Published

4 weeks ago

June 19, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Green Eagle’s ARSOS Automates Wind Farm Operations

Alejandro Cabrera Muñoz, CEO and founder of Green Eagle Solutions, discusses their ARSOS platform and how it helps wind farm operators manage technical complexities, market volatility, and regulatory changes by automating turbine issue responses for increased productivity and revenue.

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!

Wind Farm operators face mounting challenges from managing thousands of diverse turbines to navigating the energy markets and constant regulatory changes. This week we speak with Alejandro Cabrera Munoz, CEO, and founder of Green Eagle Solutions. Green Eagle’s ARSOS platform gives control rooms immediate responses to turbine issues, which dramatically increases productivity and captures more revenue from their turbines.

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

Allen Hall: Alejandro, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: Thank you, Allen. Thank you for having me here today.

Allen Hall: so Green Eagle Solutions is in a unique space of the renewable energy marketplace, and you saw a problem several years ago, particularly in the control rooms of [00:01:00] wind operators. What is that problem that you identified?

Speaker 3: Yeah, Allen, I think it, it’s, It’s a challenge that, most of our customers, which are generally large operators, are facing today. But it’s a challenge that have been, growing, in the past years. So first of all, it’s, it goes along with the penetration of renewables in the industry, right?

So we have, due to all these many years of aggregating new wind farms and solar plants, We are seeing how the complexity, the technical complexity of operating and supervising these assets is growing exponentially, right? So we now have customers with thousands of wind turbines that have, different models, different versions of, controllers, And also different healthcare issues that they have to take care of. So the technical complexity is a fair, the first [00:02:00] factor that, it’s has to be tackled from a control room, And, makes, operations quite, challenging. Along with this, we have market volatility. So in the recent years especially, we are seeing how, Negative pricing and optional markets are now affecting operations in a daily, basis. Basically in every 15 minutes you dunno if you’re gonna produce or not. Up until recently it was as simple as if you had wind resource, you would produce energy from wind farms. If you had solar, you produce energy from solar plants.

It’s not like that anymore. So the market is quite, volatile. that adds a lot of complexity from the commercial point of view of, Of the assets. And the last, factor that is actually becoming, an increasing challenge for everyone is the regulatory changes. So basically due to the penetration of renewable energies, what we see is that all governments, all grid operators and our market operators are constantly issuing [00:03:00] new adapt, new regulatory changes, that everyone has to adapt to no matter what.

it doesn’t matter if you have an all wind farm or a newer wind farm. Or you prepared or not, like everyone has to be adapted to, to the new regulatory, changes. the three things are actually affecting, our customers and we are trying to solve all these issues, the way, the, best way that we can, right?

So most of our customers, we just have a control room full of people. they will do their best effort to accommodate these challenges. The reality is that we have to. Deal with, people, procedures, and, systems, and we, if we don’t put these three things in place, it’s impossible to cope up. With the complexity that we are dealing with, and that’s where we come in.

Joel Saxum: I think you painted the picture of a really good problem that’s not just like local to the eu, local to India, local to South America, whatever. it’s a global issue, right? You have the, massive build out of different kinds of [00:04:00] technologies that need to be managed in different ways that, bring their own issues, their own delivery to the grid, those kind of things.

and then you, and as Green Eagle has, painted the picture like, Hey, we saw these issues. This is where we come in, this is where we step in. So in that, what kind of inefficiencies are you seeing in the traditional wind farm operations versus what you guys are bringing to the table now?

Speaker 3: So just to give a few examples, and I think I, I can be quite, precise on this. let’s say that a wind turbine gets some fault because of, high temperature on the gearbox, and it’s a. It’s an automated response from the manufacturer that the ban is gonna stop for safety measures, right?

So in many cases. This is solved from the control room point. from the control room by waiting for an operator to just, follow a procedure, right? So this procedure takes a lot of time. Why? Because you are not only paying attention to one winter turbine band, you may have 2000 winter turbines, right?

[00:05:00] So you have to first identify, which is a model of winter turbine band that is affected by this issue. Then you have to go through the manual, then you have to check what are the parameters, and the whole process takes minimum half an hour if you wanna do it properly. The problem is when you have other issues like high wind speed, right?

So normally when you have high wind resource, which is basically when you can produce more energy, is when your assets suffer the most. And so they’re more prone to errors, they’re more prone to go get on fault. So if you take a look at these times, the country room, response time is actually gonna go up in hours, right?

So this one of the one simple example is a end-to-end full haling procedure that takes between. 20 minutes, two hours, depending on how you have a structure, your systems, people, and procedures, right? So this is the first thing that we can tackle. Like just as an example with our software, we can automate the whole process end to end.

That means that this problem is never gonna be dealt with. From an operator, This is gonna be [00:06:00] automated. This is an, this is never gonna become an issue for an operator ever again.

Allen Hall: Yeah. And I think this lends itself to software obviously, that there’s, if you look at these control rooms, if you, or especially if you looked 3, 4, 5 years ago.

It’s pretty chaotic in there. And if you are on the market for electricity and the price is fluctuating and you have turbines popping on and off, you have a crisis and it’s very hard to sort that out and to get the turbines up and running if you need them to be, to produce power so you can make money.

’cause ultimately we’re trying to maximize the revenue to our company. And that cannot be a human response. We’re too slow. Humans are too slow to respond to all this. And because we’d have to know every nuance to every turbine or solar farm makes the problem immensely impossible. So that’s where you have developed a piece of software called.

ARSOS and it’s a system approach to a very complicated problem. So you want to explain what ARSOS does

Speaker 3: [00:07:00] effectively, what, what ARSOS does is to provide immediate response to whatever issue you have already a procedure to deal with, right? So let’s take into account the, previous example that, that we were using, in this case.

And, there are hundreds of different cases where a wind turbine is gonna stop. Every wind turbine is gonna, can have potentially hundreds of different. Scenarios where it’s gonna go on fault and require human attention or attention from remote. So the first thing that we can, provide is, immediate response time.

I think all the investment funds, IPPs or utilities, can now rely on a system instead of, relying on people. They can rely on a system that is gonna do effectively. The first phase actually is gonna do exactly the same. With immediate response time, this is what our source is all about. according to our experience, we have identified if you, could take 100% of the issues or incidents that can impact, the availability of the assets.

We have identified that at least [00:08:00] 80% of those incidents can be managed autonomously. Among that 80%, almost 75% of them can be resolved autonomously, and the other 20%. It can be just dispatched to, technicians on site so they can actually go on the turbine and fix the issue on site. So this, this is, this is our goal.

We can multiply by five the operational capacity of our customers. but along with that comes many other benefits. So the, main one, we already tackling that, right? So immediate response time with that comes, increase of productivity because we don’t need operators to be doing repetitive tasks anymore, so they can actually do other.

Added value activities, but immediate response also provide with an increase of availability, which also translate into an increase of production and again, translate into additional revenue. So effectively what we’re doing is to transform a traditionally thought of, center of cost, like the, it is a [00:09:00] control room.

We can optimize the control room to a point where it’s no longer a center of cost. Actually an opportunity to turn that into a center of revenue. We can actually improve the operations. We can actually capture more revenue from our assets. But we can only do that through automation.

Joel Saxum: So when you’re talking with operators, okay, so I’m, right now I’m imagining Alejandro on a sales call and you’re talking with them and you have, you may have in that room, some energy traders.

You may have some of the operators from the ROC, you may have. an engineer in charge of it, an asset manager, someone of that sort, and you start talking through the problems that you guys can solve. Which ones make the light bulb go on the most? Is it the revenue? Is it like, Hey, we can actually pull more revenue outta here, or is it, Hey, operators of the control room, we’re going to ease your life.

Which, which of these are the breaking points that make people go, yes, we want to use Green Eagle?

Speaker 3: Yeah, that’s a great question, Joel, and unfortunately it’s not that simple to answer. I wish I had the, right answer to that. [00:10:00] But the reality is that every type of customer has different, interest.

and I’m gonna give you a few examples. if you’re a trader, what you’re gonna value is the capabilities to participate in advanced, optional markets, right? Especially in Spain, we are the most used, technology to participate in secondary markets and c services, restoration reserves and so on.

So we enable our customers, the traders in this case, to participate in all these markets with zero efforts so they can focus on trading. But all the infrastructure, all the communications, all the actual management of curtailments is done automatically. So they can just focus on trading. but that’s what they, see, right?

If we were talking to an IP for instance, ISPs are generally, focused on or driven by, service level agreement based on availability, right? So if they say, if they, if their commitment is 97% of availability, they’re [00:11:00] gonna try to reach that, right? So that driven by the availability. but that’s it. they’re not necessarily capturing more if the availability goes higher than 97% or if the site is being operated better, or if the site is being actually producing more.

Sometimes they’re not incentivized by that. This is why, the reason, this is the reason why we are not normally focused on large utilities and large operators because, effectively, large utilities and IPPs, they, if they’re large enough, they’re gonna have everything in house. So they’re gonna see the benefits at all levels.

They’re gonna increase the productivity, and they’re gonna improve their operational model as a whole. So that’s why, we are targeting, these larger operators.

Allen Hall: I know a lot of the different operators have their own models of how to respond to particular alarms. Everybody does it differently depending upon a lot of it’s where you are in the world, where your wind turbines are and how your wind turbines respond to certain conditions.

So they’ve [00:12:00] developed these sort of procedures themselves. Are they able to integrate their existing procedures into the ARSOS platform where. Basically they’re taking the human outta the loop, but just automating it, making it simpler for the control room to run these turbines.

Speaker 3: That’s a great question, Allen.

of course, yes. and this is something that, we’ve been, seeing from day one. at the beginning when we thought, let’s, automate all these processes and all these procedures, I, we thought that we were gonna find like a common ground of how to deal with this model of turbines. However, what we see is a complete different way to.

To operate a fleet. And it depends on both commercial, and operational strategies. for instance, a utility that is gonna keep their assets for 20 years, they’re gonna have be paying attention of what is the most effective way to operate, taking care of the healthcare, of the assets. So it’s gonna be more conservative, it’s gonna be more long-term thinking.[00:13:00]

on the contrary, if, let’s say that you have a portfolio that you’re gonna sell in two years. That may drive, you to a more aggressive protocol. So you may want to, hire the higher the availability, increase the production, even if that comes at a cost of, a little bit more fatigue on the winter turbines.

So it all depends on how, what you wanna get for your fleet. what’s important is that we allow, we provide the technology. We don’t tell our customers how to operate. Actually, they have. They have more knowledge than us, to be honest. They know their assets, they know how they behave, and if you ask them, they know exactly that Tar van, three out of 2000 in this wind farm has this issue, and the other one that has a different issue, they already know that stuff.

So we’re not gonna tell them how to operate their fleet, but we allow them to do whatever they think is best for turbine. By turbine, I mean with our software, you can actually define different protocols and assign each protocol to one turbine. That means that, for instance, [00:14:00] if you, change the, the gearbox of one tarn out of 2000, right?

Normally you, what you would like to do is that the next day everyone is paying attention to the tarn in case something happens, right? but you have 2000, so that’s actually not very realistic. So in that case, what you do is that you configure out protocol that is designed for that specific model of turbine, and that takes into account that the gearbox was replaced recently.

So if there’s an alert, on a fault related to a gearbox. Then the response is gonna be taking that, it’s gonna take that into account. So obviously this kind of things can only be done if you’re based on, automation. Otherwise you just, have to rely on a few notebooks that you have in your control room and that they’re static.

They never change. they’re the same for 20 years and they never evolve.

Allen Hall: Yeah, they’re the same for every turbine. And that’s just a approach that we need to give up, that we need to move on as an industry to be more efficient in what we do. So how. [00:15:00] Does an operator, and I know you’re working with a lot of large operators and have a lot of turbines under your systems.

How does the RSOs implementation take place? What does that look like?

Speaker 3: All right, so it depends on the, I would say on the digital maturity of our customers. So it depends. Some of them already have a very strong network. Secure network. They have a, let’s, say, one of our customers in the, us, right?

So they already have a NERC department in place. basically what, first we need to understand what, they have already in place and how we can fit into that, solution in this, in the most, let’s say most, most demanding scenario. We are, gonna deploy your software on premises. So it depends on whatever they have already in place with the, we deploy your software, we provide them with the installers.

We provide them with the procedures and they are autonomous to, to install it. Obviously with our support, from remote [00:16:00] in, in other cases, in the other extreme, we have customers that don’t have a large portfolio. They don’t have these large IT and nerc. Department, in place. So in for smaller portfolios, we can actually connect from our cloud.

Our cloud, we make sure that it’s cyber security. We have all the certification in place. and this is the solution that we have. So we have, our cloud is connected to an onsite, piece of software that we install on, the edge, and they’re connecting securely. And that’s how we do it. in terms of architecture, I think it’s important, to get deeper into.

Why we are, proposing a, we are also establishing a different, way to do things because it also has to do with the architecture itself. if you take into account, the NERC rules in the US but also any cybersecurity policy, it is basically gonna go against any kind of [00:17:00] optimization, in the operations, right?

Because when you have so many issues, as we mentioned before. The tendency is gonna be to, okay, so this let’s centralize everything into one place where I can actually manage everything, efficiently, right? So one place centralize. I can control everything from this place. I have a control room here. I.

That’s it. Now that goes totally against cyber security policies, philosophy, right? Which they would like to have everything isolated from each other. So you have to actually go to the site and push the button right there. Now we have a, I would say the best solution, that covers this, both worlds, right?

So we have a solution that allows you to centralize the configuration. Distribute the autonomous control. That means that instead of relying on a centralized control room where the operators are pushing the button, so in the control room, you actually don’t push the buttons. You have the control room to supervise and to define the protocols itself.

Then these protocols are. Sign to each turbines, [00:18:00] the right protocols, but then the control is actually done autonomously on site. So even if your control room gets disconnected from the sites, from the network, you lose connectivity to your control room. You cannot access for whatever reason to your control room, you can be certain that your sites are still being operated in the same way.

If you could access your control room. So this is actually compliance with the cyber security policies at the same time that is allow, is providing you with what you were looking for to begin with, which is efficiency in operations.

Allen Hall: When an operator installs the RSO system, what are the typical things that they’ll see immediately?

is it just easier to operate the turbines, it just requires less staff? Are they producing more revenue? What are those success stories look like?

Speaker 3: Yeah, success stories look like this. Just like any automation attempt at the beginning, everyone is suffering from a little bit of, control, fism, right?

So it is okay, am I losing control of this? So we already have a system to deal with this. So what we do, basically, we install [00:19:00] our software in parallel to your control room. it works as a shadow mode, in a simulation mode. So basically what it does is to say, if this was active, what would it do?

Automatically versus what actually, what, are my operators actually doing? So we can actually compare for a few weeks or a few months, the performance of the automation versus the performance of the, current room. So normally when we propose this, customers, I will say in the mindset, it’s okay to test this for two, three months and then.

Go ahead and say, okay, let’s activate it. I no longer want to do this manually. It’s a waste of time and resources, right? The reality is that as soon as we put it in place and they see how it works, how it re respond immediately instead of. The delay that comes from operators, it takes, I would say, no more than two weeks until they’re already ready to put it, in production mode.

Allen Hall: When they see the lost revenue, [00:20:00] they would immediately turn it on and start making some more money.

Speaker 3: It takes between two weeks, no more than a month for sure.

Joel Saxum: I hear water cooler conversations. That would be like the ro the robot beats you guys again, you

Speaker 3: know. automation has a very interesting effect.

It’s that. I would say it’s a vicious cycle. So once you see something working autonomously, the brain works in a very interesting way. It’s you never want to do that manually again. It’s am I doing it? It doesn’t, it does not make any sense anymore. so it triggers, whole, efforts to just more of it, right?

More of it. It’s okay, if we’re doing a. POC with 10 sites, but you have 30 sites. You want it in the 30 sites as soon as possible. If you’re doing it to automate a few cases, but you know that you can actually automate more cases. You wanna do it as soon as possible as well. So it triggers, once you start this process, there’s no way back.

it triggers this vicious cycle where you are constantly thinking, okay, what’s the next thing [00:21:00] that if possible, I don’t wanna do it again. It’s very exciting.

Joel Saxum: I’m thinking about when I used to write reports in Excel and I learned, I finally learned how to do a macro in Excel, and then I was like, why I’m never writing another basic one of these reports again.

I could just push a button and it does it all. and it’s life changing, right? So once you get onto that, there’s just, there’s, people that are wired that way too, right? I used to have a, mentor that was wired. How can we do this better, faster, more efficiently? And it, he was trying to put that into everything we did.

Once he figured out a little way to do here, a little way to do here was, how can we make this better? so you guys have been working, really hard to get this system out through the Green Eagle ASO solution out in the marketplace. Based on the success you’re seeing, what does it look like for the future?

What’s the next step?

Speaker 3: So I think that the, in the future what we see, at least what we are aiming for is that every wind farm should have a system like ours. I don’t really care if it’s ours or not, but it should work that way. as a, [00:22:00] from a technical point of view, it’s it doesn’t make any sense that not all wind farms are running with a system like ours.

So that’s the way we see it. Like it’s, Getting momentum. I think it took a while for us to, take off and to get large customers to use our software, but now that large customers are using it, and the system is more than validated. We already have this running in over 10,000 wind turbine vans.

So I think it’s more than proven that it works and that we are solving a problem that no longer exists anymore. This is how we see it, the wind industry in the next, three to five years. All of the wind farms should come with this, and essentially we’re trying to make it come with a software like ours from day one.

So even if they’re already still connected to the manufacturer. It only, this can only benefit in the long run, right? but starting from day one. So this is what we are working on and how to get there as soon as possible we can encourage our customers to, [00:23:00] to start using this automation. To enable them to take back control of their assets to their operations, to not rely on someone else to do your, the operations of your site.

if you wanna get out of the manufacturer and work with an ISP, you can also make sure that the response time from their control room is also gonna be immediate with the software. So as soon as you have it, you’re gonna see the returns. And actually, we also work with our customers to. To prove the increase of revenue that they experience.

And we, the benefits of automation also is that you can measure the impact, right? So we generally work with our customers. We can measure the impact in their operations and we normally capture like a third of what they are gonna receive. So it’s like a no brainer to use our software. And for that reason, we believe that three to five years from now, every wind farm is gonna be running autonomously.

Allen Hall: Wow. That would be amazing. And the Green Eagle Solutions website, if you haven’t [00:24:00] visited it, you need to, it’s green eagle solutions.com. There’s a. Great information on that site. If you want to dive in deep or just take a cursory look, that’s the place to start. Alejandro, if they want to connect with you to learn more about ARSOS and what it does, how would they do that?

Speaker 3: the most, straightforward way to write an email to sales@greeneaglesolutions.com.

Allen Hall: That’s a good place to start. And you can also find Alejandro, LinkedIn also. Alejandro, thank you so much for being with us today. Tremendous product, very interesting technology. I. Thank you so much for having me today.

https://weatherguardwind.com/green-eagle-arsos/

Renewable Energy

Is Tesla Powerwall Worth It For Australian Houses In 2025?

Published

2 days ago

July 11, 2025

Alice Rush

Australia, a country of vast open space and abundant sunlight, has firmly established itself as a global leader in rooftop solar adoption.

According to recent data, the country has over 3.9 million rooftop systems installed, yielding a combined capacity of approximately 37.8 GW of PV. This remarkable achievement reflects the country’s strong commitment to a sustainable energy future.

But what happens when the sun goes down or when the grid fails?

Yes, that’s where home battery storage steps in, and no name resonates more loudly than Tesla Powerwall!

With the release of the Powerwall 3 and evolving energy landscapes, many Australian homeowners are asking: Is a Tesla Powerwall still a worthwhile investment in 2025?

If you’re an Australian looking for a home solar battery, Tesla Powerwall is arguably the most popular home battery on the energy market right now.

So, here’s why Tesla Powerwall could be worth it for your Australian home!

In this blog post:

But First, What Is Tesla Powerwall?

Back in 2015, Tesla ventured into the energy storage market with the Tesla Powerwall, a home battery system. This battery system is specially designed to store energy, mitigating the intermittency of renewable energy sources.

Although Tesla was globally recognized for its electric vehicles, the launch of the storage battery, the Tesla Powerwall, marked another bold leap for the company.

This home energy storage is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that can keep your home illuminated 24/7 with reliable power and significantly reduce your electricity bills.

Powerwall’s smart system can be tailored to your specific energy requirements. This battery can be charged from solar energy, ensuring that power is always available on demand. It essentially serves as a backup power source for nighttime or cloudy days.

Following their initial release in 2015 in limited quantities, Tesla has continually expanded its energy lineup with larger-scale solutions.

In 2025, Tesla’s lineup includes three Powerwall models: Powerwall 2, Powerwall+, and Powerwall 3. Each model offers 13.5 kWh of usable energy storage.

In Australia, Powerwall+ and Powerwall 3 are designed for new solar and storage system installations, which involve integrating solar inverters for higher efficiency. At the same time, Powerwall 2 is often used for retrofitting existing solar systems.

Now, they also offer different categories, such as the Powerpack, designed for commercial and industrial use, and the Megapack, engineered to support utility-scale grid operations, among others.

How Does Powerwall Work? Find Out!

In general, the Tesla Powerwall is a rechargeable home battery system that stores energy for later use while providing essential security and financial benefits.

It works seamlessly with solar panels or the electric grid to manage energy supply and demand in your home.

It includes energy monitoring, metering, and smart controls, which the owner can customize and control via the Tesla app.

The system then learns and adapts to your energy consumption slowly over time. It receives over-the-air updates to add new features and improve existing ones.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how it works:

Step 1: Energy Collection

With Solar Panels

Your solar panels usually generate electricity during the day. From that, some of this energy powers your home, while the excess charges the Powerwall battery.

Without Solar

If you don’t have solar panels, the Powerwall can charge using electricity from the grid when rates are low, for example, at night.

Step 2: Energy Storage

The Powerwall stores the unused electricity in its lithium-ion battery.

This stored energy is saved for when you need it most, like during peak usage times, at night, or during a power outage.

Step 3: Energy Usage

When solar production drops or the grid goes down, the Powerwall automatically kicks in, supplying your home with clean, stored renewable energy.

Depending on its configuration, it can power lights, appliances, and even critical systems, such as hot water heat pumps or air conditioners.

Step 4. Intelligent Management with the Tesla App

The system learns your energy usage patterns and optimizes when to charge or discharge.

You can monitor and control everything through the Tesla app, giving you real-time insight into your energy use, storage levels, and solar generation.

The Australian Energy Rollercoaster: Why Batteries Are More Relevant Than Ever?

Undoubtedly, Tesla Powerwall 3 is one of the most exciting innovations to hit the market in recent years. Tesla’s next-gen home battery is designed to supercharge solar systems and dramatically reduce the reliance on the grid.

For Australian homeowners, it’s a total game-changer, offering a smarter way to store solar energy and power homes more efficiently than ever before.

Curious about the other benefits of the Tesla Powerwall 3? In the following part, we’ve rounded them all up for you:

Powerwall Batteries Maximize Self-Consumption

Using your own solar power, especially during the expensive evening peak, saves you significantly more than exporting it to the grid.

The Powerwall stores your excess daytime solar to power your home at night with free, clean energy.

Battery Storage Reduced Electricity Bills

Adding a Powerwall battery to your solar panel can drastically reduce your reliance on grid electricity during peak hours, leading to substantial savings on your energy bills.

Some reports suggest adding solar batteries has reduced electricity bills by over 70% in many Aussie homes in the past few years.

Ensure Energy Independence & Security

The Powerwall provides seamless backup power for essential appliances, ensuring your lights stay on, your fridge stays cold, and your devices stay charged during any unexpected blackouts.

Smart Energy Management

The Tesla app provides intuitive monitoring and control over your energy usage. You can track your solar generation, battery charge, and household consumption in real time.

This allows you to optimize your energy habits and maximize savings.

Virtual Power Plant (VPP) Participation

Through VPP, you can earn money by letting your battery support the grid during high-demand hours.

This will benefit your wallet and contribute to a more stable and renewable energy network for everyone.

Environmental Impact

Batteries can reduce your reliance on fossil fuel-generated electricity, significantly lower your carbon footprint, and contribute to a cleaner, more sustainable future for Australia.

Increased Home Value and Building Aesthetics

Homes with solar and battery systems are increasingly attractive to buyers. They often command a premium due to lower running costs and increased energy resilience.

Tesla Powerwall 2 vs Powerwall+ vs Powerwall 3: The Evolution of Home Energy

Tesla’s Powerwall series has become a symbol of energy independence. From the Powerwall 2 to the all-in-one Powerwall+, and now the game-changing Powerwall 3, Tesla continues to push the boundaries of home energy storage.

Let’s break down what makes each Powerwall unique and why Powerwall 3 is the most powerful one yet.

Tesla Powerwall 2: The Energy Game-Changer

Launched in 2016, the Powerwall 2 was a massive leap in energy storage for homeowners.

It is ideal for those with existing solar systems or those seeking basic backup and energy optimization.

Key Highlights:

13.5 kWh usable capacity, which is sufficient to power an average home overnight.

5 kW continuous power output.

Backup power during outages.

Sleek wall-mounted design.

App-controlled smart energy management.

Powerwall+: Energy Storage Meets Solar Intelligence

The Powerwall+ is built on the foundation of Powerwall 2 and adds a major upgrade: an integrated solar inverter.

Why It’s Smarter:

Same 13.5 kWh battery capacity.

Higher peak power output (up to 7.6 kW)

Integrated solar inverter with 4 MPPTs (Maximum Power Point Trackers)

Optimized for real-time solar generation and storage.

Powerwall 3: The Energy Upgrade Your Home’s Been Waiting For

Announced in late 2023 and rolling out through 2024, Powerwall 3 is Tesla’s most powerful home battery yet. It’s designed to meet modern energy needs, including higher loads, faster charging, and seamless integration with large-scale solar systems.

What’s New:

11.5 kW of continuous power, which is more than double Powerwall 2

Still offers 13.5 kWh capacity.

Integrated solar inverter with expanded capabilities

Designed for quicker installation and lower labor cost

Ideal for large homes, EV charging, or heavy appliance use

So, with all these incredible upgrades, making it smarter, more efficient, and future-ready, don’t you think Tesla Powerwall is worth it?

What else could you ask for? We’re pretty sure this is the battery your home’s been waiting for!

The Actual Cost of a Tesla Powerwall: Is it Worth It?

Let’s not sugarcoat it, a Tesla Powerwall is a significant investment. As of mid-2025, the Powerwall 3 unit itself costs approximately AUD 11,900, with the essential Backup Gateway 2 adding $1,700. This brings the total hardware cost to approximately $13,600 AUD.

Installation costs can range from $1,000 to $ 2,500 or more, depending on your location, system complexity, and the installer.

This puts the total installed cost of a single Powerwall 3 in the ballpark of $14,600 to $16,000 AUD.

While this might seem steep, it’s crucial to factor in the various incentives and potential savings.

The Australian Government’s Rebates and Incentives in 2025

Good news for Australian homeowners! 2025 is a sweet spot for solar battery rebates, with a significant federal program coming into play:

Federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program (Starts July 1, 2025)

The Australian Government has announced an upfront discount of approximately 30% on the cost of installing eligible small-scale battery systems (between 5 kWh and 50 kWh).

For a 13.5 kWh Tesla Powerwall 3, this could translate to a rebate of around $4,725. The discount is based on usable capacity and will gradually decrease until 2030, making 2025 the optimal time to jump in.

The discount is applied upfront by accredited installers, making it easy for consumers.

State-Based Incentives

While the NSW Peak Demand Reduction Scheme (PDRS) battery rebate ends on June 30, 2025, it will be replaced by an expanded Virtual Power Plants (VPP) incentive from July 1, 2025, offering a single upfront payment of up to $1,500.

Other states like Victoria (interest-free battery loan up to $8,800), ACT ($15,000 interest-free loan), and Western Australia (up to $7,500 rebate and loans) continue to offer their own incentives.

Altogether, these rebates dramatically lower battery costs, often by 30–50%, making the Powerwall 3 far more accessible.

Top 5 Tesla Powerwall Alternatives Available in Australia

The Australian battery storage market is vibrant and competitive. While Tesla is a dominant player, several other reputable brands also offer excellent alternatives.

Looking for something beyond Tesla Powerwall?

Here we’ve listed some of the best battery brands in Australia in 2025:

LG Energy Solution RESU: Known for their reliability and various capacity options.
BYD Battery-Box: A popular choice for its modularity and competitive pricing.
Sungrow: Offers a range of battery solutions, often paired with their inverters.
Enphase Encharge: A good option for microinverter-based solar systems, offering modularity and resilience.
Alpha ESS: Alpha ESS battery provides integrated solar and battery solutions.

Parting Thoughts

Tesla’s Powerwall ecosystem offers energy resilience, grid independence, and smart control. With the release of Powerwall 3, Tesla is responding to the growing demand for higher capacity, smarter tech, and easier installs.

In Australia, the home battery market is gaining traction, with data showing that the majority of homeowners are opting for the Tesla Powerwall.

So, whether you’re going solar for the first time or upgrading your energy system, the Powerwall lineup has top-notch options tailored for your home.

By the end of 2021, battery installations had increased by 400%, and the majority chose the Tesla Powerwall. With our affordable solar packages, you can make your dream of owning a Tesla Powerwall a reality.

Still unsure?

Contact a certified installer, such as Cyanergy, to explore your options tailored to your home, location, and future needs. Get a free quote today and learn more about the Tesla Powerwall battery price, rebate availability, and installation details.

Your Solution Is Just a Click Away

The post Is Tesla Powerwall Worth It For Australian Houses In 2025? appeared first on Cyanergy.

Is Tesla Powerwall Worth It For Australian Houses In 2025?

Renewable Energy

IWTG Consulting Addresses Turbine Failures

Published

4 days ago

July 10, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

IWTG Consulting Addresses Turbine Failures

Jon Zalar, founder of IWTG Consulting, discusses the challenges of wind turbine maintenance, emphasizing the rise in turbine failures and the importance of root cause analysis (RCA). Proactive maintenance, proper documentation, and expert consultation will help to mitigate issues and ensure turbine efficiency.

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

Allen Hall 2025: Jon, welcome to the program.

Jonathan Zalar: Thanks for having me,

Allen Hall 2025: Jon. Let’s start with the reality facing wind farmer operators today. What’s the core problem when it comes to turbine failures?

Jonathan Zalar: There’s been a larger number than they probably experienced like five years ago. I think, um, you know, the volume of turbines out there and some of the bigger issues that, you know, people are seeing in the last two to three years has made owning a wind farm a little more challenging than before.

Um, you know, between blade issues, bolted joint issues, shoes, and. Overall, like o operations, right? It’s been tougher to keep these turbines up and running, you know, manpower’s an issue, getting people out there to go fix stuff. It’s, [00:01:00] it’s been tough for a lot of people I’ve talked to.

Joel Saxum: Do you think this is a, a partial result of like, um, okay, so what we’re, you know, on the podcast in the last few years, we’ve always been talking about, oh, there’s all kinds of models coming out and there’s this, this manufacturer can put out this many different variations and all these things, and now.

Now we’re getting to the age where that family, that group of turbines that, I guess it’s kind, I’m looking at it like a class, right? That class of, that, those years of turbines are now getting to the stage where they’re out of warranty and they’re coming into, some people are taking, you know, ISPs taking, um, maintenance of them or an owner operator taking maintenance over from the OEM.

And all of a sudden now there’s these issues popping up and different things that we’re, we’re kind of in this. Um, like a swamp of problems with a lot of different models. So, uh, yeah, like you said, we’ve we’re, we talked a little bit off air here about RCAs and how to fix things and looking at serial defects and stuff, but it’s just like, it seems like every other week [00:02:00] someone calls Alan Ryan’s like, Hey, have you heard about this thing with this model?

And it’s like, man,

Jonathan Zalar: another one. I think it’s a combination of two things. One. Like I talked about the last time we had podcasts, there was a, you know, a pretty big push to increase rotor size, come out with new models for, for every, for all the os, right? They’re competing against each other. Coming out with a new model every 18 months.

And you can ask Phil, but I believe mostly the OEMs are sold out. If you go back five, six years, where. A huge expansion in the amount of wind turbines that have been placed. Right. So I think you combine those cheap factors and now, yeah, the owners have a lot on their plate, a lot more than they’re

Allen Hall 2025: probably used to.

And my question all is this, the complexity of the turbines. So every new model that comes out, what I’m seeing is more instrumentation, more sensors, more stuff, more variability, even in where the components originate from.

Jonathan Zalar: Right? Yeah. [00:03:00] I mean, to increase, to be able to meet that increased demand the OEMs had to get, you know, a lot of different suppliers for bearings for, you know, maybe two or three different places to make blades, right?

Um, and you’re right about the complexity, right? So like these rowers are getting bigger. They were trying to keep as many components the same. So you need better sensing, better controls to, you know, keep those loads where they work.

Allen Hall 2025: And a lot of times, uh, when operators have problems, they don’t actually realize.

What to do or realize that maybe there’s a serial defect and how to address it and how to suss that out. Now the, the big question is, is like what’s at stake if the operators don’t implement some sort of proper root cause analysis? Uh, what does that sort of downward spiral look like? Because we have seen operators that do that, that, that don’t try to identify key issues with their turbines.

Jonathan Zalar: mean, at the end of the day, it costs money, right? So if the quicker you figure out an [00:04:00] issue and if it’s a solution for an issue, the quicker you’re gonna solve that problem for your site or your fleet. Um. Also like making sure you’re communicating with the OEM about your failures so that they can add them to their RCA if they’re working on one, for example.

The more data they have, it’s gonna help them come up with a more effective solution.

Joel Saxum: I think you’re, you’ve gotta, how to put this? You have to have a specific engineering mindset. So of course we’re dealing with engineers all day long. We’re all engineers. We enjoy the engineering mindset. So it’s easy for us to quantify ROI and value add from an RCA, right?

So, hey, we’re gonna bring in an expert, or we’re gonna bring in a consultant, or whether it’s a, you know, a big one, A DNV, a UL type, or it’s a Jon Zalar, it’s gonna cost us a little bit of money, right? It’s gonna cost us. 5, 10, 20, 30 grand, what, whatever that is. But to us, that ROI is easy to quantify, oh, we had [00:05:00] this issue on this turbine.

We’re gonna spend 20 grand figuring out why, what, how, and how we fix it in the future. Well now we can avoid that blade failure. Next time we can avoid, you know, a de deductible on an insurance case, $250,000. So boom, we, if we save one of those, we paid for the whole RCA. It’s easy for us to do that in that engineering mindset, but to get, sometimes to get.

You know, an asset manager who may not have that engineering mindset, they’re just looking at, um, dollars and cents. They’re like, yeah, do we wanna spend this money? And, and I, I think that that’s a, uh, uh, a mindset, a, an action, an operation that, you know, us as evangelists for engineering in the industry need to help because we can help it in a large scale, right?

Like if we, if we solve these problems through RCAs. Then we can avoid ’em in the future and it’s better LCOE for the entire fleet. That’s the goal,

Jonathan Zalar: right? Like even if you identify an issue and you have the ability to figure out how many [00:06:00] turbines are affected and like we use a Blade Blade issue, right? If you only catch the CAT five, that’s a much more expensive repair than a cat two or three.

So if you work with somebody to identify, hey, this lat or you know, this list of turbines have a better chance of having this problem, let’s inspect it a little more, for example. Or let’s proactively add some strength in one area that we know we’re seeing issues that could save a lot of money in the long run.

’cause blade repairs are expensive. They take time, weather out. It just adds up.

Allen Hall 2025: And what I see when Joel and I have been around a lot of, uh, wind turbines in the Midwest, is that the asset managers. Get a lot of complaints from the neighbors and the landowners. So if they have a blade break or they have some sort of bearing that’s going bad, that’s making a lot of noise.

It’s a constant set of phone calls from the surrounding landowners about this problem. So even in the simple things. That can be [00:07:00] fixed, turn into big problems because of all the associated people that are around it. I mean, Joel, you’ve, you’ve seen some of these cases where, like a bearing’s squeaking, okay.

And the neighbor complains, or a blade breaks and the, and the owner calls up and say, Hey, why is this blade in my front yard? Which has happened? And those are real life situations that, that. You know, re requires somebody with knowledge to catch them before they turn into that neighborhood problem. Yeah.

That’s

Joel Saxum: the intrinsic side of, of the return on investment, right? Like, you can’t measure that, but it’s valuable. And, and I, and we get, this concept comes up a lot to us because we’ve been doing a lot of work in Australia lately, and Australia has a different approach to their neighbors and how they work within things.

And it’s very, very, very hands-on. Where in the states sometimes you see like, oh, well, they’re a non-participating landowner, so we just kinda, you know, move on. And then you see the Facebook posts that are like, these turbines take a thousand gallons of [00:08:00] oil a year and they never run. You know? And if we can, as an industry, if we can avoid those things by getting on top of stuff with RCA, we can, we can get ahead of the game, right?

We can change the perception of, of renewables as we move forward. Um, which is, I mean, it’s a difficult battle, but that’s, as engineers, we can, we can help that fight. So I think that this is an important thing. That’s why we’re talking to you, Joe.

Jonathan Zalar: Yeah, I agree. I mean the, the video of the guy who was asking why it wasn’t turning, ’cause there was no wind.

I’ll never forget that one.

Allen Hall 2025: So how do we break this cycle of reactive maintenance and repeated failures? What should we be doing?

Jonathan Zalar: Continuing that relationship with the OEM, making sure you’re having those monthly quarterly calls, sharing information back to them and making sure that you’re getting the updated information from them.

Because, you know, all the major OEMs have like information letters they provide when there’s an a known issue and they give recommendations of what to do to fix it. And just making sure that you’re plugged in, especially the smaller owners that you’re plugged into the oem, just make sure you get that [00:09:00] information.

You know, some could be a parameter setting or a increase inspection or, or a safety concern as well. Just keeping that relationship I think is important.

Joel Saxum: So, Jon, so continue on that, that thread at what, at what point does. Because not everybody is able to keep that relationship really good. And sometimes OEMs don’t wanna share a little bit, at what point does an operator say, I’m taking on an RCA myself.

I’m going to get a consultant in here. Or we’re gonna take it on in our internal team. what, how do you make that call?

Jonathan Zalar: It’s looking at their relationship and if it’s not there, and that does happen. There’s breakups in the industry, if you will, and. You see three or four of the same failures at a, 50 wind turbine park.

it should be a little bit of a yellow flag. I wouldn’t say red yet, but one turbine fell over. That’s a red flag, and that’s when if you’re not getting what you need and you don’t know what to do about it, that’s when you call somebody else out because. [00:10:00] The next one’s gonna be just as expensive, and there could have been a way to make it either cheaper or not happen.

Allen Hall 2025: let’s, get down to specifics now, because I think a lot of problems in the United States are related to bolts at the minute, and I, this may be a worldwide problem, that there seems to be blade bolts and pitch bearing bolts that are. Have cracked or are failing in some unique ways. And I’ve seen more recently where operators are just replacing them.

Like they, they don’t think about it in a larger context of maybe there’s a problem here. Maybe I need to be flagging these things. And they don’t bring in an expert like you, Jon, to come in and do an RCA To suss this out, you want, can you give us just a little bit of background on what’s happening on the, blade bolt and pitch bearing bolt problem?

Jonathan Zalar: It is multiple OEMs are having. I think three or four different failure modes that I’ve heard so far between root inserts, just the bullet joint itself, and then potentially just some initial torquing issues. Um, I know from my experience there have [00:11:00] been update updates to the bold, the bolt torque.

Specifications. And back to my comment about the relationships, like if you’re not getting that information, then you might not know. You should have went back and retort all these bolts and now you have a couple fail. Fail. Right? And then also what you do about it, when you have one that comes out, do you replace just the one or do you replace four to the left and four to the right?

So d different solutions I have seen from different OEMs about what to do when you do have one particular bolt fail. Um, you know, there’s definitely some potential supplier concerns. ’cause like I said, there’s been so many turbines with so many bolts, like you’re gonna have some manufacturing issues. You can’t get over that With the volume of bolts that are out there.

Joel Saxum: Do you think the technology innovations in bolting and tensioning tools right now are gonna help or hinder. Bolting problem.

Jonathan Zalar: I think they’re gonna help. Um, you know, [00:12:00]torquing, big bolts have been a problem in multiple industries. Even when I worked in locomotives, you know, getting high torque to come out with the right size tool to be able to get in there, to go, to go put the locomotive back on the frame.

Right. It is a very hard job. And you had mean you looking at 92 bolts on one axis, then you got tower bolts. I mean, it’s a very, very boring job, I’m assuming for the people that have to do that. All the time and having tools that make it easier, have a, have a less chance of not hitting that torque value, setting something wrong, not putting the tool in properly at an angle, for example.

I, I think the more, at least what I’ve been seeing recently, the more money and effort people are putting into, like making bolted joints. Is gonna be worth it.

Joel Saxum: Well, and I think this is why, like this is the importance of an RCA, right? Because at that level of, say, new construction or repowers, people are just pointing fingers like, oh, the technicians did this wrong, or whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Or you get an RCA specialist to come in and can do, you know, the [00:13:00]eight eight DRCA or if they throw an RCA and figure this thing out properly and be able to point to, well, actually there’s a. A metallurgical defect in these bolts and you know, it’s a supplier issue or, or maybe it does the RC may point, Hey, these guys were at the bar the night before they torked this one or something.

You

Jonathan Zalar: know? Or, or could be like crew a just happens to not pay attention or, or had or had the wrong information. They had the old bolted joint, this tribal knowledge.

Joel Saxum: Exactly. And speaking about the problem there, like if we’re down the line, say now out of warranty, and we’re looking at a bolted connection issue.

It may point to once you’ve stretched those bolts a certain amount, if you’re re torquing or changing torque specs or something along the way that’s done, like that’s cash, like that doesn’t, it doesn’t work like that called yield.

Jonathan Zalar: Yes.

Allen Hall 2025: Well, especially composites though, when you start talking about these bushings that are in the blades.

You pull them, they’re, they don’t recover. They just get damaged. It’s not like some metal and it can stretch. You don’t really stretch [00:14:00] composites. You break composites.

Jonathan Zalar: Right. Once it loose is once it’s loose, it is adherence, it’s done right. You have to go do something, get it back. And I know there’s some technologies out there trying to fix some of these inserts, but yeah, like once you do that damage.

It doesn’t heal itself.

Allen Hall 2025: Right. And I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about that right now in the field because it, they’re not talking to engineers. They feel like, well, we’ll just cinch it back up and it’ll be okay. No, that joint is done. It’s done. You need to have somebody come in and look at it and give you some really good advice.

Joel Saxum: So to get to that level, Jon, you need to go through an investigation process. Can you give us some of the like, tips and tricks for the investigation process that like, that you know of, that you, that have helped you in the past? Data quality is very important,

Jonathan Zalar: like making sure, you know, like what turbine, which bolts, how many bolts, when did it happen, when were they last touched?

Like documentation is not always the best in the field. There’s a lot of handwritten stuff I [00:15:00] know that, you know. Companies are getting much better with electronic documentation, but that didn’t always exist in the beginning, like four or five years ago, surprisingly. Um, and then also like having the expectations where an RCA doesn’t take a month.

If someone, if someone calls you up and says, I need an RCA in a month, they don’t want RCA, that’s it. They’re not that fast. You really need to look at what’s going on, collect the data, put a hypothesis together, and. Validate or invalidate it and repeat if needed. And then you have corrective action. And that takes time.

That takes a commitment from the customer as well as you know, whoever they’re working with.

Allen Hall 2025: And that corrective action is the real key. But it’s hard to get to the corrective action if you don’t know what the root cause is. I see a lot of corrective actioning happening out in the field. Like they assume they know what’s happened, but not the details.

And you’re right, Jon, it’s gonna take more than a couple of days. To suss this out because there’s too [00:16:00] many variables and there’s not a lot of information, particularly when you show up on site. A lot of operators haven’t kept the real detailed records that you would need to be able to point it in in an afternoon.

Like, yes, this is it. Right?

Jonathan Zalar: Unless it’s a known issue that you’re not aware of and somebody else tells you, oh, yeah. G has his tail go do this, whatever this is. Right.

Allen Hall 2025: And how does that play out between the different OEMs at the minute? Are they basically providing the same level of information about, uh, known problems?

I have very little experience with like, um, I don’t know. Intercon for example, I haven’t seen a lot of Intercon service bulletins. I’ve seen Seaga Mesas and GEs Iveta. They’re pretty on top of it, but there’s other turbines that are out there, Solan. Well, how does that work?

Jonathan Zalar: That’s a very good question.

’cause I’m not seeing very many from Intercon or Solan either. And I believe they have some bigger companies that are responsible for them now. Um, [00:17:00] it’d be interesting to see. What kind of level that a turbine, that old without, you know, their OEM’s gone. Right. Someone else bought ’em out at some point.

Allen Hall 2025: Well, it’s like the Mitsubishi 1000 A’s, which is a really good example because a lot of the Mitsubishi 1000 A’s, and there are a number of them still in the states are, are being repowered at the minute.

So they’re gonna have another 20 years of lifetime. But I, you know, Mitsubishi probably doesn’t really provide a lot of service on those. What do you do? If you have an issue on a Mitsubishi or an old Suland machine or even an old GAA machine, where are you going to get help? I

Jonathan Zalar: mean, you, you really need to go to like an independent engineer that has that kind of experience, you know, hopefully with that particular turbine model.

But if not, you know, people who do follow known RCA processes, we will be able to like work through issues like that.

Allen Hall 2025: Is there a network of RCA people in the industry? I know you. Because you’re the [00:18:00] best. So, I mean, I’m talking to you all the time, Jon. I’ve seen this problem of the turbine tell me what’s going on.

But is there a, a general network of people that are just out there focused on solving these problems?

Jonathan Zalar: I don’t think the market’s huge in that right now. I mean, yes, there’s some independent people like myself, and then you have your DNB Leidos, those type of companies that that will do RCAs. But I don’t think they have dedicated RCA teams.

I think. The OEMs are the ones with the dedicated OEMs and then a handful of people like me.

Allen Hall 2025: So let’s, let’s walk through that for a minute, because one of the questions that pops up when someone’s trying to solve a problem is like, why not bring in a big organization like the one you just mentioned to, to do the RCA?

Like we, we, we’ve hired, uh, the three letter acronym to come in and do the RCR, the two letter acronym to come in and do the RCA. There’s a downside to that. I think I, I’m not always sure that the, the competency is there based [00:19:00] upon the, just what I see for the level of person that’s been assigned to that.

When they have so many RCAs and requests coming into the door, can they. Manage it at a level that you as the customer would be happy with.

Jonathan Zalar: I don’t deal with it too much, but you’re right, it, it will depend on the person you get Right. When you’re using one of the bigger one. Right. And you know, I’m sure some customers have the opposite, like, oh, I got the best guide or girl I could get for this.

Right.

Allen Hall 2025: Have you seen the varying in quality there, Joel? Like if you just call out the big name and pick up the phone and call the name. You don’t always know what you’re getting

Joel Saxum: there. We know, we know some really good people in the industry that has specific problems, but the trouble is, is scaling engineering expertise is tough.

Right. So like if you have a, you have a Jon Zalar on the phone, you get an awesome engineer that knows how to do RCAs, but you only get Jon Zalar, right? You, you, you can’t expand that. A million things like Jon Zalar can’t take out 58 RCAs this week because he’s Jon Zalar. Whereas, whereas I think that some of the [00:20:00] bigger houses, you get the strength of having a, uh, the larger team behind some of them where they can kind of spread some work out.

Or you may have an expert in fracture mechanics that he can look at this and somewhat so you have that with the larger teams, which I think is an advantage and you get some varying opinions in the room and you can really sort down to certain things. But at the end of the day it, it, it’s exactly that.

It’s an engineering expertise shortage

Jonathan Zalar: off. You know, it’s also nice when they have a good network. Of people that they’ve worked with in the past to bounce ideas off of. Because like if you’re the only one doing RCA all on your own, you’re gonna second guess yourself a lot. But like having somebody who does have.

A lot of contacts and colleagues in the industry. I think that’s very helpful.

Allen Hall 2025: Well, a new avenue for root cause analysis is looking at the service providers. I’ve noticed that, uh, you know, it’s one thing if a product comes to an OEM, you, you kind of know what you’re dealing with there. But when a company’s out there, uh, independent service provider or maybe some out there on a contract is [00:21:00] doing work on your turbine.

Now RCAs are looking into those service providers. Jon, are you involved with some of those discussions?

Jonathan Zalar: It’s, you know, not just the service provider, it’s even like who’s doing the work. Are they actually doing what they say they’re doing? Um, are they following the OEMs maintenance schedule correctly? Um, you know, especially some of the owners that farm out the whole operations to somebody else.

Double checking their work, I think is important just to make sure, I mean, you, even if you have total control and people, but just having a second set of eyes doing some quality checks. I, I, I don’t think that enough of that’s being done in the industry at this point. I think there’s opportunity to get

Joel Saxum: better.

The bird dog concept, right? The bird like oil and gas is bird dogs everywhere in the onshore, offshore. Anything you do, they gotta, they got a client rep who is rolling around making [00:22:00] sure things are done right. And I think we need that in wind too. And it’s not any different if you look at the same thing.

Remote operations people are like, oh, wind farms are all over the place. Like, have you looked at any other In industry, it’s the same thing.

Jonathan Zalar: It it, it’s harder. There’s more of them and they don’t move, like, you know, like a locomotive or automobile, right. Where they come to the shop and you can overlook, see what somebody did.

But yeah, like spending that money and effort on. Quality, I think could go a long way. And one of the ways would be the bird dog method that you suggested.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah, I do think some of the issues we’re seeing in the field are related to particular groups that have touched the turbines, and maybe they just don’t have the latest and greatest information from the OE em, or maybe they’re just winging it, but either case, uh, the sampling there needs to happen and it really gets down to knowing what’s happening with your turbine.

And then when it doesn’t seem right. Getting an expert on site to take a look and make sure that your turbine is operating like you think it should and [00:23:00]it should be producing like it should, because if anything, we know right now production is key. We need those turbines up and running. Jon, you know, a lot of people call us and ask us, how do I get ahold of Za LR?

Do you have an email for Jon? How do people get ahold of you? I send ’em to your website, i wtg consulting.com. But they, you know, they want your mobile number, which I try to avoid giving them, but how do they, how do they reach you?

Jonathan Zalar: Um, the website, it’s got a form there. Um, they can also email me at Jay zr@iwtgconsulting.com.

Allen Hall 2025: Well, you can see Jon on LinkedIn. It has a lot of good posts on LinkedIn and you’ll see him. Around the country and the world at different symposiums and discussions about wind turbine operations. Uh, and you can always feel free to talk to Jon Jon’s easy to talk to. So Jon, so thank you so much for being on the podcast.

We love having you. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. It was [00:24:00] fun.

https://weatherguardwind.com/iwtg-consulting-failures/

Renewable Energy

The Lightning Diverter Problem with GE Vernova Blades

Published

4 days ago

July 9, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

The Lightning Diverter Problem with GE Vernova Blades

A design that causes massive problems

As wind turbine operators continue to expand their fleets worldwide with larger turbines, bigger generators, and longer blades, the risk of significant lightning damage continues to plague the industry. Lightning is now the leading cause of unplanned turbine downtime for many operators. In years past, OEM warranties or insurance would cover the costs of repairs and business interruption. Those days are gone. OEMs have eliminated lightning damage from warranties and insurance companies are dramatically raising rates, or eliminating coverage, for lightning damage. That leaves operators exposed to millions in repair bills every year.

The SafeReceptor ILPS System

The basic lightning protection systems for LM Wind Power blades has been two small, coin-sized receptors placed on either side of the blade tip. Designated as the SafeReceptor ILPS, the receptors are connected to an insulated metal cable that runs through the center of the blade which connects to the hub, nacelle, tower and eventually earth. Certified to IEC61400-24, the SafeReceptor ILPS has been used on most onshore LM Wind Power blades since 2011.

LM Wind Power would, occasionally, place a special, additional lightning protection feature onto their blades. Patented in 2005, this lightning add-on contained a line of stainless steel cross-shaped buttons in a soft, gray-colored sealant which formed a segmented lightning diverter. As lightning approached a blade, the LM segmented lightning diverter helped guide the lightning to the receptor, lowering the chance of lightning damage to the blade.

LM Wind Power, and eventually TPI Composites, used the LM Wind Power segmented lightning diverter. Most installations of the LM segmented lightning diverter placed the device behind the receptor – using the receptor to block rain and airflow impact. The reason? If the LM Wind Power diverter was directly exposed to the wind and rain it would eventually degrade.

Remarkably, the LM diverter strip was used sparingly, or not at all, on the LM/TPI 56.9m and 62.2m blades. As it turns out, the 56.9m / 62.2m are unusually vulnerable to lightning damage. In a WGLT study of over 900 GE Vernova onshore turbines in Texas and Oklahoma with blades exceeding 50m, the rate of lightning damage was approximately 1 in 5 strikes. The industry standard for lightning damage is roughly 1 in 50 strikes per the IEC standard. That results highlight a gigantic risk for wind turbine operators.

Presumably in response to these high damage rates, GE Vernova has introduced LPS “improvements” to the 56.9m and 62.2m blades. Two additional receptors have been added to the blade approximately 3m from the blade tip. Also, LM Wind Power diverter strips have been added to every receptor; with short pieces behind the tip receptors plus long pieces behind and in front of the two receptors down the blade.

The Lightning Diverter Problem with GE Vernova Blades — Latest GE Vernova 62.2m Blade Design

This is a risky decision by the blade designers at GE Vernova. Most lightning strikes occur when blades are pointed upwards towards the sky – and segmented lightning diverters provide maximum protection when they are also pointed towards the sky. GE Vernova placed the LM Wind Power diverters parallel with the airflow over the blade – perpendicular to the sky – which dramatically lowers their lightning protection ability.

Why are the LM Wind Power diverters not oriented upwards towards the storm clouds? Our research indicates that exposing the broad side of the diverter to rain erosion causes the part to fail.

Several years ago, Weather Guard Lightning Tech developed an accelerated rain erosion test rig to mimic rain erosion that appears on aircraft nose radomes and wind turbine blade tips. This test sprays water droplets onto test samples at 135 m/s (300 mph) and has yielded accurate predictions for lifetimes. WGLT examined the durability of the LM Wind Power diverters in our accelerated rain erosion test rig. The results were astonishing. The LM Wind Power diverter failed in under 1 minute for every orientation.

And here are the images of the test articles after rain erosion testing.

Sample 2 Post-Test 90 Degrees to Face of Diverter

Sample 5 Post-Test 0 Degrees to Side

Sample 6 Post-Test 0 Degrees to Leading Edge

Now, what does this mean for the lightning protection for your GE Vernova wind turbine blades with LM Wind Power diverters? You need to monitor the diverters for damage and peeling off the blade. Missing metal segments from a diverter or sections of diverter that have separated from the blade need to repaired or replaced.

What’s the risk? Your blades are susceptible to significant lightning damage which could cost you $$$.

For more information about StrikeTape lightning protection technology and installation services, contact Weather Guard Wind at 1.413.217.1139 or info@wglightning.com.

About Weather Guard Wind: Weather Guard Wind specializes in advanced lightning protection solutions for wind energy applications, with installations protecting turbines worldwide in the most challenging lightning environments.

https://weatherguardwind.com/the-lightning-diverter-problem-with-ge-vernova-blades/