Published

1 year ago

March 18, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Energex Acquisition, LM Wind Power Builds Enercon Blades

We discuss the recent acquisition of Energex Renewable Energy by CDPQ for $3.6 billion, highlighting its implications on the wind industry. We also delve into LM Wind Power producing blades for ENERCON from its factory in Turkey and feature the Buffalo Mountain Wind Farm, a unique project on a reclaimed coal mine in Tennessee.

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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!

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

Allen Hall: Big news, Energex Renewable Energy has announced that it will be acquired by CDPQ.

A major community and pension fund manager for about $13 and 75 cents per share. I’ve seen a couple different numbers about that. This transaction represents a total enterprise value of approximately 3.6 billion US dollars, and marks a really a substantial consolidation in the wind industry. The deal offers about a 40% premium on interjects closing share.

Of a couple months ago. So that’s a pretty good premium that CDPQ put on interjects value. And now Phil, this is part of a larger play of a lot of consolidation. This one in particular, interject is going to become a private company after this acquisition. Why?

Phil Totaro: It, that’s an interesting question because normally when a company gets taken private by a large institutional investor, it’s to restructure.

I am not sure that. Energex needs that much restructuring per se. It’s not like they’ve got a huge team to begin with. But a reasonably competent team in terms of the pedigree of their developments, obviously in Canada and throughout Europe as well. And they’ve been trying to venture off and dip their toe in other markets as well.

The reality of this is that it, it’s a fantastic thing for CDPQ to strengthen their position and it comes at a point in time when a lot of these Canadian pension funds are looking at the profitability and the returns that they’re seeing on their investments globally, including the US right now with all the trade tensions and everything we’ve got.

And I think you’re gonna see more of these Canadian. Pension funds and investors pulling back and doing things that are ignoring the US at this point. Looking at deals in Canada, looking at deals in Europe, looking at deals in Southeast Asia and South America for that matter.

Joel Saxum: I think it makes sense for me like CDPQ keeping their Canadian money mostly in Canada. However, I know Energex has a hand small handful of wind farms in the United States as well. Did you see a reality where just because of geopolitical reasons, they might just. Sell those couple of wind farms off.

Phil Totaro: Let’s put it this way, Brookfield’s not going anywhere and they’re always on the hunt for, good assets.

But there’s other people that could want to gobble up wind assets right now, especially if, the assets that Enerex owns in the US they’re not quite ready for repowering yet. But maybe that’s part of the play.

Joel Saxum: Moving forward. Yeah, I know, like you said, you mentioned Brookfield.

Brookfield, same thing. We’re talking about market consolidation. They just bought National Grid renewables not too long ago, and I know National Grid renewables in the States. A couple, A handful of wind farms and some solar assets, some other things. So yes, continuing to see that trend.

Allen Hall: I still wonder though if taking them private is a better long-term play.

Because of the turbulence that’s gonna happen over the next couple of years. It gets rid of all the shareholder complaints and the back and forth and where to save money and whatnot. If you’re really trying to look for a longer play, doesn’t taking renewable assets, especially large scale renewable assets off the public markets, the better long-term play.

I just think that. There’s so much turbulence in renewable energy, and it’s getting bashed so much that the value was still there, but in the public eye, it’s like it doesn’t have as much value. But when you’re producing power and you’re delivering it and getting paid, you’re still making money.

Phil Totaro: Maybe to answer that question. I think again, the reason that you would take something private is if you wanna avoid the scrutiny in general. And the reason to wanna avoid the scrutiny at this point is partly what you just described, but I think mainly if you’re looking to own and operate for a longer term, this is something, and look, CDPQ is putting money into something that they’re not making a short-term play themselves either. This isn’t just, Hey, let’s buy Inex to flip it in a year and a half or something. They’re, if they’re. Going in like they did with a minority stake that they’ve got in energy or any other investments that they’ve got and partnerships they’ve got around the world on individual projects or with development and owner operator companies then, they’re very deliberate about what they’ve done.

So again, taking it private. To me feels like they want to, just go about their business for the time being.

Allen Hall: Would the Canadian US tariff exchanges influence that decision

Phil Totaro: A little bit. I. Not necessarily a take private deal specifically, but you’ve got a scenario where, again, there, the Canadian pension funds and institutional investors, which is also gonna include, the likes of CDPQ and Brookfield.

They are going to make it a point to de-emphasize investments in the US for the time being, because there’s, it’s, and it’s really not even, ’cause look, we talked about this on the show before. If we end up in a recession and interest rates end up coming down, that’s actually really good for investors because they wanna plow money in when the cost of money’s cheap, if interest rates are low.

But the reality of it is we’re not quite there yet. We’re not, all the way into a recession yet there’s, everybody’s still on the fence. The what they’re, what everyone’s trying to avoid right now is the chaos that’s ensuing from the uncertainty around. The tariffs that are either in place, not in place, now they’re in place again.

We had Ontario trying to impose tariffs on the energy exports. Now they’re not, because there was a conversation with the commerce department. So I, who knows what’s gonna happen. This is the problem. Nobody knows what the hell’s gonna happen tomorrow. So how the hell can you plan financially?

Allen Hall: Don’t let blade damage catch you off guard. EOLOGIX-PING sensors detect issues before they become expensive. Time consuming problems from ice buildup and lightning strikes to pitch misalignment in internal blade cracks. EOLOGIX-PING has you covered. The cutting edge sensors are easy to install, giving you the power to stop damage before it’s too late.

Visit EOLOGIX-PING.com and take control of your turbine’s health today. LM Windpower has announced an extension of its partnership with Evolv. Company’s Intercon leading wind turbine provider, obviously. Through a new contract that’ll supply LM 78.3 meter blades for intercom’s, E one 60, EP five, E two wind turbines.

This, these blades are gonna be manufactured over in Turkey at the end of this year and it. It seems like LM is moving away from manufacturing GE equipment to picking up some work for other manufacturers. I, we’ve been noticing this trend for several months now. It does seem like this alliance falls into that bucket of maybe LM is moving on a little bit, but Turkey, the thing about this is LM getting work in Turkey because it did seem like a lot of.

Companies were starting to pull out a Turkey. Intercon is starting to fill the void. Isn’t that what it looks like, Phil?

Phil Totaro: Yes. Although this is slightly confusing. ’cause if you remember last year they were talking about laying everybody off in Turkey at LM and shutting the whole factory because I thought Intercon was working with TPI, who also has a facility there on the manufacturing of blades.

So did something happen? And if so, what? I don’t think we know. But also this, this deal, while it’s obviously not necessarily bad news for lm, keep in mind there’s only five or so gigawatts of order book for these intercon turbines. That’s specific model of turbine. So it’s not like this is game changing for lm and it’s not oh, this is gonna save the company, it’ll keep a factory in Turkey operational for.

18 months while they produce these things. And then after that, I don’t know what happens. ’cause intercom’s not been like the strongest in terms of their global sales lately. So we’ll see.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. So Rosemary, you worked at lm as part of some special projects. Of course you had one that was your general remit, but when things came through the door from other manufacturers of turbines, intercon being one of ’em, Intercon builds the turbine itself. They don’t build their own blades. How was that handled within lm? Do you, did you have any experience with that?

Rosemary Barnes: So when I started at lm, there was nothing but other companies blades, right? LM Wind Power didn’t make turbines and so the blades they made were exclusively for other manufacturers to put another manufacturers turbines.

And then a couple of years. Into my time at lm, I think must have been about 2018 or something. They got bought by ge who had been one of their main customers, one of the biggest customers. And wanted to, reduce some of the supply chain uncertainty by bringing that in-house.

And at the time there was lots and lots of reassurances of, we wouldn’t have paid so much for the company if we didn’t want you to still be making blades for other customers, and nothing’s gonna change there. There was a lot of effort put into they call them Chinese walls, right? Where like just because you’re working on one manufacturer’s technology, you just can’t go and work on their competitors and tell them all the, all their secrets and stuff like that.

I’d say that they did that as well as they probably could have not perfect. I’m sure. But yeah, as time’s gone on, I think that a lot of the other manufacturers got a little bit didn’t feel super duper comfortable even, with those things in place. There is of course still the worry that you’re just telling your competitor all of yeah, everything they need to know to just copy what you’re doing.

I think people have got less keen on it. Yeah, in a sense, like when I left LM it was only a couple of years into the merge and it really, things didn’t feel that different in terms of working for other manufacturers, but I’m sure that five years later it does. And so this is maybe more of a.

More of a big deal now, but yeah, to me it’s just the way that every project was. It didn’t make any difference if a blade was to be made for GE versus any of the other manufacturers.

Joel Saxum: I know Allen, with some of our work we’ve done with lightning protection in India, we’ve seen Intercon turbines with.

LM Blades, and I think we’ve seen Envision turbines with LM blades in India as well, haven’t we?

Allen Hall: Yes, we have.

Joel Saxum: Definitely.

Rosemary Barnes: I think LM made blades for maybe literally every single manufacturer. There were a few that they didn’t make many for. I know Vestas was one that they were continuously chasing and had never.

At the time I was working there, they had never really done a lot for vest and were always wanting to, but for the most part, I’m pretty sure that they had at least dabbled with every single OEM and I myself had some meetings at Anacon for yeah, for a deicing a blade that had deicing systems and it was very it was culturally very different to other manufacturers that I had worked with.

I worked a lot with ge and. A bit with Siemens Gomesa and just, I just did some introductory meetings at Anacon and it was exactly like you would expect the German engineering stereotype to, exactly like that would tell you. They really wanted things optimized. I’m much more of a, you make things.

As good as they need to be and not better because when you make them better, you make them more expensive, you make them take longer, you can often add extra points of failure that you know didn’t need to be there if the feature is a bit unnecessary. Yeah. But when you talk to. Maintenance personnel service teams, they love servicing anacon turbines.

I’ve heard it described over and over again as the Mercedes of wind turbines. They say, I’ve never climbed one, but they say that when you get up there, it is like the interior of a, I dunno, luxury yacht or something.

Allen Hall: As wind energy professionals staying informed is crucial and let’s face it difficult.

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Joel Saxum: Isn’t it true with Intercon as well that they’d like, they won’t sell a turbine unless they get the maintenance contract

Phil Totaro: in Germany? Yes. I think they’ve had to relent in other countries because again, financiers may not allow that. To, like it’s just, oh, this is way too expensive.

’cause like a lot of OEMs, no matter how much an intercon turbine costs, when they’re also selling the maintenance package, they’re trying to make whatever they feel like they lost on the upfront CapEx and turbine costs up with the long-term service contract. They.

It just depends on which market. Definitely in Germany, they, I don’t think they’ll sell a turbine unless it’s their maintenance because they are so well-oiled. And you could probably argue almost all of Western Europe they’re so well-oiled in terms of, I, I heard a story once when I was at Clipper, this would’ve been around 2009, where there was a.

Intercon turbine in Germany that had a nelle fire and they literally had a brand new Nelle in 24 hours. They had swapped it, they had been able to swap out a newness cell and had the turbine back up and running within 24 hours of that fire, which is just astonishing. You’re paying for it like Rosie’s talking about, you’re paying for it.

Rosemary Barnes: That’s the kind of benefit that you would expect to see when you have OEM service agreement, right? That they have the ability to keep an inventory of spare parts and, nearby and they can just swap stuff out and everything’s very fast, but. We don’t see in Australia where those kind of agreements are very common.

We don’t see, we don’t see that kind of preferential treatment, that’s for sure. And then the second thing is that it may be technically the OEMs aren’t requiring that if you buy their turbines, you have to buy their service agreements. I. It’s almost like a, I don’t know, like a strong man kind of sales tactics.

Like sure you can, self self support this, self service this, but good luck getting any spare parts for it. Good luck getting any help. If you’ve got a, a warranty claim and they like pressure so much that you have no choice, which to me, like I would rather. That they were just honest, that they’re like, we can’t make a profit on the turbine without the service.

So you have to buy the service like that. I would rather know and have it, be honest about it than pretend like you’ve got a choice, but you’re just gonna be, like bullied and yeah, this thuggery to, to force you into using, or they’ll go outta their way to make your life hard.

Phil Totaro: And this, frankly, this is also what’s been talked about lately is that with people not being able to get access to spares for some, older.

Turbines and older models of blade. There are companies out there that are having the conversation. Do we just reverse engineer, one of these, one of these blades? Do we just buy one and scan it and figure out the arrow profiles and then. We already know how to manufacture a blade of that style anyway, so we’re just gonna do our own version.

And there are OEMs that are discussing that literally right now because they wanna be able to sell spare parts. Basically, and that’s probably extends beyond blades, but they wanna be able to sell spare parts to a market that is thirsty for spare parts. And it’s certainly happening, it’s conversations that are happening in the us but I could imagine it’s something that they would talk about in Australia too, because access to spares down there is also, quite finite and or time consuming to get your hands on.

Rosemary Barnes: One of the things, even, yeah back in my early LM days, that was one of the things that I learned early on. ’cause I was shocked at the secrecy and everyone rolled their eyes and said, it’s so dumb anyway, because the big customers, like if they buy hundreds of turbines worth of blades, then they buy an extra, one extra blade and slice it up into, I don’t know a hundred millimeter slices and then they can easily reverse engineer.

Maybe they don’t know. Exact materials, although I’m sure that it wouldn’t be too hard to do that either. Like you’re not gonna get a hundred percent of the way there. But I do think you could get like 95% of the way there and, do your own engineering on top to, do the analysis to, to make sure it’s okay.

So that, that’s why I think that the excessive secret is. Secrecy is silly because you send the you sell the product, you’re not in control of it anymore. Once it’s, left you, then why is it impossible to get from the OEM? Just like a simple line drawing that tells you where within the blade the lightning cable goes for instance, there’s just no reason for them to be um, like just to have their white knuckled grip on the, those drawings that they can’t even share.

Basic information like that, that you need to use their product properly when all you need to do is just yeah, you don’t even need to buy a spam, just wait till you’ve you’ve got a failure and okay, we’re not scrapping this blade, we’re slicing it. And then you’ll get all the information you need.

And, but with a harm drip relationship between customer and supplier, it doesn’t I don’t feel the need to make such an adversarial relationship over that.

Joel Saxum: The Wind Farm of the week this week is inspired by our A-C-P-O-M-S trip last week to Nashville. And it is one of the only wind farms within the state of Tennessee.

It’s called the Buffalo Mountain Wind Farm. It’s an old one. It’s been around for a long time. Started in October of 2000, so it’s in Anderson County, Tennessee, and it was the home of the first commercial wind generation facility in the southeastern United States. It’s owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority TVA, which is also the nation’s largest public power company, which I did not know.

They started by building three turbines up on top of a, former strip coal mine. So these were 660 kilowatt turbines. And they powered about a four, 400 homes. But then they expanded the wind farm in 2004 after it was successful to have 15 turbines. As of April, 2003, they’ve had 15 turbines and they’re producing about 9,500 megawatt hours of electricity per year.

The cool thing about this, like I was saying though, is this, is, this wind farm is located at the top. Of an abandoned or backfilled reclaimed coal mine. So the Coal Creek Mining Company was a part of this thing and it was a part of TVA’s Green Switch program. So this is using a, an formerly operated strip mine in Tennessee to produce renewable green energy with a 29 megawatt wind farm.

And energy works with TVA to run it. So the Buffalo Mountain Wind Farm. In Tennessee, you are the Wind Farm of the week.

Allen Hall: That’s gonna do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy podcast. Thanks for listening. Please give us a five star rating on your podcast platform and subscribe in the show notes below to Uptime, tech News or weekly substack newsletter and subscribe to engineering with Rosie because she’s going to hit 100,000 subscribers sometime over the next week or two.

We’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

https://weatherguardwind.com/energex-lm-windpower-enercon/

Renewable Energy

3S Lift Adds a Rescue Stretcher to Climb Auto System

Published

5 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

3S Lift Adds a Rescue Stretcher to Climb Auto System

Giovan Scialdone, president of 3S Lift Americas, joins to discuss 30,000 Climb Auto System installs and a new lift-mounted rescue stretcher.

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: Gio, welcome back to the program.

Gio Scialdone: Hey, thanks, Allen.

Allen Hall: So a lot’s happened over the past year since we last spoke with you at 3S Lift. Yeah. And there’s all kinds of new technology and improvements and the- The expansion of the Climb Auto system in the United States is remarkable. Yeah. How many systems do you have installed in North America?

Gio Scialdone: Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, it’s, it’s… The, the pride that we take in, in those numbers are, are serious. We, we feel, uh, a great responsibility to help technicians, to help our customers operate more, uh, more efficiently. We have 30,000 installed.

Allen Hall: Wow.

Gio Scialdone: So yeah, last year was a busy year. We installed close to 8,000, uh, in North America, so a bit in Canada as well.

Um, [00:01:00] yeah, it’s… And, you know, before we get into some more numbers too, a funny story for you, a Massachusetts native- Right … or lived in Massachusetts- Long time … for a period of time. Uh, Hoosac Wind Farm, you know the Hoosac Wind Farm. Oh, yeah, yeah,

Allen Hall: I can see it out my front door.

Gio Scialdone: This is what’s great about this industry and being at this conference.

Um, I ran into… At, at one point in time working for GE a long time ago, I was a site construction manager for Hoosac. I ran into my EHS safety manager, who I haven’t seen in 14 years-

Allen Hall: Wow …

Gio Scialdone: uh, who now works for another prominent, uh, company, uh, in the industry, and, uh, she remembered the name of my dog that- Really?

I used to take to the site as a- Oh,

Allen Hall: wow.

Gio Scialdone: So, uh, you know, it’s good to be here, see you, and see, see, you know, lots of former colleagues, so,

Allen Hall: you know. Well, it’s a small world in wind.

Gio Scialdone: It’s a very small world. And, you know, we’re, we’re a company that, um, you know, again, we, we, we have a unique product, and there, there are some other companies that are, um, also coming out with a product quite similar, and we, [00:02:00] we appreciate that competition.

Sure. In fact, I think, you know, we spend a lot of our time trying to, uh, sell our customers on the value that the ClimbAuto system is a need and not a nice to have, and I think having some competition with a similar ladder access product further, uh, maybe pushes that point to, to, to be true. So, um, you know, it’s good to be here and see some expansion in, in our little, uh, you know, ladder lift space.

Allen Hall: Well, I think it shows the work that 3S has done to demonstrate the value of that system. I remember several years ago, I think when I first talked to you, there wasn’t a lot of adoption, and you were… And the operators were thinking, “Do I really need this?” But the reality was that the technicians loved it.

They improved performance. They had technicians using those towers and wanted to work on those specific towers. Yeah. And, and then, uh, just kind of the flood happened. It, it was everybody was testing the [00:03:00] waters. You were basically installing test systems- Yeah … or sort of sample system to try it. Yeah.

Everybody loved it, and then boom, you’re up to 30,000 units.

Gio Scialdone: I, I think, I think a part of that too to add on is you, you have to have a quality product.

Allen Hall: Oh, sure. It has to work. For, for… It has to work. Right.

Gio Scialdone: That’s the most important thing. Yeah. Um- The th- the, the, the value and the function in theory makes sense to lots of people, but does it work and is it reliable?

And I think having been here nine years and, and, you know, the first three years we only had 500 units installed. Yeah. So it’s really the last three or four years that have expanded our, our installation base. And I think a lot of that is, you know, thank, you know, we’ve got a great team behind it. You know, we’ve got 70 technicians, and we’ve got a sales team, and an engineering team, and, um, you know, a project management team.

So we, we’ve, we’ve staffed up as, as you need to. But the product we’ve, we, we really believe has, um, you know, been our best [00:04:00] salesperson. You know, it takes some service. That’s one thing I wanted to, to let you know, too. You know, in the early days, we- a lot of our customers were servicing our lifts. Sure.

Right, yeah. And we still, um, uh, promote that if they would like to. Uh, annual inspection, you know, 30 minutes a year, um, that kind of pre-use inspection of one or two minutes before you ride it is- Sure … is, is, uh- Yeah, yeah … required. But now we’ve got a team of 20 to 25 technicians who their only job is to go around and, and service these lifts.

So- Wow … we’re proud now that, you know, the oldest lifts are nine years. Oh, wow. And they’re still working very, very well as designed. You know, no, no major correctives, no motor replacements. So, you know, stand behind the product and, and, you know, service it, and servicing our customers is really what we’re, we’re proud to, to, to show.

Allen Hall: Well, that was always the hard part early on. Um, my recollection was I could install this system, and yes, I could help my technicians, but am I fixing it, replacing it? The, the, the quality was the question mark at the moment.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah.

Allen Hall: [00:05:00] But you’ve really hammered that, and I think 3S has done a good job of mainta- maintenance and inspections and just delivering a quality product.

That’s why I think you’ve seen the growth as rapidly as you have, and the price point’s right, too.

Gio Scialdone: The price point has to be right. I think, you know, um, we’ve– we, we are offering some additional, let’s call them, like, support services. So we’ve got an online store where you can come and buy spare parts. You can buy every spare part that you need on our online store.

Allen Hall: Nice.

Gio Scialdone: You know, accessories are required, fall arresters and battery kits and things like that, that even if you’re an ISP or, or a third party, uh, not the owner per se, you, you need that, that, that equipment. In addition to the online store, we- we, last year we launched, uh, an online training academy. So what’s…

You know, it’s a very simple system to use. We’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. Used it.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Gio Scialdone: Um, but we need to make sure as an industry and as a company that we take responsibility to make sure as, as best we can that every [00:06:00]person that uses this uses it appropriately and has the intelligence and the knowledge and skills to, um, troubleshoot basic things or perform safety evacuation features.

So we’ve got an online training, um, uh, academy that we launched last year, and that’s been going well too. So more information we feel is better, uh, for our customers, for our technicians. Sure. You know. Um, so that’s been fantastic to see a lot more activity and customer… Again, a really small, you know, $200 per, per training course, and the certificate’s good for two years.

You know, um, a robust course for an hour or two. It’s worth it.

Allen Hall: Well, it’s a reasonable price for an excellent product. Yeah. And that’s been the key for a long time. Yeah. Opening up the ability to get spare parts online, that’s huge. I know when you talk to operators, what’s the pain point? I have to call somebody- Yeah

somewhere far away to try to get a part. Sure. It’s gonna take six months to get it.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah.

Allen Hall: Getting it online is the way- Yeah … that they wanna do it. [00:07:00] So it’s a lot of smart moves to be the support part of, of that system.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah. We’ve come… I’m, I’m smiling because in Chicago, uh, maybe seven years ago, our, our first spill- spare parts process was-

uh, my office had a closet that I housed all the spare parts.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Gio Scialdone: You know? And, and when I needed to ship out something, I put it in a box and gave it to the, to, like, the building secretary, you know? That’s how it worked. And now we’re, we’re a little more sophisticated than that. We’ve- Y- you got a

Allen Hall: massive organization

Gio Scialdone: behind it We’ve got a 40,000 square foot warehouse that we’re, we’re really proud of, and a great team behind it to perform the logistics and track everything and…

You know. So yeah, we’ve, we’ve come a long way, and our customers are helping us try to get better as well, you know. There’s still, there’s still a long way to go. Our objective as a company is to eliminate climbing, Alan. And it- And, and, and you know, I think there’s not much pushback, frankly.

Allen Hall: Not today.

Right? Three years ago, a lot of pushback.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah. Yeah. I think, um… And what I mean, too, is, like, I think- From a, uh, a [00:08:00] value perspective, there’s no pushback. There’s still a budget perspective. Sure. And I think the challenges we’re finding still are if you’re at a wind farm and you have blade issues or, or, or drive train issues, uh, you might need to spend your dollars there before you spend them on a lift, and we, we, we understand and respect that.

And so we’re working together with customers to try to come up with creative commercial solutions, be it, uh, you know, deferred payment models or multi-year, look at that as a, a capital cost plus some operational cost. Smart. Defer some of that capital, um, to, to sort of reduce that first year burden, right?

Allen Hall: Yeah. So- That’s the

Gio Scialdone: scary

Allen Hall: part, right? They, they… The lump sum- It’s a big budget item. Yeah … is always an item, and they, especially in today’s world where we got gearbox and blade issues, they don’t want to spend on something that’s not directly there because it’s the, that’s what- Yeah … produces power.

Gio Scialdone: Right.

Allen Hall: But technicians working on the turbines also produce power. That’s a great point.

Gio Scialdone: And

Allen Hall: you, and you need them, they go up and down- Yeah. That’s a good point … and sometimes you need them to go up and down a lot. Yeah. And if you don’t [00:09:00] wanna wear out those technicians, the, the lift is the way, the climb model system is the way to go.

Right. It just makes… In today’s world, not having it, you’re the odd one out because most sites have some, if not all the turbines with the climb model system.

Gio Scialdone: There’s a, a… It reminded me of a, I talked to a customer today who said, you know, lots of these sites are clustered with phases. Uh, this particular customer retrofitted, uh, one of the two phases at their site.

They’re split, let’s call it 50 turbines each or so, um, maybe two years ago, and then their struggle is they haven’t yet got the budget to do the second phase. Now, it’s the same group of

Allen Hall: technicians-

Gio Scialdone: Yeah … that work on both phases. So she, she explained to me that every morning when they go in and they kinda see which, which turbine they’re going to, there’s a, there’s a few of them going, “Yeah.”

And there’s a couple other ones that are like, “Ah,” you know? Yeah. So there’s a real like… And I th- and I believe, you know, while that’s kind of a, an anecdotal kind of funny story, there’s, there’s, there’s real objective measures that you [00:10:00] can look at to say that it is, it is- correlated, hard to prove causation, but likely that those technicians who are climbing are gonna be less efficient at the same task than those who are not climbing, right?

Yeah. And, and the customer knows that. And so, um, you know, we’ve gotten to that point as an industry that we’re, again, we’re not arguing the, the value too much anymore. That’s good. It’s more about finding the solution for the right, at the right time. Pre-repower, do we do it pro- post-repower? You know, those questions are being asked.

Um, you know, it makes more sense potentially, if you will repower in a year, to put that in that budget. Um, so we’re seeing lots of that activity, especially as the lead up to this July 4th, uh, sa- uh, start a construction repower- Right … cliff.

Allen Hall: Yeah. Are, are you getting a lot of inquiries about that? Like, we wanna book a contract, try to get before that July date?

Gio Scialdone: Yeah, look, one of the interesting things is, you know, to qualify for the PTC by [00:11:00] July 4th, you need to start construction.

Allen Hall: That’s right.

Gio Scialdone: Um, or, and you can do that in a couple different ways, right? Right. And we are having customers who are using our lifts as a start of physical work on site.

Allen Hall: Oh,

Gio Scialdone: that’s so smart.

So they’re installing lifts- To start that process and show a continuous effort on site. It’s on-site work. Yes, it is. Uh, we have, you know, pri- uh, PWA, prevailing wage apprentice- Right … qualified- Sure … technicians in our program, if that’s something that’s required- Yeah … which a lot of times it is- It is

nowadays on these, a lot of these sites. So, um, yeah, we’re offering both of those things to customers. It is an interpretation. There are some customers who aren’t, um, but, but there are, there are those that, that do see the lift as a great tool for them to start that, that clock.

Allen Hall: Right. So- Because the parts are there, you’re ready to go.

You can get them- Yeah … installed and- Yeah … unlike other components of a wind turbine- That might

Gio Scialdone: have longer lead time …

Allen Hall: that will have longer lead times. Right. If you’re doing main bearings or something of that sort- Right … it’s gonna be several months before you get those assets on site and can [00:12:00] start working them.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah. And you’ve got three months until July 4th,

Allen Hall: right? Right. You gotta go.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah, you gotta go.

Allen Hall: Right. And that- You gotta go … I think that’s, that’s the key to all this. Yeah. Boy, that, that’s genius. I’m, I’m glad that people- … are thinking outside the box.

Gio Scialdone: We are too. Our customers are creative.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Gio Scialdone: And that’s good.

We’re happy to support that, at times.

Allen Hall: So there’s, there’s some new technology at 3S in- involving evacuation and- Yeah … you know, the, one of the most, uh, critical pieces of being a technician is working safe, but occasionally things happen. Mm-hmm. And there’s a lot of ways to get technicians from the nacelle downtower.

Some of them involve tossing them over side and roping them down, which can be kind of extreme, honestly. Mm-hmm. And a, a lot of technicians do get hurt in not necessarily life-threatening ways- Right … but in ways where it makes it really hard to kind of get them up and down- Safely, yeah … the, the tower safely, right.

So 3S has been thinking about this for a while, and now you have a, a new product.

Gio Scialdone: We do. We have a rescue stretcher, uh, which has been in development for about a year or [00:13:00] so. We’ve tested it in the field. Um, yeah, the, the climb onto system with all its functions, uh, has not been a rescue system. Right. Right?

Um, so what, what we’ve been doing is if, if there is an incident in the tower, you’re utilizing a, a, a, one of the many rescue devices that are in the industry. Sure. Now, w- with the stretcher, uh, this is a, a device that attaches to the ClimbAuto System and uses the ClimbAuto System to safely bring the person down.

Um, it can be installed by, with one, uh, rescuer. So one person can fix this to the rail. It has pulley, uh, systems to bring the person up onto and attached to the ClimbAuto System, and then send down. Now, so then you’re, you’re, you’re immobilized, right? So we secure your head, your feet, your body. Um, and to your point earlier, yes, it’s in, in the event that an injury occurs [00:14:00] and you have, let’s call it some time, 10 to 15 minutes of setup time, ’cause that’s what it will take- Sure

then this is a great product. And the idea would be, you know, one per truck, similar to a rescue device. Um, you know, and then, you know, you can, can get it up and down the tower pretty easily. It’s, it’s light. It, the package is like a, it’s like a tent bag. It folds up into, like, a bag of a tent, if you picture that.

Um, it maybe weighs, like, 15 pounds. It’s quite light. Oh, that’s good. Yep, yep. You know, ’cause there’s no long rope, right? So there’s no, like, hundred-meter rope that you need, which is the, the heavy stuff. Right. Um, and, you know, so you’re using the lift. So the, the weight of the, the system, the stretcher itself, is quite light.

So we’re excited. We’ve got a few customers that have demoed it. And, uh, yeah, we’re, we’re, we’re looking to continue to improve the, the, the, the features that we offer. Well,

Allen Hall: yeah. If, if there’s 30,000 ClimbAuto Systems out there- Mm … there should be these rescue kits along in the trucks- Yeah … because you just don’t know.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah.

Allen Hall: Right? And guys get hurt.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah.

Allen Hall: They [00:15:00] dislocate their shoulders. They’re dislocating their knees. Yeah. It, it’s a hard task. It is. Uh, you used to climb and do that job. It is. You know that- It is … there’s, there’s things that happen uptower that it makes it hard to get down.

Gio Scialdone: You know, I remember doing some training w- where a lot, I mean, we all have, at some point, maybe done some rescue training and, you know, if you’re in a traditional uh, auto descent or sort of rescue device, you may be banging against the tower wall or the ladder- Yep

potentially causing further injury. The benefit of this system is, is that, you know, you’re stable on the lift as you go down. Um, so yeah, it’s a little, um… We, we feel is gonna be helpful f- for the sites that have, for sure, climb auto systems, and again- … it’ll take some training.

Allen Hall: Sure.

Gio Scialdone: Right? Sure. It’ll take some training to, to…

Just like any, any rescue device will take. Um, but we, we see some value in the future that, again, it’s adding… It’s another tool, uh, for customers- Yeah … to consider to keep their people safer.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Gio Scialdone: You know? So.

Allen Hall: I, I, I- Yeah. I see a lot more operators now being very proactive about safety.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And if I can have a simple tool- Yeah

that [00:16:00] makes life easier just in case, ’cause things happen, and you wanna be ready for it, something in, in the back of the truck makes infinite sense and is a, a smart way to handle it. Because the thing about tower heights today, we’re above 100 meters on a lot of towers.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And that’s a long way to get lifted down.

Speaker: That’s

Gio Scialdone: true. Yeah. That’s a, it’s a… And, and, you know, and if you’re in a condition, a wind condition where it-

Allen Hall: Which is where these

Gio Scialdone: turbines

Allen Hall: are,

Gio Scialdone: yeah … towers sway, yeah. Then, then it’s- It’s- … even harder and need multiple people. You know, so again, in these remote areas where more and more turbines are being located as new construction, m- way more remote, uh, y- your, your, the next team of two technicians may be a, an hour away.

Probably, yes. Right? Worst case, it could be an hour away. Yeah. Oh,

Allen Hall: yeah.

Gio Scialdone: And so as a team of two, you know, to be able to rescue you and safely bring you down, it could be critical. It could be critical. It

Allen Hall: will be.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah. Yeah, because there’s not gonna be a third or fourth person to come assist us

Allen Hall: for an hour,

Gio Scialdone: you know?

So yeah, it’s an exciting… You know, [00:17:00] we, we’re, we’re trying to do, you know, uh, add-ons to the product to, uh, you know… We, we’ve modified some things over the years. We’ve got a new battery kit style, uh, to improve functionality. Clip-on battery as opposed to a plug-in. Um, you know, we’ve added a lot of different safety features over the years, like, um, uh, simultaneous handle switches.

Right, yeah. So, you know, we’re, we’re trying to avoid, uh, a misuse of, of, uh, one hand at a time or no hands. Um, so there’s, there’s lots of features that we have, uh, added and also are able to, when we go service these t- towers- Bring the add-on at no cost if we’re performing the service for the customer. So we’re gonna upgrade your software, so to speak- Sure

to the newest and latest, greatest software, um, so that, you know, you can be safer than, than you were maybe a few years ago.

Allen Hall: Oh, yeah. But that’s why you buy a 3S Climboto system. Ouch. Is because you know that those upgrades are coming. Yeah. And they’re- Yeah. You guys are not sitting still. You don’t have- No

you hadn’t device- No … [00:18:00] created a device 10 years ago and haven’t changed it. Yeah. It’s evolved every single year- It has … that I’ve talked to you. Yeah. And every single year it’s safer, more reliable- Yeah … does more features, and the technicians love it.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah.

Allen Hall: Absolutely love it.

Gio Scialdone: I credit our, you know, our company is, is…

This is our, this is our, uh, our passion, right? So, like, we’ve, we’ve been in this business for, for 20-plus years. In the US, we’ve been in it for nine and, you know, we’re not, we’re, we’re not going anywhere. No. You know, notwithstanding, um, uh, any, any, any political issues, we’re gonna ride through, so, so is everybody here, you know?

Sure. Yeah. We’re, we’re, we’re in this and, you know, our mindset is, again, to eliminate climbing and, and do the best we can to keep people safer and have turbines run more efficiently.

Allen Hall: So if you’re an operator or a wind farm asset manager or site supervisor- Yeah … at a, at a wind farm and you don’t have the Climboto system yet Who do you call?

Where do you go to get started?

Gio Scialdone: Yeah, you can, you can definitely get us on the [00:19:00]website. You know, there’s a Get Info button that still goes directly to me if you’re gonna say, “Hey, can I get a quote on this?” So, you know, we’ve got five salespeople. Uh, you can certainly ask your management team because there’s a l- strong likelihood that we’ve been in touch with them.

We, we visit sites. You know, we visited 200 sites last year. So our… We’re out. We, we… You know, if, uh, if we haven’t visited you, let us know. But, um, you know, yeah, you can definitely reach us on, on the web or, uh, you know, we’ve got a phone number as well on there, so.

Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s easy to reach out. Yeah. Just look up 3S Lift.

Climb Model System’s another quick way, and if you Google that you’ll get to the 3S Lift website, and you can find all the cool features, and, and the new devices, and you can find your parts and everything you want right there. It’s, it’s amazing the growth and, and the, and the, uh, adoption of that system.

It’s, it’s great to hear. It’s one of those things that when it’s a real success story. Yeah. And I, I know you’re, you’re really close to it of course.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah, I know.

Allen Hall: Yeah. But from the outside looking in, it’s [00:20:00] amazing.

Gio Scialdone: We’re proud of

Allen Hall: the team. 500 turbines to 3,000, that’s a lot.

Gio Scialdone: It is. We’re proud of the team. I’m, I’m grateful to the customer base that, that have seen this, this value, you know, and recognize it.

Um, and you know, not only for the soft sell, that it helps people and the morale, and, you know, there is a, a, a, a harder to measure injury improvement factor.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Gio Scialdone: Um, but, but there’s absolutely some objective measures. We have sites that before the lifts were installed were at 95% availability, and now they’re at 96.2.

Now, correlation and causation aren’t the same thing, but we, we believe, and we means the industry I think at this point, especially to see competitors come in, I think that further, uh, drives home the idea that this is the right thing to do, to stop climbing and, and help your t- technicians be more efficient, effective.

So yeah, we’re, we’re proud of it and, um, you know, we’re looking forward to being here for another nine years.

Allen Hall: Absolutely. Yeah. Gio, so good to see you. Congratulations on everything. Thanks, Allen. And yeah, [00:21:00] good luck this year. I know you’re gonna have a l- a lot more growth, so- Thanks … congratulations.

Gio Scialdone: Appreciate the time.

3S Lift Adds a Rescue Stretcher to Climb Auto System

Renewable Energy

Dear MAGA

Published

7 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Alice Rush

To be fair, the greedy pigs and the hateful morons in the United States didn’t vote specifically for corruption, or higher gas prices due to an illegal and pointless war.

All the greedy pigs wanted was tax breaks and legislation that would help their business interests thrive at the expense of the wellbeing of every else on the planet.

All the hateful morons wanted was punishment for everyone but white Christian straight males.

No one wanted incompetent fools running our nation. But that’s exactly what they got.

Dear MAGA

Renewable Energy

Investors Wanted for Personal Aircraft

Published

21 hours ago

June 17, 2026

Alice Rush

Doroni Aerospace says:

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