Published

2 years ago

April 25, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Blade Wrinkles Explained with Morten Handberg of Wind Power LAB

Allen Hall discusses the growing issue of blade wrinkles with Morten Handberg, blade expert at Wind Power LAB. They delve into the causes, consequences, and challenges of identifying and repairing these minute deformities that can significantly reduce blade life. Visit https://windpowerlab.com/!

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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Allen Hall: Welcome to the special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and if you have been following the news lately, there are several ongoing campaigns by blade manufacturers to deal with wrinkles in their blades. Even though these wrinkles are minute in appearance, these fabric deformities can create weaknesses that reduce blade life.

And as you have seen all over the news, these wrinkles are also expensive to remove and repair. Our guest is Morton Handberg, Chief Blade Specialist and Partner at Wind Power Lab, which is a blade consulting company located in Copenhagen, Denmark. If you haven’t heard Morten on our podcast previously, Morten is our resident blade whisperer.

In our episode today, we’ll be discussing how wrinkles are created, how they produce stresses, and why they are difficult to eliminate during manufacturing. Morten, welcome to the program.

Morten Handberg: Hi Allen,

Allen Hall: it’s nice to be back again. If we can catch up a little bit, you and I talked to each other about Blade Wrinkles several weeks ago now, and that topic has just gotten progressively hotter and hotter.

I thought, now’s the time. To get it out there about what’s happening with wrinkles and why we should care. Now, and at the same time, you sent me some pictures and it would just scare the heck out of me because I thought these wrinkles were relatively small coming from an aerospace background.

Wrinkles don’t tend to be big. In aerospace products, but the wrinkles you showed me are large. And I’m trying to understand like what is the real threat here? Let’s just start there. What’s the real threat. If a wrinkle is in a side of a blade, what does it matter?

Morten Handberg: So it really matters depending on the location of the wrinkle.

So is it in the structural spark cap or in a heavy node, part of the bait, let’s say the root or the transition zone. Then even small wrinkles can actually turn into very large cracks. And it doesn’t really matter what the size is. It’s more, if it’s in an area that allows it to grow into a crack, because as soon as it does that, it will just continue growing at a pace defined by the loading conditions, it can ultimately turn to a blade failure.

Obviously, the larger and more aggressive, the cracking the wrinkles, meaning how how steep the angles are of the wrinkles. So if this is the shape it matters that the wrinkles is shaped like this or like this. Then how much stress it requires for it to develop, because it’s all about the, how much reduction that it creates to the to the underlying blade structure.

If you have changes in the UD laminate and it starts to fold, it means that the strength of the UD laminate is reduced. And then it’s just about a matter of time before it then turns into a structural crack.

Allen Hall: And the defect doesn’t just apply to the plies where the wrinkle is, it applies, it puts additional stress on the plies that are around it?

Is that the loading problem?

Morten Handberg: Yeah, because, if you remove the loading capacity of one area, it has to be taken up by another, right? It doesn’t, the loading doesn’t go away. It just, if you have a wrinkle that starts turning into a crack, it means that all the UD fibers, they are essentially removed from the equation.

They’re not taking up any blade loads anymore. And that then creates more stress to the boundaries of the crack, but it also creates more and more stress to the other laminate areas of the blade, because now they have to take over whatever part is this area of the blade, but this area of the laminate was taken over.

And this is also why some of these cracks can turn into blade failures. Because at a certain point, then then the amount of laminate that’s been removed, that’s not enough for the rest of the blade to, to carry the load anymore. And then it eventually fails.

Allen Hall: What does this look like as the wrinkle progresses into a larger defect?

Is it a delamination that happens? Is it a physical crack? Like you start breaking plies? What does it look like?

Morten Handberg: If you have a wrinkle as I said, it’s like a fold inside the laminate. If the, if that fold is creating a wave like this, then at, on the top of the ridge, you are, you’re consistently, the wrinkle is trying to stretch itself out during operation.

So it’s trying to do like this and that creates a lot of stress on the top part of the ridge. And that’s where you create the crack. But on the lower side where you have the slopes, they are trying to lift they’re lifting themselves out, out of the laminate, essentially, that that’s what’s going on.

Is it and that then means that it de bonds from the from the lower from the laminate. What we typically see is that on the lower boundaries of the wrinkle, we create delamination and then on the ridge, we create a crack in the direction of the wrinkle. Wow. Okay.

Allen Hall: So you, depending on where you’re looking, you may see a DLAM or you may see a crack on either side of it, but you probably have both?

Morten Handberg: If you have in a very sensitive area where you have very high loading, maybe one or the other is more than maybe the crack is more. Aggressive than the wrinkle. So the crack will progress faster than the delamination develops. If you’re in a low unloaded zone, then maybe it’s the delamination that is the most prominent one developing.

So you can’t really say that with, for whatever, whenever you see a brinkle or you see a brinkle in development, that. It will be the crack that will be the dominating or it will be the the delamination. But if you’re in the Spark app laminate, then you would cut away the laminate layers before the delamination becomes anything significant.

And then the crack will be the be the measles finger.

Allen Hall: So the blade manufacturers today, when they, if they have blades out in service and they realize that they may have wrinkles, is it easy to detect how, if you’re on a turbine, this blade is on a turbine, can they find wrinkles simply or is there a way to do that?

Or is this get really complicated for them to identify where the wrinkles are? What is normally done when the blade is produced?

Morten Handberg: Is that after the, after it’s been demolded. Either the shell or the full blade, depending on the manufacturer. A QC technician will go through the entirety of the blade on the outside and on the inside and look for waviness or rises in the laminate to see are there any wrinkles here and then get those fixed if they’re outside of factory specification.

Allen Hall: How are they identifying those? Is it an ultrasound? Is it a flashlight? Is it a tap test, what’s involved there?

Morten Handberg: A Tap test wouldn’t make any sense because see, it’s still solid laminate, so there’s no no, no deep bonding that you could detect from a Tap test you can use ultrasonic to see you, you typically do that for the low carrying path of the lathe, for the spark caps.

Not all OEMs are doing that. And that is a problem because often what some of the wrinkles that we see leading to major structural damages or blade failures, Is because the the quality checks at factory were not sufficient. We’re not not carried out in a way that would allow for them.

But skilled quality technicians, they would be able to see them either visually, just by looking at it, by knowing how does a healthy laminate look from a laminate with a distortion. You can also, to some extent, use a you use a light dispersion test by holding over a flashlight over an area and see how the light passes through it.

If there’s any major changes to lemme structure that will show in, in, in that way, but it requires some skill to detect it that way. So again, it’s not something that you would send out any guy on the street and he would be able to find it. You need to know what you want to look for at the factory.

The best way to do it is to use entity but that’s typically only applied to the main load carrying parts of the blade, because that’s what you’re mainly concerned about, but wrinkles can happen anywhere. It’s not something we can say it always at six meters. It’s only on the leading edge. It’s only in the spike gaps.

They can occur anywhere where you have a laminate stack.

Allen Hall: And then, so in the factory, easier to identify because the blade’s sitting there and you can have probably the proper tools, Once you’re in service though, what happens, is it only ultrasonic? For the inner third of

Morten Handberg: the blade, you could still, you can still walk in, do a manual inspection to check if there’s any changes to the, any, if there’s any visible changes in the laminate structure.

Not seeing a damage yet, just by seeing if there’s a, if there, there’s a certain rise in the blade suddenly without any need for it. That typically indicates that there’s a wrinkle in this area. They can either be longitudinal, they can be transverse. Typically longitudinal, they don’t matter as much because they’re in line with the UD fibers.

So the UD fibers are still unidirectional. So it’s really rare that we see longitudinal cracks, wrinkles develop into damages just on their own accord. Transverse wrinkles, they do tend to develop into cracks even the smaller sizes. You have to change the

Allen Hall: structure. Is that because of the compression and tension cycles of the blade goes through every rotation that it’s just putting an immense amount of stress on that one weakness?

Morten Handberg: You’re putting stress on that the laminate is not designed for. It’s not designed for the UD laminate to be bended. And you can have transverse wrinkles. that doesn’t develop into cracks if they’re far enough out in the plate. But you are rolling the dice a little bit because just because it didn’t develop in two years doesn’t mean that it won’t happen ever, you’re just hoping that it doesn’t develop over the lifetime.

So we’ve seen wrinkles develop after 10, 12, 15 years of operation and. Everyone was saying this doesn’t matter. This blade is passed in the warranty. So it doesn’t, it would have developed if it ever was, but that’s just not how it works because it’s it’s, it’s a fatigue as a threshold.

So the blade is designed for, let’s say most plates are designed for 25 years. Then they’re designed for nominal load or nominal load cycle over that 20, 25 years of lifetime. But if you have a wrinkle that weakens the blade in that structure, it means that you’re reducing that, that threshold. How much is, that requires very advanced simulations, but at the end of the day, it is a reduction.

So a wrinkle should always be considered as something that will cause a potential damage down the line. Doesn’t matter if it’s five, 10, 15, 20, or 30 meters from the root. Maybe even 50 for, a 70 meter plate. It’s something that we can’t say exactly how fast or how slow it will develop or at what point in time.

We can just say that it is a weakness and we know that these wrinkles, they can turn into cracks eventually. Okay.

Allen Hall: Let’s, I want to walk back into the factory for a minute. What is creating these wrinkles? Is it the mere fact that the, there’s so many layers of glass and that they’re manually applied and you got people stepping on them as they put these plies down?

Or is it the fact that. We’re making bigger and bigger blades with the same number of people. So there’s just a little bit of a rush. What’s driving the wrinkle issue today?

Morten Handberg: Let’s say wrinkles have always been there. It’s not a new invention. It’s been there as long as we’ve been building things out of composites.

We’ve had wrinkles because it’s just a change in the in the laminates. That’s all it is. So it’s not something you, it’s, it can also happen if you stretch the laminate. You change the uniform structure and you can also create waviness in that way. It’s not wrinkles as we think about them right now, but it’s still a change in the structure that can affect the blade negatively.

The way that they occur can actually have several causes. So one is a quite commonly that when you’re laying up the glass fibers, then and as you lay down these long glass fiber match next to each other then sometimes there’s need just to adjust them a little bit or move them around and that can then create some small folds.

And then as you’re applying more and more glass fiber, if you’re not, if you’re not careful, if you’re not aware, then you can build up a larger and larger waves that then can create this wrinkle. So it’s just by pushing the fiber mats around even slightly can have really big consequences.

And now another cause is the core material that we, that are used in the blade to add thickness, but without adding a lot of weight. These also comes in large sheets that are moved around and adjusted. But if there is a, if there’s a large gap between two sections of ga of core material, that creates a a a separation where there’s no no resin, there’s no fiber.

And then when the blade is cast, then the fiber can actually get stuck down in, into this core gap and then create a wrinkle in that, in, in that way. And it can also be from adding core material adjusters where you change the thickness of the core material in a small area that also creates the, these waves in the structure.

So, there are just really several paths to the same effect, but it is whenever you are creating sort of the space underneath the laminate where you then get a resin rich area then it can, it gets locked into this to this, into this wrinkle. And it’s something that it doesn’t happen after in, in operation, they’re not created after manufacturing, it’s created during manufacturing, and then it’s locked in.

And then we’ll develop over time during during that period of time.

Allen Hall: That’s interesting. So is it, let’s see just some of the discussion as an electrical person, seeing some of the news articles and hearing some of the difficulties that some of the OEMs are having to eliminate wrinkles. Is it ultimately a design to build question that maybe the way that the blade was designed is encouraging wrinkles?

Is that the way to think of it? Because it’s the same, roughly the same manufacturing people doing the same job over and over again.

Morten Handberg: My view on it is that the wrinkle problem has been persisted for decades in the blades. But they’re, but the blades are becoming more sensitive because they’re becoming longer.

They are they are getting more optimized. So you use the materials in a different way where you have less buffer. in your blade to account for deviations inside your blade. So that also means that any manufacturing defect is much more sensitive because you don’t have the same conservatism when designing your blades anymore.

It’s not because your manufacturing method has changed. Not as I see it because that’s still essentially the same way. But the focus on. Quality assurance have not gone up with producing longer and how do you say more optimized plates? And it should be the, it should, the more you optimize it, the more focus you should have on the quality assurance, because you become more, more sensitive to structural damage.

And that’s also why we’re seeing the fatigue damages we’re seeing in the field today, and that a lot of owners are experiencing is because that the, is because that the blades were not thoroughly checked at factory. And if the OEM is saying otherwise, then, you can just look at the defect it’s there and it shouldn’t be there.

You shouldn’t expect to have critical damages or blade failures after one, two, three or five years in operation, it shouldn’t happen. And that means that defects were overlooked that should have been detected and repaired at factory.

Allen Hall: Does that indicate a need to upgrade or to maybe change the way we’re inspecting blades during the manufacturing process, like during the ply layup and plus after the fact once the blade has been cast?

Morten Handberg: It’s a good question. I think that obviously there are ways you could I’m sure there’s ways that you could optimize your manufacturing, but. a good place to start is to increase your focus on quality control. And that’s where you need to start. And then maybe you can implement changes to the manufacturing over time that would reduce your the the frequency of these defects occurring.

But right now with the methods that we’re using for manufacturing, then we need an added focus for quality control. And a number one is to do entity, especially of the structural critical areas. I would say. All the blades should be checked because we know that wrinkles can appear anywhere.

But that need, we need to start with that point that It shouldn’t be possible to produce a 80, 90, 100 meter blade without doing an entity inspection. And then send the blade out in operation, then hope for the best.

Allen Hall: So because the margins are lower, the blades and the blades get longer.

So we learned from our previous designs, we’re making them lighter to. Allowed to be shipped and a lot of other reasons, cost reduction, right? Less weight is less material, which is less cost that then forces. Okay. An improved quality system and maybe even a training system to how we’re going to build these blades.

That seems like a big effort. And it’s, and when watching some of the OEMs go through this cycle, it’s, it seems like it’s taking a long time to rectify the situation. Months and months. Does that make sense why it’s taking so long is because it’s changing so much of the internal systems.

Morten Handberg: But the focus is also has been for a long time on building bigger and longer blades faster and releasing new methods in into production and into the shield because you had to stay ahead of the curve with the other manufacturers and that has taken over some of the.

focus from quality assurance of the blades. So that has been down prioritized in order to opt in order to optimize cost and get the blades longer. Another factor in it is also that we’re introducing carbon more and more inside the blades and glass fiber is a really nice material when it comes to some manufacturing defects, because it has a lot of elasticity.

So it means that it can it can work with them, with the manufacturing defects for a longer period of time. Carbon fiber doesn’t work like that. If you have any change to the carbon fiber, it’s, it because it’s a lot more brittle. It develops into a fatigue damage much faster. So you see a rapid development in the damages for carbon fiber plates than you would for traditional glass fiber plates

Allen Hall: So carbon is less forgiving and we’re seeing more carbon as the blades get longer and that it sounds like some of the carbon Pultrusions are coming from a sub supplier into the system. Does that make sense that at least in some of the discussions I’ve seen it seems like it’s a supplier issue but it’s a composite supplier issue which to me says carbon fiber and if carbon fiber is less forgiving You’re bringing in something that may not have been inspected to the level.

Maybe it should have been And then it gets stuck in a blade and it just magnifies the issue. Is that kind of where this is headed?

Morten Handberg: That, that might be a way to look at, but if the man, if the OEM is putting together the blade, it shouldn’t really matter if they are producing the protrusion or they have a third party.

They should be responsible for making sure that the protrusion is is checked and it’s, and that it’s inspected and making sure that there’s no manufacturing defects in that before installing it in, inside the blades.

Allen Hall: Does it become more critical on the carbon fiber to do an ultrasonic inspection because it’s such a critical load path for the blade?

Morten Handberg: It would develop faster, compared to a glass fiber, but for protrusion, if you’re talking about glass fiber. It’s equally necessary. The severity you could say is almost the same but the how do you say it will develop faster for, yeah, the speed of development is faster.

And yeah, the reduction in strength is also greater with carbon because you’re relying much more on your, on, on the load capacity in carbon compared to glass fiber. It would take longer for the damage to develop, but again, the ultimate consequence would be the same as long as we’re talking about the disbar caps, if it’s glass fiber or carbon fiber.

Allen Hall: That would help explain some of the early failures that I think the industry is seeing is maybe it’s in the carbon. That would make a lot of sense from a mechanical standpoint, right? Because yeah, you’re right, you’re using carbon to cut the weight out. And because it’s a stronger fiber, if there’s a problem in the carbon, look out, it’s going to show up pretty fast.

Morten Handberg: The only safe way to, to check it is through entity. Because if she, the ring, if the wrinkle is small enough, it wouldn’t show up in a visual check. Or, and so it’s the only. Only safe way

Allen Hall: to do it. What does a repair look like to fix a wrinkle in a carbon spar cap, let’s say, or a fiberglass shell?

What are we talking about here? Are we talking about days, weeks, months to fix some of these things? Particularly where it’s a highly loaded area?

Morten Handberg: If we’re talking about the spar cap, we’re talking about weeks or months, if the blade is repairable at all, because you need to remove so many layers and you have such a so many iterations of buildup to restore the blade.

That, in a lot of cases it would be deemed a replacement plate. And most damages, they can be repaired. Assuming they have not developed into a large a crack that, that that has affected the majority of a shell. Then most damages, most wrinkles, they can be repaired if they’re outside of the spark cap area.

Yeah. I would say if they haven’t given up, I would even go so far as to say, I would assume all of them.

Allen Hall: And then if I, if now, once those blades get out in service and say they’ve missed the quality inspection and you have this wrinkle, depending on where it is. What is, what are you as an OEM, are the OEMs reaching out to those customers to say, hey, this blade mold, this blade factory had this issue, we need to track this, is that what’s happening in industry right now?

Is there, is just a follow up happening to say, hey, be aware of this, or is it more aggressive? Like we need to stop turbines.

Morten Handberg: We have seen a lot of cases where if the OEM recognized that they have a they have an issue on multiple blades within the same batch, that they reach out to the owners with this particular blade type and then stop turbines, if they see that this.

This blade serial have high likelihood of issues, then it would stop that, or they would say, okay, inspect keep it running, but it will inspect. within a short timeframe. So we have seen cases like that that where the OEMs have taken a proactive approach because they’ve recognized after the fact that they had a large issue with their blades but I would say as an owner if you see a blade where you recognize that this is an issue with wrinkles, I would recommend that if the OEM has, haven’t taken any action and they don’t seem like they’re going to that, then you have to take action because Otherwise it, the problem can escalate and require a lot of downtime, a lot of replacements and a lot of repairs if you’re not proactive on, on, on your own.

And yeah, if it’s something that is something where it’s expected to be in the Spark app laminates, we would recommend doing an entity inspection. If it’s something that looks like it’s in the shell laminates internal, externally, we would An intern inspection can be a really good place to start just to see, are there any visible signs of blade defects.

Allen Hall: And then from the insurance side and insurance is become more and more of a factor in the operation of a wind farm. Is, are the insurance companies starting to step in a little bit and force the operators to go look and to be proactive about this?

Morten Handberg: We’ve seen them ask questions to owners whether they have taken any steps, but it hasn’t gone to so far that they are pending the the insurance renewal on them doing inspections for it.

But but again, if this is a problem that will persist then that could be a likely outcome that, you know, if you haven’t. Stand your own check of your own plates, then that would be that, that, that could affect the the policy.

Allen Hall: Alright, Morten, this issue is still in its infancy.

I think there’s a lot more coming up about blade wrinkles worldwide. Obviously there’s a lot of concern by operators, if they have a blade that has wrinkles or they’re starting to experience some failures, they should probably be reaching out to Wind Power LAB. How do they do that?

Morten Handberg: You can reach us on winpowerlab.com or reach out to us via LinkedIn. Or you can also find me on LinkedIn and reach out to me directly.

Allen Hall: And we’ll pull all the contact information in the show notes. You can get ahold of Morten directly and to Wind Power LAB because blade wrinkles have really grown into a massive issue and it’s time to put some resources to stop them.

And Morten, this has been so great to have you back on the podcast. We love having you on. Everybody, our blade whisperer, Morten Handberg, thank you for being on the podcast.

Morten Handberg: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

https://weatherguardwind.com/blade-wrinkles-morten-handberg-wind-power-lab/

Renewable Energy

Wind Industry Operations: In Wind’s Next Chapter, Operations take center stage

Published

10 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Wind Industry Operations: In Wind’s Next Chapter, Operations take center stage

This exclusive article originally appeared in PES Wind 4 – 2025 with the title, Operations take center stage in wind’s next chapter. It was written by Allen Hall and other members of the WeatherGuard Lightning Tech team.

As aging fleets, shrinking margins, and new policies reshape the wind sector, wind energy operations are in the spotlight. The industry’s next chapter will be defined not by capacity growth, but by operational excellence, where integrated, predictive maintenance turns data into decisions and reliability into profit.

Wind farm operations are undergoing a fundamental transformation. After hosting hundreds of conversations on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, I’ve witnessed a clear pattern: the most successful operators are abandoning reactive maintenance in favor of integrated, predictive strategies. This shift isn’t just about adopting new technologies; it’s about fundamentally rethinking how we manage aging assets in an era of tightening margins and expanding responsibilities.

The evidence was overwhelming at this year’s SkySpecs Customer Forum, where representatives from over 75% of US installed wind capacity gathered to share experiences and strategies. The consensus was clear: those who integrate monitoring, inspection, and repair into a cohesive operational strategy are achieving dramatic improvements in reliability and profitability.

Takeaway: These options have been available to wind energy operations for years; now, adoption is critical.

Why traditional approaches to wind farm operations are failing

Today’s wind operators face an unprecedented convergence of challenges. Fleets installed during the 2010-2015 boom are aging in unexpected ways, revealing design vulnerabilities no one anticipated. Meanwhile, the support infrastructure is crumbling; spare parts have become scarce, OEM support is limited, and insurance companies are tightening coverage just when operators need them most.

The situation is particularly acute following recent policy changes. The One Big Beautiful Bill in the United States has fundamentally altered the economic landscape. PTC farming is no longer viable; turbines must run longer and more reliably than ever before. Engineering teams, already stretched thin, are being asked to manage not just wind assets but solar and battery storage as well. The old playbook simply doesn’t work anymore.

Consider the scope of just one challenge: polyester blade failures. During our podcast conversation with Edo Kuipers of We4Ce, we learned that an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 blades worldwide are experiencing root bushing issues. ‘After a while, blades are simply flying off,’ Kuipers explained. The financial impact of a single blade failure can exceed €300,000 when you factor in replacement costs, lost production, and crane mobilization. Yet innovative repair solutions, like the one developed by We4Ce and CNC Onsite, can address the same problem for €40,000 if caught early. This pattern repeats across every major component. Gearbox failures that once required complete replacement can now be predicted months in advance. Lightning damage that previously caused catastrophic failures can be prevented with inexpensive upgrades and real-time monitoring. All these solutions are based on the principle that predicted maintenance is better than an expensive surprise.

Seeing problems before they happeny, and potential risks

The transformation begins with visibility. Modern monitoring systems reveal problems that traditional methods miss entirely. Eric van Genuchten of Sensing360 shared an eye-opening statistic on our podcast: ‘In planetary gearbox failures, they get 90%, so there’s still 10% of failures they cannot detect.’ That missing 10% represents the catastrophic failures that destroy budgets and production targets. Advanced monitoring technologies are filling these gaps. Sensing360’s fiber optic sensors, for example, detect minute deformations in steel components, revealing load imbalances and fatigue progression invisible to traditional monitoring. ‘We integrate our sensors in steel and make rotating equipment smarter,’ van Genuchten explained.

Other companies are deploying acoustic systems to identify blade delamination, oil analysis for gearbox health, and electrical signature analysis for generator issues. Each technology adds a piece to the puzzle, but the real value comes from integration. The impact of load monitoring alone can be transformative.

As van Genuchten explained, ‘Twenty percent more loading on a gearbox or on a bearing is half of your life. The other way around, twenty percent less loading is double your life.’ With proper monitoring, operators can optimize load distribution across their fleet, extending component life while maximizing production.

But monitoring without action is just expensive data collection. The most successful operators are those who’ve learned to translate sensor data into operational decisions. This requires not just technology but organizational change, breaking down silos between monitoring, maintenance, and management teams.

In Wind Energy Operations, Early intervention makes the million-dollar difference

The economics of early intervention are compelling across every component type. The blade root bushing example from We4Ce illustrates this perfectly. With their solution, early detection means replacing just 24-30 bushings in about 24 hours of drilling work. Wait, and you’re looking at 60+ bushings and 60 hours of work. Early detection doesn’t just prevent catastrophic failure; it makes repairs faster, cheaper, and more reliable.

This principle extends throughout the turbine. Early-stage bearing damage can be addressed through targeted lubrication or minor adjustments. Incipient electrical issues can be resolved with cleaning or connection tightening. Small blade surface cracks can be repaired in a few hours before they propagate into structural damage requiring weeks of work.

Leading operators are implementing tiered response protocols based on monitoring data. Critical issues trigger immediate intervention. Developing problems are scheduled for the next maintenance window. Minor issues are monitored and addressed during routine service. This systematic approach reduces both emergency repairs and unnecessary maintenance, optimizing resource allocation across the fleet.

Turning information into action

While monitoring generates data, platforms like SkySpecs’ Horizon transform that data into operational intelligence. Josh Goryl, SkySpecs’ Chief Revenue Officer, explained their evolution at the recent Customer Forum: ‘I think where we can help our customers is getting all that data into one place.

The game-changer is integration across data types. The company is working to combine performance data with CMS data to provide valuable insights into turbine health. This approach has been informed by operators across the world, who’ve discovered that integrated platforms deliver insights that siloed data can’t.

The platform approach also addresses the reality of shrinking engineering teams managing expanding portfolios. As Goryl noted, many wind engineers are now responsible for solar and battery storage assets as well. One platform managing multiple technologies through a unified interface becomes essential for operational efficiency.

The Integration Imperative for Wind Farm Operations

The most successful operators aren’t just adopting individual technologies; they’re integrating monitoring, inspection, and repair into a seamless operational system. This integration operates at multiple levels.

At the technical level, data from various monitoring systems feeds into unified platforms that provide comprehensive asset visibility. These platforms don’t just display data; they analyze patterns, predict failures, and generate work orders.

At the organizational level, integration means breaking down barriers between departments. This cross-functional collaboration transforms O&M from a cost center into a value driver. Building your improvement roadmap For operators ready to enhance their O&M approach, the path forward involves several key steps:

Assessing the Current State of your Wind Energy Operations

Document your maintenance costs, failure rates, and downtime patterns. Identify which problems consume the most resources and which assets are most critical to your wind farm operations.

Start with targeted pilots Rather than attempting wholesale transformation, begin with focused initiatives targeting your biggest pain points. Whether it’s blade monitoring, gearbox sensors, or repair innovations, starting with your largest issue will help you see the biggest benefit.

• Invest in integration, not just technology: the most sophisticated monitoring system is worthless if its data isn’t acted upon. Ensure your organization has the processes and culture to transform data into decisions – this is the first step to profitability in your wind farm operations.

Build partnerships, not just contracts: look for technology providers and service companies willing to share knowledge, not just deliver services. The goal is building capability, not dependency.

• Measure and iterate: track the impact of each initiative on your key performance indicators. Use lessons learned to refine your approach and guide future investments.

The competitive advantage

The wind industry has reached an inflection point. With increasingly large and complex turbines, monitoring needs to adapt with it. The era of flying blind is over.

In an industry where margins continue to compress and competition intensifies, operational excellence has become a key differentiator. Those who master the integration of monitoring, inspection, and repair will thrive. Those who cling to reactive maintenance face escalating costs and declining competitiveness.

The technology exists. The business case is proven. The early adopters are already reaping the benefits. The question isn’t whether to transform your O&M approach, but how quickly you can adapt to this new reality. In the race to operational excellence, the winners will be those who act decisively to embrace the efficiency revolution reshaping wind operations.

Unless otherwise noted, images here are from We4C Rotorblade Specialist.

Wind Industry Operations: In Wind's Next Chapter, Operations take center stage

Contact us for help understanding your lightning damage, future risks, and how to get more uptime from your equipment.

Download the full article from PES Wind here

Find a practical guide to solving lightning problems and filing better insurance claims here

Wind Industry Operations: In Wind’s Next Chapter, Operations take center stage

Renewable Energy

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

Published

13 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

Chris Cieslak, CEO of BladeBug, joins the show to discuss how their walking robot is making ultrasonic blade inspections faster and more accessible. They cover new horizontal scanning capabilities for lay down yards, blade root inspections for bushing defects, and plans to expand into North America in 2026.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Chris, welcome back to the show.

Chris Cieslak: It’s great to be back. Thank you very much for having me on again.

Allen Hall: It’s great to see you in person, and a lot has been happening at Blade Bugs since the last time I saw Blade Bug in person. Yeah, the robot. It looks a lot different and it has really new capabilities.

Chris Cieslak: So we’ve continued to develop our ultrasonic, non-destructive testing capabilities of the blade bug robot.

Um, but what we’ve now added to its capabilities is to do horizontal blade scans as well. So we’re able to do blades that are in lay down yards or blades that have come down for inspections as well as up tower. So we can do up tower, down tower inspections. We’re trying to capture. I guess the opportunity to inspect blades after transportation when they get delivered to site, to look [00:01:00] for any transport damage or anything that might have been missed in the factory inspections.

And then we can do subsequent installation inspections as well to make sure there’s no mishandling damage on those blades. So yeah, we’ve been just refining what we can do with the NDT side of things and improving its capabilities

Joel Saxum: was that need driven from like market response and people say, Hey, we need, we need.

We like the blade blood product. We like what you’re doing, but we need it here. Or do you guys just say like, Hey, this is the next, this is the next thing we can do. Why not?

Chris Cieslak: It was very much market response. We had a lot of inquiries this year from, um, OEMs, blade manufacturers across the board with issues within their blades that need to be inspected on the ground, up the tap, any which way they can.

There there was no, um, rhyme or reason, which was better, but the fact that he wanted to improve the ability of it horizontally has led the. Sort of modifications that you’ve seen and now we’re doing like down tower, right? Blade scans. Yeah. A really fast breed. So

Joel Saxum: I think the, the important thing there is too is that because of the way the robot is built [00:02:00] now, when you see NDT in a factory, it’s this robot rolls along this perfectly flat concrete floor and it does this and it does that.

But the way the robot is built, if a blade is sitting in a chair trailing edge up, or if it’s flap wise, any which way the robot can adapt to, right? And the idea is. We, we looked at it today and kind of the new cage and the new things you have around it with all the different encoders and for the heads and everything is you can collect data however is needed.

If it’s rasterized, if there’s a vector, if there’s a line, if we go down a bond line, if we need to scan a two foot wide path down the middle of the top of the spa cap, we can do all those different things and all kinds of orientations. That’s a fantastic capability.

Chris Cieslak: Yeah, absolutely. And it, that’s again for the market needs.

So we are able to scan maybe a meter wide in one sort of cord wise. Pass of that probe whilst walking in the span-wise direction. So we’re able to do that raster scan at various spacing. So if you’ve got a defect that you wanna find that maximum 20 mil, we’ll just have a 20 mil step [00:03:00] size between each scan.

If you’ve got a bigger tolerance, we can have 50 mil, a hundred mil it, it’s so tuneable and it removes any of the variability that you get from a human to human operator doing that scanning. And this is all about. Repeatable, consistent high quality data that you can then use to make real informed decisions about the state of those blades and act upon it.

So this is not about, um, an alternative to humans. It’s just a better, it’s just an evolution of how humans do it. We can just do it really quick and it’s probably, we, we say it’s like six times faster than a human, but actually we’re 10 times faster. We don’t need to do any of the mapping out of the blade, but it’s all encoded all that data.

We know where the robot is as we walk. That’s all captured. And then you end up with really. Consistent data. It doesn’t matter who’s operating a robot, the robot will have those settings preset and you just walk down the blade, get that data, and then our subject matter experts, they’re offline, you know, they are in their offices, warm, cozy offices, reviewing data from multiple sources of robots.

And it’s about, you know, improving that [00:04:00] efficiency of getting that report out to the customer and letting ’em know what’s wrong with their blades, actually,

Allen Hall: because that’s always been the drawback of, with NDT. Is that I think the engineers have always wanted to go do it. There’s been crush core transportation damage, which is sometimes hard to see.

You can maybe see a little bit of a wobble on the blade service, but you’re not sure what’s underneath. Bond line’s always an issue for engineering, but the cost to take a person, fly them out to look at a spot on a blade is really expensive, especially someone who is qualified. Yeah, so the, the difference now with play bug is you can have the technology to do the scan.

Much faster and do a lot of blades, which is what the de market demand is right now to do a lot of blades simultaneously and get the same level of data by the review, by the same expert just sitting somewhere else.

Chris Cieslak: Absolutely.

Joel Saxum: I think that the quality of data is a, it’s something to touch on here because when you send someone out to the field, it’s like if, if, if I go, if I go to the wall here and you go to the wall here and we both take a paintbrush, we paint a little bit [00:05:00] different, you’re probably gonna be better.

You’re gonna be able to reach higher spots than I can.

Allen Hall: This is true.

Joel Saxum: That’s true. It’s the same thing with like an NDT process. Now you’re taking the variability of the technician out of it as well. So the data quality collection at the source, that’s what played bug ducts.

Allen Hall: Yeah,

Joel Saxum: that’s the robotic processes.

That is making sure that if I scan this, whatever it may be, LM 48.7 and I do another one and another one and another one, I’m gonna get a consistent set of quality data and then it’s goes to analysis. We can make real decisions off.

Allen Hall: Well, I, I think in today’s world now, especially with transportation damage and warranties, that they’re trying to pick up a lot of things at two years in that they could have picked up free installation.

Yeah. Or lifting of the blades. That world is changing very rapidly. I think a lot of operators are getting smarter about this, but they haven’t thought about where do we go find the tool.

Speaker: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And, and I know Joel knows that, Hey, it, it’s Chris at Blade Bug. You need to call him and get to the technology.

But I think for a lot of [00:06:00] operators around the world, they haven’t thought about the cost They’re paying the warranty costs, they’re paying the insurance costs they’re paying because they don’t have the set of data. And it’s not tremendously expensive to go do. But now the capability is here. What is the market saying?

Is it, is it coming back to you now and saying, okay, let’s go. We gotta, we gotta mobilize. We need 10 of these blade bugs out here to go, go take a scan. Where, where, where are we at today?

Chris Cieslak: We’ve hads. Validation this year that this is needed. And it’s a case of we just need to be around for when they come back round for that because the, the issues that we’re looking for, you know, it solves the problem of these new big 80 a hundred meter plus blades that have issues, which shouldn’t.

Frankly exist like process manufacturer issues, but they are there. They need to be investigated. If you’re an asset only, you wanna know that. Do I have a blade that’s likely to fail compared to one which is, which is okay? And sort of focus on that and not essentially remove any uncertainty or worry that you have about your assets.

’cause you can see other [00:07:00] turbine blades falling. Um, so we are trying to solve that problem. But at the same time, end of warranty claims, if you’re gonna be taken over these blades and doing the maintenance yourself, you wanna know that what you are being given. It hasn’t gotten any nasties lurking inside that’s gonna bite you.

Joel Saxum: Yeah.

Chris Cieslak: Very expensively in a few years down the line. And so you wanna be able to, you know, tick a box, go, actually these are fine. Well actually these are problems. I, you need to give me some money so I can perform remedial work on these blades. And then you end of life, you know, how hard have they lived?

Can you do an assessment to go, actually you can sweat these assets for longer. So we, we kind of see ourselves being, you know, useful right now for the new blades, but actually throughout the value chain of a life of a blade. People need to start seeing that NDT ultrasonic being one of them. We are working on other forms of NDT as well, but there are ways of using it to just really remove a lot of uncertainty and potential risk for that.

You’re gonna end up paying through the, you know, through the, the roof wall because you’ve underestimated something or you’ve missed something, which you could have captured with a, with a quick inspection.

Joel Saxum: To [00:08:00] me, NDT has been floating around there, but it just hasn’t been as accessible or easy. The knowledge hasn’t been there about it, but the what it can do for an operator.

In de-risking their fleet is amazing. They just need to understand it and know it. But you guys with the robotic technology to me, are bringing NDT to the masses

Chris Cieslak: Yeah.

Joel Saxum: In a way that hasn’t been able to be done, done before

Chris Cieslak: that. And that that’s, we, we are trying to really just be able to roll it out at a way that you’re not limited to those limited experts in the composite NDT world.

So we wanna work with them, with the C-N-C-C-I-C NDTs of this world because they are the expertise in composite. So being able to interpret those, those scams. Is not a quick thing to become proficient at. So we are like, okay, let’s work with these people, but let’s give them the best quality data, consistent data that we possibly can and let’s remove those barriers of those limited people so we can roll it out to the masses.

Yeah, and we are that sort of next level of information where it isn’t just seen as like a nice to have, it’s like an essential to have, but just how [00:09:00] we see it now. It’s not NDT is no longer like, it’s the last thing that we would look at. It should be just part of the drones. It should inspection, be part of the internal crawlers regimes.

Yeah, it’s just part of it. ’cause there isn’t one type of inspection that ticks all the boxes. There isn’t silver bullet of NDT. And so it’s just making sure that you use the right system for the right inspection type. And so it’s complementary to drones, it’s complimentary to the internal drones, uh, crawlers.

It’s just the next level to give you certainty. Remove any, you know, if you see something indicated on a a on a photograph. That doesn’t tell you the true picture of what’s going on with the structure. So this is really about, okay, I’ve got an indication of something there. Let’s find out what that really is.

And then with that information you can go, right, I know a repair schedule is gonna take this long. The downtime of that turbine’s gonna be this long and you can plan it in. ’cause everyone’s already got limited budgets, which I think why NDT hasn’t taken off as it should have done because nobody’s got money for more inspections.

Right. Even though there is a money saving to be had long term, everyone is fighting [00:10:00] fires and you know, they’ve really got a limited inspection budget. Drone prices or drone inspections have come down. It’s sort, sort of rise to the bottom. But with that next value add to really add certainty to what you’re trying to inspect without, you know, you go to do a day repair and it ends up being three months or something like, well

Allen Hall: that’s the lightning,

Joel Saxum: right?

Allen Hall: Yeah. Lightning is the, the one case where every time you start to scarf. The exterior of the blade, you’re not sure how deep that’s going and how expensive it is. Yeah, and it always amazes me when we talk to a customer and they’re started like, well, you know, it’s gonna be a foot wide scarf, and now we’re into 10 meters and now we’re on the inside.

Yeah. And the outside. Why did you not do an NDT? It seems like money well spent Yeah. To do, especially if you have a, a quantity of them. And I think the quantity is a key now because in the US there’s 75,000 turbines worldwide, several hundred thousand turbines. The number of turbines is there. The number of problems is there.

It makes more financial sense today than ever because drone [00:11:00]information has come down on cost. And the internal rovers though expensive has also come down on cost. NDT has also come down where it’s now available to the masses. Yeah. But it has been such a mental barrier. That barrier has to go away. If we’re going going to keep blades in operation for 25, 30 years, I

Joel Saxum: mean, we’re seeing no

Allen Hall: way you can do it

Joel Saxum: otherwise.

We’re seeing serial defects. But the only way that you can inspect and or control them is with NDT now.

Allen Hall: Sure.

Joel Saxum: And if we would’ve been on this years ago, we wouldn’t have so many, what is our term? Blade liberations liberating

Chris Cieslak: blades.

Joel Saxum: Right, right.

Allen Hall: What about blade route? Can the robot get around the blade route and see for the bushings and the insert issues?

Chris Cieslak: Yeah, so the robot can, we can walk circumferentially around that blade route and we can look for issues which are affecting thousands of blades. Especially in North America. Yeah.

Allen Hall: Oh yeah.

Chris Cieslak: So that is an area that is. You know, we are lucky that we’ve got, um, a warehouse full of blade samples or route down to tip, and we were able to sort of calibrate, verify, prove everything in our facility to [00:12:00] then take out to the field because that is just, you know, NDT of bushings is great, whether it’s ultrasonic or whether we’re using like CMS, uh, type systems as well.

But we can really just say, okay, this is the area where the problem is. This needs to be resolved. And then, you know, we go to some of the companies that can resolve those issues with it. And this is really about played by being part of a group of technologies working together to give overall solutions

Allen Hall: because the robot’s not that big.

It could be taken up tower relatively easily, put on the root of the blade, told to walk around it. You gotta scan now, you know. It’s a lot easier than trying to put a technician on ropes out there for sure.

Chris Cieslak: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And the speed up it.

Joel Saxum: So let’s talk about execution then for a second. When that goes to the field from you, someone says, Chris needs some help, what does it look like?

How does it work?

Chris Cieslak: Once we get a call out, um, we’ll do a site assessment. We’ve got all our rams, everything in place. You know, we’ve been on turbines. We know the process of getting out there. We’re all GWO qualified and go to site and do their work. Um, for us, we can [00:13:00] turn up on site, unload the van, the robot is on a blade in less than an hour.

Ready to inspect? Yep. Typically half an hour. You know, if we’ve been on that same turbine a number of times, it’s somewhere just like clockwork. You know, muscle memory comes in, you’ve got all those processes down, um, and then it’s just scanning. Our robot operator just presses a button and we just watch it perform scans.

And as I said, you know, we are not necessarily the NDT experts. We obviously are very mindful of NDT and know what scans look like. But if there’s any issues, we have a styling, we dial in remote to our supplement expert, they can actually remotely take control, change the settings, parameters.

Allen Hall: Wow.

Chris Cieslak: And so they’re virtually present and that’s one of the beauties, you know, you don’t need to have people on site.

You can have our general, um, robot techs to do the work, but you still have that comfort of knowing that the data is being overlooked if need be by those experts.

Joel Saxum: The next level, um, commercial evolution would be being able to lease the kit to someone and or have ISPs do it for [00:14:00] you guys kinda globally, or what is the thought

Chris Cieslak: there?

Absolutely. So. Yeah, so we to, to really roll this out, we just wanna have people operate in the robots as if it’s like a drone. So drone inspection companies are a classic company that we see perfectly aligned with. You’ve got the sky specs of this world, you know, you’ve got drone operator, they do a scan, they can find something, put the robot up there and get that next level of information always straight away and feed that into their systems to give that insight into that customer.

Um, you know, be it an OEM who’s got a small service team, they can all be trained up. You’ve got general turbine technicians. They’ve all got G We working at height. That’s all you need to operate the bay by road, but you don’t need to have the RAA level qualified people, which are in short supply anyway.

Let them do the jobs that we are not gonna solve. They can do the big repairs we are taking away, you know, another problem for them, but giving them insights that make their job easier and more successful by removing any of those surprises when they’re gonna do that work.

Allen Hall: So what’s the plans for 2026 then?

Chris Cieslak: 2026 for us is to pick up where 2025 should have ended. [00:15:00] So we were, we were meant to be in the States. Yeah. On some projects that got postponed until 26. So it’s really, for us North America is, um, what we’re really, as you said, there’s seven, 5,000 turbines there, but there’s also a lot of, um, turbines with known issues that we can help determine which blades are affected.

And that involves blades on the ground, that involves blades, uh, that are flying. So. For us, we wanna get out to the states as soon as possible, so we’re working with some of the OEMs and, and essentially some of the asset owners.

Allen Hall: Chris, it’s so great to meet you in person and talk about the latest that’s happening.

Thank you. With Blade Bug, if people need to get ahold of you or Blade Bug, how do they do that?

Chris Cieslak: I, I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place to find myself and also Blade Bug and contact us, um, through that.

Allen Hall: Alright, great. Thanks Chris for joining us and we will see you at the next. So hopefully in America, come to America sometime.

We’d love to see you there.

Chris Cieslak: Thank you very [00:16:00] much.