Published

2 years ago

November 28, 2023

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Exclusive Wind Industry Insights with PES Wind’s Stefann Perrigot

This week, we’re re-running one of our favorite interviews with Stefann Perrigot, director at PES Wind Magazine. Perfect timing, seeing that the magazine’s latest edition features Allen’s article! Stefann gives an inside look at PES Wind’s dedication to exclusive industry articles, thoughtful debates on issues like blade upkeep and VR safety training, and an editorial process focused on insight and integrity. Be sure to read the latest edition by visiting peswind.com!

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

Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.com
Weather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.com
Intelstor – https://www.intelstor.com

Allen Hall: Welcome back, I’m Allen Hall. This is the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. As you’re listening to this episode, Joel Saxum and I are on an airplane to Amsterdam, hopefully. And we are going to be at Blades Europe Forum, which is a massive event talking all about wind turbine blades. And we hope to see a number of people that have been on the podcast at that conference and we’re gonna hopefully meet a bunch of new people there too.

This week for the podcast we’re going to highlight one of the interviews from earlier this year and it’s with Stefann Perrigot, director of PES Wind. And the latest issue of PES Wind just came out, and if you don’t have your copy, you can get a free copy online at peswind.com. And the cover story on PES Wind for this issue is about lightning. It’s written by yours, truly. So this is a really good episode. It’s a good interview with Stefann Perrigot, but if you haven’t downloaded that PES Wind, go ahead and get that done because the, there’s a, I’ve seen advance of some of the articles that are inside that. It’s a really good, really good issue of that magazine and it includes a story about lightning from yours, truly. So here again is Stefann Perrigot, Director of PES Wind.

Allen Hall: I am Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and today’s special guest is Stefann Perrigot director at PES Wind and PES Wind is a website that provides news and information about the wind energy industry. It is part of the Power and Energy Solutions network, which also includes websites dedicated to solar energy, energy storage, and other renewable energy technologies.

PES Wind’s, website features, articles about new wind projects, technology developments, and industry trends. In addition to its website, PES Wind also publishes a quarterly magazine, which is beautiful. The magazine features in-depth articles about wind energy topics, as well as interviews with industry experts.

If not familiar with PES Wind, you should be. So, Stefann, welcome to the program.

Stefann Perrigot: Appreciate being here. It’s been a long time coming. Yes, it has actually. And I’ve been asked a few times by a number of my clients on the, you know, especially at the recent global offshore wind on the, on the floor itself to say, you know, when are you getting on?

So Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do it at the show itself, but you know, here I am now and it’s a pleasure to be here.

Allen Hall: Just a couple of touch points here where we get started. I think when you read PES Wind, you realize, wow, this is, this magazine is brilliant, right? There’s a, a lot of good information in every magazine Plus has beautiful photos.

The magazine itself looks exquisite. How long have you guys been at this making this magazine?

Stefann Perrigot: So a bit about us. You know, we’ve been going sort of nearly 20 years now, but it used to be a renewable energy publication. And then we soon realized that we needed to essentially split it into a pure wind publication and a pure solar publication.

So we did that. And then ever since then, it’s just sort of grown in terms of the, the, you know, the content, the quality, and we’re refining it all the time. So it’s just been getting better and better and, and, you know, and the sort of type of companies we work with. And the type of you know, interviews and people that we’re working with is getting stronger, which is increasing, you know, the value of the content.

And yeah, so for that we’re really, really pleased.

Allen Hall: Yeah, your magazine does not include press releases, which I think is very fascinating because a lot of information you get in regards to wind energy or just press releases.

Stefann Perrigot: I mean, that’s a, you know, for us, a a, you know, a conscious decision, we, we, you know, we’re happy to put press releases on our website.

We just believe a press release is, is for that, you know, if we’re going online for immediate release to be read and digested, you know, whether that’s on an email campaign, or just on, you know, online. But for us, The print version, it has to be exclusive to us. So we’re trying to keep the editorial integrity extremely high.

It can’t be seen anywhere else before it’s seen within our publication. Obviously, you know, after that you know, people can read it, share it on LinkedIn or, you know, via any other platform they want. But until it’s. Gone out with us, then, you know that that’s kind of where we’re at.

Allen Hall: Well, and the thing about PES Wind is that it’s written by industry experts.

All the articles are from people in the industry who are very knowledgeable about the subject of which they’re writing about. Absolutely. You are, you are one of them. I, I am one of them. Actually, just full disclosure, I’ve written a couple of articles and I have been through the editorial process that that PES Wind puts everybody through.

The quality of content is only there because of the editing that happens behind the scenes, which no one sees except for the people writing the articles. It’s, it’s a tremendous amount of work that goes in the, the, the standards are extremely high. It’s like writing a college level paper as, because your editing staff is magnificent, by the way.

Stefann Perrigot: So for us, that’s what we pride ourselves on. You know, we, we, we not only feel we have. The best looking publication in the market. We, we know, we spend a lot of money on the look and the feel of the publication. But that is, you know, none of that really matters until you know, you, you actually get into the content and the content is key.

We really pride ourselves on editor integrity. Again, like we said about press releases, it’s not just a case of putting anything you want in there. You have to, you know, submit the editorial, for instance. But then it does go through an editorial process and sometimes editorials can be rejected or, you know, sent back with some pointers.

Something we, we, we do quite strongly is to point out where I. Where things can be improved or suggestions on topics. And especially for, for, for us, we know what works through our vehicles. So we know what works well for p a s. We know what works in the print magazine. We know what works well on LinkedIn.

You know, for, for instance, in terms of traction. So we’re trying to just do a, a, you know, a, a combination of keeping it very, it’s very slick, very strong. And most importantly, we want people to want to read it. You know, that’s, that’s what it’s all about.

Allen Hall: I, I wanna read every time I get it, first of all, it, it comes from the Royal Mail, so I always have special mail coming in, so I, I know it’s something special, and then when you open, you’re like, wow, this, this looks great.

It’s always a a little surprise to see it and to thumb through it immediately to, to see all the content that’s in it. There’s a lot of. Steep content. This is not shallow stuff. You, if you’re interested in wind energy, this is a, a magazine to read because it explains what’s going on behind the scenes a little bit.

And that’s, that, that, that is eyeopening, because otherwise you wouldn’t understand some of the reasoning and rationale for what is happening in the industry.

Stefann Perrigot: We’re, we’re trying to keep things as fresh and as topical. Topical and as up to date as possible. So you know, people ask us about an editorial calendar and we just say we don’t have a strict editorial calendar, purely because we don’t know what’s gonna be happening in the market in a month’s time, let alone six months.

So, We try to be reactive to the market. We try to see what’s going on. So a lot of the independent articles can be from associations or projects that are taking place, but right up to date. And that also goes on to to, to the clients that we’re working with. You know, the projects are probably just right up to date.

So the technology or, or, you know if it’s in a product, You know, we can say what’s happening right now. And then that, again, that keeps it interesting for the reader.

Allen Hall: Oh, it, it really does. And how many eyeballs, how many people are reading this every quarter?

Stefann Perrigot: For the print version, we’ve got 26,000 copies.

We have currently, I’ve just, just on LinkedIn, so. We do a combination. So obviously we’ve got the, the print publication, which we, we send out, we then send out a full digital version of the publication, and our e circulation is just over 35,000. So the print magazine would go out, then the digital magazine goes out.

And currently, just literally today on our LinkedIn PSS Wind LinkedIn page, it’s got. 2 million post impressions in the last 30 days. So, wow. You know, we’re really proud of that, especially because we only started the, the PSS win page around five months ago now, and that, that was a conversation with yourself.

And I’d spoken to a, you know, a few others who were asking me, how come, you know, how come you don’t have it? And the reason for that at the time, and it’s still true to, to, to this day, is because. I like to share the, the articles myself. It comes, it gets the, a more personal approach to sharing, sharing the articles and the people that have the exclusive articles within the publication see the benefit of that because the, the, the amount of views and the amount of likes and the comments are, you know, are far greater.

Went through myself. As opposed to sharing on the PS page. But the PS win page is there also for, you know, content videos and also sharing the full, you know, the full publication, which the last full publication that we shared as a P D F on that page had, has now over 70,000 views. So, you know, we’re really pleased with that though.

Allen Hall: There obviously is a huge demand for. Wind knowledge and wind insight. Yeah. That, that speaks to that.

Stefann Perrigot: It’s not just us, you know, there are plenty of, you know, there are plenty of other companies out there yourselves doing a podcast, which I think is fantastic. I wanted to use the the, the, the slogan that we want to be, you know, the voice of wind energy.

But I think you’ve probably taken that by now. So, I’ll let you have that, but, you know, but that’s, that’s, that’s what we, you know, we, we really do wanna be the, you know, the voice of, of of wind, you know, wind energy and, and what’s going on right now. And we want to, you know, we wanna share that, share it with, with people on your, you know, your listeners, but also people On LinkedIn, you know, where people are, you know, hanging about now through, through work and, and looking for, for, for the right type of information.

And that can only add value to, to us as a company, but more importantly to, to the people that we’re

Allen Hall: working with. And you see things before the rest of the industry does because they have to submit articles to you before things go out to the rest of the world. What are, what are some of the more intriguing things we should be looking forward to over the next couple of months?

Stefann Perrigot: Blade maintenance and blade integrity seems to be really key and topical right now. And obviously the use of robots, the use of technology is, is really speeding up and. Five, well, more than five years ago, it was, you know, drone drones were sort of the, the new thing now that’s sort of been surpassed by you know, you’ve got companies like, you know, blade Bug that you know well with using their robots arrows that, you know, with their type of robots.

But something we had, we featured in the last magazine, which I think will be big, is the VR virtual reality, you know, with the headsets for, for safety. We worked with a company called Synergy xr. They’re a, they’re a Danish company. When I, when I go to the shows and the events, now everybody’s got the headsets on, so from, from just demon demonstrations of their own products.

But for me, you know, the safety aspect is, is where I see the, the, the, you know, the sort of the, the big push because people can, you know, rather than going offshore to learn that they can do it virtually. And all the safety aspects are, are sort of taken away. You could learn before going out and actually, you know, harming yourself.

Allen Hall: Well, and I, I think, you know, we discussed earlier in, in going to shows and there’s a lot of shows in different parts of the world. You’ve really focus on four and I thought that was really fascinating because I’ve been to probably half of the shows you mentioned and, and. It’s a totally different vibe.

There are some shows that have a, a lot of people, and there’s just a buzz in the, in the hallways, and there are other shows that are interesting and they’re just glad to see everybody, but they’re just not the same. Which shows, what shows are PES Wind really invested in right now?

Stefann Perrigot: So for us, we, because like I said, we only produce the four publications per year.

So for, for the end of this year, we’ve got our September issue, which we’re, we’re putting together right now. And that’s a fair ahead of the Hussam Wind Energy event in Germany. And then the, our last issue is in November ahead of the offshore energy event in Amsterdam which has a big offshore wind focus as well.

But yeah, so generally they’re ahead of next year, it will be March ahead of the, the Wind Europe event in Bilbao. But we’ve also teamed up with the I P F in New Orleans. So that’s gonna be our first issue. And then June is always ahead of the global offshore wind, which is in the uk. Then September next year, which is our big one, which is ahead of Wind Energy, Hamburg, and then again November ahead of offshore energy.

But next year. The wind energy Hamburg one is for, for us. Well, I, I would say for the industry, not only the biggest show to be at, but everybody will be there, has the, you know, the biggest buzz and it’s great. And for us, we’re already making bookings for that issue now. So you know, it’s fortunate. Well, yeah, it’s good for us to, To sort of already look that far ahead.

And I’m sort of, I’m contacting clients already just to say, look, I know it’s early, but these are the dates. And because we’re, because we, you know, 30 sort of rang 30 to 35 companies tops. We, we sort of, you know, call it, that’s enough. So we, yeah, we, it’s not hard for us to fill the space.

Allen Hall: That is amazing.

I guess that all makes sense. And if you’re going to those shows, for sure. Those, and I think those are the shows to really show up to. And yeah, if, if one thing about PES Wind magazine, when we were in Copenhagen for the conference in Copenhagen, there are a lot of copies of PES Wind in the hallways and at the booze because everybody wants to, you know, they wanna see it, right?

They wanna see it, they wanna see what’s in it. They’re talking about what’s in it. It, it becomes part of that show, conference news piece that everybody wants to be a part of. Right. And yeah, if you’re, if you’re you know, a, a company that wants to get some eyeballs on your products, I. Where else are you gonna go besides PES Wind?

I think it makes total sense because you, and you do a good job of being at the shows and promoting the magazine too. You guys are hustling out there.

Stefann Perrigot: Yeah, and I think it’s the, for us at that point, it’s our sort of our, our, the hard work’s done. And it’s almost our time to sort of go out, meet the clients, meet potential new clients.

But, you know, we, I sort of we’re quite happy then because, you know, the, the, the magazine’s done, the magazine’s at the show. And it’s time for us Yeah. To promote it. We want people to see it. We want people to be engaged. We want people to read it. And ultimately, you know, we like the feedback. You know, was it a good issue?

Are there things we can do better? And, you know, I’ve spoken in the past to many times, you know, we’re, we’re experts at, well we’re, we’re pretty good at what we do, but we don’t say we know everything and we’re happy to, to listen to ideas, listen to feedback. Could you do this? You know, can you try this? You know, and, and even down to you know, promote different things on LinkedIn, different ideas.

You know, we’re, we’re, we’re open to ideas and just to see what can we do next? What can we help you know, help our clients do. Yeah.

Allen Hall: And the LinkedIn piece is really fascinating to me. Be we are on LinkedIn as a company and I think a lot of companies in wind are there. That is a real community that maybe five years ago did not really exist at this level.

It’s really grown substantially.

Stefann Perrigot: Yeah, and it has, and I, and I’m, I’m always amazed how some companies still haven’t embraced it enough. You know, I mean, I’ve had, I’ve had companies where I’ve shared their article. And they haven’t say, reshared it or commented on it or, or you know, and, and I sort of think you’re missing a trick.

’cause it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, you’ve done for, even for the client, they’ve done all the hard work already. They’ve invested in it time, money, effort, and they’ve got that piece now. And that’s what I say to, to our clients, just to say, here it is, share. I, I will share it on LinkedIn, but feel free to, you know, to share it and spread it and get that message out there because that’s, that’s key.

That’s what they, that’s what they’ve. Invested in us for, and now you’ve got that piece and you know, let it out. I say

Allen Hall: Right, let people see it. I, I, I agree with you. There it, it, that is a little odd. I know. I, we’ve seen the same thing from some other companies and I always wonder like, why you have a great product.

You just get, make more noise. And if you’re in PES Wind, you’re making a tremendous amount of noise, then amplify it. Right. Use LinkedIn to amplify it.

Stefann Perrigot: Because of the amount of time and effort, like we say, and the, and the quality of the publication, we’re now finding more and more. Companies want to be associated with the brand as well.

So it’s kind of, if we’re associated with that, it just, it means we’re, we’re also of that level, you know? And it, it just means, oh, oh, we’re in that PSS magazine. It just, it, you know, there’s that. Nice link between quality and quality, and that’s what we, you know, that’s what we try to say to people and that that’s from startup companies all the way up to companies, you know, with a hundred thousand employees.

There is no difference in the process with us. We don’t, we treat every single company with the exact same approach. Whether, you know, a one man band or a hundred thousand in their company, it doesn’t make a difference. You know, we, we will give everyone the same amount of time, the same amount of expertise we wanna do a great job for, for, for each client.

Because again, if we do a good job, they’re happy, they’ll come back to us, even, you know, whether it’s straight away or again. And also they’ll tell people so that’s what, you know, that’s what we strive to do.

Allen Hall: Exactly. Well, and what is the process? If I’m a company and I, I want to have a, an editorial or an article, I.

About my whizzbang product and I need to get the, I need to get the information out to the world. How does that process start? Like, can you just walk us through what that looks like?

Stefann Perrigot: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, generally it’s companies I’ve, I’ve approached and sometimes we, I’ve, I’ve had a company today email just say, you know, I’ve, I’ve actually picked up the, the PS WIN magazine at the Global Offshore Wind event.

And, you know, how, how do I get in, what, what do I need to do? So I. It’s a case of Yeah. You know, so they’ll, they’ll, they’ll, they’ll come to us direct or, you know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll approach companies if there’s certain topics we really want to cover. And then it’s just a case of saying, okay, what type of package do you want?

You know, we, we, we try to offer everybody what we would call our premium sponsorship package, which is obviously inclusion in the print magazine. The, the editorial in print online, so on the digital magazine as well as all the, you know, all the, the LinkedIn promotion. And it just gives an overall, Feel for what we do to generate the best results for, for them as a, you know, as a, as a client.

’cause it’s, like I say, essentially, we, we wanna do a good job. We want people to, to recognize it, to read it, to give them feedback because then again, they’ll come back to us. And like, you know, we talk about LinkedIn and I’ve spoken to you about your own article. You, you know, we post it twice. And you know, I said to you the first time I posted it, it had over 10,000 views.

I posted it again last week or, or this week and it’s now over 14,000 on the second time. So just, and that’s just me and I, I noticed. Because I took note it got reposted 10 times this time and 10 times last time. So when you think it’s 24,000 views, just me. But all of those people reposting it.

It’s just, you know, it’s generating even more. And that’s like, you know, you understand when I was saying about. LinkedIn and reposting and just getting out there. That’s, that’s good for you. It’s good for us. You know, and that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do.

Allen Hall: Oh yeah. It’s good for everybody. And if, I think one of the maybe little scary parts, if you go down the PES Wind pathway is that you, you have to write an article, right?

You have to spend a couple of hours, maybe a couple of days. Writing a piece and, and that’s the scary part for most people, right? But when you get to the editorial staff on PES Wind, they’re super helpful. Like you, you know what works and what doesn’t work and, and how to phrase things and how, what the approach is.

You, you walk people through that process. So it’s not, it’s not overwhelming.

Stefann Perrigot: Now, and we’re here to like, you know, we can do as little or, or, or, you know, some companies will supply us with a fantastic article that, that’s very well written, doesn’t need much editing, and it’s thought provoking and, you know, it’s, it’s a, it, it still goes through the, the, the process of going through the editorial board in terms of is it quality?

Does it meet our, you know, our standards? Will it, you know, will it be good for them? You know, give the value give the, the publication value. And then other companies say to us, okay, look, Pretty much we’re, we don’t really know what to do. What’s the, what’s the approach? And then we can lead them all the way through it with our editors can, you know, write a piece for them or we can give them guidance and interview.

We can obviously do interviews as well, which work very, very well. The interviews are fantastic. I’d personally like to, I would always say to a company, work with us in two issues in the year. And then always have an interview, and then separately an article. The interviews work very, very good because they put, you know, generally put a face to the name of the company and it’s quite nice for people to like yourself if you’re at an event.

Everybody knows you, so it’s okay. Oh, there, there’s Allen. He’s in, you know, he’s in p Ss and it’s, it’s, it’s just a nice, nice approach. Or like I said, I had a, I had a an email today from Covestro the material company. So they were asking us about getting involved in the September issue, you know, What are your thoughts?

And I, you know, I, they, they gave me what they thought would, would be their thoughts on, on an article. And I said, look, that, I think that would be perfect. But again, if you can make it controversial, if you can make it thought provoking, you know, if you can, it, it’s about generating debate or generating, generating a, you know, some sort of talk.

So some companies might say, well, I don’t like that. Well, I don’t think that’s the right approach. Okay, well, tell me why. And then it’s good for you. Good for them.

Allen Hall: Yeah, I, I do think there needs to be some pushback in wind and some new ideas in the wind industry. We’re seeing obviously, some problems that are large scale problems that are happening.

And one way to get over those problems is to be a little bit pro thoughtful, broken, and say, Hey, maybe there’s a different way to go about solving some of these problems. And I think PES Wind does a really good job of that, of, of making you think a little bit like, oh, I, I never. I thought about this as a way to, I, I’ll give you the ly, right?

So LY detects birds in a very unique way, and it slows down wind turbines that are in the bird’s path. Not all the wind turbines, just the ones in the pathway. Like, oh, that’s a really unique way of trying to solve that problem. Crazy, isn’t it? Oh yeah, it’s insane. Rosemary Barnes, right? Our co-host on the Uptime podcast walked us through how well that system works.

So I read about, in PES Wind, I learned a lot about it and I then I talked to Rosemary, it’s my backup. She goes, oh yeah, that system is magnificent in terms of keeping power losses to a minimum and saving a whole bunch of birds. I would never have known that without PES Wind.

Stefann Perrigot: And again, that’s what we’re trying to do.

You know, we’re trying to get the, there, there, there will be companies that haven’t. You hadn’t, haven’t heard of or hadn’t heard of their technology. And again, other companies, you might just know the brand, so you don’t really know what they’re doing. And again, in, in the publication we we’re, we’re really trying to educate the market, you know, so educate them on what, not only the technology, but the uses, the needs, you know, and, and identifying a problem, but here’s the solution to go with it.

So, Again, it works very, very well.

Allen Hall: So how long does it usually take for an article once it gets into you? So I write an article, I’m sitting here in Massachusetts. I’m writing this controversial article about lightning protection of wind turbine blades. I send it over to the uk. I. And then how long does that process take?

Just just walk everybody through how long it takes to get it back and get it released.

Stefann Perrigot: Generally a few. It can be, you know, a week to two weeks because we, we want to obviously get a chance to there. There’s, ’cause it goes through a few processes in terms of not just one editor will have a look at it.

There’ll be an editor that will. We’ll look at it from you know, technical standpoint. There’ll be an editor just in terms of, you know, the actual language. Because obviously we’re dealing with a lot of foreign foreign companies as well. So we’ve got specialists that can deal with, you know, the language side of things and then technical side of things.

So it goes through a few processes and then obviously we, we would get it designed so, and then sent back to the client as if it would look in the magazine. And then again, they have, they still have time to say, Like it, or, you know, or can we change this and move that? So it’s, again, it’s very flexible and ultimately we’re wanting to get the best for the client within the publication as long as it falls within our guidelines.

Allen Hall: Yeah. So it really is a, a, it’s somewhat quick process. It isn’t like you submit it, then two months later you get an email like, yes, it has been accepted. It’s not like, A research paper, if everybody’s familiar with research papers.

Stefann Perrigot: The reason we did only do four per year is just to give the clients enough time in between each issue to actually spend the time to, to write it.

You know, we we’re not saying it’s January, so you’ve got a couple of weeks. ’cause then the February issue’s coming out, then the March issue. We want people to take their time. We want people to really think about what they’re writing and think about how they’re going to approach the reader. You know, it’s not just about saying, Hey, we’re, we’re this company and we’ve got the best at this, this, this.

It’s about, okay, what am I trying to, to to get across? And you know, something we, we speak about is the tone that we want, the tone of the, of the company to come through. But through our

Allen Hall: vehicle, you can read into who they are as a company. And I think that makes life a little bit easier. And if I, I’ve worked with many of the companies that show up in PES Wind and.

I know the flavor of the company before I even really engage with them because I’ve, I’ve read about them. Yeah. It’s magnificent. Well, Stefann, it’s been really good having you on the podcast. Stefann. How do companies reach out to you?

Stefann Perrigot: How do they connect with you? Send me an email. That’s the best way.

Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I have so many companies reaching out to me on LinkedIn now. And that’s, you know, that’s the best way.

Allen Hall: Yeah. And if, if you’re interested in reading PES Wind, just go on the web,

Stefann Perrigot: absolutely. www.peswind.com. Yeah, take a look. Have a look at the, you know, the digital versions and you know, if you want a print copy.

Send me an email. Sounds great.

Allen Hall: All right, Stefann, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate you

Stefann Perrigot: joining us. I appreciate you having me. Thank you very much.

Exclusive Wind Industry Insights with PES Wind’s Stefann Perrigot

Renewable Energy

PowerCurve’s Innovative Vortex Generators and Serrations

Published

16 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

PowerCurve’s Innovative Vortex Generators and Serrations

Nicholas Gaudern from PowerCurve joins to discuss SilentEdge serrations with up to 5 dB noise reduction, Dragon Scale VGs for AEP recovery, and their approach to products that actually perform in the field. Contact PowerCurve on LinkedIn for more information.

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

Allen Hall: Nicholas, welcome back to the show.

Nicholas Gaudern: Thanks, Allen. Always a pleasure.

Allen Hall: Well, there’s a lot of new products coming outta PowerCurve. And PowerCurve is the aerodynamic leader in add-ons and making your turbines perform at higher efficiency with less loss. Uh, so basically taking that standard OEM blade and making it work the way it was intended to work.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes. We

Allen Hall: like to

Nicholas Gaudern: think so. Yeah.

Allen Hall: And there’s a, there’s a lot of new technology that you’ve been working on in the lab that you haven’t been able to explore to the, introduce to the world, so to speak. Yeah. And we’ve seen some of it from the inside of, you know, you’re working behind the scenes or working really hard to get this done, but now that technology has been released to the world, and we’re gonna introduce it today, some new trailing edge.

[00:01:00] Components. Yeah. That really, really reduce the noise. But they, they look a little bit odd. Yes. There’s a lot of ADON dams going on with

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.

Allen Hall: With these. So what, what do you call these new trailing edge parts?

Nicholas Gaudern: So, so what you have in your hand here? This is the Silence edge, uh, serration. So this is our new trailing Edge Serration products.

Now, most people, when they think of training restorations, they are thinking of triangles.

Allen Hall: Exactly.

Nicholas Gaudern: These Dino tails. Dino Tails, that’s the Siemens, Siemens name for them. Pretty, pretty standard. You see ’em on a lot of turbines now. Sure. And they work, you know, they do do a job. They do a job. They reduce noise.

But like with lots of things in, in aerodynamics, there’s lots of different ways that you can solve a problem and some are better than others. So we’ve worked for a long, long time in the wind tunnel, uh, in the CFD simulations, and we’ve come up with this pretty unique shape. We think,

Allen Hall: well, the, the, the shape is unique and if you, if you look at it, there’s actually different heights to the, the triangle, so to speak.

To mix the air from the pressure and the [00:02:00] suction side to reduce the, the level of noise coming off the blade

Nicholas Gaudern: e Exactly. So we have, uh, we have an asymmetry to the part. We have these different tooth lengths. We have, uh, a lot of changes in thickness going on across the part. So it may be a little bit difficult to see on the camera, but these are quite sculpted 3D components.

They’re not, they’re not flat stock white triangles. No, no. There’s a lot of thickness detail going on here. We’ve paid a lot of attention to the edges. We’ve paid a lot of attention to these gaps between the teeth as well. So all of this is about trying to figure out what is the best way to reduce noise.

And something that not a lot of people will, will admit, but it’s true, is that as an industry we don’t really understand the fundamentals of how serrations work.

Allen Hall: It’s a complicated

Nicholas Gaudern: problem. It’s a really complicated thing. Problem, yeah. Yes. So trying to simulate it in CFD is an absolute nightmare. The, the mesh sizes required, the physics models required are really, really difficult.

So what we found is that you’re probably better off spending [00:03:00] most of your time and money in the wind tunnel. Yes. So, so we go to DTU, they have this wonderful, uh, air acoustic wind tunnel, the pool of core tunnel. It’s one the best tunnels in the industry for doing this kind of work. It

Allen Hall: is

Nicholas Gaudern: because you can measure acoustics and aerodynamics at the same time.

So this allows us to do a lot of very cost effective iteration for this kind of design work. So we know what’s important. You know, we’ve, we’ve studied all the different parameters of serrations lengths, aspect ratios, angles, thicknesses, all this kind of stuff. And it’s about bringing them together into a, into a coherent product.

So this is, this is a result of a lot of design of experiments, a lot of iteration, and combining wind tunnel and CFD to kind of get the best of both of those tools. So,

Allen Hall: so what’s the. Noise reduction compared to those standard triangular trailing aerations. Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: So there’s lots of different ways of, of thinking about noise reduction, but I think probably the most useful is the O-A-S-P-L.

So this is the overall sound pressure level. Right. Is kind of what [00:04:00]typically you’ll be measuring in an IEC test.

Allen Hall: Right.

Nicholas Gaudern: And that’s measured in decibels, but a way to decibels because it’s important that we’re waiting to what the human ear can actually hear. Right. Perceive. Exactly. So that’s the numbers we report.

For the field test we’ve recently completed with Silent Edge, we’re seeing up to five decibels of O-A-S-P-L noise reduction.

Allen Hall: Okay. So what’s that mean in terms of what I hear on the ground?

Nicholas Gaudern: So that is an absolutely huge reduction. It’s multiple times of reduction because you know, decibels on a log scale,

Allen Hall: right?

Nicholas Gaudern: So five DB is is enormous. It’s

Allen Hall: a lot. Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: And what’s really interesting is that if you have a turbine that’s running in a noise mode, just one decibel reduction. Of power, sound, sound, power level might be three or 4% P loss. I mean, that, that’s, that’s huge. Think about that loss. So if you need to reduce noise by five decibels to get within a regulation, imagine how much a EP you have to throw away by basically turning down the [00:05:00] turbine to do that.

Allen Hall: That’s right.

Nicholas Gaudern: So that’s really what the, the business case for these kind of products is. It means you can escape noise modes because as soon as you use a noise mode. You are throwing away energy.

Allen Hall: You’re throwing well you’re throwing away profits.

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly.

Allen Hall: So you’re just losing money to reduce the noise.

Now you can operate at peak.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.

Allen Hall: Power output without the creating the noise where you have that risk. Right. So, and particularly in a lot of countries now, there are noise regulations. Yes. And they are very well monitored.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.

Allen Hall: We’re seeing it more and more where, uh, government agencies are coming out and checking.

Yes. ’cause they have a complaint and so you get a complaint. Oh, that’s fine. Or someone can complain. Yeah. You know, you need to be making your numbers.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep. And, and the industry needs to be good neighbors, you know? It

Allen Hall: certainly does.

Nicholas Gaudern: Uh, we have to make sure that people are, you know, approving and comfortable with having wind turbines in their backyard.

Sure. And noise is a big part of that.

Allen Hall: It is.

Nicholas Gaudern: So yeah. Ap sure. That’s really important. Being a good [00:06:00] neighbor also important.

Allen Hall: Right.

Nicholas Gaudern: Meeting the regulations. Obviously you have to meet the regulations. So this product, um, has been through a really long development cycle, and we’re now putting the final touches to the, to the tooling.

So this is available now.

Allen Hall: Oh, wow.

Nicholas Gaudern: Okay. Great. Um, and we’re hoping that in the next uh, few months we’ll be getting even more turbines equipped out in the field with, with the technology.

Allen Hall: So, oh, sure. There’s a, you think about the number of turbines that are in service, hundreds of thousands total worldwide.

A lot of them have no noise reduction at all.

Nicholas Gaudern: No. No.

Allen Hall: And they have a lot of complaints from the neighbors.

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly.

Allen Hall: Trying to expand wind into new areas, uh, is hard because the, the experience of the previous Yes. Neighbor

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.

Allen Hall: Grows into future neighbors. So fixing the turbines you have out in sight today helps you get the next site.

I know we don’t always think about that, but that’s exactly how it works. Yeah, of course. Uh, we need to be conscientious of the people of the turbines we have in service right now. So that we can continue to grow wind [00:07:00] globally and more regulations on noise are gonna come unless we start taking care of the problem ourselves.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep. And another really important thing with Serrations is that you have to design them so that they don’t impact the loads on the rest of the turbine.

Allen Hall: Right. And people forget about that.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.

Allen Hall: Can you just, can’t just throw up any device up there. And think, well, my blade’s gonna be happy with it. It may not be happy with that device.

Nicholas Gaudern: You have to really carefully understand what the existing blade aerodynamic signature is.

Allen Hall: Sure.

Nicholas Gaudern: How is that blade performing? What is the lift distribution across the span? Yeah.

Allen Hall: Right. Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: So what we do, and we, we’ve talked about it before we go and laser scan blades. We build CAD models, we build CFD models so we can actually understand how much lift a blade can take and what’s the benefit or the penalty of doing so.

So these serrations are designed by default to be load neutral. They won’t increase lift. They won’t reduce lift. That’s what

Allen Hall: it should

Nicholas Gaudern: be. That’s where you should start,

Allen Hall: right?

Nicholas Gaudern: And maybe there’s some scope to do something else [00:08:00] on certain turbines, but you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t guess. You, you need to calculate, you need to simulate, you need to think very carefully about that.

So that’s what we do with these, uh, with these serrations, we go through this very careful aerodynamic design process to make sure that they reduce noise and that’s it. They don’t increase loads, they don’t reduce AP by killing lift. And that’s, that’s an important aspect.

Allen Hall: Well, that’s the goal.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes,

Allen Hall: exactly.

I don’t necessarily want to increase power. I don’t wanna put more load in my blade, but people do that. I’ve seen that happen and man, they regret it.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, regret it. There’s, there’s some pretty wild claims out there as well about observations can and can’t do. And uh, like with lots of things, it’s important to just do the simulations, speak to some experts and, um.

Yeah, maybe take the, the less exciting path, you know, sometimes,

Allen Hall: well, no. Yeah. Well, less exciting path where I don’t have a broken blade.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly.

Allen Hall: Yeah. That’s a lot less exciting. It’s, it’s definitely more profitable. Now, the Dragon Scale Vortex generator has been [00:09:00] around about a year or so.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep, yep.

Allen Hall: And the thing about these devices, and they’re so unique, interesting to think about because you typically think of a vortex generator as this being this little bit of a fence.

Where you are tripping the air and making it fall back down onto the blade.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.

Allen Hall: A really, it works.

Nicholas Gaudern: It works.

Allen Hall: But it’s it’s

Nicholas Gaudern: been around a long time.

Allen Hall: Yeah. Yeah. It, it does, it does do this thing. And they, they were, they came outta the aviation business. We use ’em on airplanes to keep air flow over the control surfaces so we can continue to fly even in close to stall conditions.

All that makes sense. And airplanes are not a wind turbine.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.

Allen Hall: So there’s different things happening there. So although they work great on on aircraft, they’re not necessarily the most efficient thing for a wind turbine where you’re trying to generate power and revenue from the rotation of the blades.

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly.

Allen Hall: So this is a completely different way of thinking about getting the airflow back onto the blade where it produces [00:10:00] revenue.

Nicholas Gaudern: And what’s really nice is to actually see this together with silent edge, because historically, and maybe not even historically. Serrations VGs, they’re triangles. They work, they do a job.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it in a different way. In a better way.

Allen Hall: Right.

Nicholas Gaudern: And that’s the same principles from applying with Silence Edge and Dragon Scale. We want to work the flow in the most efficient way possible.

Allen Hall: Right. You’re trying to get to an

outcome.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly.

Allen Hall: Efficiently.

Nicholas Gaudern: We want to, we want to target very specific things on the blade, and that’s where you can see there’s a few different styles of Dragon Scale that we have on the table here.

We have some that are two fins. We have some that are three fins. We have different sizes, and this is because they’re tailored to different parts of the blade. So these three Fin Dragon scales, their focus is ultimate lift. We are creating a really powerful vortex through this combination of three air foils, if you imagine, um, the inside of a Turbo fan.

You have these cascading air force. [00:11:00] You look at the leading edge slacks on an aircraft. You look at the front wing of a Formula one car. It’s that kind of concept.

Allen Hall: It’s like that,

Nicholas Gaudern: and it’s these air force that are cooperating with each other.

Allen Hall: Right.

Nicholas Gaudern: To end up with a more beneficial result. ‘

Allen Hall: cause an air force by itself does a function, but when you combine airflows together in the right way

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly.

Allen Hall: You can really control airflow efficiently, less losses. More of what you want out the backside. Yeah, exactly. It’s, it’s the backside you’re trying to work on, on a VG or, or dragon scales. You’re trying to create this flow which gets the airflow back onto the blade to create power. We,

Nicholas Gaudern: we want as much attached flow as possible and down exactly down in the roots of a blade.

We have to have really thick aerofoils, you know, blades about round. They’re basically cylinders.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: And that, that’s essential, right? We have to have the blade take a lot of load into the root aerodynamically. They’re horrible.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: So this is where these, uh, these powerful Dragon Scale VGs come into play because what they do is they’re [00:12:00] reenergizing the flow over the aerofoils, and they’re ensuring that that flow remains attached for much, much longer than if those bgs weren’t there.

So down in the root, you’ll get significant boosts to the lift that those sections can generate. And what’s more lift? It goes to more torque, it goes to more power, goes to more a EP. So these dragon scale VGs in the root are there to boost, lift, and boost EP out on the tip of the blade. Things are actually a little bit different because it’s way different.

You shouldn’t really have stall there to begin with if your blade’s been designed well.

Allen Hall: But if you have leading edge erosion exactly. Or some other things that are happening, you can have real aerodynamic problems.

Nicholas Gaudern: So yeah, as soon as you have erosion, uh, maybe your stall margin is not as big as you thought it was.

You’re starting to get some significant losses of lift Yes out towards the tip of the blade. So that’s where these, uh, TwoFin uh, variants come in. So it’s still a dragon scale vg, it’s still the same concept of these cascading error foils. Yeah, but these are [00:13:00] designed for basically ultimate lift to drag ratio.

Mm-hmm. So we don’t really want more maximum lift outta the tip. We kind of have enough, but what we do want is to keep stable attached flow and we want to do it for the less, uh, least drag penalty possible. So basically we want to get rid of as much parasitic drag as we can. These two fin dragon scales, we are seeing 25 plus percent improvements in lift to drag ratio.

Compared to a standard triangle vg. I mean that’s huge.

Allen Hall: That that is really

Nicholas Gaudern: huge.

Allen Hall: That’s huge, right? Because people have seen these, uh, triangular VGs in a lot of places. And one thing I’m noticing more recently is that those VGs, because they’re so draggy, they tend to flutter and they tend to break in just off.

Nicholas Gaudern: Interesting.

Allen Hall: So you’re having this failure mode because this thing is just blocking the air, getting the air to trip.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.

Allen Hall: It’s not efficient. It does have its downsides ’cause it is. D definitely drag. Just face it, it’s it, is it a draggy [00:14:00] 1940s technology? That’s what it is. Where with the dragon scales, now we’re doing things a lot more efficiently and thinking about how do I get the airflow that the blade designer originally wanted?

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes,

Allen Hall: because the blade designer, they’re really intelligent people. They’re, they’re sitting designing blades. But the reality is what you design is on an ideal airflow, and what you have out in service are totally different things. As, as it turns out, the shape of the airflow is not what you think it is because it comes out of the tool and there’s a lot of touching with by humans that are grinding on the leading edges and doing the things that have to be done to manufacture it.

So you don’t really have an ideal blade when it comes out of the

Nicholas Gaudern: No. You

Allen Hall: never do factory. No, you never do.

Nicholas Gaudern: And it’s not polished either.

Allen Hall: It’s not polished. Right. So

Nicholas Gaudern: when you go to the wind tunnel, you have a perfect profile. Yes. And it’s polished. And it works basically. It

Allen Hall: works great. It

Nicholas Gaudern: works great.

Allen Hall: The theoretical and the actual match.

Yeah. In reality they do. I think a lot of operators are not [00:15:00] connected with that reality of, Hey, that Blade should be producing this amount of revenue for me, and it’s not. And you hear that discussion all the time, particularly in the us. It should be producing this amount of power. I’m doing all the calculations.

We are not producing that power. Why? The blade length’s saying, but the power’s not coming out of it. Well take a look at your leading edge, take a look at your yard full of shape and realize you’re going to have to do something like dragon scales to get that E energy. Exactly. Revenue back.

Nicholas Gaudern: You need to do a full aerodynamic health check.

Basically you do. And see what are all the possibilities to improve my blade performance. And some of it is down to the fundamental shape of the blade,

Allen Hall: right?

Nicholas Gaudern: But some of it is down to blade condition. Yes. Blade Blade manufacturing quality.

Allen Hall: Yes.

Nicholas Gaudern: Uh, what kind of paint did they put on it? What day of the week was it made?

And all these things can be compensated for by VGs and you’ll get more revenue out at the end.

Allen Hall: You say? ’cause what happens? The, the, the scenario which is hard to visualize unless [00:16:00] you’re an A and emesis, is that there comes on the suction side, and it should be, in a ideal sense, rolling all the way to the back edge of the blade and coming off.

What happens is though, is that. When you get leading edge erosion is that the air flow actually separates. Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: It

Allen Hall: doesn’t

Nicholas Gaudern: always make it, yeah.

Allen Hall: Doesn’t make it to the back edge. Yeah. And so you can see that, especially if, if there’s dirt in the air, you can look on dirty blades, you can see where that separation line is, and a lot of operators have sky specs, images or Zeit view images, and then go back and look at the blades.

It takes two minutes to go. I have

Nicholas Gaudern: particularly down in the root, you’ll see it.

Allen Hall: Oh, in the root all the time. You, you

Nicholas Gaudern: see it really clearly that that separation line

Allen Hall: all the time, you really see that separation line. I’m seeing it more and more up towards the tip. Interesting. That’s where the lightning protection, yeah.

Systems sit.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.

Allen Hall: I see a lot of airflow that is not front to back on the suc. Well, you

Nicholas Gaudern: have a lot of three dimensional flow out there.

Allen Hall: You do towards the tip you do. And you realize how much power you’re losing there. And I think operators are just throwing away money.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly.

Allen Hall: So you could [00:17:00] put dragon skills on it very efficiently, very quickly.

Get that revenue back into your system and it’s gonna stay. So even if leading edge erosion happens, the dragon scales are gonna compensate for it. It’s gonna get the airflow back where it should be.

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly. And the nice thing about this is, you know, we are building on well over a decade of upgrading turbines with aerodynamic components.

Oh yes. So this technology stands on the foundations of all of that work. In terms of the materials, the work instructions. Um, the fatigue calculate, you know, everything

Allen Hall: Yes.

Nicholas Gaudern: Is built on thousands of installations that we’ve done. Yes. So, although it’s a new technology aerodynamically, it’s not really new in lots of sensors.

Allen Hall: Well, I look at it this way. If you turn on Formula One today and look at what the new generation of cars running around as you look at the, that front. Yes. Uh. Fin. Yeah. What do I call it? Air foil shape in the front. It’s super complicated.

Nicholas Gaudern: The sculpting of the [00:18:00] surfaces is really impressive,

Allen Hall: right? There’s a lot of thought going into those surfaces versus you turn on a Formula One race or go on YouTube and look at a Formula One race from the 1980s.

Yeah, it’s basically a piece.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.

Allen Hall: To provide down downforce. That’s it. The aerodynamics wasn’t really there, so we come a long way and a lot of that technology that happens in Formula One that happens in aviation eventually rolls down into. Yeah. Wind.

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly

Allen Hall: right. So we, we, although we are not designing Formula One style blaze today, we’re taking that same knowledge and information and we’re applying that back in.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. We’re

Allen Hall: secondarily we,

Nicholas Gaudern: which is a right thing to do. We’re taking, taking inspiration from all these different aerodynamic fields and, you know, picking the best

Allen Hall: Yes.

Nicholas Gaudern: From what’s available and just allowing ourselves to be a little bit more creative.

Allen Hall: Yes.

Nicholas Gaudern: And thinking outside the box a bit. There’s so many ways to do this as we’ve been saying.

And the import. And the

Allen Hall: data’s there.

Nicholas Gaudern: The data’s there. Exactly.

Allen Hall: The data’s there because you’ve been at the DTU Yep. Uh, wind Tunnel, which also has the acoustic piece to it. Yeah. So you have measured data from a reliable source. [00:19:00] You have field data, and you know, you put all these together, you’re gonna get that improvement back.

You’re gonna get your invest back, you’ll be more profitable.

Nicholas Gaudern: So Dragon Scale, focus on the AP. And that a EP will, uh, vary depending on the turbine.

Allen Hall: Sure.

Nicholas Gaudern: But we’ll assess the turbine and, and decide the best configuration, and then say silent edge. That’s the focus on the noise reduction. And we’re seeing up to five decibels OASP on the field.

It’s, which

Allen Hall: is crazy.

Nicholas Gaudern: It’s even more That’s really good that we were hoping for, you know?

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: So we, we know this is gonna be a, a great product.

Allen Hall: It looks very interesting.

Nicholas Gaudern: It does.

Allen Hall: It does it. It looks complicated and you think air airflow is complicated. It’s a compressible fluid. It’s not easy to, to just assume it’s gonna do what you think it is.

Yeah. You need to get into the tunnel. You need to replicate, you need to do all that work, which is expensive in time consuming. That’s why you go to someone like Power. Curver knows what they’re doing in the wind tunnel, knows how to measure those things and know when they’re getting nonsense. Out of their computer.

Nicholas Gaudern: mean, you, you’ll pay thousands and thousands of [00:20:00] Euros dollars a day to run a wind tunnel.

Allen Hall: You will.

Nicholas Gaudern: You’ve gotta Absolutely. You’ve gotta turn up with your plan in hand, that’s for sure.

Allen Hall: Oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think there’s a lot of assumptions because it, aerodynamics is hard. You know, you watch these blade spin around, you don’t realize how complicated these devices are.

They are complicated. Those air force shapes we are running today have been through a lot of history, a lot of history to get to where we are now. Now we’re just gonna take him into the next generation. This, we’re bringing ’em into the two thousands. In sort of a

Nicholas Gaudern: sense, what I’m hoping to see is, you know, with the OEMs, some OEMs do it already, but it’s important to think about these components when you’re designing new blades as well, you should because then that will allow you a much bigger design space to work in.

And

Allen Hall: a lot less customer complaints.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.

Allen Hall: Where’s my power?

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly. You know, these products, particularly the VGs, are really important tools for PowerCurve robustness. And some OEMs have known this for a long, long time.

Allen Hall: Yep.

Nicholas Gaudern: And you’ll see VGs on most of their blades. Mm-hmm. Others not so much. And that’s a design choice.

It’s a design philosophy. Um, and I think it may not [00:21:00] be the right one, you know?

Allen Hall: Well, I think the operators are asking to get the most out of their turbines. Yeah. Why shouldn’t they? They should be asking for that.

Nicholas Gaudern: I think for a, for a long time, and it’s not just in wind devices, like these have been considered, you know, band-aids fixes when you’ve, you’ve messed something up.

But I feel that’s a really negative way to think about products like this. They’re doing something that the kind of raw air fall shape on its own cannot achieve. Sure. Oh no. Right. You know, you might be able to mold some interesting stuff. Uh, as part of the blade, it’s very difficult to, to recreate the kind of aerodynamic effects that these products, uh, have.

Allen Hall: Right.

Nicholas Gaudern: So they shouldn’t be considered bandaids or fixes. No. They should be considered opportunities. And ways that you can maximize performance and unlock areas of the design space that previously weren’t accessible to.

Allen Hall: Sure. Every possible component that deals with fluid air is moving this way.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.

Allen Hall: Jet engines, you look at jet engine, how much more is going into those jet engines today in terms of this kind of [00:22:00] technology?

Yeah. All the race colors, doesn’t matter what class, where it is, is all looking at this anything to do with aircraft, it’s all over this.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah,

Allen Hall: exactly. Or, or doing this today. It’s just wind that’s behind

Nicholas Gaudern: wind. Wind is

Allen Hall: significantly

Nicholas Gaudern: behind. No,

Allen Hall: it’s not magic. It’s proven technology. It’s

Nicholas Gaudern: just good engineering.

Allen Hall: Well, it’s good engineering and if you call PowerCurve, they’re gonna help you under to to, to understand what you have today and what you could have tomorrow.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.

Allen Hall: And how this, these devices will improve your revenue stream.

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly. You know, we will look at your blades, we’ll give you some good advice and maybe that advice will be that.

You know, a certain product isn’t right for your blade. Right. That’s fine.

Allen Hall: That’s an answer.

Nicholas Gaudern: That’s an answer.

Allen Hall: Yeah, it is.

Nicholas Gaudern: But let’s, let’s look at the blade. Let’s see what’s possible, and let’s just have a, have a proper conversation about it over some real data, some real

Allen Hall: facts. Right. I think that’s the key, and a lot of operators are afraid to talk about aerodynamics is it’s, it’s a difficult area to, to start the conversation on, right?

Yeah. But I think at the end of the day, when I work with PowerCurve, and I’ve worked with you guys for a [00:23:00] number of years, the answers I get back are intelligent and they’re not. Super complicated. This is what you’re gonna see. This is the improvement. And then we can, this is how we’re going to show you can get that improvement.

It’s not magic,

Nicholas Gaudern: no

Allen Hall: power crews backing up with data, which I think is the key, right? Because you’re the, you do hear a lot of noise in this industry about magical products that’ll do all these things. Particularly aerodynamic ones. Yes. PowerCurves, the ones really bringing the data.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. And we have, we have the track record now.

We have like we do 17, 1800 turbines. Should be over 2000 very soon with our products on. Yeah. So we have a lot, we have a lot of data to draw on to know that we’re doing a good thing.

Allen Hall: Well, and speaking of that, because one of the questions that always pops up is, well, we have put these new VGs or trailing edges on, are they gonna stay on?

How durable are they?

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. And that’s a, that’s a really important question to ask was it doesn’t matter how fancy aerodynamic product is, if it falls off the blade.

Allen Hall: Right.

Nicholas Gaudern: So, you know, we’ve spent a lot of, uh, time and effort looking at how we should be fixing these products on. [00:24:00] So we use a, uh, a wet adhesive.

We specify a plexus adhesive to put our products in place. Really good adhesive. It’s a great adhesive and it means that they are not going anywhere. Basically. It’s a very, uh, forgiving adhesive. Uh, and it’s a very high spec. So we, we don’t use, uh, sided tape. We might have some of our products for some initial tack to help, you know, get the clear, the clear outta the line exactly.

But in terms of the bond itself, that is with a, a proper structural adhesive. So one thing that we are really proud of is that we haven’t got any, uh, reported failures of our panels over all the installations we’ve made. And that’s a combination of materials, but also geometry, work, instructions, adhesive.

It’s, it’s the full package. So it’s something that, um, yes, say we’re very proud of. And I think it’s, it’s a big part of what we do at PowerCurve, making sure the product is the right shape. Sure. But also making sure it stays on the blade.

Allen Hall: Well, you see it [00:25:00] from OEMs who have all kinds of aerodynamic treatments on there, and they’ll double set a tape to the blade, and then those parts are on the ground.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. And double-sided tape. You can get some really nice spec tape. Sure.

Allen Hall: You,

Nicholas Gaudern: yeah. But it’s not

Allen Hall: 20 year device.

Nicholas Gaudern: No. And the installation tolerance required on surface prep is really, really high. So it’s possible. It’s just harder. I think it’s riskier,

Allen Hall: it’s risky.

Nicholas Gaudern: So, you know, I think for us, the adhesive is, is the way to go.

And, and it’s been proven out by the, by the track record.

Allen Hall: And some of the things we’ve seen over in Australia is when trailing ulcerations have come off, it’s been a safety concern. So now you got

Nicholas Gaudern: absolutely

Allen Hall: government officials involved in safety because parts are coming up. Turbine.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.

Allen Hall: You

Nicholas Gaudern: can’t have these components flying, flying through the air.

That’s, that’s not safe.

Allen Hall: That’s because PowerCurve has done the homework.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.

Allen Hall: And has the track record. That’s why you wanna choose PowerCurve. So how do people get a hold of PowerCurve? How do they get a hold of you, Nicholas, to start the process?

Nicholas Gaudern: So, um, you’re welcome to reach out to us in lots of different ways.

We’re on LinkedIn. Uh, we have our website, [00:26:00] PowerCurve, dk, um, so yeah, LinkedIn websites. There’ll probably some links on this podcast as well to get in touch. But, um, yeah, whatever way works best for you.

Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s gonna be a busy season. So if you’re interested in doing anything with PowerCurve this year, you need to get on the website, get ahold of Nicholas.

And get started, uh, because now’s the time to maximize your revenue.

Nicholas Gaudern: Thanks a lot and great to talk to you,

Allen Hall: Nicholas. Thanks so much for being back on the podcast.

PowerCurve’s Innovative Vortex Generators and Serrations

Renewable Energy

Sharia Law

Published

19 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Alice Rush

Does Sharia Law pose an actual threat to Americans? Are we on a path to chopping off the hands of shoplifters? Passing laws that concern what people can and cannot eat? Polygamy? Forcing women to wear the hijab?

Maybe.

Or maybe this congressman is a loudmouth asshole whose constituents are morons.

Sharia Law

Renewable Energy

Another Thought on Tucker Carlson

Published

19 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Alice Rush

Carlson’s about-face on Trump is huge, as it signals that public intellectuals who wish to be taken seriously at this point cannot support the president, as his mental condition deteriorates and his criminality becomes ever more brazen.