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Eversource Quits Offshore Wind, Delays at Dogger Bank, Wind Innovators Honored

This week’s episode covers Eversource exiting offshore wind, delays at Dogger Bank wind farm, honorees of the Queen Elizabeth engineering prize, and the return of Wind Farm of the Week featuring Kay Wind farm. Allen and Joel also look forward to attending ACP OMS in San Diego!

Allen Hall: Joel, I think being in the podcast business is a lot easier than being in the AM radio business, clearly because down in Jasper, Alabama the station was alarmed by some guys taking care of the grounds. They had come out to, to mow and weed whack and whatever they’re going to do. And. At the tower site.

And when they got there, there was no tower. The tower was gone. I was left with a bunch of cables on the ground. And so the tower evidently was stolen. And the station manager at down there in Alabama doesn’t have any leads. They can’t figure out where this, all the equipment went to. And it wasn’t like it was a little tiny.

20 foot tower. It’s like a 200 foot tower. So talking about taking down a really big structure and somehow dragging it off into the woods and never to be found again. So there’s a, that’s a big problem. If the people are starting to steal your radio tower, you got

Joel Saxum: issues.

I just can’t see what anybody would do with it.

You’re not going to cut it up and sell it for scrap. Like every If this is national news now, every scrapyard is going to know. First off, look, so what are you going to do with it is one, if, and if you reinstall it eh, we’re going to install it so we can get TV from fricking Germany.

I don’t know. But if you’re going to reinstall it, someone’s going to see it. They’re going to be like, there’s the 200 foot tower. So I don’t know, unless it’s just a really extravagant prank that someone’s pulling, I’m not sure what you’re going to do with this tower. But kudos to the people that pulled it down.

I don’t know how you did that overnight.

Allen Hall: They don’t have any insurance coverage, because who would steal a tower, right? So now the station’s in trouble because the FCC which license all the radio stations in the United States has pulled their license. So they had an FM station and an AM station, the AM station got stolen.

The FM station evidently is still operational, but the FCC told them to turn it off. So now they’re stuck. They gotta go buy a new tower. Those things are not cheap, by the way, so that’s a big problem. And it just reminds me when you and I were been down in Oklahoma and Texas. That a lot of wind turbines now, thank goodness, are well locked up because there’s a lot of vandals out there and some of these wind turbines are located in remote places that we make sure that all those things are closed and secure like we hope that they are because there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on right now.

Joel Saxum: So one last question, Allen, at what point in time do we just get rid of AM radio?

Allen Hall: As soon as podcasts take over the world, that’s when, or when you can listen to it on a podcast on AM radio, that’s when you can do it.

Joel Saxum: That’s our next frontier, back to AM.

Allen Hall: Back to AM, amen.

Well, Joel, Eversource is pulling out of the offshore wind business here in the United States. Now, Eversource is a large electricity provider on the East Coast. They operate New England’s largest energy system with about 4. 4 million electric natural gas and wind Water customers in sort of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and up in New Hampshire, so they cover Hartford, Connecticut and Boston, Massachusetts, two big metro areas because they published their financials for 2023 and they had booked a 1.

9 billion dollar impairment. For its offshore wind investments for last year, and evidently, as part of that, they decided to sell their 50 percent stake in South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind projects to global infrastructure partners. Now, in return for selling those, you’re going to receive about 1. 1 billion in cash.

But that’s not going to close until like middle of this year. And it sounds like there’s a little bit of contingencies in place, just in case some costs overruns happened that how they’re going to split those up. But essentially Eversource is getting out of the offshore wind business. This is a big deal because now global infrastructure partners, which just got acquired by BlackRock, right?

That there’s a lot of financial transactions happening at the moment.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. The interesting thing here, and you and I talked about it off air, if you’re in the wind industry or in the, these, some of these players, Orsted, Iberdrola, NextEra, some of these larger ones, but when people said Eversource originally, like Eversource is going to do offshore wind.

Who the hell is Eversource? If you don’t live in the northeast part of the United States, you don’t know who they are. If you live up there, like you do, you understand they’re a big utility, they do a lot of things they are part of the infrastructure up there that supports that whole New England coast.

But interestingly enough, like Eversource has, they never had any business being an offshore wind. They don’t know anything about it. They’ve never done anything with it. And so my thought, and again, we talked about this off where my opinion was, cool for them to be involved in it. I think the state legislatures, of course, want their local people to be involved and be a stakeholder with what’s going on in that offshore wind play.

But they, in my opinion, they shouldn’t have put that much money into it. They shouldn’t have been a 50 percent holder with Orsted. They got a good partner, Orsted, of course, great partner. They know offshore wind. They’re the originators. They’ve been doing it for a long time. So they did good there, but it’s too risky.

It’s too much out there, in my opinion. Again, take it for whatever you want, but the change over here going to global infrastructure partners. Now, global infrastructure partners, like you said part of BlackRock. Now, BlackRock through, I think there was a large value there, 12 Billion or something of that sort.

Yeah, it was a big number. Yeah. Yeah. And so the Larry Fink, of course, the CEO of BlackRock is saying, hey, that infrastructure investments are the future of some of these large large investments. So people knowing that energy is going to be the people with the big, deep pockets, knowing that energy infrastructure and infrastructure in general is going to be something that we’re going to have to bet on in the future.

Now they’re taking this spot. So they’re sliding in on the opposite side of Orsted. Eversource is moving out. Look to see a lot more of these things start to happen with big money, deep pockets is the way I see it. And

Allen Hall: Eversource is also discussing the sale of its water distribution business as to make up some of the deficit here.

So this has been a painful exercise for Eversource. And as we have seen from other electricity utilities in the United States they’re trying to cover their losses, and it makes you wonder what’s going to happen going forward. Are you going to see utilities step into these offshore projects? Or are they going to leave them to the European companies that can manage them, or in this case, Canadian companies that may be able to manage them?

Joel Saxum: Yeah, I know we talk about this regularly too, right? It’s frustrating that there isn’t more American involvement in offshore wind. You see all these big offshore wind, every company besides basically Dominion is From overseas. They’re from Europe. They’re somewhere that’s not here, and I know that frustrates people.

It frustrates me, right? I want to see these things happen, but you also have to understand that from an offshore marine environment infrastructure, that’s not something that we normally do in the U. S. The existing offshore infrastructure in the U. S., which a lot of people don’t know that much about, is mostly all Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and gas.

So there’s platforms down there. There’s those things as well. Those are a completely different. How would you say it? They’re a completely different engineering task, right? Most of those are one offs. A lot of them are there’s some in shallow water with jacket foundations, but it’s like you’re building one.

You build that jacket. It’s massively custom. It’s all custom built. It’s floated out there suction piled in. Wells are drilled. Things work. And then there’s the deep water stuff, right? There’s things in the Gulf of Mexico that are out in three, four thousand feet of water pumping oil. So we have some of that infrastructure, but not like offshore wind.

It’s a completely different animal. So while it is frustrating to not see American companies involved we need that expertise from the people that have done it. I think I would like to see some people tagging along, but I’d like to see them at five and 10 percent and have a couple of people sitting within the company to learn and grow.

But taking a 50 percent stake that was a risky risky gig from the beginning.

Allen Hall: Yeah, I’m not sure, it’s all happened pre inflation, right? That’s what happened, and at the time, I’m sure all the economics made sense, but the economy has changed so much in the last couple of years, it’s hard to really blame them.

It was like a one in a hundred year event, really. It’s tough, and I think the utilities, they have to try to find a way to fight them or to bring themselves out of this hole. But I think I don’t think a lot of U. S. utilities are not going to get. Knee deep into these projects from here on out, and they’re going to be the 5 or 10 percent range just to cover their downside.

Makes sense.

Joel Saxum: Even, Global infrastructure partners, like I said, in this deal there is some caveats to make sure that, the economy doesn’t start doing crazy stuff again, or they have the ability to make a

Allen Hall: move.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has been holding some public meetings to discuss some offshore sites off the coast of essentially New Jersey.

And they ran into some opposition from fishermen and who are arguing against putting some wind turbines where the, some of their fishing grounds are, and it really has to do with the cables. I don’t think they’re too concerned about where the turbines are placed so much as like, where are the cables, because a lot of fishing.

involves trolling the bottom of the ocean to capture the sea life they’re trying to go get. Now, this has caused a lot of issues for BOEM because when they had sighted these projects, they didn’t think they’re going to receive a lot of feedback on the fishing. Locations that they, or they didn’t think the objections would be as vocal as they are, but as we have seen in the press more recently, there’s still a lot of effort to push back on, on the East Coast, at least on these fishing areas.

And I’ve seen some more recently on the West Coast, Oregon, California, same sort of thing. It does seem like the BOEM is slowing down on its project development and locating these sites. Based on feedback and maybe getting a little more input from local businesses like fishermen to make sure their site is in the right place.

Again, there’s going to be a big push to try to put some sites out in the water, Joel. Are these going to take longer? And if they do take longer to get cited out, is it going to be less price paid for them because of the potential downside?

Joel Saxum: I think if you roll it back to the beginning of an idea here, the idea is that we’re using the ocean for a new purpose.

Change is hard. Change is difficult. Change You have to involve a lot of people to make sure you do it right. So right now, we’re talking about stakeholder management. Basically, everybody wants to use these pieces of ocean for something, right? We want to use them for offshore wind. We want to use them for navigation.

We want to use them for fishing. So you have to figure out how to work together. And whenever you have a community, such as the fishermen have basically had the run of this area forever. They haven’t had to deal with anybody out there using it in a heavily commercial activity, right? So they’ve been able to do what they want, right?

And now you’re going to add in another stakeholder out there, where, it may impact the fisherman’s abilities, or so they’re putting forth. It will impact their ability to You know, make their catcher or do their things because there’s going to be exclusion zones. You can’t go dragging, you can’t go dragging net right next to a platform or something like that.

Like you get caught up. That wouldn’t be good. Other than that, you have to think about the subsea infrastructure, right? So sometimes. Depending on where you are in the world or what the regulations are, if you’re going to have an export cable coming from a wind farm to shore, sometimes it’s buried, sometimes it’s trenched in.

They have a trenching machine. They’re pretty cool. They look like tanks. They basically go on the bottom and they drive on tracks on the bottom of the ocean floor and they have water jets and they create a channel and bury the cable. But also with those, you have rock dumps that may go on top of them, mattresses, there’s all kinds of different things depending on the geotechnics of the subsea at that point.

But either way, that once was a nice, smooth, clean ocean floor with nothing on it that the bottom trawlers were able to just basically drag with nets. Now they can’t do that anymore. There’s gonna be definitely issues there with, involving more stakeholders. I can completely understand why they’re a bit up in arms.

It messes up their it’d be like if someone came to you, Allen and said, you can’t be, you can’t be a lightning engineer anymore. You have to figure out a way to be a, I don’t know, electrical engineer or a mechanical engineer or something. You know what I mean? You like, they’re taking away. Yeah.

Taking away your livelihood is what they’re doing. Understandably up in arms. I get it. But for the greater, I can say this easily sitting in my chair, right? I’m not, this doesn’t affect me as much, but for the greater good, there needs to be some give and take if we want to have offshore wind in this green energy transition.

Allen Hall: I don’t think the fishermen had a lot to worry about at the moment because it’s not going to. Be a lot of action in their area.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. Not the way it’s going right now. Yeah. There, there’s also takes where say in areas, I know that they’ve done some there’s a website that has some really cool subsea footage of block Island and the fishing and love wildlife around those platforms.

So if you had a fishing area and then all of a sudden there’s a bunch of structure in it, if you’re a fisherman, fish go to structure, bait, fish go to structure. So maybe the fishing grounds were here. And now all those fish migrate right into that wind farm to hide out a little bit, and then it makes your fishing not as good, too.

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Allen Hall: Over in the UK, the Dogger Bank Offshore Wind Farm project is behind schedule and by a lot. So there, there’s three phases to Dogger Bank. We’re talking about Dogger Bank A, really, which is the first phase here.

Developer SSE has warned that operations may not commence. Until 2025, and they were really scheduled to begin the end of this year and it’s all due to availability issues, supply chain delays weather, of course, and then access to ships, what it sounds like. So only 7 of the 95 Halley 8X 13 megawatt turbines have been installed.

Since the first turbine came online late last year the 3. 6 gigawatt docker bank project, when it’s all complete, will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm because it has three phases, each of 1. 2 gigawatts, and that, that’s a massive wind farm. Joel, it does seem like they’re really going to run into trouble here with ships just because if they get delayed, the ships have someplace else to be.

This project will drag on and I don’t know if there’s a really a way to deal with it at the moment besides hope for better weather.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, you want to hope for better weather and I guess it’s when you’re talking operations, whether it’s construction or I don’t know, you’re going to go to a site and paint someone’s house.

It doesn’t really matter. Usually the first section of that goes slower, right? You’re everybody’s, the crew’s kind of melding, meshing, getting together and you’re understanding logistics and things, how they work and hook up faster. So it’s completely understandable that you’d have a slow start to a project that happens a lot.

That’s always something. Project managers in construction are like, how can we alleviate this, these headaches at the beginning? However, only 7 of those 95 turbines installed since December start. It’s mid February now? It’s been, 10 12 weeks? That’s not good. That’s really slow. And it’s mostly chalked up to weather, right?

North Sea, wintertime, Dogger Bank, it’s not, that’s nasty. So you can understand that now, the problems that you’re running into right now, of course. Vessels are on contract, that’s how it works. You get a set amount of days, you pay for those days. You may have some squeeze room for overrun, but a lot of times, if you have a vessel from, Boscalis, Someone, if you have that vessel until June 1st, you might be able to get it until June 15th, but after June 15th, company XYZ is going to be screaming for it because they paid a contract for it to be over there.

There is a little bit of the term is coopetition, if you’ve ever heard of that. It’s when to partner with your competition of these conversations that are going to be happening in the background for sure at the vessel. The vessel companies are licking their chops.

Either way, they’re getting paid. They’re loving it. But we do know that there’s a lot of wind farms being installed all over the North Sea. We’ve got some coming here in the States. We got there’s all over the world. Taiwan screaming for ships are building some new ones in the APAC region right now.

The problem you have here with some of these, if you’re like, Hey, we’ll move another one in, we’ll move another one out, this, the fittings and the structures and how each vessel handles each type of, say, monopile or transition piece, or the rigging for the crane, or the measurement systems for the verticality of the monopile when it’s being driven, or the specific ROV intervention tools that need to be used subsea to hook things up.

Those are usually specific to one RFP, to one wind farm, to one construction site. The same thing in oil and gas. If you’re going to develop a subsea oil field, you spec out every single bit of what’s on each vessel. The tools, the instruments, the kit, the, all the, everything that interacts with anything that goes off subsea has to be custom built.

And so you can’t really just if you’re on a Seaway 7 vessel installing these things. You can’t really just switch over to a Deme vessel the next day when they move out. It doesn’t work like that. It’s not like switching out a Chevy truck and a Ford truck to go to a wind site on shore. It doesn’t, that’s not how it goes.

I guess the way, what we have to hope is the we get some really good weather for the teams out at Dogger Bank and they start ginning. They start grooving, moving and grooving and getting some things installed. Otherwise there will be some delays. It is what it is.

Allen Hall: When this podcast releases, Joel, we will be in sunny San Diego at ACP OMS and there’s looks like it’s going to be a pretty big crowd there just checking on LinkedIn.

I know everybody’s getting ready for the 2024 repair season. There’s a lot of activity and 2023 was a pretty high damage year from what I could tell. And I expect also Blades, which is happening while this podcast releases down in Austin, Texas, is going to be widely attended, and it seems to be gaining traction even over in Europe, when I was just over in Europe, and people from there were going to be attending Blades, so it’s going to be a lot of activity.

It’s conference season at the moment.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, it’s starting up here in the States, for sure. I’m in Austin right now. Right now, it’s What day is it today? It’s Wednesday. It’s Valentine’s Day. I’ve been talking all week, last week, about, clients, friends, colleagues people to meet up with talk blade problems, talk lightning problems for the next few weeks, so my schedule is crazy.

Plus, I’m, it starts Sunday night, people flying in, I’ll go grab a couple friends from the airport have some blade conversations for Monday and Tuesday, of course. BladesUSA is a great event a lot of good engineers there, a lot of good topics. And you’re involving the engineers and the stakeholders at the operator level, at the, at, the people who own the wind farms.

And then also a lot of the blade repair companies are there, and some of the, retrofit companies and stuff are in town for that. So it’s a lot of the correct grab of stakeholders around blades are there. And then that Wednesday morning, I’ve had a couple of jokes, a couple conversations the last few days, those planes that are leaving Austin, heading to San Diego, they’re going to be a captive audience.

It’s going to be all people coming, two and a half, three hour flight everybody coming from Blades going to the operations, maintenance and safety conference. Annoying that they’re in the same week, to be honest with you, but they were smart enough to put one on Monday, Tuesday, and I say they because it’s ACP and Wind Power Monthly or Haymarket or whatever, and they’re two separate organizations, but Blades is Monday, Tuesday, and we have OMS is Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, Friday I know we have booths at both of them, so we’re going to be taking a lot of meetings, talking to a lot of people, doing a lot of podcast recording, which is always great.

But OMS, yeah, it’s, that’s always a good one to kick off the season, we’re in February here. Most people have their tenders lined out. And if they don’t, or if they need a little bit of backfill with some capacity for some blade teams or, uptower teams, gearbox teams they’re going to sort it out here shortly.

So it’s a good time to be good, but good time to be out in the market, talking with people. OMS is always nice in San Diego there, but we did hear there might be some rain. So pack a rain jacket.

Allen Hall: It looks like it’s going to rain. We’re going to have recordings with a number of companies that are going to be at OMS.

And if, obviously, if you want to talk to us about being on the podcast, that’s a good place to connect with us right on the OMS floor. One of the things I’m noticing this year too, Joel, is that there’s just a lot more of the operators getting involved in the blade repair. And that full service agreements are not as favorable as they once were.

So the activity on the engineering side seems to be much more active and maybe that’s just coming out of the inflationary period and everybody’s getting going. The comedy is picking up a little bit, but it does seem to me the amount of engineering that’s going on the blade side is at a peak. I haven’t seen it this active in a couple of years.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, I think the other side of it is in the United States, of course, our fleet is starting to mature, right? We had a lot of installations that, GE 1 5s went crazy in 2011, 12, 13, all this stuff. They’re now coming 10 years, so if you had an FSA that was 10 year they’re starting to, Hey, are they going to renew the FSA or take it on themselves?

The data points to You might be better off taking your operations on yourself or having an ISP help you out. So a lot of that activity for sure, Allen.

Allen Hall: And Booking a independent service provider may be hard at this point.

Joel Saxum: You’re a little late. You’re late in the year.

Allen Hall: Yeah. And also technicians that are looking for positions this summer that’s a good place to be, right?

If you’re out in San Diego, definitely stop by and drop off a resume or if you’re at Blades, drop off a resume. Get involved. I’ve seen a lot more technician activity and people reaching out, like, where can I find a position for the year? There’s a lot of job sites, everybody. Get on LinkedIn and connect up with those companies via LinkedIn.

Get on their websites, go to their career pages, look there because there’s a lot of opportunities at the moment and it’s one of the fastest growing jobs in America, being a wind turbine technician. Get going because it’s going to be a good season.

Joel Saxum: I’ve been involved in quite a few different industries and trade shows and whatnot, and I don’t think there’s one that I’ve been around that’s quite like OMS.

OMS, of course, Operations Maintenance Safety, so it’s very much focused on the operations in the field. And to be honest with you, if you’re looking to be a blade tech or an uptower tech and you haven’t inked what your contract is going to be like or working for a specific company this year, It’s It might be worth hopping on a plane to San Diego and walking that floor and handing out your resumes at that show because there’s going to be a lot of people there.

A little bit different this year, usually it’s at Coronado, right down on the beach. And the actual exhibition, it’s not that good, to be honest with you. American Clean Power, I’ll say that. When you had it in the tents out on the lawn, not the best, but this year it is in a hotel in a center with an actual exhibition floor.

There’s going to be over 100 people exhibiting. So a lot of things in the wind and stream movement at OMS for sure.

Allen Hall: All right, British engineer, Andrew Garrad, and Danish citizen, Henrik Stiesdal, were announced as the 2024 winners of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for their pioneering work, advancing wind turbine design and deployment, the over 40 careers for both of those gentlemen the laureates made critical innovations now used in most modern high capacity wind turbines, including some of the world’s largest wind turbines.

Their groundbreaking work has enabled widespread adoption of wind power around the world. And Her Royal Highness Princess Anne attended the ceremony at London’s Science Museum, which had to be cool. Come on, Joel. That’s cool. And praised the role of engineering in society. And it, so if you’re not familiar with the Queen Elizabeth Prize, it’s there to promote excellence and visionaries in engineering, inspiring young people to consider it as a career.

So this is a really, Fascinating prize. I like it. It’s like the Nobel Peace Prize for engineering sort of thing. Yeah. And it does come with some cash award, right?

Joel Saxum: Yeah. It’s a 1 million pound. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s big time. Unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, which is basically money off of dynamite.

I hope this money comes out of the royal family’s pockets because they can stand to lose a little bit. Either way I think that anybody in the wind industry, if you don’t know who Andrew Garrard or Henrik Stiesdal are, please Google them the next time you get a chance and you’ll see historic websites devoted to the things that they have done.

There’s so much information about their what for the modern day wind turbine, 450, 000 of them in the world right now. Plus, offshore, onshore, these two guys were a huge part of everything that you see today. So if you’re a technician, if you’re a developer, if you’re anybody in the wind industry, you owe it to these two these two men that are, we’ll call them like a royalty, wind royalty maybe that have come out and done all these things.

So take a peek at it, do yourself a favor next time you’re sitting around on the couch or something. Pull your phone out and Google their names and you’ll see some really cool stuff. And congrats to the two of them. And and thank you for the work that you put in in your engineering minds to get us to the point we’re at right now.

Allen Hall: They have to be amazed at the rapid deployment of wind that we’re now talking about 20 megawatt machines when they first started their kilowatt machines, it, there has been a rapid growth in that industry. I do timing is everything. And so if right time, right place part of it, that’s true, but getting engineering, was key early on and if you do look at some of the early inventions in wind, you’re like, Ooh, pretty sketchy, but we’ve gotten through that period. And it, there is a, I do think these prizes help raise awareness about the careers you can have in engineering. And the, if you’re a high school graduate or going into college, it’s such a tough time to try to figure out what you want to go do.

Engineering is one of those tough trails, and it’s nice that you can see some hardworking engineers be rewarded for their efforts because yeah, engineering’s not easy, right? And a lot of people are involved in a lot of these wind projects that you never hear of, but they should be commended also.

Joel Saxum: There’s, in the United States, we talk about the fact that there’s not a DTU.

There’s not a TU Delft. We don’t have a university dedicated to wind. And at the university level, it’s there is actually reports out lately that I’ve read, sad for me that says that engineering as a major is starting to decline in the United States. A lot more people taking, I don’t want to say this.

I don’t want to make anybody angry, but a lot more people taking a little bit easier paths through university to get degrees. Engineering is one of the toughest things that you can really do there. But you can see that engineering in general shapes our society. If you look around you, everything that you touch, feel every day is designed by someone.

That is an engineer. I know the majority of big things that happen are designed by engineers. They’re the ones that make progress. So we need more of them out there. So we haven’t had a Windfarm of the Week in quite a while, but we want to get back into that of course. So the Wind Farm of the Week this week is Kay Wind.

Southern Power owns Kay Wind. It’s in Kay County, Oklahoma. The 299 megawatt facility with 130 Siemens 2. 3 80 meter tall towers. The facility was built with a 400 million construction loan. And the project was delivered back in 2015. So power gets sold into Kansas and also Oklahoma under 20 year PPAs.

The thing I want to touch about this wind farm, if you Google it, you’ll find out that in 2017, the team at Kay Wind was recognized for its exceptional achievement in operations and management at the Wind O& M Conference in Dallas. So the project team won the Wind Farm Team or Technician of the Year Award back in 2017 and they beat out over 100 entries.

So this is at that point in time, Apex was a part of it as well but the Southern Power Apex team there at Kay Wind, Doing a lot of fantastic things with a bunch of turbines that were built in the United States, right? They were built at the Siemens facility in Hutchinson, Kansas, and the blades were made in or the nacelles were and the blades were produced at the Fort Madison, Iowa.

Kay Wind, you are the wind farm of the week.

Allen Hall: That’s going to do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Thanks for listening, and please give us a 5 star rating on your podcast platform and subscribe in the show notes below to Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s YouTube channel, Engineering with Rosie, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Eversource Quits Offshore Wind, Delays at Dogger Bank, Wind Innovators Honored

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

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Weather Guard Lightning Tech

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why traditional approaches to wind farm operations are failing

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

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

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

Seeing problems before they happeny, and potential risks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turning information into action

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

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

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

The Integration Imperative for Wind Farm Operations

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

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

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

Assessing the Current State of your Wind Energy Operations

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

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

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

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

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

The competitive advantage

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download the full article from PES Wind here

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

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

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BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

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Weather Guard Lightning Tech

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

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

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

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

Allen Hall: Chris, welcome back to the show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Cieslak: Absolutely.

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

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

Allen Hall: This is true.

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

Allen Hall: Yeah,

Joel Saxum: that’s the robotic processes.

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

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

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

Speaker: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joel Saxum: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Cieslak: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allen Hall: that’s the lightning,

Joel Saxum: right?

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

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

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

Joel Saxum: mean, we’re seeing no

Allen Hall: way you can do it

Joel Saxum: otherwise.

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

Allen Hall: Sure.

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

Chris Cieslak: blades.

Joel Saxum: Right, right.

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

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

Allen Hall: Oh yeah.

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

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

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

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

Chris Cieslak: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And the speed up it.

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

How does it work?

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

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

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

Allen Hall: Wow.

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

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

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

Chris Cieslak: there?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’d love to see you there.

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

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

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Understanding the U.S. Constitution

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Hillsdale College is a rightwing Christian extremist organization that ostensibly honors the United States Constitution.

Here’s their quiz, which should be called the “Constitutional Trivia Quiz.”, whose purpose is obviously to convince Americans of their ignorance.

When I teach, I’m going for understanding of the topic, not the memorization of useless information.

Understanding the U.S. Constitution

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