Published

1 year ago

June 20, 2024

Alice Rush

Every two years, Duke Energy is required to file a plan with utility regulators that outlines different portfolios of new and existing resources that will be available to meet anticipated future energy demand while also attempting to meet carbon reduction targets. This Carbon Plan is developed with computer modeling software (called EnCompass) that is highly sensitive to input assumptions.

After Duke’s proposed Carbon Plan is filed, advocates and interested parties can examine and challenge Duke’s modeling and assumptions. This post gives a detailed look at testimony that identifies points of bias in Duke Energy’s North Carolina Carbon Plan Integrated Resource Plan (CPIRP).

Read the Blog Series on Duke’s 2024 CPIRP

Computer Models are Only as Good – or as Bad – as the Information They’re Fed

SACE and our allies (Sierra Club and NRDC, represented by SELC, and in partnership with NCSEA) hired Dr. Maria Roumpani, an independent consultant, to examine Duke’s plan and the modeling assumptions. Dr. Roumpani’s extensive analysis identified numerous issues that bias Duke’s plan against the swift replacement of aging, dirty coal plants with renewable energy, and instead cause the plan to favor a major new fleet of fossil gas plants.

Duke presented three “Pathways” that attempt to meet its increasing load forecast, with Pathway 1 retiring coal the earliest and overall being the cleanest of the three, and Pathway 2 being an intermediate option. Pathway 3, Duke’s preferred portfolio, includes 6,800 MW of new combined cycle gas plants, 2,100 MW of new combustion turbines (sometimes called “peakers”), the delayed retirement of parts of its coal fleet, and a five-year delay in complying with the 2030 North Carolina carbon reduction requirements.

Duke’s Biases Lead to Skewed Results:

Dr. Roumpani’s findings show that Duke overestimates the reliability of fossil resources, underestimates reliability risks and regulatory costs of fossil resources, overestimates the costs of clean energy resources, artificially limits the performance potential of clean energy resources, and completely ignores additional resources that can be utilized to decarbonize the system while reliably meeting the forecasted demand. The result is an artificial cost advantage for Pathway 3 (which proposes delayed climate action) over Pathway 1 (which would include swift coal plant retirements). Dr. Roumpani found that Duke’s artificial modeling limitations make this result “almost pre-determined.”

Solar Build Limits: Within its computer model, Duke set annual build limits on how much solar, wind, and batteries can be added to the grid each year, with the most restrictive limits in the near term. Duke cites interconnection limitations as a reason to limit solar, but Dr. Roumpani notes that they do not include strategies to eliminate these limitations, such as demand side resources, load management options, transmission enhancements, and consideration of alternative load forecasts. (pp. 12-13)

Clean Portfolio Premiums: Duke placed a 20 percent “cost risk premium” on all capital costs in Pathway 1 – the cleanest of the three portfolios. As Dr. Roupmani states, “(T)he Companies take an extra step to undermine the one portfolio that includes higher levels of renewable resources…. This approach is not reasonable, especially because the Company has chosen not to quantify other risks…. The sole purpose of this adder seems to be to undermine P1 when comparing the costs with P2 and P3.” (pp. 78-79) Duke also includes an 8 percent cost adder, declining until 2030, on all supply side resources in all portfolios to reflect cost uncertainties. This adder disappears in 2030, so it only minimally impacts new gas units, but it penalizes faster deployment of clean resources like solar and battery storage.

Reliability Penalty on Renewables: Duke uses a reliability metric called Effective Load Carrying Capability (ELCC) that sharply discounts the value of solar, wind, and batteries. ELCC is a measure of a resource’s ability to send energy to the grid when there may be energy supply shortfalls. Duke does not apply this same measure to coal and gas plants in its EnCompass modeling. Dr. Roumpani notes this results in an uneven playing field. (P. 67) Instead, Duke models coal and gas as if they are almost completely reliable, when in fact they experience outages and are particularly prone to failure during extreme weather. Because Duke’s model assumes that the coal fleet is reliable, when coal retires it overestimates the amount of solar, wind, and batteries that would be needed to take the place of coal.

The unreliability of the coal and fossil gas fleet was included one particular calculation called the reserve margin, but it was not reflected in the remainder of its modeling. The reserve margin is a percentage of extra generation above peak forecasted demand that can be available if power plants or transmission lines are down. If a utility has an efficient and well-maintained fleet, it should have a lower reserve margin, which then lowers the cost to ratepayers. In this instance, however, Duke has incorporated the fleet failures from Winter Storm Elliott into its reserve margin calculation, and Dr. Roumpani noted that this element alone inflated the reserve margin by 2.5 percent (p. 37). So the reliability risk was incorporated where it supported a higher reserve margin, but it was not incorporated in the modeling where it would lower the amount of fossil fuels in the plan. To put some numbers on the impact: Duke has projected a combined revised peak load of over 3,700 MW, so a reserve margin that is 2.5 percent higher would lead to one additional 900 MW gas plant in the plan.

Battery Storage: Duke limits the role of battery energy storage by imposing annual build limits in its modeling, overstating costs, ignoring the grid benefits provided, assuming a 20 percent cost risk premium (mentioned above) to capital costs in the cleaner Pathway 1, and completely omitting long-duration energy storage.

Duke also added “integration costs” for solar and solar plus storage but did not include the flexibility savings that pairing solar with storage provides, thus overstating the cost of these resources. (p. 82) Energy storage that is integrated with solar saves the gas or oil fuel costs that would be incurred by ramping a peaker up and down to manage the variability of the solar.

In addition, Duke has chosen to rely on capital-intensive emerging technologies, such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and hydrogen, while ignoring the rapid development and adoption of more nimble resources such as long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies. SMRs and gas/hydrogen turbines perpetuate a rigid supply system that cannot adapt to a rapidly changing technology and policy landscape. (Read more about the problems with this rigid plan here.) This locks ratepayers in to both infrastructure costs and fuel supply risks. Duke included hydrogen in its model, but not LDES.

And when Duke vetted the modeling outcomes for reliability, only gas resources were allowed to fill any gaps. Battery storage was not considered, nor were the additional grid benefits that storage provides. (P. 70)

Coal: In Pathway 1, coal retirements are condensed to earlier years where they coincide with strict clean resource build limits, forcing the model to select new gas units because 1) the capacity of retiring coal exceeds Duke’s annual build limit for clean resources and 2) additional options such as long-duration energy storage and demand-side resources are not a selectable option in the model. In modeling of all Pathways, Duke did not allow any coal retirements before 2029, the period with the strictest limits on clean resources. Roumpani noted “Even if one coal unit could economically retire in 2028 and be replaced by solar plus storage, this retirement would not be reflected in the results given the Companies’ modeling constraints.” (p. 21)

Certain coal retirements were artificially delayed in the model in order to wait specifically for new proposed gas capacity to come online rather than opening that replacement capacity up to all resources. In addition, Duke artificially delayed the retirement of the Belews Creek coal plant until 2036 because the site is “well suited” for Advanced Nuclear, an unproven, risky, and likely expensive option. Ratepayers could pay for the most polluting, least reliable resource (coal) while waiting indefinitely for an expensive, never-proven replacement (Advanced Nuclear) instead of converting quickly to well-known solar, wind, storage, and demand-side resources.

Duke’s coal fleet has grown increasingly unreliable as it ages, but this is not captured fully in the modeling. In addition to increasing maintenance issues, the coal fleet has weather-related reliability issues. Coal piles and mechanical parts freeze during extreme low temperatures. As this analysis of Winter Storm Elliott shows, the majority of the power plant failures on the Duke system during that major reliability event occurred within its aging coal fleet:

Source: Roumpani Testimony p. 35, created by South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff

In addition to these technical biases, Roumpani identifies risks related to coal that are inherently not captured in the modeling, including risks caused by a declining workforce, a supply chain that does not respond quickly to demand volatility, an increased need to rely on higher sulfur coal with related higher environmental compliance costs, reduced economies of scale, and increasing mining costs and rail transportation disruptions. (pp. 28-29)

Finally, Dr. Roumpani points out that the new EPA carbon pollution standards were not incorporated into the modeling, rendering its coal retirement schedule noncompliant. For instance, Duke’s plan would retain two coal-fired units at Roxboro past the 2032 deadline that would require a huge and unaccounted-for financial investment in carbon capture and storage in order to continue operating. (pp 26-27)

Gas: Dr. Roumpani notes that the selection of new gas capacity in the model “stems from an artificial lack of alternatives at a time of high load growth” (emphasis added, p. 47). The annual build limits for solar and battery storage, mentioned above, handicap clean resources in the modeling and result in an overbuild of fossil resources. Dr. Roumpani notes that Duke’s modeling consistently hit predetermined build limits set by Duke for clean resources, suggesting that removing or easing those limits would lead to the selection of additional clean resources instead of gas.

She also reveals that the net cost to upgrade new and existing fossil plants to meet the requirements of the new EPA carbon pollution standards is not reflected in the three portfolios. In an earlier filing, Duke did develop two supplement portfolios that modeled 1) running fossil gas units below the level that would invoke EPA compliance costs and 2) running fossil gas units on hydrogen. The cost of those portfolios increased Duke’s present value revenue requirement by $3.6 billion and $10.5 billion, respectively. These cost impacts were not included, however, in Duke’s most recent filing. (p. 52)

“By investing in new gas plants, the Companies lock customers into a risky pathway with no clear avenue to comply with the then proposed and now final regulation. The lack of a viable compliance option reveals how risky the presented Pathways are. Investing in such high volumes of new gas generation cannot be considered a least-cost, least-risk portfolio, especially when compared to a more balanced approach with additional no-regrets investments in renewable energy, energy storage, demand response, and energy efficiency, technologies that are not subject to policy risks, and have exhibited reliable and consistent cost declines.” Roumpani direct testimony at page 53

The fuel supply risk of gas is also overlooked. An electricity system fueled by fossil gas is dependent upon the gas supply system. But while reliability of the electricity supply system is overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), there is no such equivalent agency overseeing the reliability of the fossil gas supply system. In addition to issues at the plant itself, gas power plants can prove unreliable if they do not have fuel because supply or pipeline systems are impacted by extreme weather.

No Biases, No Regrets

Dr. Roumpani’s recommendation to Duke and to the NCUC is clear: “(T)he Companies should invest in a no-regrets, flexible portfolio, including demand side resources and transmission enhancements, while primarily consisting of modular, scalable, and quickly deployable clean energy resources that mitigate ratepayers’ exposure to fuel price volatility, and the quickly changing market and policy environment.” (p. 16)

Read the Blog Series on Duke’s 2024 CPIRP

The post Duke’s Carbon Plan: Part 2: Flawed Modeling Assumptions Produce Fossil Fuel Bias appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Duke’s Carbon Plan: Part 2: Flawed Modeling Assumptions Produce Fossil Fuel Bias

Renewable Energy

How the VEU Program Works: Step by Step for Homeowners

Published

11 hours ago

November 18, 2025

Alice Rush

Are you a homeowner in Victoria?

Working on how to make your home more energy-efficient while saving on bills, reducing your carbon footprint, and even getting discounts via government-supported programs?

If so, this blog is for you!

We’re going to take you on a walkthrough on how the Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) Program works, explain the key players involved, and break down essential terms like VEECs (Victorian Energy Efficiency Certificates) and accredited providers.

You’ll also find a step-by-step guide for homeowners from the application process, getting quotes and installation, to certification and savings.

At Cyanergy Australia, we specialise in residential installations under the VEU scheme, so we’ll draw on our experience and share practical insights to help you make the most of this program.

Let’s get into the details!

In this blog post:

What is the VEU Program?

The VEU (Victorian Energy Upgrades) program is a flagship energy-efficiency initiative run in the state of Victoria.
Supported by the state government, this scheme enables households to replace outdated, inefficient appliances
and systems with energy-efficient alternatives.

This is often offered at little or no cost. From LED lighting and efficient hot water systems to smart thermostats
and insulation, each upgrade slashes your energy use and reduces your carbon footprint.

And the best part? The process is simple, transparent, and designed to make energy efficiency effortless.

In just a few easy steps, you can enjoy lower bills, a more comfortable home, and the satisfaction of contributing to
a cleaner, greener Victoria.

Some Key Outlines of the VEU Program

The scheme was developed under the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007, which sets a commitment for
large energy retailers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency programs.
However, the VEU
airconditioning Rebate Program, which was previously set to end much sooner, has now been
officially extended until 2045

This ensures long-term support for Victorian homeowners seeking to enhance energy efficiency during heating
and
cooling.

The program is regulated by the Essential Services Commission (ESC) in Victoria. To become eligible, the
program requires installations only from accredited providers with approved products or services listed
in the Public Product Registry.
The legal mechanics essentially require energy retailers to meet annual targets for greenhouse gas
reduction.

They do this by acquiring certificates called VEECs, which
we’ll discuss in the next section.

Why the VEU Rebate Matters for Victorian Homeowners?

Upgrading to more efficient appliances or insulation often has high upfront costs and several other complexities. This can be burdensome for low-income households, so the government introduced the VEU program in order to remove financial barriers.

For example, by enabling discounts and rebates through a market-based certificate system, the program helps make it more financially appealing for homeowners.

What Does it Mean for Homeowners?

In Australia, many people often ask: Is the VEU Rebate Worth It? Well, here’s why the answer is ‘Yes’ for homeowners:

In practical terms, if you live in Victoria and upgrade your home via an accredited provider, you can get access to discounted or even no-cost energy-efficient products and services. Also,

The VEU Rebate directly reduces the cost of energy-efficient upgrades,
This makes improvements such as better insulation, solar hot water systems, and efficient heating and cooling widely accessible.
It not only lowers upfront expenses but also helps households save on ongoing energy bills.
The rebate helps to increase the comfort and value of their home and contributes to long-term environmental benefits.
It’s a practical way to invest in your home while easing financial pressure.

From our experience at Cyanergy Australia, many homeowners are pleasantly surprised by how accessible the program is when you choose a provider who understands it.

The Role of VEECs in Victoria’s Energy Future

So, what is a VEEC?

VEEC stands for Victorian Energy Efficiency Certificate. Each certificate represents one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions prevented or reduced through an eligible upgrade, such as installing LED lighting, upgrading heating and cooling systems, or improving insulation.

How do VEECs work?

A homeowner does an eligible upgrade via an accredited provider.
That upgrade yields a certain number of VEECs, based on the greenhouse‐gas savings of that item.
The accredited provider then sells those VEECs to large energy retailers who are required to surrender them to meet their legal obligations.
The income from selling VEECs enables the provider to offer you the discounted price for the upgrade. That’s how you get the benefit.

Now you might be wondering what an Accredited Providers (AP) mean.

An accredited provider is a business that’s authorised under the VEU scheme to conduct eligible upgrade activities, create VEECs, liaise with homeowners, and ensure agreement with the program’s rules.

Behind Every Upgrade: VEECs and Accredited Providers in Action!

Understanding VEECs and accredited providers helps you recognise how the discount or rebate works. Keep in mind you’re not getting a random free upgrade; you’re getting access to a government-backed scheme run through certified channels.

So, you should be clear about all these questions before upgrading

Is this provider accredited under VEU?
Which VEEC activity does this upgrade qualify for?
Which model or product is being installed, and is it on the approved list?

Step-by-Step: Claiming Your Energy Upgrade Benefits with VEU

The process of how the VEU Program works is straightforward and simple. It includes a few stepwise processes, from application to installation, certification, and monitoring.

Let’s explore each step together in the following section:

Step 1: Background Research & Eligibility Check

Initially, you have to contact an accredited provider in your area. However, before contacting, conduct some background research on their previous experiences and running projects.
The provider checks whether your home is eligible under the VEU program, taking into account your location, type of dwelling, desired upgrade, and the eligible products.
They will offer you a quote outlining: the product to be installed, the discount amount under VEU, and the amount you have to contribute.

Step 2: Quote Approval & Scheduling

After reviewing the quote, ensure you understand the product brand or model, the installation cost, and what items are included (such as labour and the decommissioning of the old unit).
Also, check the warranty and any additional or extra-cost items.
Once you sign off, the installation is scheduled to proceed. Accredited providers will provide you with a specific timeframe and keep you updated.

Step 3: Installation of the System

The system provider arranges qualified, licensed installers to carry out the work. The installed products must meet eligibility criteria and installation standards under the VEU scheme.
On installation day, it’s best if you are present so the installer can access the areas, remove old units if relevant, test the new product, take photos if needed, and ensure everything is working correctly.
After installation, ensure you receive the necessary documentation, including the invoice, product model details, and, if applicable, a decommissioning certificate for the old equipment, as well as proof of installation.

Step 4: Certification and VEEC Creation

Once the upgrade is complete, the accredited provider submits the activity under the VEU program, creating the corresponding number of VEECs based on the product, activity type, and the greenhouse gas savings achieved.
These VEECs are then sold to energy retailers who deliver them to the ESC (via the VEU Registry).
After this is all finalised, you begin to enjoy lower energy bills and improved energy performance.

Step 5: Monitor your System Regularly

It’s now just a matter of using your upgraded system, enjoying the improved efficiency, and monitoring your energy bills. Many upgrades (especially lighting, insulation, and efficient hot water) will deliver noticeable savings.
If anything goes wrong, such as product failure or installation fault, please contact your provider under warranty.
It’s wise to keep all documentation in a safe place, as you will need it during any official audits or future upgrades.

Here’s What You Can Upgrade Under VEU!

Hot Water Systems

Upgrade to an energy-efficient heat
pump
or solar hot water system for reliable hot water and lower energy use.

Heating & Cooling Units

Switch to high-efficiency reverse-cycle
air
conditioners or split systems to stay comfortable while cutting your power bills.

LED Lighting

Replace old halogen or incandescent bulbs with
energy-saving
LEDs and reduce lighting costs by up to 80%!

In-Home Displays (IHDs)

Track your energy usage in real-time and take control of your electricity bills with smart in-home displays.

Weather Sealing

Improve insulation to keep your home cool in summer and warm in winter, saving energy year-round.

Refrigerators & Freezers

Replace old, power-hungry appliances with modern, energy-efficient models to lower your electricity costs.

What are the Common Pitfalls of VEU & How to Avoid Them?

Did you know that even a minor mistake could result in your VEU
rebate being disqualified?

Yes, it happens more often than you’d think in VIC! But don’t worry! We’ve got your back.

Here’s a quick and easy checklist that helps you avoid any common mistakes and make sure your rebate works
smoothly

Don’t fall for fake, flashy rebate offers. If a provider arrives unannounced, offers a “free upgrade”
without a proper quote, or adds huge extra costs after you’ve agreed, this is a red flag.
Some businesses may claim to be part of VEU but aren’t properly accredited. Always check and avoid
non-accredited providers.
Even when the subsidy is real, if you want a product that’s reliable and suitable for your home, then don’t
install low-quality products.
Lack of transparency about upgrade scope: Understand exactly what you are paying, what’s included, and if
old equipment removal is included.
Find whether additional wiring or structural work is required in any place.
Never think the upgrade is “totally free” cause there may still be a homeowner or tenant’s
contribution.

Many upgrades are heavily subsidised, but some of them require your contribution, for example, when you
choose a
higher-end product than the subsidy covers.

Why Cyanergy Is the Smart Choice for Your VEU Upgrades?

At Cyanergy Australia, when we work with homeowners under the VEU program, we take care of all the paperwork and ensure you use eligible, high-quality products every step of the way.

Not only that, we clearly explain any additional costs upfront, so there are no surprises later. Once everything’s confirmed, we schedule your installation with our licensed professionals, ensuring everything meets VEU standards.

With years of experience in residential installations, we know what works and what homeowners truly value.

So, if you’re looking for expertise, transparency, and genuine savings, Cyanergy ticks all the boxes.

For more information, reach out to our experts and win a free solar quote today!

Glossary of Terms

Terms	Abbreviation
Accredited Provider (AP)	A business authorised under the VEU program to conduct eligible upgrades, create VEECs, and manage the process with homeowners.
Decommissioning	The removal or disposal of the old, inefficient appliance or system. It’s often required as part of eligibility to generate VEECs.
Public Product Registry	An official database maintained by the ESC, listing all approved and eligible products that can be installed under the VEU program.
VEU	Victorian Energy Upgrades program, the state government scheme in Victoria that supports energy-efficient upgrades for homes & businesses.
VEEC	Victorian Energy Efficiency Certificate: one certificate equals one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions prevented. This is created via upgrade activities and traded by accredited providers to energy retailers.
Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007	The legislation that established the VEU program. It mandates energy retailers to achieve specific greenhouse gas reduction targets by supporting energy-efficient upgrades across Victoria.

Your Solution Is Just a Click Away

The post How the VEU Program Works: Step by Step for Homeowners appeared first on Cyanergy.

How the VEU Program Works: Step by Step for Homeowners

Renewable Energy

LM Wind Power Cuts 60% of Denmark Staff

Published

11 hours ago

November 18, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

LM Wind Power Cuts 60% of Denmark Staff

The crew discusses LM Wind Power’s dramatic layoff of 60% of remaining Danish staff, dropping from 90 to just 31 workers. What does this mean for thousands of wind farms with LM blades? Is government intervention possible? Who might acquire the struggling blade manufacturer? Plus, a preview of the Wind Energy O&M Australia 2026 conference in Melbourne this February.

Learn more about CICNDT!
Register for ORE Catapult’s UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight!

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!

If you haven’t downloaded your latest edition of PES Wind Magazine, now’s the time issue four for 2025. It’s the last issue for 2025 is out and I just received mine in the Royal Mail. I had a brief time to review some of the articles inside of this issue. Tremendous content, uh, for the end of the year.

Uh, you wanna sit down and take a good long read. There’s plenty of articles that affect what you’re doing in your wind business, so it’s been a few moments. Go to peswind.com Download your free copy and read it today. You’re listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by build turbines.com.

Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here’s your hosts, Alan Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy [00:01:00]Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ve got Yolanda Padron in Texas.

Joel Saxon up in Wisconsin and Rosemary Barnes down under in Australia, and it has been a, a really odd Newsweek. There is a slow down happening in wind. Latest news from Ella Wind Power is they’re gonna lay off about 60% of their staff in Denmark. They’ve only have about 90 employees there at the moment.

Which is a dramatic reduction of what that company once was. Uh, so they’re planning to lay off about 59 of the 90 workers that are still there. Uh, the Danish media is reporting. There’s a lot of Danish media reporting on this at the moment. Uh, there’s a letter that was put out by Ellen Windpower and it discusses that customers have canceled orders and are moving, uh, their blade production to internal factories.

And I, I assume. That’s a [00:02:00] GE slash Siemens effort that is happening, uh, that’s affecting lm and customers are willing to pay prices that make it possible to run the LM business profitably. Uh, the company has also abandoned all efforts on large blades because I, I assume just because they don’t see a future in it for the time being now, everybody is wondering.

How GE Renova is involved in this because they still do own LM wind power. It does seem like there’s two pieces to LM at the minute. One that serves GE Renova and then the another portion of the company that’s just serving outside customers. Uh, so far, if, if you look at what GE Renova paid for the company and what revenue has been brought in, GE Renova has lost about 8.3 billion croner, which is a little over a billion dollars since buying the company in 2017.

So it’s never really been. Hugely profitable over that time. And remember a few months ago, maybe a month ago now, or two months ago, the CEO of LM [00:03:00] Windpower left the company. Uh, and I now everyone, I’m not sure what the future is for LM Windpower, uh, because it’s, it has really dramatically shrunk. It’s down to what, like 3000 total employees?

I think they were up at one point to a little over when Rosie was there, about 14,000 employees. What has happened? Maybe Rosemary, you should start since you were working there at one point.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I dunno. It always makes me really sad and there’s still a few people that I used to work with that were there when I went to Denmark in May and caught up with a bunch of, um, my old colleagues and most of them had moved on because a lot of firing had already happened by that point.

But there were still a few there, but the mood was pretty despondent and I think that they guessed that this was coming. But I just find it really hard to see how with the number, just the pure number of people that are left there. I, I find it really hard to see how they can even support what they’ve still [00:04:00] got in the field.

Um. Let alone like obviously they cut way back on manufacturing. Okay. Cut Way back on developing new products. Okay. But you still do need some capabilities to work through warranty claims and um, you know, and any kind of serial issues. Yeah, I would be worried about things like, um, you know, from time to time you need a new, a new blade or a new set of blades produced.

Maybe a lot of them, you know, if you discover an issue, there’s a serial defect that doesn’t, um, become obvious until 10 years into the turbine’s lifetime. You might need to replace a whole bunch of blades and are you gonna be able to, like, what’s, what is gonna happen to this huge number of assets that are out there with LM blades on there?

Uh, I, yeah, I, I would really like to see some announcements about what they’re keeping, you know, what functionality they’re planning to keep and what they’re planning to excise.

Joel Saxum: But I mean, at the end of the day, if it’s, if [00:05:00] the business is not profitable to run that they have no. Legal standing to have to stay open?

Rosemary Barnes: No, no, of course not. We all know that there, there’s, you know, especially like you go through California, there’s all sorts of coast turbines there that nobody knows how to maintain them anymore. Right. And, um, yeah, and, and around there was one in, um, in Texas as well with some weird kind of gearbox. I can’t remember what exactly, but yeah, like the company went bankrupt, no one knew what to do with them, so they just, you know, like fell into disrepair and couldn’t be used anymore.

’cause if you can’t. Operate them safely, then you can’t let no one, the government is not gonna let you just, you know, just. Try your luck, operate them until rotors start flying off. You know, like that’s not really how it works. So yeah, I do think that like you, you can’t just stay silent about, um, what you expect to happen because you know, like maybe I have just done some, a bit of catastrophizing and, you know, finding worst case scenarios, but that is where your mind naturally goes.

And the absence of information about what you can expect, [00:06:00] then that’s what. People are naturally gonna do what I’ve just done and just think through, oh, you know, what, what could this mean for me? It might be really bad. So, um, yeah, it is a little bit, a little bit interesting.

Allen Hall: Delamination and bottom line, failures and blades are difficult problems to detect early.

These hidden issues can cost you millions in repairs and lost energy production. C-I-C-N-D-T are specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become expensive burdens. Their non-destructive test technology penetrates deep to blade materials to find voids and cracks. Traditional inspections, completely.

Miss C-I-C-N-D-T Maps. Every critical defect delivers actionable reports and provides support to get your blades. Back in service, so visit cic ndt.com because catching blade problems early will save you millions. Yolanda, what are asset managers [00:07:00] thinking about the LM changes as they proceed with orders and think about managing their LM Blade fleet over the next couple of years, knowing that LM is getting much smaller Quicker?

Yolanda Padron: Yeah, and this all comes at a time when. A lot of projects are reaching the end of the full service agreements that they had with some of these OEMs, right? So you already know that your risk profile is increasing. You already know. I mean, like Rosie, you said worst case scenario, you have a few years left before you don’t know what to do with some of the issues that are being presented.

Uh, because you don’t count with that first line of support that you typically would in this industry. It’s really important to be able to get a good mix of the technical and the commercial. Right? We’ve all seen it, and of course, we’re all a little bit biased because we’re all engineers, right? So we, to us it makes a lot of sense to go over the engineering route.

But the pendulum swung, swung so [00:08:00] far towards the commercial for Ella, the ge, that it just, it. They were always thinking about, or it seemed from an outsider’s point of view, right, that they were always thinking about, how can I get the easiest dollar today without really thinking about, okay, five 10 steps in the future, what’s going to happen to my business model?

Like, will this be sustainable? It did Just, I don’t know, it seems to me like just letting go of so many engineers and just going, I know Rosie, you mentioned a couple of podcasts ago about how they just kept on going from like Gen A to Gen B, to Gen C, D, and then it just, without really solving any problems initially.

Like, it, it, it was just. It’s difficult for me to think that nobody in those leadership positions thought about what was gonna happen in the [00:09:00]future.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I think it was about day-to-day survival. ’cause I was definitely there like saying, you know, there’s too many, um, technical problems that Yeah. When I was saying that a hundred, a hundred of versions of me were all saying that, a lot of us were saying it.

Just in the cafeteria amongst ourselves. And a lot of us, uh, you know, a bit more outspoken Danish people don’t really believe a lot in a strict hierarchy. So certainly people were saying it to directors and VPs and CEOs, but, um, yeah, it was, uh, I think it was more about like the commercial reality of today is that there won’t be a commercial.

Tomorrow to experience these engineering problems if we don’t make these, um, decisions. Now, if, if that makes sense. As a really complicated way of saying we need to be able to sell this product, otherwise we’re not gonna sell anything. And then no one will be, no one will have a job in 10 years regardless.

So. We’ll solve, you know, whatever quality problems that arise from doing too many new technologies at once, at [00:10:00] least we’ll be, the company will still exist to be able to have a go at solving them if we, you know, make these sales. Um, which it won’t if we don’t. So I think that that would be the, like the other point of view, like it’s really easy to say now, oh yeah, we should have, um, we shouldn’t have done that, but yeah, I, I’m pretty sure management’s gonna tell you why they did it is for the sales.

Joel Saxum: This is an odd case being lm an ex Danish company now owned by GE Renova, which is a US based company.

Allen Hall: Global.

Joel Saxum: Global really. But yeah, but when we get into this, too big to fail type thing, right? So like Siemens cesa, having the German government back them up with a note, um, when they were having troubles a year and a half ago.

Uh. Is there a award like the too big to fail in the United States where the government bailed out the auto worker or the auto manufacturers and stuff like that. I don’t see that happening here because the company’s too small. But at what level do governments [00:11:00] intervene? Right? So it’s, I know every government’s gonna be different and every, but there’s have their own criteria and there’s not a hard set, probably line or metric of like, oh, you have this much impact on society, so we must support you to make sure you survive.

Well, when Rosemary, when you say like in, when you were there, you were there five years ago, 2020, right before COVID. Right. At that point in time, 20% of the world’s blades were LM blades of the global fleet. Well, if that’s was true still, that would be a hundred thousand plus turbines in the global fleet.

That would be LM blades. And if we have. Issues with them and we can’t solve them. I think one, one of the, one of the things that we’re, that we’re probably thankful for is there is that many, so there has been a lot of independent engineering expertise that’s been able to fix some of them. A lot of independent ISPs, you know, out there, service companies, blade repair companies that have been able to figure out how to make these things even, you know, regardless of getting the layup pattern or layup designs or any kind of engineering information from, from Malam [00:12:00] or from the OEMs.

Um, we have been able to maintain them, so that’s good. But is there a level where, I know Alan, you were shaking your head, but is there a level where anybody steps in from a government standpoint to save lm?

Allen Hall: I would almost bet that Renova has talked to the Danish government. Somebody at LM has, I would have to think that they have already.

And has been, at least in the press, no response. And with this latest announcement, it doesn’t seem like the Danish government wants to be involved. So my, my take on it is they have an American stamp on ’em right now, and Denmark and the United States are not playing nice to one another. So why would I help ge?

Why would I do that? And that’s not a bad response.

Rosemary Barnes: Potentially it wouldn’t even have to be necessarily the US or the Danish government that might have to get involved, because I know in Australia, and I’m, I can’t believe it’s different anywhere else. You have to be able to safely operate, uh, an asset like a, a wind turbine.

And that’s, um, some, [00:13:00] a responsibility of both the asset owner and the operator, but also the manufacturer and so they can compel to provide the information that you need to operate safely. I’ve always wondered how, um, ’cause you know, all the OEMs not talking, uh, LM or GE specifically here, they, they don’t really give away enough information to, um, operate assets safely, in my opinion.

So that is the key thing that you just, you can’t lose otherwise. You’re going to end up with blades that have to be scrapped or that you have to, you know, guess that it’s probably okay and then see how it goes. And, you know, that’s. Good a lot of the time, but it’s, it’s gonna make things less safe into the future.

You would expect to see more blade failures if you saw that happening a lot. So, you know, I would at least wanna make sure that you’re keeping, keeping people, keeping those models and keeping the people that know how to run them. Enough of them around. [00:14:00] Or making them publicly available.

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How soon before ING Yang puts in an offer to buy LM and or TPI? That’s gonna happen in the next six months. It has to.

Joel Saxum: What about instead of buying the factory, what if someone rises from the ashes and just buys the molds?

Allen Hall: I think you have to eat the workers. I think that’s gonna be the trouble,

Joel Saxum: but I don’t think you want them.

Allen Hall: Wow. That’s a hot take.

Joel Saxum: But honestly, like the quality coming out now, and I’ll, and I will caveat this as well, the [00:15:00] quality is not their, the quality is not all their fault. The quality of some respects is the way it was designed for manufacturing. But there is issues that we have seen and has been, have been uncovered that have been in the news, in the, in the free press that show that stuff happening in factories that shouldn’t be happening.

So do you actually want that or do you, this is why I say someone rises from the ashes and, and or, and creates something with a bunch of inco, you know, like knowing the pitfalls and the, the, the things that have happened that are bad, the things that can go well that are good. You know, when we talk to some of the people in the industry that have been around blade manufacturing, and they, and they have told us, man, we’ve seen.

Quality, uh, control mechanisms thrown on the shelves, even though we know they work just because people, defactor didn’t wanna use them for whatever reason. I don’t, you know, you don’t know, um, whether it’s inspection, whether it’s, you know, robotics this, or whether it’s [00:16:00] this solution here. Like there’s a possibility that we could do this way better.

Maybe there’s this case right now where someone is like, you know what, robotics, let’s do this. Let’s try to make it happen. Let’s get rid of this incumbent knowledge of automated blades and start fresh from a. Scratch

Allen Hall: my other hot take was GE sells their wind business,

Joel Saxum: the entire wind business.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Joel Saxum: To who

Allen Hall: Ing Yang or somebody?

Anybody,

Rosemary Barnes: if they wanna do that, I’d recommend doing it in the, um, current administration would probably be the most likely to allow that to happen because I would imagine that, uh, another time that people might not be so happy that, uh, the US has therefore no wind turbine manufacturer.

Allen Hall: Does anybody else not think so that that’s a possibility.

They’re not listening to offers right now.

Joel Saxum: I would say Mitsubishi maybe. I don’t think Ming Yang. I don’t think some, I don’t think a Chinese, no, but I do think a Korea and a Japanese, a German

Allen Hall: could do it.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. Well, that would entertain the offer. [00:17:00]

Rosemary Barnes: What about one of the large ISPs buying, you know, the ability to, you know.

Properly, properly service blades for, you know, many, many, many manufacturers. There’s a lot of knowledge that you’d get there. Um, the ability to replace blades, maybe it splits into two and there’s, you know, one company takes it for manufacturing into the future, and which case they’re probably just buying factories and not really worried about much else.

And then somebody else buys molds and, um, knowledge. Models, those sorts of things

Joel Saxum: as a pitch for what exactly what you’re saying. So now let’s go back to, um, was it Larry Fink who said that they’re in investing in infrastructure, big time in the future, energy infrastructure is the future, da, da, da. And they, or like BlackRock’s been throwing money at everything, right?

They’ve been just buying, buying, buying, buying, buying. If some, someone came to them with the right [00:18:00] plan, there’s where your capital could come from. Who is it? Right? You know, that there’s players out there that may not be in the ISP world, I think is, p is interesting, Rosemary, but like a, a next era that’s like this with GEs,

Allen Hall: Adani,

Joel Saxum: a Donny’s in too much hot water to to, to make a deal with that, to let the SEC allow that.

Rosemary Barnes: Here’s my hot take. So LM started at the lm, it stands for lco Mills Fabric, which means, um, furniture manufacturer, right? So they started out making furniture, then they were making, um, caravans, I believe, and then there were, so that was all wood. Then they started making caravans outta fiberglass. Then they started making boats because those are also fiberglass and wood kind of things.

Then they moved into wind turbine blades and became LM glass fiber. So now they’re only doing fiberglass things. And then it was LM wind power. They only were doing wind power. Maybe, you know, [00:19:00] are they gonna go into, I don’t know, making airplanes next, or, or rockets, or are they gonna take a step backwards and, you know, go back into furniture?

Allen Hall: How do you put a value on a company that’s losing money?

Joel Saxum: That’s where I was going, Mr. Hall, October of 2016 when GE bought them, they paid one point. Six, 5 billion US dollars. I don’t think that that’s was probably a too wild of a price back then, but there’s no way that they’re worth that much now with what has has happened.

That being said, say they’re worth, I don’t know, I’m just gonna throw a number out there. Say they’re worth 800 million, half of that. I don’t see that as like a crazy amount for someone else, like Rosemary said, that may be crossing industry silos to pick up. Some factories, some, some composites knowledge, some other things as well, as long as they get, get into it.

With the understanding that this is a fire sale and [00:20:00] things need to be fixed,

Rosemary Barnes: isn’t, um, ozempic Danish? So there must be some, build, some Danish billionaires. Maybe there’s gonna be some national pride that that kicks in and makes somebody want to, you know, like Denmark is quite known for wind power. Um, if you combine, you know, the demise of LM with vest also.

Announcing a whole lot of job cuts. I, it’s not such a fast stretch to think that some Danish billionaire is gonna be like, you know what, Denmark should still have wind industry and I’m gonna make sure it happens.

Allen Hall: No shot. I don’t see it. I, it would be awesome if they did

Joel Saxum: Maersk, lm,

Allen Hall: but Meers doesn’t wanna lose money.

Why you, why would you invest in something that’s going to lose money for the next five years? Who’s doing that today?

Joel Saxum: Let’s just do a little comparison. So TPI claiming bankruptcy the other day when we looked at the Val, the market cap of them, they’re publicly traded. They were a hundred million, weren’t they?

Like a couple, six months ago,

Allen Hall: [00:21:00] $1.5 million.

Joel Saxum: Oh my God. It’s 1.5 million. Do you mean you could buy TPI over 1.5 million?

Allen Hall: I can get a second mortgage and have a pretty good take of that business. It has no value because it’s not making money. You, you’ve, it’s EBITDA times X.

Yolanda Padron: It’d be really interesting to see like an is like them turning into an ISB.

Like I will fix everything that I manufactured, gear, the molds, or like I will replace the parts.

Rosemary Barnes: It’s hard as well. I just make a few blades here or there. Um, because they only get cheap when you make thousands of them. But that said like sometimes people have to pay, at least in Australia, like it’s not uncommon that you need a new blade.

You have to pay a million dollars for it. So in that case, you know, like that’s apparently, you know, TPI, you buy TPI for one and a half and you make two blades in your first year. Then you know,

Yolanda Padron: you make a blade set, you’re done.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. So they were worth a hundred million in market cap a year ago today. [00:22:00] So it’s like a 99.6% decrease since last year.

Allen Hall: When you file bankruptcy, stuff like that happens. Here’s gonna be the rub. Whoever decides to do whatever with it, they’re gonna have to have a lot of cash because I guarantee you vendors have not been paid or. Or vendors are asking for money upfront before they make a delivery, and that’s not the way that GE likes to operate.

GE likes to operate. I buy this thing and then six months later I pay you half and another six months later, I may pay the remaining half. They don’t like to pay things upfront and. It’s gonna be a problem.

Joel Saxum: Net 180, and then on day 179, they’re gonna find a magic error in your invoice and it resets the clock.

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Wind O and M Australia 2026 and it is going to be February, what, Joel?

Joel Saxum: 17th and 18th at the Pullman on the park in sunny. Melbourne

Allen Hall: and Rosemary, what’s on the schedule for the event in Sunny Australia?

Rosemary Barnes: Well, it’s, uh, agenda just full of the topics that Australian operators are talking about at the moment.

Um, there’s, you are gonna be [00:24:00] topics on compliance. Um, also training is a, a big thing. Training and resources to get workforce up to speed. Um, also some on big data and ai, they’re catchy. Uh, yeah, hyped up terms. But can you actually do something useful with it? I mean, you definitely can, but how do you, um, and then just heaps of stuff about just specific asset management problems that people are having be a lot of talking about problems.

And there’s also gonna be a lot of talking about solutions. So that’s kind of the point. It’s the, it’s the place where you can get. Both sides. ’cause I think, yeah, both sides are very important.

Joel Saxum: I think one, one of the things that is was good about the event last year and we’re excited about this year as well, is we tried to fit in as many networking opportunities as we could.

We’ve got a lot of coffee breaks. We’ve got breakfast, we’ve got a cocktail hour, we’ve got lunches, we’ve got all these things, and it’s kind of designed around keeping the whole crew together in one spot. So we’re able to share information, have those conversations. Oh, you have this asset. Oh, I [00:25:00] know this one.

Um, operators, speaking to operators, speaking to ISPs about specialties fixes. What are you doing? Could we implement that in our fleet? Those kind of things, right? And that’s about the, we, we talk on the podcast and in our daily lives regularly. Everybody here in the podcast is about collaboration and sharing information and sharing knowledge, and that’s the way that we’re gonna forward the, uh, industry.

So we’re really excited. Again, again, this is round two. We’re bringing this event down to Australia. Last year was great. I think we had basically every major operator represented, uh, at the event. And we’re gonna repeat that again this year.

Rosemary Barnes: I really like the size of it. Last year, I think we were about 170 or 180, which was our limit for that, that event, we did sell out this year.

We, uh, increased that a little bit to 250. Um, but it’s a good size. It’s not like, I don’t know if there’s any other, um, introverts out there, but usually when I go to an event, I get so exhausted from just. Uh, I don’t know the, the pressure of if there’s [00:26:00] an exhibition hole that you’re supposed to wander around and, you know, like the last conference I went to had like probably 20 parallel streams and it’s just like, what am I supposed to see?

Oh, these sessions all sound similar, which is gonna be the good one. Um, and then you’re trying to meet up with people as well. This event, it’s targeted enough. It’s one session. You’re gonna find probably at least 95% of the sessions interesting if you are working in wind energy, o and m in Australia. So you just go there, you sit down, you watch the interesting information, and every single person that you run into when you at lunch or coffee or whatever, every every single person is gonna be someone you can have an interesting conversation with.

So it’s just. It’s a lot, uh, it’s a lot easier for someone who, I mean, you, Americans, you’re all, uh, it’s like national law, right? That you have to be extroverted. It’s not allowed to be any kind of other personality type in America. But in Australia, there’s a lot of, uh, a lot of introverts. And, uh, I would say that this is a much, much more introvert friendly event than [00:27:00] your typical big, big, broad conference.

Allen Hall: Well, you won’t want to miss Wilma 2026. In order to get, what are those 250 seats, you need to register and you need to register now. So visit wma w om a 2020 six.com and. Get signed in, get registered, and we’ll see you in Australia in February. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Thanks for joining us as we explore the latest in wind energy technology and industry insights. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Just 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 and we’ll catch you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:28:00] Podcast.

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