Published

2 years ago

July 9, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

GE Vernova Lawsuits, BP Renewables, Maersk Supply Service Acquired

GE Vernova is suing SKF USA for $386 million over failing bearings, and American Electric Power (AEP) is suing GE Vernova for wind turbine failures. WUPROHYD is looking to combine wave, solar, and wind power generation into a single floating structure, potentially revolutionizing offshore renewable energy production. BP’s CEO is moving company focus away from renewables. DOF Group acquires Maersk Supply Service for $1.11 billion in a cash and stock deal. Jupiter Bach is facing challenges due to EU sanctions on Chinese fiberglass. Nordex plans to restart production at its facility in Iowa. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has issued key approvals for two major offshore wind projects: Atlantic Shores South and New England Wind.

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 to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’ll be bringing you this week’s top stories in the wind energy sector. BP is making significant changes to its strategy under new CEO Murray Auchincloss. The oil giant has implemented a company wide hiring freeze and paused new offshore wind projects.

This marks a stark departure from the previous leadership’s focus on rapidly transitioning to renewable energy. Auchincloss is redirecting the company’s focus back to oil and gas investments, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and U. S. shale basins. Dozens of employees previously working on new renewable opportunities have been reassigned to existing projects, and the company is also expected to make job cuts in its renewable sector, though specific numbers haven’t been announced.

These changes come as BP faces investor discontent over its energy transition strategy, And underperforming shares. The company is now aiming to balance its decarbonization goals with the current high demand for oil and gas. Industry analysts see this as a significant shift in BP’s approach to the energy transition, potentially setting a new trend in the oil and gas sector.

Moving on to global shipping news, Norwegian supply shipping company, Dof Group, has agreed to acquire Maersk Supply Service for about 1. 1 billion. Dof will pay 577 million in cash and issue new shares worth 1. 1 billion. Merrick Supply Service Holding set to own 25 percent of Doff’s shares after the transaction.

The combined company will operate under Doff’s name and remain listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. DOP plans to finance the acquisition through a 500 million dollar debt facility and up to 125 million dollars in equity. In related news, a new company called Maersk Offshore Wind has been launched to accelerate offshore wind deployment.

The company will provide installation services. Using a new wind installation vessel concept, which is estimated to reduce installation time of offshore wind turbines by about 30 percent compared to conventional methods. This efficiency is expected to lower overall installation costs for developers.

The first vessel is scheduled for delivery in 2025. Maersk Offshore Wind, a spinoff of Maersk Supply Service, is owned by AP Moller Holding and will be headquartered in Denmark. The company aims to support the growing offshore wind market, particularly in Europe and the U. S., where ambitious targets for install capacity have been set for 2030 and 2050.

European wind industry supplier Jupiter Bach is facing challenges due to EU sanctions on Chinese fiberglass. The company’s CEO warns that high tariffs on raw materials But low tariffs on finished products are incentivizing production in China over Europe. JupiterBot is recommending that the EU require locally produced content in the wind industry to maintain European production capabilities and knowledge base.

In U. S. manufacturing news, Nordex Group has announced plans to restart production at its facility in West Branch, Iowa. The company will manufacture nacelles for its current N163 turbine model and a new product designed specifically for the U. S. market. Production is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2025 with an annual capacity expected to exceed 2.

5 gigawatts. This move is part of NORDEX’s growth strategy in North America and aims to meet domestic content requirements while creating new jobs in the U. S. Lastly, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has issued key approvals for two major offshore wind projects, Atlantic Shore South, which will generate up to 2.

8 gigawatts for New Jersey, Received a record of decision. New England wind is set to generate up to 2. 6 gigawatts for Massachusetts. Got approval for its construction and operations plan. These approvals mark significant progress in the U. S. offshore wind industry, with BOEM having now approved nine projects tolling more than 13 gigawatts of offshore wind energy in the development pipeline.

That’s this week’s top news stories. Now let’s welcome our co host, CEO and founder of InterStor, Phil Totaro, and the Chief Commercial Officer of WeatherGuard, Joel Saxo.

In some recent legal developments affecting the wind energy sector in the United States There are two significant lawsuits involving GE Vernovo. And the first one is with SKF bearing manufacturer for about 380 million. And then the second one is with AEP suing GE Vernovo over wind turbine failures, primarily focused on SKF bearings.

So this is a big deal. Where, wherever this, these lawsuits go, whether they settle or not, which they probably will there is a significant bearing issue out in service on a bunch of GE turbines. And I would assume this probably exists on other turbines, but maybe just not as well noticed. But it has to do with the coating on the bearings, Joel, there’s a diamond light coating, a very hard coating that’s applied to some of these bearings.

that from what I’m hearing from the field starts to flake off and then gets stuck into the lubrication system and then gets all caught up in the bearing. It is a huge problem. And I know when we traveled through Texas and Oklahoma operators brought this up to us.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, for sure. Imagine going to your car and opening up the oil reservoir and just pouring some metal chunks in there and then expecting your motor to last.

That’s just not how it works. So when this coating flakes off, it gets ground up a little bit smaller than the flakes, but not much because the coating is super, super hard. So it just creates. Basically debris within the lubrication system. So where they’re supposed to be. Solid bearing material, solid ball bearings or rollers rolling against a, or a guide you now and with grease in there, of course, you now have impregnated in all of that grease, all kinds of little particles that are chewing up your bearings.

We heard to the point where the bearing races got chewed through by this basically mixture of this coating and the grease so much that the roller bearings were falling out of the actual bearing race. And that, That’s extreme.

Allen Hall: And Phil, this has implications on a grander scale about service agreements, right?

That I think AEP is using GE. I think it’s maybe under warranty still, but there are also a lot of operators that are, have service agreements with GE. It puts a lot of pressure on GE Vernova at a time that they don’t really need it. And it opens a door, I think, to a lot of ISPs offering services that maybe GE doesn’t want to do anymore.

Does that make sense?

Philip Totaro: The reason why this is a big deal now is that A, it was leaked out. It’s not, it’s public information, but it’s not something that people would have necessarily known about had it not been for somebody tracking and finding the complaint that got filed in the state of New York where there’s also, an ongoing legal battle between GE and a bearing supplier SKF on, some of those main bearing issues that you mentioned, including the diamond light coating.

But AEP’s complaint against GE, they actually identified pitch bearing outer raceway issues gearbox torque pin migration they also identified cracks in TPI made blades Let’s see, blade edgewise vibration issues on TPI made blades, LM blade root delamination issues. There was also a blade liberation event that they specifically identified.

This has impacted three of AEP’s biggest project sites, which use GE 2. 0 I want to say 2. 5 116s and 2. 0. 8 1 27. And this is more than a gigawatt worth of capacity installed between these three project sites. The traverse Maverick and Sundance projects in Oklahoma. So these turbines are, probably not unique in the issues being experienced.

Although again, a lot of this does come back down to how are they being operated? What’s the turbulence intensity at the site, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s been GE’s kind of position is, an owner operator brings up these kind of maintenance issues and these breach of contract issues on.

The faults, failures, and the general state of operation and the availability of the plant. GE’s kind of, it feels according to AEP and the complaint that they filed, it feels like GE’s slow rolling them on a response. They’re basically saying, oh, we need time to investigate what’s really going on, and do all this root cause analysis, et cetera, et cetera.

And AEP’s hey, we’ve been telling you almost since day one that there’s been some issues. And you guys haven’t been fully addressing it.

Allen Hall: Joel, doesn’t this bring up a number of different operators and their affiliated OEMs? I can think of one in particular that’s having a similar issue, not with bearings but with some blade issues.

That seems to be pretty widespread, but in these cases where it is a difficult engineering problem to solve, and we’re pushing the boundaries very rapidly on what can be manufactured and what can be produced these kind of events, Joel, seem like they’re inevitable at some level, right? That you push a diamond like coating hard enough, eventually it’ll fail.

If you push a blade hard enough in particular aspects that eventually it’ll crack. We just don’t have enough history on some of these turbines to show a 20 year lifespan isn’t that part of the point, is that we’ve just designed ourselves into a corner, taking away some of the safety margins and those sort of things, just trying to lean them down to be more cost efficient.

Isn’t this the likely outcome?

Joel Saxum: It is. And the trouble here is that, okay, say take that same platform Phil was just talking about. The one about the AEP GE SKF lawsuits. That 2. 3 to 2. 8, so we call them the GE 2X machines, right? The 116, 127 meter rotors. There’s something like 9, 000 and change in those installed just in the U S.

So what happens with these people, whether this is a GE problem or you’re talking about other issues in the marketplace, Festus, Siemens, Kamesa, whoever it is they all have this. Some kind of serial defect type thing going on at some level. There’s, you can find a mistake like that in almost every manufacturer’s product line.

They don’t have the horsepower to go and fix these things, right? If GE all of a sudden goes, there’s this lawsuit goes through, everybody hops on board right behind AEP. And this thing turns into 10 operators suing GE and trying to get some kind of recourse from it. There’s not enough money, time or people right now in the wind industry to go and fix all these problems.

You’re not there. You’re not going to go and replace 9, 000 main bearings. Sorry. Like we don’t, there’s not enough cranes. There’s not enough people. There’s not enough money to go do that right now. So engineering, these opportunities. So this is the follow, but like getting back to your question, Allen We’ve, in my opinion, now I’m not a engineer in a factory building wind turbine parts.

I’m not Rosemary, right? I’ve never done that. But yeah, we’ve pushed ourselves so hard in this arms race to get the biggest, baddest, best turbines out there that we’ve cut safety margins down and changed things so fast and didn’t possibly, this bearing thing is a hard thing to test. To be honest with you, because they not, it’s not like it’s a high speed rotating piece of equipment where you can, figure some meantime before failure out by just cranking the thing up.

This is a slow rolling, doesn’t really move a whole lot kind of piece of equipment much like a pitch bearing is the kind of the same thing. They’re hard to test.

Allen Hall: If there’s going to be this defect problem, let’s go, let’s call it a defect just to simplify the situation. So say there’s some sort of defect.

In the bearings, GE still may not know what’s causing them. I agree with Joel here. They probably did a ton of testing on these bearings and have service experience with the coating. I think it wouldn’t fail. These wind turbines are getting, becoming more complex, right? As they have reduced safety factors, they’re getting modes of loads that are slightly different.

That’s why they have this blade cracking issue. Probably also, is it just The combination of all these variables that’s adding up, that something is happening to the bearings, and subsequently. Is there a fix that doesn’t involve replacing all the bearings? Do we know that yet?

Philip Totaro: This is more of a, if we’re gonna call it a serial defect issue, again, this is what’s in the AEP, legal complaint against GE they’re calling it a serial defect issue.

That’s a, first of all, a different scenario, but it’s not as much necessarily related to operation. This is, what we sometimes refer to, and slightly unfortunate phrase here, but infant mortality rate of components in the industry. So there’s that kind of a a scenario that has to be dealt with.

And those components just need to be swapped out. But if they’re seeing an actual operational related failure within, these projects were, installed in 2021 and operational in 2022, they shouldn’t be seeing where related faults and failures that fast, unless there was a manufacturing defect.

Allen Hall: But I think the other factor, which is unknown from the bearing manufacturer’s standpoint. Is things like generator currents and currents flowing around the nacelle up there that. You as a bearing manufacturer have no control over either, right? And I think that’s actually comes up in one of the complaints is talking about current flow in the nacelle running through the bearings.

Philip Totaro: We need more data sharing in the industry. Because that is the only thing that is going to solve this problem. Show us your data. Get that stuff out there so people can start looking at it. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to drive up your insurance premiums. There are ways we can shield that information from people that you don’t want to share it with.

But start putting mechanisms in place where people that are having similar problems, other owner operators that have similar problems to you, are able to take a look at the data you’ve got, what problems you’re having, start a conversation, and share information, and that is going to reduce these faults and failures.

Allen Hall: I do think that the operators, especially large operators like AEP, Participate in ESIG and a number of other types of operator conferences where they do discuss these things. I think the missing link right now is who at an operator’s site has someone super knowledgeable about the coding that is applied to a GE bearing.

I don’t know who that would be. I haven’t run across that person. I’d say they don’t exist, but it doesn’t seem like someone you necessarily carry on your staff. And that’s a problem, right? I think it’s also a limited number of people with the knowledge to go investigate it and to come up with some conclusions.

I know there’s, GE’s full of smart people, right? I’m sure they have applied smart people to a difficult problem. But from my read of the situation, it doesn’t look like they have identified a one possible cause. This seems like there’s three, four, five of them right now.

Philip Totaro: That’s correct. And to their point, they do need to do a full RCA and all this stuff.

Whether or not they are culpable under the contract for having allowed some of these potential serial defects into, because what, here’s what happens when GE signs a supply contract with SKF, or Timken, or anybody. They have certain guarantees provided by that subcomponent manufacturer. But at the end of the day, in the turbine supply contract to, in this case it was Invenergy that built these sites, and then sold them to AEP, there’s like a line drawn in the sand that says GE is liable here.

And that if there’s an issue with the performance of the bearing, even though it’s technically, GE has to go work it out with the bearing supplier, GE’s the one that’s contractually liable to the owner operator.

Joel Saxum: A trade off there. Phil, you say share the data. Allen, you say, yes, great, but there’s not always an expert.

Why not get the, do the share of the data, but get the subject matter experts involved? So where does this go?

Allen Hall: What’s the likely outcome of all this? Between AEP, GE, and SKF.

Joel Saxum: Phil’s right. I think Phil said, I think you said earlier Phil it won’t go to trial. They’ll settle. There’ll be some money changed hands.

And then GE will do a little bit of horse trading with AEP.

Philip Totaro: You’re right, Joel. This isn’t the first time that an OEM’s been sued for issues or had issues with an owner operator. But it, the fact that this has been, Made so public, it’s triggering a lot of conversations now amongst ISPs independent service providers, and owner operators.

And, OEMs to say, look, if we’re not getting what we need from you, we’re going to cancel your, full wrap service contract. And we’re going to go to this independent service provider, or we’re going to start domesticating that knowledge and capability in house. To repair our own stuff.

Joel Saxum: Let’s do some simple math here. Let’s just, this is just for interest sake. Okay, so let’s take Traverse. And we say there’s 356 turbines on that farm. And we’re gonna say half of them have an issue. 178 turbines have an issue. So say we gotta replace the main bearings on 178 turbines. That is, you have a crane on site.

Basically, it probably takes a, you can hook the thing in a morning, get it down to the ground. How long do you think it takes to swap that bearing out? Say it’s two days. So you’re looking at 300, we’re going right back up, 356 working days. Okay, we’re not working on Sundays, so we’re gonna take that out of there.

You’re looking at 60 weeks of working time with one crane, and that’s without encountering any weather, which you’re going to have. If you had one crane, it would take you probably two years To do those of it nonstop and a crane is sometimes depending on what the crane is, those things are 20, 30, 000 a day.

Philip Totaro: Well, which by the way is what makes was it Treehouse that just invested in Liftworks? That’s what makes that investment so important, I think, at this point.

Allen Hall: From a GE looking forward perspective and a little bit looking back, I think. Is this something that they knew was in the background for the last year or so, and this explains why they’ve made some of the decisions they made to essentially reduce staff, cut down on the number of models, probably focus on what they have, and less on development, obviously they said they were doing that.

Does this problem, and maybe just because of how maybe widespread it is, force that kind of action upon G. E. even though they weren’t really talking about it, they had to have known in the background this was going on.

Philip Totaro: Oh yeah, they would have had to have known that this was gonna be coming. Again, considering how we operate projects in the U.

S. now, this isn’t just this PTC farming that I keep talking about, that’s not new. This has been going on since we started doing the repowering, the PTC driven repowerings, in 2017. We’re getting experienced enough.

Allen Hall: Where’s the certification body in all this?

Philip Totaro: Counting their money.

Allen Hall: Did anybody mention that? Who’s,

Joel Saxum: who is going after the type certification body? Contractually, they’ve got something that, that makes them non liable, I almost guarantee that.

Allen Hall: Sure, right? And the airplane world is very similar. An airplane crashes, the FAA comes back and looks at it, and says everything was within process, the standard process, everything, all the boxes were checked properly.

Things just broke. Okay. We’ll go back and future airplanes won’t have that problem. Here, the certification body, which is a private organization is putting their stamp of approval on these turbines. And then two years in they’re having massive Serial defect issues, something’s wrong, right? Cause GE is going to point to the certification body.

AEP probably is also, right? I got the certificate. It says everything’s cool. And SKF as a bearing manufacturer says, I passed the CERT test, the type certification test for this application. Everybody’s just gonna be pointing at one another, right? And when it gets into court, somebody’s gonna say that.

They’re gonna ask what was the consequences of having a certification if we’re just ignoring it. When things get tough. How do they step out of this? I don’t know. But it does seem like that is part of the missing link. As wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it, difficult.

That’s why the Uptime Podcast recommends PES Wind magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out.

Visit PES wind.com today. So in this issue of PES Wind Magazine, a good article, and we don’t talk about this a lot, but I’m interested in Wave Energy and you don’t see a lot of deep articles about how to use wave energy. I know there’s some really good designs that have been out there. Putting them in the field and getting something tested.

That’s a different story. And I think there’s been a lot of worry about wave energy, how durable it’s going to be and those kinds of things. But as we move offshore, particularly for floating wind, I think wave energy is a possibility, and I think there’s some unique opportunities at the moment to do something.

And there’s a Polish design firm called WuProHyde, W P R O H Y D. that is working on innovative wave turbine technology to take power out of the ocean waves. And they’re, what they’re. Describing in the magazine is a three part system, an energy island, so to speak of wind, floating wind with solar on these platforms and on the top of the platform is solar, on the bottom of the platform is a wave energy system such that they can maximize the output of these Energy islands.

And if they give some numbers here, but basically what they’re saying is somewhere between 21 and 34 megawatts could be generated by the system in the North Sea per module. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of power generation without a lot of more complexity. Obviously there’s some here you’re building this little platform for these solar panels and wave generators to sit in, it looks fairly straightforward.

And my question to everybody here is, why haven’t we seen more combos of solar, wind, and gas? Wave, wind, wave solar being thought of or trialed right now.

Joel Saxum: So last year, Allen, exactly what this article is about. I sat in a panel at OTC, the offshore technology conference, mainly focused on oil and gas, but they had some renewable energy technologies in, which was great.

But one of the panelists actually the lead was talking about designs for this exact same thing, like we hate. We’re gonna, if you have offshore floating wind or offshore fixed bottom wind, you already have the infrastructure in place, the cables are ran the expert, like everything’s there. Why not add more generation to it?

The other side of that, too, is if you put in the wave generators for power. Now you’re creating power at night. During the day, during different weather patterns, all kinds of different stuff, right? So you’re optimizing the time, the, the uptime of that generating asset. So it just makes sense.

And all of us have been to the beach, all of us have been to the ocean. Like the waves are always rolling, even when there’s a light breeze, there’s always waves moving. This, and there’s actually quite a couple, there’s a couple of other concepts out there that are taking advantage of tidal.

Currents, because again, like that’s something you could set your clock by when title currents move so that resource is always going to be there. So I think that this is something that should be explored a little bit more. The tough thing I think that you’re going to hear from people in the industry is the operations and maintenance on it.

That’s something we’ve got to make sure that we can sort out.

Philip Totaro: That is part of it. The other reason why, going back to Allen’s original question, why we don’t see more of these being commercially deployed is the insurance companies are, unfortunately, as they tend to be, pretty risk averse, particularly when you start combining these different power generation systems on a single platform.

And the fact that, one thing happens, it takes down, three power generation sources now, instead of them being three independent ones. You’re also talking about more electrical infrastructure out there in the water. Bigger substations, bigger converters, etc. So there’s kind of trade offs, both commercially and technologically, to that.

The other thing is that the wave energy converters haven’t been as reliable or efficient. When you can go out and get 50, 60, whatever percent capacity factor from an offshore wind farm, with particularly low turbulence intensity, these wave energy converters are maybe doing 8 to 10 percent conversion efficiency.

It hasn’t been the best performing technology, but it’s early, and there’s obviously some economies of scale that can happen. I don’t, however, ever see the wave Energy technology being deployed as a commercial power generation source by its own. I do the concept of combining it with different power generation technologies to do what Joel was just describing and take advantage of, continuous power generation, regardless of, whether or other operational circumstance.

So that seems like a reasonable thing to be able to do.

Allen Hall: So if you haven’t, Okay. Received your copy of PES Wind, the latest issue. You can download it at peswind.com. A lot of great articles in this issue a lot to catch up on. So check it out at peswind.com.

Joel Saxum: This week’s Wind Farm of the Week is the Richland Wind Farm is in Iowa, owned by Aligned Energy, so SAT county, Iowa, and it’s started, it’s, producing of energy in September of 2020. There, the wind farm has 53 GE 2. 5 megawatt machines with 127 meter rotors for a 131 megawatts total hub height as about 295 feet on these things. So they’re pretty high. They were designed for a medium wind with a design speed of 17 miles per hour. So this wind farm was part of a line energies strategy of putting over 1.

8 billion into wind energy back in the, this was in the 2020. So the last one, this was the last wind farm of a larger plan to add five new wind farms to Iowa, which they did right before COVID. So some interesting things about this wind farm. I found a little bit of information online October and November, and then jumping to March and April are the, actually the best producing months year by year for the Richland wind farm.

And by that, that’s when they make the most amount of power. So the most recent data shows that about a little over 560 gigawatt hours of annual generation came from the Richland wind farm in the last 12 months. And that is good to be number 40 out of 123 wind power plants in Iowa. And I bet you didn’t know there was 123 wind farms in Iowa. So number 40 out of 123 in Iowa and 335 out of 1, 329 in the United States nationwide and that’s for wind power plants. The interesting one, you expand that to all the power plants in the country and if you rank the Richland Wind Farm by how much power it produced in the last 12 months, it ranks number 1, 239 out of 11, 249 total power plants.

So Richland Wind Farm in Iowa? You are our windfarm of the week.

Allen Hall: That’s going to do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy podcast. Thanks for listening. 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.

https://weatherguardwind.com/ge-vernova-lawsuit-bp-maersk-nordex/

Renewable Energy

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

Published

7 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Alice Rush

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

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

Renewable Energy

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

Published

10 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Alice Rush

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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

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

Allen Hall: 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.