Published

2 years ago

March 13, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Blade Repair Academy: Tackling the Human Challenges in Blade Repair

Joel Saxum spoke to Alfred Crabtree from the Blade Repair Academy at Blades USA in Austin, TX. They discussed the challenges faced by blade repair technicians, including the physically demanding nature of the job, frequent travel, and high attrition rates. Crabtree also talks about the Blade Repair Academy’s mission to provide training and vetting for blade repair technicians, and initiatives to create a dedicated occupation and apprenticeship program for this field. Visit https://www.bladerepairacademy.com/home.

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!

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Weather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.com
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Joel Saxum: All right guys we’re back here at Blades got Alfred Crabtree here from the Blade Repair Academy. Alfred’s big mission with the Blade Repair Academy is bringing new net capacity to the wind industry, right? We need more composite technicians. We need more composite technicians, that’s right. For sure.

We’re at Blades here. Alfred presented yesterday and this is one of my highlights from the conference, not because you’re sitting next to me and I’m saying this. Thank you. But just in general because we have had like we said, a lot of Subject matter experts, a lot of the, I’m in charge of all the blades for this fleet and that fleet discussions around inspection.

What should you do with your blades when they come out of the manufacturing facilities? DNV talking about certain things a lot of really good high level engineering stuff. Yes. But yesterday, Alfred brought A human element to the discussion. That’s right. So I’m, I say this right here, so it’s recorded and everybody knows that I’ve never repelled downwind.

That’s not my, where I’ve come into this sector. You have many times. So Alfred’s presentation yesterday was a fantastic video in the background as he spoke over it of himself, basically getting ready to drop over the hub and to send down a blade to do some work and all of the things that go into that.

While you were speaking about what’s really happening with the technicians in the field. That was the diversion. That was the thing that was different than everybody else. Everybody’s talking about high level engineering. This is what we do. You brought the human element. You said, this is what’s going on with the techs in the field.

This is how long they’re away from their families. This is the life cycle of a person in the field. This is how long they last. This is how we’re losing good capacity. That’s right. So you’re bringing different story to this environment that was built. From what I talked to a lot of other people as well very well received.

Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. I’ve got a lot of good feedback and the human element is really integral to all these initiatives and ideas. We saw a lot of science, we saw a lot of data, which is great. And a lot of business and all of that hinges upon two hands that can execute grinds with the grinder. And so that was, the focus of my talk was to bring that back into the conversation about how we deal with these problems we’re facing.

Joel Saxum: So we know we have a shortage of technicians, From the general wind technician to the specific people that worry about different problems. Hey, we’re talking blades here, right? We know we have that shortage. Can you talk to us a little bit about that life cycle of that person in the industry?

Alfred Crabtree: Sure, sure.

On average the life cycle of a blade repair technician is about five years. And it’s a short span whether you’re successful in the gig or not. And there’s a lot of factors that influence that. First off, the, it takes a couple or three years to become proficient. Yeah. With the grinder and to be able to execute.

It’s a very tough environment on the job to learn from because we have this vertical distance between the person who’s doing the work and the support person and the roles are really detached from each other. Also in this industry, people have been using skillset as a form of competition and they covet.

Their wisdom, but the tribal wisdom falls out very quickly because of this high attrition rate. So if you go out on this job, you have to be able to work outdoors in extreme weather conditions many hours a week. And we, a lot of us think we want that, but when you get there, you do it until you do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then work at height is a physiological switch that you either have or don’t. And there’s no way that you can macho through it. No, it’s, lead to poor health. And then the wear and tear and fatigue. You’re away from your family. Yeah, for sure. You can spend a couple weeks in a hotel room waiting for the weather to break.

That’s not good for your mental health. No. There’s a lot of challenges. And then let’s say you are successful and you’ve made a lot of money and now you want to buy a house and maybe met your partner or you’re having a child. There’s a lot of reasons why we a successful technician will want to get off the road.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. Then you want to be home. You want to be home. You want to enjoy that house that you spent all that time working for. Yeah. Enjoy that partner. You may find her or him in a random city somewhere.

Alfred Crabtree: You, this is very true. And in fact, if you’re meeting, having a successful episode in your life, you’re smiling and you’re more attractive.

And so it definitely happens. And then another thing that we need to make a distinction between blade repair technicians and wind turbine techs are mostly based. Where their farm is. Locally. They work at XYZ Wind Farm and that’s where they report to work. There certainly are traveling techs, but almost, I’m pretty sure all the blade repair techs are traveling.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. There’s not very many wind farms that can support technicians that sit at a mall. So you have those two distinctions, of course. The, the construction side of things, they’re traveling as well. But either way, so I’ve lived that traveling life, but in the oil and gas world for a while.

It’s not. It’s not good for your health. It’s hard to have a routine where you can actually, you know, if you like the gym, or you like to eat well, or anything like that. It’s difficult. It’s a young person’s game.

Alfred Crabtree: I have hundreds of thousands of reward points on hotels, and cars, and airplanes, and I’m not the least bit interested.

I spent four out of eight years in hotel rooms.

Joel Saxum: Yep.

Alfred Crabtree: And yeah.

Joel Saxum: So it doesn’t, yeah, it’s not something that you’re like, I’m gonna go and do this for 30 years. No. It’s not gonna happen. It’s not. And one of the, one of the difficult things, and you touched on it, and I’ve had discussions with a lot of people in the industry about this is, there’s not always a clear and defined career path, right?

Very rarely is it like, oh, you’re a Tech 1, Tech 2, Tech 3, Tech 4 and then once you’re a Tech 4, they’re like, yeah, you’re a Tech 4. Can you go into project management? Do you go into HSE? Do you go to be a fleet manager? That’s difficult because there’s not, that path isn’t clear.

Alfred Crabtree: It’s not clear.

And if you think about it, you would have to have new net growth to enable those positions in management to open up for your alumni or, your esteemed composites experts. They, unfortunately that expertise leaves because there’s nowhere to go.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, and after you’ve done it for long enough, you’re, you just simply, the term is you get burnt out.

Huh. You need, you’re, I gotta be done with this. So that probably happens to most people by, and I’m gonna very much generalize here. If you’re doing it in your 20s, by the time you’re hitting 30, you’re looking for something else. And the trouble is, You’re now the person out there in the field that has all of this knowledge, like you said, the tribal knowledge.

Alfred Crabtree: That’s right, and it disappears. And part of that problem is this is not an occupation. The Department of Labor does not have a job description or a job title called a blade repair technician. Yeah. Blade repair is one line item in the wind turbine technician.

Joel Saxum: It surprises me because, I’ve focused on blades for most of my time in wind.

So that’s been such a forefront in my wind energy experience that the Department of Labor doesn’t even see it as a task.

Alfred Crabtree: But, it’s not incumbent upon them, it’s incumbent upon the industry to, to apply for and create, to create that description. So that’s an initiative I’m working on. long term.

Joel Saxum: Fantastic. So you had mentioned talking with the department of labor on that one. Is there any other initiatives that you’re trying to bring the wind industry together on?

Alfred Crabtree: Sure. I spoke at the wind workshop in Boulder a couple of weeks ago and I met the folks from IACMI there and they have a workforce development effort and staff.

And so I Commiserated with them pretty quickly and they’re out of Knoxville. I’m in Tennessee. So gonna work with them as a industry sponsor. I hope I’ve spoke with the Department of Labor and have looked into what it takes to create an occupation and then I’m working on an apprenticeship program huge studying What it takes to get to do that.

It requires a corporate or industry sponsor, and then we need about a dozen people who can speak on behalf of the program. And would they accept it as industry leaders? Okay. Bureaucracy is not my strong point, but I’m pretty passionate about it and so far everyone in the industry I’ve talked to is on board and willing to help.

Joel Saxum: It’s part of the IRA bill, right? There’s things in there now. I don’t know the specifics on it. I’d have to talk to some, People smarter than me, but I do know that there’s a line item in there that says if you want to qualify for XYZ, you need to have people that are working here as a part of an apprenticeship.

Alfred Crabtree: That’s right. And so what’s unfair is that there are apprenticeship programs for wind turbine tech. And so companies like ISPs that are just in blades to get that benefit. It’s really their clients who get the benefit. Okay. And so they have to hire contractors that have a certain percentage that go through that program.

So blade service providers may be putting people through. A useless apprenticeship program for them just to get this contract to get involved in this business And so if we had a separate program that was just for blade techs, I think that would level the playing field.

Joel Saxum: Yeah for the opportunity for companies to take advantage of that and we’re looking at the same concept I like to speak on it a lot is rising waters floats all ships.

That’s a huge theme for me, right? So if we bring that standard up and we bring this an accreditation Or an apprenticeship program or something forward. For blade technicians, whether they come through your program or anybody else, right?

Alfred Crabtree: We’re raising the whole industry exactly and I think to that end if I can get a lot of the industry leaders involved I think here’s what there’s my challenge to the industry.

Let’s create a scholarship to fund Let’s say 400 new technicians to enter the field and at the same time upscale 200 existing technicians, we need upscale technicians today to take care of the serial flop problem. Yeah. Yeah. And we’re going to take those people away from just your preventative and your typical maintenance that comes up.

So we need to backfill that. And if we can’t. As an industry contribute to new net growth. It’s not, we can, we take it out of the realm of competition and we’re not competing with skill sets. People aren’t jumping for a dollar here and there. That doesn’t help anybody. That’s the other half is that technicians can take advantage of this market of scarcity and jump from ship to ship.

Joel Saxum: And it leads to poor quality, to be honest with you. Yes. Because it’s great, technician on an extra dollar. I’m not gonna blame you for that. But when we jump from company to company, before you even get involved in, I’ve seen this, before you get involved in company A, when you came from company Y, you don’t know their HSE policies, you don’t even know how your fuel card works in your truck, before you’re heading to site, whether there’s a different process on a different thing, because in the industry, a lot, to be honest with you, unless you have work instructions from an OEM, and you’re working on blades, there’s not a lot of stuff that’s standardized.

Unfortunately. Unfortunately. And that’s something you’re working on. Yes. So let’s, we’ll switch topics a little bit. Alfred, the, how I originally got in contact with you was Blade Repair Academy. Tell us about Blade Repair Academy.

Alfred Crabtree: All right. Blade Repair Academy is a startup that my partners and I began about a year ago in the, if you build it, they will come.

There we go. Thing, we’re grinders we’re field techs, a couple of us. And we know what you need to be able to do the work. And, I contend that it’s the grinder that you have to unlock, because everything depends upon the grinder, and in my opinion, existing training programs don’t give you enough time or enough scale and size to really reflect an analog to what you do in the field.

So that’s what we are doing. We have simulated lightning strikes that people repair. We have a learning management system, it’s a database, and we have people They fill out a report while they do their repair. Just like you’re in the field, but in a controlled environment. Exactly. And since every repair panel and damage is the same, then we can compare everybody’s work.

Yeah. Everybody has to take out a certain size of core. And so now I have a rubric to grade on and we now have insight. And one of the main things that I offer as a product is a vetting service. Where that’s huge. If you’re going to hire somebody who has skills. You have no way to prove it until he’s been out in the field and you get some feedback.

And that may cost you half your season if the guy’s not really what he thinks he is.

Joel Saxum: And monetarily, if you have someone up there doing poor quality repairs. Wait, that could screw you. You could lose contracts. For sure. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of let alone the safety and other things, but the quality side of it.

That’s a different, whole different game.

Alfred Crabtree: I think that’s the main reason why people hold back from growing their teams, because they’re afraid of losing quality control, because they can’t control the input. They can’t control what’s coming in. So we vet, we, let me just finish here. Yeah.

We vet people. They can come and execute one of these repairs with just work instructions, no prompts under the instruction and then. They’ll complete it and you’ll have a report and you’ll know what they’re capable of.

Joel Saxum: I think that’s huge. You’re, so you’re saying one of the things, of course, full training programs here, but we’re, you’re talking, we can vet people.

If you’re an ISP and your engineering staff doesn’t have the time, or you don’t have the time in HR, whatever you want to grow your team, send a couple of guys over to Alfred that he can vet them. QC them, make sure they are what they say they are. That’s right. That’s one thing. The other concept that you and I have talked about off air a little bit as well is the idea of upskilling people to execute on some of these serial defects in the fleet.

Now, so this is a concept and it’s a little bit, it was new to me, but man, you thought through it, you’ve got it. But the concept in my mind is, hey, we know we have this OEM that has this issue and here’s the work instruction. Send me the guys. I’ll have them go through the work instruction.

They’ll be stamp approved from Blade Repair Academy. They can execute on the COD effect. Get them out there and get them fixing it.

Alfred Crabtree: That’s right. And we can tailor the curriculum and the sample board to the layup that they’re facing. We can simulate the damage that they’re facing. And of course, we can quickly validate. and or supplement and, Train them till the point that they can go out and do that work. And with a finite amount of money set back to solve these problems that are, we know are going to continue to recur. We have to come up with the system to rapidly deploy and take care of these things while they’re sitting in a yard and not deal with them when they’re up on the turbine.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. We’ve got to keep those cranes moving. Yeah. And at the same time, so we’ve got that we’re talking about getting serial defects fixed and then we’re going to go into the field and we’re going to put complete net new capacity. So new blade repair technicians that maybe haven’t been on a blade before.

We’ll get them through your program so that we can see if they have the skills to go do it. Instead of finding out half of the season that they don’t.

Alfred Crabtree: That’s right. We believe that, you’ve got a five year lifespan with a technician. Let’s plan on that. Okay. And if we do that, we know that it’s probably wise to front load the training so you can get productivity out of these people really early, right?

And the matrix of skills and the things that you vet for, you’re going to vet for safety. The whole industrial training thing, the GWO path. Love it. Great. Then you’re going to vote. Then, in my opinion, you should vet for composite skills. Okay. Because you can be a good technician who can grind, but maybe.

You’re not going to be able to work at height, but we don’t need to throw that technician away. We need, there’s plenty of work on the ground, especially in the serial flaw world. So then you vet for height and then we all, and any employer has to vet for character and that’s especially important in this game because you’re putting a guy on a rope or in a basket, hundreds of miles from your office who is there to self manage.

And So on top of all these things we gotta have, it’s a brutal, it’s a brutal regime to get a good blade

Joel Saxum: deck.

And the existing issue today, or one of the existing issues, this is everything you just explained. And now that person is being asked many times to train someone in the field. And it’s uncontrolled at that time it’s hey, the weather just broke, we just got up on a blade, I don’t have time today.

Alfred Crabtree: That’s a very common place. It’s the standard, and the field is a very hard place to trade. If you’re up on blade, you have very little cognitive bandwidth left. And you’re under pressure to perform. You’ve been on standby for five days. And guess what? You may be really good at your job, but that doesn’t mean you’re a teacher.

Exactly. In fact, the techs who really crush it are usually head down, blinders on, don’t meet anyone. Yeah. For sure. Extreme stuff. It’s and it’s a, I think we also need to emphasize this is a craft, okay? We’re not swapping out parts. Yeah, we have it’s science meets art. It is. You have to make choices about what you remove from the blade.

Joel Saxum: And then you, and by the way, it’s moving and it’s bucking and you’ve got a 36 grade video where you’re showing the guy and all the different, I was just walking through the steps of the video you showed during your presentation and the clip rope clip, rope. I’m like, just remembering that sequence of how to keep yourself safe up on the ropes.

You haven’t even got the grinder out. Yeah. And so to be turned on, to be switched on, you’ve got to be, into what you’re doing at that point. Otherwise, it’s unsafe otherwise. So if you’re being asked to do too much in the field, it’s tough. So in my opinion, and this is why I’ve gravitated towards your message and talking with you is we know we need new net capacity right now, dedicated blade composite repair, training facilities and entities.

Some ISPs are doing it internally. Yes. But there isn’t a facility that has the push that you have, that I see.

Alfred Crabtree: I scaled up to a facility that I could easily put 200 people, even 400 people a year through my program. There, I, not many companies are going to invest like I did to build a facility that is that deluxe for the four to eight people that they’re going to, they’re going to train.

And then in the start of the season, the manager is going to take his hat off and they’re going to put his training hat on and he’s going to be doing double duty. You’re going to get it done. And then you’re going to go back to managing the season starts and you trained for, and you had tried it three and in the middle of the season, you can’t adapt, but if you use a third party like blade repair Academy, you can hire that guy, we can vet them.

You can put them right out. Good to go and you can scale up and down. It’s a paradigm shift, but I think people should look into it.

Joel Saxum: One of the cool things that you told me about your facility and the Blade Repair Academy thing that you’ve got going on is everybody in the industry seems to be on board.

So you’re getting even materials companies donating some stuff like, Hey, here’s some new material. Here’s this, we’re looking at doing a, a U UV cure kind of demos and these kinds of things with this product. And so when a technician comes through there, they get exposure to a lot of the state of the art technologies and stuff.

Alfred Crabtree: That’s going, yeah, We really want to be a technology demonstration center and part of it is just. That I’m a kid and I love playing around with this stuff and experimenting, but it’s also about finding best practices and new uses. We have, we have legacy chemicals and we have legacy protocols because we’re afraid.

To try different things in the work environment. And so I’ve got a lab where you can come and it’s okay. If you mess up the repair, you learn from the mess ups more than you do the good stuff. Yeah. Let’s try this new chemical, the UV cure systems out there. Game changer, cutting cure times from six hours to 20 minutes.

Yeah. We’re watching it right down here. They’re doing it on the floor here. They’re doing it on the floor here with no VOCs one part systems. The suppliers are coming up With solutions and I’ve had a couple come to me and ask for our feedback because they don’t know about The field scenario and they’ve changed formulations based upon our feedback and changed packaging.

Yeah. We’re grateful. Yeah. Obviously it makes sense to, for suppliers to put their products in our hands and get them in the hands of people. And I think that’s win for everybody. It’s very, we’re out, we’re agnostic and we take all comers and we’ll, we’ll do LEP demos and put a few stuff, a few products up against each other.

Yeah. Infusion is a new technology that we’re exploring. We’re having actually a couple of clinics Thursday and Friday and Monday and Tuesday. So I’m always open to hear from anybody and get visits from anybody. We know we have to validate our claims and we have to be vetted and we’re new in the industry.

So I encourage anyone who wants to talk about it or come down and see what we do. It’s definitely unique.

Joel Saxum: I like it. I like the whole concept and I think that the industry needs it. Not only our U. S. Sorry, but globally it’s needed. Yes. We need capacity everywhere.

Alfred Crabtree: It’s amazing the Interest I’m getting on LinkedIn

Joel Saxum: from all over the world.

Yeah. Let’s touch on that okay So we’ve went through the message about what technicians are going through in the field we’ve talked about Blade Repair Academy, some of your initiatives and the things you’re doing. The last thing here, how do people get a hold of you? They want to get a hold of Blade Repair Academy, how do they do it?

Alfred Crabtree: bladerepairacademy.com I’m alfred.crabtree@bladerepairacademy.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. The video we were talking about is on YouTube, if you look up my name. And the commute, it’s just it’s the rappel from the nacelle down to A damage area and what it takes and what we’re trying to what I was trying to convey yesterday to people was, you know There’s a human being who has to get here in these conditions doing these Exerting himself or herself to this degree.

Joel Saxum: So keep that in mind when you’re, hiring or firing or Commending or and when you need someone vetted send them to Blade Repair Academy.

Alfred Crabtree: Yeah send them to us. We can really help you make sure your workforce is dialed in

Blade Repair Academy: Tackling the Human Challenges in Blade Repair

Renewable Energy

NextEra Buys Dominion, China Outpaces Vestas

Published

9 hours ago

May 26, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

NextEra Buys Dominion, China Outpaces Vestas

NextEra’s $67B all-stock Dominion deal targets data center alley. Plus China’s top five each outpace Vestas, and 80% of Swedish wind producers ran at a loss.

[00:00:00] The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now, your hosts

Speaker 6: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with three other people, Matthew Stead, Rosemary Barnes, and, uh, Yolanda Padron down in Texas. Uh, we’re all getting ready to go to American Clean Power in Houston, Texas, where it will be practically 150 degrees and 99% humidity, and we’re all looking forward to those warm, wet days that we will spend

It is very similar to New Orleans. New Orleans was also very warm and very humid. So there’s a trend going on here with American Clean Power, although we were up in Minneapolis not too long ago, uh, but I guess we were in Phoenix too, so we gotta find a middle ground, everybody. Can we go someplace like– [00:01:00] Rosemary says we should always go to the Maldives, Tahiti.

I got a lot of requests from Tahiti from people. We never go there. We never go to Hawaii.

Rosemary Barnes: I’ve suggested Hawaii so many times, and I’ve been told that Americans are not gonna be given permission from their manager to go to Hawaii.

Speaker 6: It’s kinda like Las Vegas.

Rosemary Barnes: Maybe one day we’ll make it to San Diego or something and get, um, beach adjacent facility And if your presentation is too boring, then everyone will be at the beach.

So that will be how we ensure quality control of the speakers, which is a big problem at these events now, right? Like you can’t, um, there’s– It’s more like the norm is fairly boring sales pitches rather than informative discussion.

Speaker 6: We used to have OMNS, when I say we, I mean the wind community used to have OMNS out in San Diego in Coronado at the Del Coronado is, I think that’s the hotel name.

And the one time that I went, I think I’ve been [00:02:00] there, I would say one time, uh, everybody was outside on the, at the beach, basically on the patio. So they’re holding all these talks and discussions, and it’s… I’m looking around, it’s like me and five other people. Everybody else is out there next to the water.

So they had a problem with that. So I guess what they figured, either make it really cold or make it really hot, so it forces everybody into the climate-controlled conditions of, uh, the, uh, auditorium to watch the speakers. Maybe that’s the, the plan. All right. Let’s, let’s, let’s talk about what happened with NextEra and Dominion because there’s going to be a huge merger.

So if you thought utility business was boring, it’s not anymore. NextEra announced a sixty-seven billion dollar all-stock deal to acquire Dominion Energy, a move that would create the largest regulated electricity utility in the world by market cap. Uh, [00:03:00] the combined company would serve about ten million customers accounts across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, where I’m based, and South Carolina with one hundred and ten gigawatts of generation across renewables, nuclear, and natural gas.

Uh, but the real driver here is data centers, of course. Dominion sits in the heart of Virginia’s data center alley, where it has connected more than four hundred and fifty data centers, and NextEra is building thirty data center hubs through its NextEra Energy Resources subsidiary and has partnered with Google Cloud on paired generation campuses.

So together, they would control about a hundred and thirty gigawatts of large load pipeline. And the question is whether the regulators will let it happen. And I think that’s, having watched some of the news articles over the last several days, uh, the news broke pretty much Sunday morning or late Saturday night that this was happening and [00:04:00] The first thing that came to mind, are the regulators going to let it happen?

And the concern is going to be, and you can well imagine how this plays out, they’re going to drag Dominion and NextEra up to Washington, D.C. and berate them about how electricity rates cannot increase due to data centers. And if they don’t swear to that, then this merger won’t happen. That’s my interpretation of what’s about to happen.

It may not, but how does this play out? How does everybody else on the team at Uptime see this play out?

Matthew Stead: Seems like a good idea to me. So more economies, more geographic diversity, more opportunity for renewables.

Yolanda Padron: I can’t speak to Dominion, um, but being relatively close to the NextEra engineering team, they, they really know their stuff, right?

So I think it’s something that should kind of give us a, a sense of relief here that it, [00:05:00] it’s a big team, but it’s a really smart and competent team taking over a big undertaking.

Speaker 6: You would like to see renewables and data centers work together. This would be the perfect match of the two, right? The, the largest renewable owner management company, along with the biggest data center, uh, region.

Connecting those two would make infinite sense, but in the, our political environment today in the United States, that may be the reason to oppose it.

Matthew Stead: Yeah, why would it be a bad idea?

Speaker 6: Windmills, Matthew. Windmills. Windmills are bad. Can’t even call them wind turbines anymore. They’re windmills.

Rosemary Barnes: I used to mock people for saying windmill instead of wind turbine, but then when I moved to Denmark, um, you know, who, you know, have a firm, firm ownership of modern wind energy, or at least did back 10, 20 years ago They say windmill when they speak English.

Um, the Danish word for it is vindmølle, um, which means windmill. [00:06:00]And so I can’t… I couldn’t maintain that, that energy because like, am I gonna, am I gonna mock these, you know, like everybody at that company knew more about wind energy than I did. Am I gonna mock them for not, not knowing the difference between a windmill and a wind turbine?

No. So yeah, that’s, that’s something that I, I don’t do anymore.

Matthew Stead: That is really valuable to know, um, Rosie. I must admit, I did not know that, and I would mock people saying w- windmill, so thank you for setting me straight.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, there are plenty of, um, plenty of people who don’t know the difference between a windmill and a wind turbine and think, “Oh, why you only got three blades with so much air between them?

You know, you’re gonna… Y- if you would just put twice as many blades, you’d get twice as many energy. Everybody who works in wind energy is just an obs- obvious complete and utter idiot.” Um, so there’s that kind of person, but then there’s also the industry. Another fun fact that they call the blades wings.

Uh, um, yeah, in Danish they call them blade wings, which they are. [00:07:00]

Speaker 6: In Spanish, isn’t it shovels? ‘Cause when I always translate those, uh, Spanish questions over to English, it always comes out shovel. At least early on, y- the early versions of Google Translate would translate it to shovel. Like, what are they talking about shovel on a wind turbine?

That doesn’t make any sense.

Yolanda Padron: Yeah, like a shovel or a stick or like a, what you row with.

Speaker 6: Oh, like an oar. Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Okay. Thank you, Yolanda.

Matthew Stead: I think it’s really interesting that, um- We don’t have much material on NextEra, Dominion. Um, yeah, we just don’t think it’s a good– We all think it’s a good idea.

There’s no controversy here.

Speaker 6: Oh, there’ll be controversy. Don’t worry about that. There’s always controversy. Welcome to America.

Matthew Stead: But among the four of us-

Speaker 6: We all think it’s great.

Rosemary Barnes: Well, it’s, um, I mean, some of the interesting facts that I read was that they’ve got 130 gigawatts of load, um, that they’re bringing to the table, and 51 gigawatts of that is contracted data centers.

So that’s, that’s interesting. [00:08:00] And I think large amounts of new data centers on the grid are controversial because in– if you’re not very, very careful about how you integrate them, then you can end up just making electricity more expensive for everybody in the area that doesn’t necessarily get, you know, profit sharing from the data center.

So, um, I think that, uh, like, you know, the wind ind- in the wind industry, we’ve obviously been through and are still in the phase of where social license, um, community acceptance is one of the most important things, maybe the most important thing when you’re developing a new project. And I think that we’re just at the start of that realization for data centers as well.

Companies that are building the, the data centers, they need to do more than what’s required of them because otherwise they have big risks of project delays. It’s millions of dollars delay, um, for the delay for, um, yeah, for every, every day that, um, a data center is held up. And so how can you afford to risk annoying anybody?

[00:09:00] You know, you just wanna be like the just, just perfect, um, addition to the community so that everybody is just happy and, and lets the project proceed. So, yeah, I thought– think that that’s, that’s quite an interesting aspect that I think I’m gonna s- we’re gonna see changing as, you know, all these planned data centers become real data centers.

There’s a real risk that everybody hates data centers soon as much as they, um, hated wind tur- um, wind farms for a while.

Yolanda Padron: For the consumer, aren’t there, like, I don’t know if they’re in Virginia, but aren’t there price caps too for the market? When you’re– When it comes to how expensive the megawatt hour is?

Speaker 6: Not necessarily. Re- remember that AEP in Ohio, uh, was requiring data centers to buy electricity at a certain amount. Because they both basically committed not to raise prices for electricity to the local communities, and that would be really hard to do. And okay, great, if, if they can pull it off, awesome.

But there’s already a lot of [00:10:00] pushback about it, and it hasn’t even gotten to the point of being real yet, so it’s only gonna get worse. I see. And all the data centers are gonna be up in space no matter what. Everybody’s talking about building data centers on the ground. There’s no shot that that’s gonna happen.

I’m just telling you, ’cause they can’t do it. They don’t– They can’t build gas turbines fast enough. There’s just limitations there, and transformers and everything else. It’s gonna be in space. It’s so much easier.

Yolanda Padron: And all the approvals you have to get and everything.

Speaker 6: It will be easier to do it in space In space, you don’t have neighbors.

Matthew Stead: I said it before, it’s just crazy. The key issue around data centers is it’s actually the transmission rather than generation. I mean, you know, at least in Australia, and correct me if I’m wrong, Rosie, but you know, less than half the price in Australia is generation. The other half is sort of retail and transmission and this and that.

And so actually, you know, the generation cost shouldn’t really increase. It’s really the transmission and the, the poles and the wires, which are the problem. And [00:11:00] you know, to your point, Rosie, social, social license for poles and wires.

Rosemary Barnes: I’m actually really surprised at Allen, ’cause normally, Allen and I have this, um, you know, we’ve played out this scenario probably 50 or 100 times over the, over the years with emerging technologies, and it’s always me that’s like, “You know what?

I think, uh, I think there’s something to this one.” Um, and Allen always poo-poos it, and in this case, Allen’s, Allen’s excited. I, I’m on Allen’s– So I also, I also think space data centers is, is a thing that’s more likely to happen than not, at least to some extent. Um, so yeah, but I think, Matt, you’ve got the more mainstream opinion.

Speaker 6: The voice of the common man. I

Yolanda Padron: think for all of our listeners out there, this is the first time Rosie and Allen agree on anything, so round of applause team.

Speaker 6: It won’t last long, Yolande.

Rosemary Barnes: It’s not true because, you know, nine out of 10 new technologies I also think are stupid. Um, so Allen and I agree on the bulk of them, but then of that one in 10, you know, nine out of 10 of those I, I [00:12:00] like and Allen doesn’t, so this is the, you know, the one-tenth of the one-tenth, so.

Speaker 6: I don’t like gas turbines. Can we all agree we don’t like gas turbines? It’s– That would be insane to scale.

Rosemary Barnes: You know what? I, I don’t have a particular problem with gas, gas turbines. I don’t want a lot of new gas turbines. Um, I guess that that’s– We can all agree on, on that. I don’t think the– I think we have most of the gas turbines that we need, or at least, um, will in the next couple of years.

And, um, yeah, I do think that their existence supports faster electrification, um, and faster growth of wind and solar. So I’m definitely not someone that wants to see all gas turbines turned off tomorrow.

Speaker 6: No, I don’t, I don’t want to turn them off. I’m

Matthew Stead: just saying you can’t get to scale.

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Speaker 6: millions.

Well, for the first time, five Chinese turbine manufacturers have all individually outpaced Danish wind giant Vestas in annual installations. Goldwind topped the global list with twenty-nine point seven gigawatts installed in twenty twenty-five. Behind them, Envision put up twenty-one point eight, Windy nineteen point eight, Mingyang at eighteen point six, and Sany at fifteen point one gigawatts.

Vestas came in [00:14:00] sixth at twelve point nine gigawatts. The Chinese dominance was fueled by an enormous domestic market that has accounted for about ninety-four percent of those five manufacturers’ sales. Uh, but exports are obviously growing out of China too. The five captured nearly sixty percent of the hundred and seventy-eight gigawatts installed globally in twenty twenty-five, a year that saw the world market grow forty percent over twenty twenty-four.

So Vestas still holds the crown for cumulative installations at two hundred and one gigawatts, but the gap in annual volume is now almost impossible to ignore. So Vestas has a lot of competition over in China. The, the amount of, uh, gigawatts coming out of the largest manufacturers in China is quite impressive, almost, well, more than double than what, uh, Vestas is doing, and Vestas is doing a pretty brisk business.

What are, what are the outcomes of this, everyone? Is, can this be sustained in China [00:15:00] for very much longer? Can they continue to, to create at, at that rate?

Rosemary Barnes: Yes. Okay, move, move on to the next segment

Speaker 6: Well, that’s a, that’s a huge amount of gigawatts coming out of China. And if 94% of it’s staying in China, eventually you run out of China to put wind turbines in.

Rosemary Barnes: They– I mean, we’re a long way from running out of places in China to put wind turbines in, because China is gigantic. A lot of it is not that populated. They’ve got a lot of offshore area still. But I just think it’s gonna follow the same playbook as, as solar probably, where you see, you know, early on heaps of domestic market, which is totally rock solid because it’s not relying on people to see a positive business case in doing it.

You know, like it’s really… You know, targets are, are really mandated and people make sure that they are met. Um, and then the incentives are also different as well. Like my understanding is that [00:16:00] there’s a lot of incentives about installation of megawatts, um, and then, you know, the, the operation is like, we’ll figure that out as we go.

The volume, the number of manufacturers that are there, they’ve got, you know, like such a great supply chain all there in the same area, so you can move fast and like I, I don’t see anything can get in the way of, you know, continuing to pump out these turbines at that speed. It’ll keep going until, you know, the government basically decides we’ve got, uh, enough wind energy now and then puts the, the brakes on it.

And, you know, that’s what we’ve just been through in solar recently. China is, um… You know, they’ve just– they’ve got a big economy and they’ve just got like rock solid resolve to follow through on, on things that they commit to. Um, whether we can, you know, argue about whether it’s a smart strategy or not, but you know that they will follow it, they will execute on, on it.

I don’t think anyone would, would say that they won’t. So I think, [00:17:00]can it continue forever? No. But do I think it can continue for another 10 years? Yes. And is that long enough to cause massive problems for any other manufacturer? I think also yes.

Matthew Stead: Hey, Rosie, can I ask you a question? You know, obviously there was some cable was proposed, you know, between Australia and Singapore.

Do you see China going in that direction? You know, putting rather than pipes with gas in it, um, pipes with electrons? Uh,

Rosemary Barnes: I don’t see China– I’m actually working on a video at the moment about a global sub-sea grid, and I just interviewed, um, uh, Xlinks, you know, that was originally a project from Morocco to the UK, and then the other one, which is super cool, um, we might have an argument about the plausibility of it, is NATO L, which is just in like early development stages.

It’s going to connect the UK to Canada. Um, and yeah, so that’s, um, a few thousand kilometers long. The ocean depth is maximum [00:18:00] three, I think, kilometers, maybe even a tiny bit more than that, um, which is like right on the edge of what is possible. N-none of those projects really actually rely on big technological improvements.

Um, they’re possible with today’s technologies. Um, but I don’t see China doing so much of that. I think that one thing that might actually stop that is that, um, when you have big interconnectors like that, I think the engineering part is not the hard, the hard part. I think that the, it’s the politics. I do see them exporting their, um, you know, they’ve got really good ultra high voltage DC technology, but the transmission lines, they have exported a little bit.

There’s some projects in Brazil that are Chinese made. There’s one in India. I don’t actually know if that is Chinese made, but you know, like I could really imagine them also rolling out projects in Africa, for example. Um, but beyond that sort of thing, I, I wouldn’t tip China as the country to, you know, develop a global [00:19:00] sub-sea grid.

Speaker 6: Do you think the low solar prices have hurt the wind manufacturers in China a little bit? Obviously, there’s a lot of solar panels that are able to be shipped immediately, which is what’s happening right now. But turbines, not so much. It’s a little harder to do. But you, you would think that a lot of these countries and communities would be putting in wind But solar is so cheap right now that, that is what is winning at the moment, and it must be hurting the Chinese wind manufacturers, you would think.

Rosemary Barnes: I don’t think they’re really in a competition with each other, um, at the moment. In Australia, I think yes. I think that, um, the, like, roaring success of solar and especially batteries is, um, making wind less appealing to develop. But globally, I think that it’s, you know, it’s a race between, um, fossil fuels and renewables.

It’s a race between energy security and continued reliance on, you know, countries that [00:20:00] you don’t really want to rely on for fossil fuels. I think that those are the, the much bigger, um, competition at the moment. It’s a bit short-sighted because, yeah, wind and solar is really easy for the, the part of the, uh, energy transition that we’re doing now, and, uh, if you just don’t build any wind until you reach the limit of solar and batteries, then you’ll find yourself quite far behind.

So that’s what we’re really struggling with in Australia and finding, like, what is the right level of government, um, support because people… You know, like in an electricity market like Australia, you’re not supposed to rely on governments, you know, planning out the system and deciding what thing to build, and I think that that has been a real strength of the Australian market that it has, you know, the government has got out of the way.

It is hard to see, um, us getting to where we need to go in a orderly fashion without some planning for this, like, lumpy middle part of the energy transition. I don’t know. What do you think, Matt? Is that how you see it in Australia as well?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think there’s a place [00:21:00] for everything, and, you know, wind, solar, battery is a perfect match and the right places for the right thing.

Rosemary Barnes: It’s really hard because, you know, like, when you look at the system as a whole, you know, like you plan out what, what full energy system is cheaper and better, you know. Is it the, you know, the current fossil fuel system and all of the, you know, annual maintenance and, um, improvements like, um, extensions that need to go along with that to support, you know, things like data centers and population growth, or is it the fully renewable system?

And, you know, if you look at the end state, then I don’t think that many studies or maybe any studies come to the conclusion that anything other than renewables is the, the cheaper, better system. But it’s just, it doesn’t mean that every step along the way is cheaper, and so you end up with this, yeah, like this hump in the middle that you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta get over if you wanna get from one to the other, and it’s, um, it’s complicated.

Speaker 6: I just listened to a podcast about this half an hour ago, uh, and it [00:22:00] was very contentious. And I won’t get into the details of it, but it was just one or the other. We wanna have all petroleum-based, coal-based generation in the UK, or we want zero emissions. They never got into anywhere in the middle, which is where it’s going to have to be.

So why don’t we talk about that? I– It doesn’t… The political atmosphere of the UK is, is a little unstable, as we’ve all read in the newspapers and seen online. Uh, but it, but it’s just causing the both sides to go to extremes. And on the renewable side, some of the arguments that are being made were so outlandish that I could hardly continue to listen to it.

Same thing on the gas and coal side. Like, what are we gonna do? The UK is really in a pinch. They’re gonna have to do something, and it all– as Rosemary’s pointed out, doing nothing is real ex- it’s gonna be tremendously expensive too. So there’s, there’s gonna have to be a, a reckoning somehow, but it, it’s all tied to the [00:23:00] economy at the moment.

Like most things that happen in a country, decisions are made about what’s happening right now, not what’s gonna happen five years from now.

Yolanda Padron: Right. And to your point, like countries need to protect themselves, right? Like what are you gonna do, bank on world peace?

Speaker 6: That’s a bad bet historically.

Matthew Stead: But, um, how many, how many of those charts have you seen in the last one to years where you’ve got the, the fossil fuel, say the coal generation versus renewable generation?

How many of those, um, charts have crossed over in the last few years where, you know, renewables generation is, is higher than coal generation? It’s just, it’s happening all over the world. It’s just happening, and you look at the graphs, it’s just happening.

Speaker 6: It’s less expensive, so that’s why they’re doing it.

The decision’s made with the dollar. You know, the financing and the bankers and insurance are all gonna drive that, and it’s not gonna be the decision you, the homeowner, are gonna have a lot of influence on. It’s all gonna be done at a higher level, and it’s gonna be whatever’s cheaper and whatever’s available.

Back to Rosemary’s point, [00:24:00] solar is cheap and available, people are gonna do it. Wind is cheap and available, they’re gonna choose it no matter who’s in office, right? I… Yeah, that’s the engineer talking, not the politician.

Matthew Stead: Battery, wind, and solar is only gonna get cheaper. Is, um, is, uh, gas turbines and coal gonna get cheaper?

Speaker 6: They can’t. In order to get the efficiency up where they need to, it’s gonna be super expensive, which is what we’re at today. That’s why gas turbines are s- you can’t mass produce them, and that’s why they cost so much money. It’s a great business if you sell a couple a year. You can’t sell thousands of them.

There’s just not a way to do that. As wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it, difficult. That’s why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future.

Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high-quality content you need. Don’t miss [00:25:00] out. Visit peswind.com today. Over in Sweden, they built all the wind farms, and here at Weather Guard we’ve talked to a number of operators over in Sweden, so has EOLOGIX-PING, uh, and the– So but the wind farms and the customers haven’t really showed up, and researchers in Sweden have analyzed two hundred and forty-four Swedish wind power producers owning more than about thirty-seven hundred turbines covering eighty-five percent of the country’s total wind generation.

So it’s a pretty large study. They found that eighty percent were effectively operating at a loss in twenty twenty-four. The total sector losses reached six point three billion Swedish kronor, uh, about six hundred and twenty million euros. The sector’s profit margins fell to a negative fifty-one percent.

That’s right, negative fifty-one percent. Uh, and here’s the real paradox. Although wind production actually [00:26:00] rose from thirty-four point two to forty point six terawatt-hours, revenues fell for the first time in at least six years. Uh, the more they produced, the less they earned. And the real culprit is overcapacity.

So they have so many turbines up in northern Sweden, uh, that it’s driving the energy prices down, much like Australia. Uh, and the missing link is obviously transmission because it is big demand to the south. It’s just getting the power there. Vattenfall alone lost eight hundred and seventy million euros in its wind business in twenty twenty-four, and one of its subsidiaries curtailed seventeen percent of the potential production because of, uh, shutting the turbines down was less expensive than selling into negative prices, which would make sense.

So the price has gotten so low in Sweden that it’s better just to turn the turbine off and, and eat the loss than to generate power at a, at a negative price. This is a common theme [00:27:00] as wind has grown, and solar for the same matter, is that when you have so much of it, the price of electricity will drop.

And until you can get that power out to other areas that has high demand It becomes a losing proposition. How does this play out? Will the– Now will countries finally take transmission seriously and start to even out the grid? Is that where we’re going?

Yolanda Padron: I mean, I hope so. The idea of curtailing potential energy isn’t something new, right?

It happens here in Texas all the time. It happens in a lot of places all the time, um, just to, to not overflow the grid. And it makes sense, but it doesn’t make sense too much, at least to me, that in the same country you have parts of it where you have an electricity surplus and negative pricing, and other parts of it where you just, you don’t have enough energy for the whole, uh, region, right?

So, uh, I really hope they take it a bit more seriously than they, than they currently are.

Matthew Stead: Uh, I think the interesting thing about Sweden is [00:28:00]that they’ve got a lot of hydro as well, and so those two things tie together. Um, you know, much like Australia, we’re building the, like the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, um, hydro scheme, and, um, maybe that’s part of the missing puzzle is the actual, the storage element.

So if they had more pumped hydro, you know, they could, um, perhaps store that excess energy and then, then reuse it. But, you know, unless there’s no pipes from the north to the south, you know, that’s not gonna help anyone.

Speaker 6: Hydro is expensive. The more recent news articles I’ve seen about pumped hydro is it’s way less expensive to put in wind or put in solar or put in some batteries than to do pumped hydro projects.

It’s complicated. It’s a lot of construction, obviously, and, uh, the pumps and the equipment are not cheap. So, uh, yeah, so although if you do have hydro and it’s currently running, you would leave that alone, but I think some of the newer pumped hydro projects probably won’t happen. Even if they’re on the– have [00:29:00] been planned and, and even started, I think they’re really reevaluating that it’s probably cheaper to do batteries.

Matthew Stead: In Australia, in Snowy 2.0, I think the original budget was, was it 3 billion? And now it’s up to 12 to 15 billion.

Rosemary Barnes: Anybody that was working on that would’ve known that the price was very likely to blow out because that particular project has a really long tunnel. The two reservoirs that, like the reservoirs were existing, so you think, okay, that’s good, you save money.

But the expensive part of pumped hydro is the tunneling and then, and it’s a very long tunnel. Um, and it’s just so super predictable that when you have a super long tunnel, you one, increase the cost a lot, but two, increase the risk of a massive cost blowout. So I think it’s not a good predictor of, of projects as some other ones that are, that are happening.

I think the biggest problem with hydro is that, um, the project lives are so long, like 100 years e- easily, [00:30:00] but that doesn’t mean anything in today’s dollars, y- you know? So it’s like no one can, no company is gonna assign any value to the electricity they’re gonna generate in 100 years time, you know? So it’s, um, it, it’s really hard for it to stack up to, as a project today unless it’s a government doing it.

Matthew Stead: But I mean, once Snowy 2.0 is done, it will still be reasonably cost-effective as a long-term storage source.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. If it had been made on time, then I think it would’ve, it would’ve been a real enabler for the energy transition for getting heaps of wind and solar. But it wasn’t done on time, and we barely we- storage isn’t our problem right now.

We have actually got lots of, of storage. That’s not what’s stopping people from building projects. So, um, I think it is a bit of a shame.

Speaker 6: Back to your point, Rosemary, how old hydro is in terms of electricity generation. I, I went to go look up when Niagara River, Niagara Falls in, in the States first [00:31:00] started producing power, 1895.

That’s how long we’ve been using water power in the States to create electricity. Hoover Dam, which also does something very similar, is in the 1930s, 1935, ’36, around that timeframe. So it’s almost been 100 years there too, 90 years. Yeah. It’s, it’s amazing. So you don’t plan for those, those pieces of, uh, infrastructure to run that long, but they do.

That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. And if today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review.

It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show. For Rosie, Yolanda, and Matthew, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:32:00] podcast.