Weather Guard Lightning Tech
GE 18 MW Turbine, Nordex Revives Iowa Facility
Nordex USA has reopened its wind turbine plant in Iowa, while Alliant Energy plans to add up to one gigawatt of wind generation in the state. GE Vernova’s 18 megawatt turbine has been approved for testing and the UK has greenlit the 1.5 gigawatt Mona Offshore Wind Farm.
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!
Good news for Iowa’s clean energy sector.
Nordex USA celebrated the reopening of its wind turbine plant in West Branch, Iowa on Tuesday. The plant now employs more than one hundred workers. They’re producing the company’s first U.S.-made turbines.
Manav Sharma is Nordex’s North American C.E.O. He says the company is committed to Iowa for the long term.
The plant had been closed since twenty thirteen. Nordex bought the facility in twenty sixteen and spent months retrofitting it. The plant will produce parts for five-megawatt turbines. Production capacity is planned to exceed two point five gigawatts annually.
The reopening comes despite federal debates about renewable energy tax credits.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds noted that sixty six percent of Iowa’s power comes from renewable energy. That’s the highest percentage in the US.
Alliant Energy also has big plans for wind power in Iowa.
The company filed a plan with the Iowa Utilities Commission to add up to one gigwatt of wind generation.
Mayuri Farlinger is president of Alliant’s Iowa energy company. She says expanding wind energy will help them deliver reliable and cost-effective power to customers.
Alliant plans to own and operate the new wind projects. The company expects the projects to create construction jobs and provide payments to landowners. They’ll also generate new tax revenue for counties where the turbines are built.
The Iowa Utilities Commission is expected to make a decision in the first quarter of twenty twenty six.
Norway is testing the one of world’s biggest wind turbine.
Norwegian regulator N.V.E. approved GE Vernova subsidiary Georgine Wind plans for an eighteen-megawatt turbine in the municipality of Gulen.
NVE says this is the largest wind turbine ever approved in Norway. It’s also the first to be licensed inside an existing industrial area.
The turbine will have a rotor diameter of up to two hundred fifty meters. The maximum tip height will be two hundred seventy five meters.
The turbine will undergo testing for five years before switching to standard commercial operation for another twenty five years.
The United Kingdom has approved its largest Irish Sea wind farm.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband granted planning consent for the Mona offshore wind farm. The project is owned by B.P. and EnBW. It will feature ninety six turbines off northwest England.
The one point five gigawatt project could power more than one million homes with clean energy. It’s expected to begin production between twenty twenty eight and twenty twenty nine.
Miliband says this shows the government is backing builders, not blockers.
B.P. and EnBW are also waiting for approval of a neighboring wind farm called Morgan. That decision is due by September tenth.
The developers have been paying option fees of one hundred fifty four thousand pounds per megawatt per year since January twenty twenty three.
Richard Sandford is B.P.’s Vice President of Offshore Wind. He says this approval brings them closer to delivering large-scale, low-carbon energy critical to the U.K.’s net zero goals.
That’s this week’s top news story.
Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.
https://weatherguardwind.com/ge-nordex-iowa/
From the League of Conservationist Voters:https://www.2greenenergy.com/2026/07/06/trump-desperately-looking-for-and-finding-more-things-to-ruin/
The pianist/vocalist in this short video captures what life in America is like in mid-2026.
Sound on, but not too loud.
https://www.2greenenergy.com/2026/07/06/if-you-want-a-laugh-right-now/
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Storm Damages ENGIE Wind Farm, Mexico Plans 7 GW
Allen covers a storm that damaged ENGIE’s South Dakota wind farm, Sumitomo exiting two Belgian offshore farms, Envision’s loss in Denmark, and Continental building its own wind farm.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
Happy Monday everyone.
Sometimes … Mother Nature reminds the wind industry who is really in charge. Late last month … hurricane-force winds ripped through Hyde County, South Dakota … tearing into the Triple H Wind Farm operated by French energy giant Engie. One hundred and thirty-one miles per hour … as strong as a Category Four hurricane. More than twenty of the site’s ninety-two turbines … damaged. The two-hundred-fifty-megawatt complex is out of service … and turbine supplier GE Vernova is on-site now … assessing the wreckage. No injuries … but the governor declared a state of emergency. The machines that harvest the wind … taken down by the wind itself.
Now … while one wind farm goes dark in the American plains … ownership is reshuffling across the North Sea. Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation has exited two Belgian offshore wind farms … selling its stakes to joint venture partner Jera Nex BP. That is the partnership between oil major BP and Japan’s largest power generator Jera. Jera Nex BP now has full ownership of the two-hundred-nineteen-megawatt Northwester 2 … and has raised its stake in the one-hundred-sixty-five-megawatt Nobelwind to eighty percent. Both farms operate out of Ostend, Belgium … and have been generating power since 2017 and 2020. Sumitomo walks away … Jera Nex BP doubles down.
Meanwhile … in Denmark … China’s Envision Group is seeing red for the first time in fifteen years. The company’s global innovation center in Silkeborg … a strategic research hub for wind turbine components and advanced manufacturing … posted a loss of just under one-point-three million Danish kroner. That is a swing of more than one hundred fifteen percent from last year’s profit. The culprit is not the technology … it is the currency. The U.S. dollar fell nearly twelve percent against the Danish krone in 2025 … and Envision’s books took the hit. Revenue also dropped eighteen percent … but management says the underlying operations remained stable. The machines still work … the math just changed.
And speaking of money flowing into wind … a Turkish energy company just tapped an unusual source. Aksa Enerji … the largest publicly listed independent power producer in Turkiye … has secured one hundred twenty-four million dollars in financing backed by China’s export credit agency Sinosure. The money will fund a one-hundred-megawatt wind-plus-storage project in the southern province of Mersin. This is the first renewable energy project in Turkiye to receive a license as a storage-integrated facility. Aksa now operates power plants across seven countries … with more than three gigawatts of total capacity. Chinese capital … backing Turkish wind … with battery storage baked in from day one.
Now … here is a story that might surprise you. Continental … the German tyre maker … yes … the tyre company … is building its own wind farm. Three Nordex turbines … each standing two hundred sixty-seven meters tall … right next to its tyre factory in Korbach, Germany. When they are online … those turbines and the factory’s existing solar panels will cover two-thirds of the plant’s electricity demand. Fifty-five gigawatt-hours a year … powering rubber mixing and extrusion lines … directly from the wind. Continental calls it a model for its production sites worldwide. Cheaper power … more predictable costs … and less exposure to volatile energy markets. The wind industry just gained a tyre company as a customer … and a competitor for electrons.
And finally … south of the border. Mexico has eight gigawatts of wind power installed today … more than thirty-three hundred turbines across sixteen states. But the next chapter is already being written. The government plans to add nearly seven gigawatts of new wind capacity this term … part of a broader push for thirty-two gigawatts of new generation overall. More than two gigawatts of wind projects are pending allocation right now … and the industry estimates this next wave could mobilize four to five billion dollars in investment … building thirteen to fourteen new wind farms before the decade is out. The final decisions come in October.
Here is what stands out this week. The wind industry is no longer just selling kilowatt-hours to utilities … it is selling energy independence directly to manufacturers … and that changes the customer base entirely. At the same time … capital for new wind projects is coming from places it never came from before … export credit agencies … cross-border joint ventures … and government allocation programs with billions on the line. The money is there … but so are the risks … currency swings … extreme weather … and the constant reshuffling of who owns what. For wind energy professionals … the takeaway is simple … the industry is growing … but the business model around it is getting more complex by the quarter.
The turbines keep turning.
And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 5th of July 2026. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast tomorrow.
https://weatherguardwind.com/engie-storm-mexico-gw/
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