives, uh, are talking pretty optimistically about the next couple of years. On their second quarter earnings call, CEO. John Ketchum described the Trump administration’s one big, beautiful bill as tough but constructive for renewables.

Noting also that they have safe harbored enough equipment to get through about 2029. And I think Joel, what NextEra is planning to do is to meet the minimum criteria like Phil was talking about last week and. Qualify for PTC on some level. Maybe not at maximum, but at least in in part, which would [00:12:00]keep the projects rolling.

The safe harboring NextEra may be a little bit different than a lot of other operators. We have talked to operators that do have safe harbored turbines. There’s also a lot of operators that don’t, or that are just receiving turbines that are gonna be a little bit in trouble. The big players can win out because they can drive the demand for cranes and all the construction crews to help them first, the middle tier and the lower tier.

In terms of size, you’re gonna have trouble, right?

Speaker 3: Yeah. Basically, what you’re looking at here is NextEra, and this is not a new strategy for them. This is a NextEra regular. Operations as usual, right? They’re, if you look at their development and construction timelines as a Gantt chart across all projects, it is a lot of simultaneous operations, right?

So they’re starting one here. That one’s gonna start here and run to here. This one’s gonna start here, run to here. So like there’s, there’s not just one construction project going, because NextEra has the, the finances, the horsepower, the people, the [00:13:00] project managers, the, you know, and they have because they are who they are.

They have. The right hand of ge, they sell, they use a lot of GE turbines, so they have the forceful thing on ge and they have, like you said, down the ability to lock up EPC contractors for a long time and lock up cranes for a long time. So when everybody now here is with these new regulations coming into place, is scrambling to get things done.

The big boys, the, the next heirs in the room, they’re sitting in a pretty good spot because, um, if you’re looking at, you know, 2029 as the next possible administration change, like they’re gonna be good through 2029 here in, in the bullet points of what we’re talking about, they’ve signed 3.2 gig gigawatts of new contracts since April.

Now that’s probably across renewables. That’s not just wind. But 3.2 gigawatts. That is a massive amount of projects, right? That’s 3 30, 200 megawatts. Like if that was just turbines, that’s 1500 turbines, 1400 turbines. So, and that’s since April, right? We’re talking in the last three [00:14:00] months. It is going to be a squeeze for resources, especially with a, like the next of the world is gobbling up what they can, um.

I believe that you’ll see a very, it’s gonna be very hard to find a crane come October, November of this year.

Speaker 2: Phil, what are they doing on the financial side to hedge their bets a little bit? Are they, uh, planning projects a little bit differently? Are they, uh, going to be looking for a little investment to come in to.

Back fund, uh, the construction projects to provide additional funding to, to get the cranes on site. Cranes are gonna become a premium product here in a a couple of weeks. It seems like NextEra does have the way to do it, but they also are trying to de-risk projects from what I’ve seen lately.

Speaker 5: Is, is that the move?

Yes. And they’ve, they’ve already done a few things that are smart, as Joel talked about. One is that they’ve already safe harbored a lot, and the reason that that’s important is with the proposed changes to Safe Harbor. Uh. [00:15:00] It’s necessarily going to make it harder for developers to comply with startup construction.

So next era is ahead of the curve. With this, everybody else is gonna be scrambling to catch up. And not only are cranes gonna be in demand, but the OEMs are all gonna be, you know, in demand with pretty full order books here for the next few years, uh, assuming they can actually deliver turbines. To be safe harbored before the IRS rules change.

The problem with that now is we probably have less than six months because these IRS rules are gonna be changed probably by the end of the year. If you haven’t gotten your safe harbor in place already and you can’t guarantee that you’re gonna be able to physically receive the turbines. ’cause normally the safe harbor kicks in.

You spend, you know, the 5% of the total project CapEx, you actually have to receive the equipment. And if you can’t do that, if, if the OEMs can’t, [00:16:00]uh, supply you with equipment by the end of this year, which again is when we’re expecting these IRS rules to change, you’re, you’re pretty much done. And it goes back to what you’re saying before about, you know, what the heck is a CP doing?

This is supposed to be the lobby group that’s supposed to be facilitating the growth of the industry, or at least the, the stability of the industry and prevention of, of our decline. Um, you know, a rising tide is not lifting all boats here. They’re, I don’t know what the hell they’re doing while the rest of us are out here in the field trying to.

You know, steel in the ground.

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Visit eLog [00:17:00] ping.com and take control of your turbine’s health today. Joel and I just concluded another webinar with Skys specs, and we’ve been doing monthly webinars for, what, five or six months at this point, Joel. They’re really interesting changing subjects, all about how operators can save a ton of cash and o and m as we talked

Speaker 3: about in the last few weeks with regulation changes and stuff here, we’re gonna have a different reality in, in what the wind world is here in the United States shortly.

Um. Of course globally it’s, everything’s changing as well, but we have something massive coming towards us. So you need to change your o and m attitudes, your o and m thought processes, uh, whether it’s innovation, whether it is a different way of looking at things. Like the old idea of just kinda like, ah, we’ll just manage these things and we’ll kind of do it.

This is status quo and it’s not gonna work anymore. Uh, and that’s one of the cool things that we’ve had on those skys specs, webinars, we’ve had a lot of. Guests from the industry, right? So people that [00:18:00] are from operators, we’ve had subject matter experts. Of course, some internal skys specs, people that know their solutions really well.

Uh, but I think one of the differences there with the Skys specs team is, uh, people know them as the inspection. Gurus, right? Uh, and they do have massive market penetration for inspections. However, there’s a lot of other things that they do there with repair vendor management. So they have their hands in with the ISPs helping, helping customers out.

They also have, um, you know, CMS monitoring and SCADA monitoring, performance monitoring. Now you’re looking at financial asset modeling. Um, so there’s a lot of intelligent ways, uh, that they’re helping customers. Cut their o and m budgets down.

Speaker 2: And we referenced Phil today during that webinar because the price point came up about what the average spend is per turbine for maintenance.

I, I, Joel, it’s roughly, or Phil, it’s roughly 50,000. Dollars per turbine per year. That was a rough number that I remember.

Speaker 5: It’s, [00:19:00] yeah, it’s a little bit up from that now. It’s now at around, um, 54,500, let’s call it. Um, but there, the, the thing that concerns. Us at Intel store with that kind of data is that you’re seeing more projects have significant overages, um, because they’ve, they may have budgeted, let’s say seven or eight or 10 million a year, and they’re having to spend more than what they thought just to get, um, you know, cat four and five repairs done and all the other mechanical systems and, and whatever else they need to do.

Um. Particularly in light of this whole change in the PTC, you’re, you’re now gonna see everybody having to be more, um, resource efficient, time efficient, cost efficient with what they have and the budget that they have for maintenance. If they’re not gonna be able to be as dependent on P TT C revenue as, as they have [00:20:00] been in the past, so.

There, everybody’s gonna have to, you know, really be on point and, and potentially slim down some of these budgets and, and some of these big overages. And if inspection is, is gonna help facilitate, you know, early detection. Um, if CMS is gonna help facilitate early detection of an issue before it escalates into a CAT four or five.

You need to take advantage of that.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I think this, this is a, so it’s a nasty little storm, right? Because a year and a half, two years ago, we were talking about this trend that we were starting to see of the operators taking, like the, taking management of the turbines in-house, right? Doing things in-house or, or getting an ISP.

They’re getting rid of the OEMs and the reason they’re getting rid of the OEMs, partially, even some of some places we hear about the OEMs are like, Hey, we don’t want this one anymore. We’re done. What we’re seeing now is this. This is why, what. Where these overages are coming from, that Phil’s talking about.

Some of these, not all, of course, this is, none of these are hard, fast rules, but [00:21:00] some of them are coming from the fact that you had an OEM that was managing, or pseudo managing this thing, you know, up against a contract to just barely try to avoid paying lds. And then all of a sudden that end of warranty, end of FSA, it got handed back to the owner and the owner’s like, what the, what did I just inherit?

What do I got going on here? And I, and then they had to fix all these problems and get this thing back up to snuff. So the o and m costs are skyrocketing ’cause they’re trying to get back in front of ’em. They realized that they want to be proactive, but they can’t even be proactive ’cause they have to fix the reactive stuff first.

And. And now like, like you said, like doing those webinars with Skyspace, we’re trying to introduce people to tools to help them out as they go along, to be resource efficient. Plan your inspection, uh, inspection and repair and maintenance seasons holistically across your fleet with real data. Like do these things ’cause there’s, there’s digital ways and innovative ways to do this stuff better than managing things on spreadsheets.

Speaker 2: No, and I think as we go forward over the next [00:22:00] six months to a year. There’s gonna be a lot of, uh, controls on o and m. Budgets and asset managers are gonna be asked to constrict their budgets. If you start running Phil’s number here on a hundred turbine farm it, you’re spending a little over $5 million a year on general o and m.

If you can cut that by 10%, that’s a half million dollars in savings. That’s a huge amount, and I think a lot of operators today. Can get to that 10% number, but they’re gonna need to bring in a couple of the tools, the Horizon CMS system, a, a lot of the smarter technology that is out there that hasn’t been implemented so much because things were good.

Are now gonna get a second look. And the, the list of attendees during the Sky Specs webinar today was. Eye-opening. Like I know that person, I know that person, site supervisor, asset manager. They are [00:23:00] actively engaging now with solutions. Strike tape being one of ’em, talking to in store, being in another, that is going to change the game.

So we’re gonna get leaner and meaner clearly. But at that’s, I think a lot of operations are just starting to figure this out, that they, they need to get a hold of some help. And that help is there. That help has been there for the last couple of years and has been honed and it’s ready to go into action.

I, I think that was one of the, the leading points today with the Horizon CMS system was that system is actively working and actively saving operators a ton of money. And if you’re not onto that train yet, you need to hop on. Now

Speaker 3: we were talking with, uh, Ben Rie from Sky Specs. One of, one of their products has got 20 gigawatts underneath it already.

That’s just one of their monitoring

Speaker 2: products. Like they, it, it’s there. It’s not new. It’s been there, it’s been vetted. You may not be familiar with it, but that’s [00:24:00] the point of the Sky Spec webinars. That’s the point of the podcast. And we were just talking to Jeremy Hanks with C-I-C-N-D-T, who was in Australia at the conference and is a great person.

I love talking to him ’cause he’s so full of technology and knowledge. He was also saying he’s getting flooded with requests to start looking at blades from an ultrasonic test standpoint to do NDT work because a lot of operators are starting to realize I need to validate a repair that’s been done. I don’t want to pay for this twice.

I need to take a quick look at a blade that’s on the ground before I install it. ’cause his point, and you’ll see this in the, in the podcast that comes out, which is there’s a lot of safe harbor blades that are broken. That have been under floods or been damaged in transport, that need to be looked at before you hang them to save yourself millions of dollars on a new installation.

I know we’re all gonna go crazy on installs, but boy, there’s a lot of money on the table that could be saved right now. Joel,

Speaker 3: this is a full circle conversation because why does, why does the [00:25:00] podcast exist? Why does the Uptime podcast exist? I don’t know, Rosemary, maybe Rosemary knows, but the idea here is, is that we can, we can become a hub.

We have become a hub for solutions innovation, lowering LCOE, lowering budgets and incre. Like that’s what we want to do here. We wanna help this industry thrive. And it we, we we’re really lucky to be honest with you, to have the conversations that we get to have with people all around the world about what are your problems for one, and then the people that have the solutions, what are your solutions?

What do you got going on? Like when we do our. Uptime spotlights. We have some of the best and brightest people on to solve these problems. Like a Jeremy Hanks that’s gonna be on next week. He’s the best guy in NDT in composites I’ve ever met. I mean, he’s worked on spaceships and fighter jets and race teams and F1 cars and all kinds of stuff.

So the horsepower and the skills and the innovation, the technology, it’s here. You just need to engage, right? If you’ve got [00:26:00] problems, call us. We’ll help you point you the right way. Hey, we have this issue,

Speaker 2: and that’s the point of of this discussion is, uh, if you don’t know where to go. Reach out to the podcast.

That is the whole point. It’s a totally free service. We do not charge for this. You can call Phil anytime. He’ll give you some insight. If you call Joel up, he will connect you. If you get Rosemary on the horn, she’ll do you blade analysis probably for free, right Rosemary? So it, it is a huge family that we put together over time, over time.

We do know who’s doing what and why they’re doing it, and who has the technology. There is a lot of savings to be had, and I think this is the moment everybody to go after it and grow this industry. Screw what Trump’s talking about. This industry’s gonna be here long after he’s gone. Focus everybody. Deep breath and focus.

I think that’s the important takeaway from, at least from this week for me,

Speaker 3: mother Farms. This is, um, this is actually time. Okay. So [00:27:00] the wind farm of the week, this week is actually a wind farm cluster of the week, the Tofa wind cluster. And it’s interesting that this, this, ’cause this was planned before the last conversation we just had.

Um, but this is a wind cluster in southern Spain, so near the Iberian Peninsula there. And why it became the Wind Farm of the Week is a little bit different than I normally am looking at things in kind of a community impact way and stuff, but I wanted to look at a technical issue. Um, and the technical issue there.

This wind farm cluster has been there for a long time, but they’re in the process of taking a whole bunch of old turbines, repowering them with new turbines, uh, that are much larger, right? Because some of these turbines are only like 300 kilowatts at this existing wind farm in the, in the, uh, the tar wind cluster.

And they’re repowering it with. These massive Nordics, N one 50 fives and N one 30 threes that are 4.8, 5.5, 5.7 megawatts. I love it. Exactly. So this is where the cool repower, um, innovation and technology [00:28:00] thing comes into play because Southern Spain, if you don’t know about Southern Spain, bad light. So they, those turbines that are there have been getting beat up by lightning.

They have a compounding effect with the sea salt spray and the fog and then, and the moisture on the blades and storms rolling through. But what they’ve done is they, they, this has been a testing ground for all kinds of different LPS systems, um, in these smaller turbines. But now they’re replacing these smaller ones with beasts, right?

With 120 meter rotor monsters that are 200 meters up in the air. So they’re in this wind farm, they’re being smart, and they’re with these nordex turbines. They’re actually putting advanced LPS systems on them. Um. Before they get them up in the sky. And this is what we were talking about here in the States, we’re working on a bunch of repower projects and people are calling us to put strike tape on before they go up.

So it’s, it’s an intelligent way to do things. Um, so the wind farm of the week this week is that Rifa Wind cluster. It’s Axion Energy is a big part [00:29:00] of it. And there’s even some crazy old names in there. Alstom still owns some turbines in there, uh, which I don’t if you, if you’re not a wind turbine vet, you don’t, haven’t heard of Alstom in a while.

Uh, but it’s an interesting little place where the climate and geography drive innovation. Uh, this is a lightning prone zone, but of course there’s other areas in the world that are LEP issues, erosion problems, these kind of things that we can learn from, we can learn from each other, uh, and we can do better for the industry.

Just connect up, um, and we’ve got the technology. So the Tofa wind cluster in southern Spain, right down there in the Iberian Peninsula. You are the Wind Farm of the week.

Speaker 2: That’s gonna do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Join us next week where we’ll get updates on the latest in wind energy developments and properly President Trump.

So we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:30:00]Podcast.

https://weatherguardwind.com/vattenfall-nextera-strategy/

Solar panels are a scientific marvel that allows us to reduce our electricity bills while becoming self-sufficient in all of our energy needs.  

It also contributes to a reduction in fossil fuel consumption, which is known for contributing to Greenhouse Gas emissions.   

Now, it’s time to make some decisions before getting solar panels for your rooftop. So, how many solar panels do I need? You might be wondering this right about now. Don’t worry, Cyanergy is here to help.  

Please know that there is no one set number of solar panels that will suffice for every household. One might need more, and someone else might need only a few solar panels.  

Also, the dimension of the panels isn’t exactly the determining factor of how much energy they will generate; instead, it’s the power output in watts.  

Each panel is capable of generating a certain amount of energy, and together, a whole solar system can generate energy in kilowatts. Your solar panel system will create between 3 and 5 kWh (kilowatt-hour) of clean, renewable energy per day for each kilowatt of power.   

In this blog post:

• 
  
  Solar Panel Size Determining Factors — How Many Panels Do I Need?
  

• 
  
  Future Proofing – Should I Upsize my System?
  

• 
  
  Would You Need Solar Batteries?
  

Solar Panel Size Determining Factors — How Many Panels Do I Need?

The size of the solar panel system you need will depend on the following factors:   

Your Usual Energy Consumption

Suppose you are someone who has a lot of power-hungry appliances and uses them fairly regularly; you will need a lot of electricity. Air conditioners, hot water systems, washing machines, and ovens, to name a few, are considered power-hungry appliances.    

The question is, how often and for how long do you use them? Also, different capacities and sizes of devices require varying amounts of energy. A mini-fridge certainly won’t use as much electricity as a double-door one, so that’s something to keep in mind.   

Now, rather than going into bits and pieces like calculating how much energy each thing in your house requires, you should look at your electricity bill.  

If you look carefully, you will see there is a tab for ‘average daily energy use’ in your monthly bill where your consumption is stated in kilowatt-hours (kWh).  

Note down this number and make a yearly average to determine how many kWh of energy you consume, which will help you decide on your solar system size.   

The whole process is not as simple as it sounds; that’s why you seek professional help from a solar expert like Cyanergy to determine the exact costs.    

The more electricity you use, the bigger the solar system you need. The financial benefits of solar also depend on when you use electricity. 

On average, Australian homes use 11–23 kWh per day. 

The average daily usage for your home or business is probably different in summer and winter. You can check your average daily usage for each season by looking at your quarterly or monthly electricity bills. 

Inverter sizing

In many systems, the inverter is sized to be smaller than the panel output. For example, a 6.6 kW solar system is typically paired with a 5 kW inverter.  

Because the panels are only rarely generating at their full rated capacity, this can be a good way to get the best value from the inverter and often makes good economic sense. 

Talk to your solar retailer or installer about the inverter specifications and the inverter-to-panel size requirements. Suppose the system size exceeds the inverter manufacturer’s specifications.  

In that case, you will not be able to access the Australian Government’s Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme rebate.  

Available Sunny Roof Space

The amount of available sunny roof area can often be a limiting factor when deciding what system size to install, particularly for household solar systems in urban areas. 

A standard 6.6 kW system might take up 29 – 32 m2 of roof space, depending upon the rated capacity of the panels. Panels can be installed in portrait or landscape orientation to make the best use of the available roof space. 

We can only fit as many solar panels as possible on your roof. Solar panels are typically 1.7m × 1m in size.  

It is critical to consider shading when calculating the size of your roof. Tree or power lines can cast shade on a portion of your roof. In that case, we’ll need to adjust your solar system or avoid these areas entirely.  

Future Proofing – Should I Upsize my System?

If you have plans to expand your household, you must plan accordingly. Solar panels are such technology that lasts about 25 to 30 years.  

You have to look past your current situation and think about where you see yourself in 5 to 10 years.  

If you have the opportunity to extend your family, your energy needs will likely increase, too. So, future proofing is indeed necessary to make the most out of your investment.   

Does that mean there is no way to add more solar panels in the future if required? That is certainly not the case; however, the newly added solar panels may come with a new set of issues that were not accounted for during the initial installation.   

Solar panels generate energy, specifically one form of energy that later needs to be converted into another for practical use.   

Solar panels generate DC (direct current), whereas our appliances run on AC (alternating current). This conversion is done by a solar inverter that has a conversion capacity.  

A solar inverter can only convert a certain kW amount of energy, beyond which you cannot get AC, no matter how large a solar panel system you have.  

Of course, a larger solar PV system will require an inverter of equal power, but adding more solar panels later on will mean you’ll need to get another inverter to cater to a smaller array of systems.  

Ultimately, you lose money.  So, that means if you anticipate needing extra energy in the future, upsize your solar at the time of installation.

Would You Need Solar Batteries?

An average Australian household consumes the most energy in the early morning and at night.  

Solar panels work at their maximum capacity between 12 and 3 pm, during which most people are not at home. But you will still manage by importing electricity from the grid at peak hours.   

Depending on what your expectation is from your solar PV system, you’ll decide how many solar panels you would need on your rooftop.  

If you want to be self-reliant at all times, a storage unit is the way to go. In that case, you would need to upsize your rooftop solar system so that you can store a substantial amount of energy for later use.   

How Many Batteries Will You Require?

Solar batteries for homes depend on your goals. Most people set out to reduce their grid electricity imports to zero.   

As you’ll see, most households have big energy storage goals with more expenses. But how many solar panels run a house? “What size solar battery do I need?” is a natural question you ask yourself.   

Let’s go over how much energy storage an average Australian household will require. The average Australian home consumes approximately 16 kWh of electricity per day.  

Most Australians work 9 to 5 jobs and are not at home during the day. They will probably only use about 30% of their electricity when the sun shines.   

That means they must buy the remaining 70% from the grid. How many solar batteries will be required to cover that 70%?   

Solar Battery System Sizing

Regarding system sizing, battery sizes are measured in kilowatt-hours, or kWh.  

As mentioned before, an average home consumes 16 kWh of energy. And 30% of the energy is consumed in the daytime and 70% at night. That mounts up to approximately 5 kWh consumed during the day and 11 kWh consumed at night.  

Based on simple maths, the average Australian would require approximately 11 kWh of solar battery storage to offset all their night usage.  

As of 2025, the Tesla Powerwall has a capacity of 13.5 kWh, costing around $16,600 fully installed.   

Remember that you do not need batteries to offset your nighttime electricity consumption. If you run the numbers, the first kWh of energy storage has the best payback because it works the hardest. As of the next kWh, the payback becomes longer.   

However, the most important consideration when sizing and comparing solar batteries is that it is only possible when you thoroughly understand your energy usage profile. First, you’ll need a good energy monitor in your home with accurate data.  

Then, a good installer will use their software to show you the optimal number of batteries and solar panels for your situation and the payback period. After that, instead of leaping into the unknown, you’ll go into your solar battery investment with your eyes wide open.  

Including these aspects, there are many other things to figure out and factor in. Figuring all these out on your own is a challenging task. If you have any further questions or require some help, please don’t hesitate to contact us.  

Cyanergy is a CEC (Clean Energy Council) approved solar installer with more than 10 years of experience in the field. Get in touch with us today to take advantage of a FREE consultation session with one of our experienced solar experts.    

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The post How Many Solar Panels Do I Need? appeared first on Cyanergy.

https://cyanergy.com.au/blog/how-many-solar-panels-do-i-need/

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Massive Wind Runner Plane, India Forces Local Manufacturing

Allen discusses Trump’s offshore wind cancellations, Dominion Energy’s tariff troubles in Virginia, and India’s new wind manufacturing rules helping Suzlon Energy. He also mentions Scotland’s massive Berwick Bank approval and Colorado company Radia’s ambitious Wind Runner cargo plane project.

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!

I’m about to tell you about the biggest airplane you’ve never heard of.

A Colorado company called Radia is building what could be the world’s largest aircraft. They call it the Wind Runner. And if it is completed it’s going to change everything about clean energy.

Mark Lundstrom, an aerospace engineer from Boulder, has a simple problem to solve. Wind turbines keep getting bigger and more powerful, but we can’t get them where they need to go.

Here’s why. Offshore wind farms can use turbine blades longer than 105m. But land-based turbines? They’re stuck at about 80m. Not because of engineering limits – because of bridges, tunnels, and highway curves.

The turbines are simply too big to get under bridges, through tunnels, or around curves, Lundstrom explains.

So he’s building a monster. The Wind Runner will be three hundred sixty-five feet long with a two hundred sixty-one foot wingspan. That’s bigger than a Boeing 747. Much bigger.

The payload volume? Twelve times greater than that famous jumbo jet. It’ll run on sustainable aviation fuel and land on dirt strips right inside wind farms.

Radia aims to complete the first Wind Runner in 2028. By doing this, Lundstrom says, we’ll create the path to the cheapest energy in the world.

Keep that plane in mind. Because everything else I’m about to tell you connects to that story.

Now, let me tell you what’s really happening with wind power. It’s a story of global momentum meeting American resistance.

President Trump just canceled plans to develop new offshore wind projects in federal waters. More than 3.5 million acres had been designated as wind energy areas. Gone.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is rescinding all designated wind energy areas. They’re ending what they call speculative wind development.

Offshore wind projects planned for Texas, Louisiana, Maine, New York, California, and Oregon? Canceled. The Biden administration’s five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts? History.

But here’s the twist. While America pulls back, the rest of the world doubles down.

Just days after Trump called wind turbines a con job during his visit to Scotland, the Scottish Government approved the world’s biggest offshore wind farm project.

The Berwick Bank project will power six million homes when finished. Trump said those turbines were some of the ugliest you’ve ever seen. Scotland said, “We’ll take six million homes’ worth of ugly, thank you very much.”

The message from Scotland? We’re moving forward with wind power, regardless of what President Trump thinks.

Now here’s where policy meets your pocketbook.

Dominion Energy’s offshore wind project in Virginia just got over a $500 million price increase. The culprit? Trump’s new tariffs on imported goods.

The project features 176 giant wind turbines, 27 miles off Virginia Beach. It will power 660,000 homes next year.

But those European Union tariffs, possible additional Mexican duties, and current taxes on Canadian and Mexican goods? They’re adding up to $640 million to the project cost.

Here’s the kicker: Virginia customers will pay between $253 million and $320 million to cover those import taxes.

Company chairman Bob Blue says the project is still the most affordable source of energy for customers. Even with the tariff hit.

Dominion’s installation ship – a $715 million floating giant – arrives this month. First turbine goes up in September.

Virginia ratepayers are learning that trade wars have a price. And they’re paying it.

While America debates wind power, India is seizing control of it.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy just introduced strict new rules. Wind turbine makers must now buy key components from government-approved domestic vendors only.

Blades, towers, generators, gearboxes, special bearings – all must come from India’s approved supplier list.

But there’s more. All wind turbine data must stay in India. No real-time operational data can leave the country. Companies must set up their control centers and research facilities in India within one year.

The goal? Boost India’s domestic wind turbine manufacturing from 20 gigawatts to 500 gigawatts by 2030.

This helps Indian companies like Suzlon Energy and hurts Chinese companies like Envision Group.

India isn’t just buying wind power. They’re taking ownership of the entire supply chain.

And that’s paying off already.

Suzlon Energy just landed a massive order from Zelestra India. 381 megawatts of wind power equipment across three Indian states.

127 wind turbines will provide clean energy for millions of homes. It’s Zelestra’s first FDRE project – Firm and Dispatchable Renewable Energy. That means power you can count on 24 hours a day.

Girish Tanti, Suzlon’s Vice Chairman, says India’s energy transition is at a pivotal moment. The country is pursuing reliable, round-the-clock renewable power.

This landmark partnership signals India’s shift toward energy independence through wind power.

So here’s what we have: America stepping back while the world steps forward.

Trump’s administration calls wind and solar unreliable, foreign-controlled energy sources. They’re betting on oil, gas, and coal.

Meanwhile, India is building domestic wind manufacturing. Scotland is approving massive offshore projects. And a Colorado company is building the world’s biggest cargo plane to make land-based wind farms more efficient.

The Wind Runner isn’t just about moving turbine blades. It’s about moving the entire clean energy industry forward while America watches from the sidelines.

Mark Lundstrom in Boulder thinks he can create the cheapest energy in the world. Trump in Washington thinks wind power is a con job.

Only one of them is going to be right.

Seventeen state attorneys general are suing to challenge Trump’s wind energy halt. The Sierra Club says the administration is obstructing affordable, reliable energy for everyday Americans.

But Robin Shaffer of Protect Our Coast New Jersey applauds the administration. He says these projects are too expensive compared to cheap onshore power.

The wind industry faces strong headwinds from the current administration. But the rest of the world? They’re catching wind.

That Wind Runner cargo plane launching in 2028 might be carrying more than just turbine blades. It might be carrying America’s energy future to countries that want it more than we do.

https://weatherguardwind.com/wind-runner-india-local/