Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Beyond on-the-job-training for Blade Repair Technicians
Blade Repair Academy is a campus for wind turbine technicians, a controlled training environment that was designed by experienced blade repair technicians to teach others the art (and the science) of wind turbine maintenance and blade repair.
Alfred Crabtree is Blade Repair Academy’s founder and its CEO. Before founding the 4300-square foot facility about 40 miles north of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Crabtree spent more than six years performing repairs of wind turbine blades on ropes and platforms – and then developed and ran a large-scale composite training program.
If 6 years doesn’t sound like very long, consider that it is 20% longer than the average blade repair technician spends in the field.
Joel Saxum watched Crabtree’s presentation at Blades USA and had to learn more. Crabtree agreed to an interview, and this article highlights some of their conversation.
The full recording can be heard for free here and – at just 23 minutes long – it’s well worth your time.
The World Needs More Blade Repair Technicians
There’s a high rate of attrition for blade repair technicians, which bleeds expertise from the professional ranks faster than many high-burnout jobs. Consider the number of construction workers and firefighters and other physically and mentally draining careers. Those jobs take heavy tolls, but the majority of people in those and other similarly demanding roles retire from those careers.
Simply put, there’s just hardly any reasonable comparison.

For one thing, the US Department of Labor doesn’t even list “Blade Repair Technician” as a job. “’Blade repair’ is one line item in the (description for) Wind Turbine Technician,” Crabtree said.
And that’s just the start of the problem. When the job doesn’t exist in the Department of Labor catalog, the career path can only be described as unclear.
“That’s not incumbent upon (the Department of Labor),” Crabtree points out. “It’s incumbent on the industry to create that description.”
Crabtree, Blade Repair Academy, and others in the wind energy field are working with the Department of Labor to create a listing for the occupation. It’s one of several initiatives that are happening simultaneously and quickly, out of necessity, in an industry that is being forced to standardize and professionalize while it grows to meet increasing demands worldwide.
While the IRA bill includes an item to help fund apprenticeship programs for just the type of training Blade Repair Academy provides, Crabtree notes that government funds or tax breaks can be a double-edged sword. There have been numerous examples of training dollars being exhausted when large corporations quickly establish in-name-only ‘apprenticeship programs’ that are essentially meaningless because they do not adhere to industry-wide protocols. While deserving clients sometimes receive the benefits of such efforts, the programs do not advance the industry or the blade repair profession.
How Do Blade Repair Technicians Learn Their Jobs?
Whether it’s skillfully handling a grinder, reading a work order, or working at heights, existing training programs really don’t accurately reflect what a wind turbine technician deals with in the field.
And yet, on-the-job (and often, on-the-blade) training is pretty typical in the wind energy world.
“It can take half a season to find out the quality of work, which is terrifying,” Crabtree said.
That is why Blade Repair Academy focuses on hands-on learning by doing, repetitively, in a controlled environment.

“When you’re upon a blade, you have very little cognitive bandwidth left,” he said. And up on that blade, there are so many steps you need to do, in just the right order, to keep yourself safe, remaining mental capacity must be devoted to completing the task at hand.
Because the Blade Repair Academy founders have practical experience in the field, they know a few things that may seem counterintuitive to a hiring manager. Things like, “the techs who are really, really good at their jobs may not be great teachers,” Crabtree said.
In fact, the techs who are great under pressure are often head-down, get-it-done types who are rarely inclined to take the time to instruct someone else or let them demonstrate newly-learned skills. Adding to the stress of the situation, quite often time-frames are severely shortened due to weather conditions and other uncontrollable factors.
A variety of classes are offered, focusing on the fundamentals, on working with composites, on applying new methods, requirements and technologies, and on more specific repair techniques for LE/TE bond line splits and transverse cracks to spar cap and tip repairs.
In addition to classes, employers can send new hires to the Academy to be vetted or rated before going on assignment. Otherwise, there are few if any ways to assess competency until a blade tech is in the field.
Wind Energy’s New Technology Demonstration Center?
Crabtree said the Academy is also finding increasing interest in using the campus as a technology demonstration center. Companies that need a controlled environment to trail new materials and technologies, such as UV curing and infusion, have been pleased with the ease of use of facilities at the Academy.
Confidence is gained by working through the unknown, and this can involve mistakes. – Blade Repair Academy
For more information visit the Blade Repair Academy website or contact Crabtree on LinkedIn.
Photo credit: Blade Repair Academy
Renewable Energy
As Europe Shuns Chinese Turbines and Components, Who Will Fill the Gap?
Weather Guard Lightning Tech

As Europe Shuns Chinese Turbines and Components, Who Will Fill the Gap?
While most of Europe has spent most of this year itemizing reasons it cannot, should not, and will not use Chinese wind turbines or components, accusations and arm-twisting tactics have garnered most of the attention.
But we invite you to consider a future – maybe just five, or ten years from now?- in which those same countries and companies are eagerly awaiting orders from wind turbine manufacturing facilities in… India.
What?!
You know that the country has a lot of installed wind.
You may think – and many in the industry would agree – that India’s blade manufacturers are a few revs behind blade-makers elsewhere in the world. But the country is newly committed to manufacturing and it’s busy installing more – provided that it’s made in India, with Indian technology, by Indian workers.
Of course, similar domestic-focused policy currents are running through European countries – where wind OEMs are almost inarguably a decade ahead of Indian manufacturers. But there’s an important reason why we say, “watch India” in wind turbine manufacturing.
It’s because you might learn something.
If you follow The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, you probably heard this discussion a few weeks ago. It wasn’t the headline story – we try to highlight as many major news items and trends that we can, and follow up as credible information becomes available. India’s quiet moves to strengthen its own renewable energy industries didn’t grab the headlines. But it comprised a good bit of our panelists’ discussion.
With India’s expanding manufacturing capacity, and Suzlon’s strategic offerings for the European market (Blue Sky), there are reasons for European developers to take a closer look at Indian manufacturers.
If Europe continues to squelch deals with Chinese manufacturers due to data security issues, India is a relatively obvious candidate to fill the void, for several reasons:
- The country has depth and breadth in R&D: India (Suzlon, specifically) has a track record of involvement and relationships across the continent, as it operates research and development centers in Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
- Indian service providers have reach: Inox and Adoni Wind operate multiple wind turbine manufacturing plants and wind farms throughout several Indian states, and Apraava Energy has been commissioning wind projects, working with multiple OEMs, for more than 16 years.
- The country’s energy sector has size: Tata Power is estimated to be worth about US$16 billion and employs 22,000 people.
And major manufacturers from other countries have had a strong presence in the country for years:
- GE Vernova has turbine blade and nacelle manufacturing operations and multiple tech/R&D centers in India;
- Vestas has a R&D technology center in Chennai; and
- China’s SANY Wind has had assembly facilities in India since 2017, and in 2024, it signed a licensing agreement with JSW allowing SANY to manufacture blades and generators for JSW – enabling JSW Neo Energy to produce wind turbine generators and major components in-country.
So while there is hard data suggesting that India is already a global hub for wind turbines, sometimes the real strength comes from soft skills. Like sharing information.
We’ve noticed that Indian manufactures aren’t stingy with information. They share what they learn in the field and on the shop floor, so that the whole industry can move faster to solve problems. That bodes well for the industry overall, and particularly well for companies who figure out how to solve problems that some manufacturers aren’t even ready to admit to having.
We’ll be watching India with a great deal of interest in the coming months. Subscribe to The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast and follow along with us.
We’re not financial analysts. We’re engineers who watch the wind industry very closely. This is what we’ve noticed, and we thought it was worth sharing.
Where do you think you’ll be looking for solutions, components, and service providers in the next few years or the next decade? Tell us what you think. We’d love to hear from you.
As Europe Shuns Chinese Turbines and Components, Who Will Fill the Gap?
Renewable Energy
When You Write for Idiots, You Can Get Away with Anything
To the author of the meme here:
“Either” refers to two choices; “any” refers to three or more.
More importantly, it’s amazing how shamelessly the ultra-right wing exaggerates. The left side of the Democratic party would like to see the United States look like social democracies in places like Scandinavia. Having government programs that benefit the common person, e.g., Social Security, public schools, emergency relief, libraries, environmental responsibility, etc., does not equate to Stalinism.
Renewable Energy
Are Muslims “Dangerous?”
Some of my old prep school chums from the Class of 1973 convene via Zoom approximately every six weeks for a 90-minute discussion of current events, science, and anything else that sounds interesting.
Our professions range from medicine, law, finance, and business management. All from highly ranked colleges. Over 50% hold doctorate degrees.
Here’s something I find fascinating about the group: it includes one right-wing conservative. I don’t mean a Reaganite; I mean a Trump supporter. This guy is incapable of any thought that doesn’t come directly from Nexsmax.
It’s almost eerie how closely he toes the line of the far-right. Yesterday he echoed the Newsmax talking point and told the group that all Muslims holding public office are “very dangerous” and should be removed.
Now, the rest of us are sitting there, dumbfounded at this idea, unwilling waste our breath on this racist and utterly preposterous concept.
All this raises the question: How are our political viewpoints formed? How much of this is genetics? Epigenetics? Early childhood experiences? How do take a boy from among the best environments and turn him into someone who struggles to understand the most basic principles on which our country was founded?
https://www.2greenenergy.com/2026/11/09/principles-country-was-founded/
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