Published

9 months ago

August 12, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Indian Domestic Wind Regulation, German Offshore Bid

Allen, Joel and Phil discuss Germany’s failed offshore wind auction, India’s new regulations for domestic wind turbine components, and the need for renewable energy in the US to meet AI data center demands. They also highlight Ohio’s efforts to plug abandoned oil and gas wells and feature Quebec’s Rivière-du-Moulin as the Wind Farm of the Week.

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!

You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here’s your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.

Allen Hall: Well, welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

I’m Allen Hall from the Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina. Joel Saxum is down in Texas, and Phil Totaro of IntelStor is in Cali. Phil, you had a tsunami alert just recently. Did you see any waves in your neighborhood?

Phil Totaro: No ’cause it didn’t actually amount to anything. And that’s good, right?

Phil Totaro: It it, have you had tsunami warnings like that in the past?

Y yes. And actually more serious ones from earthquakes that are smaller than the 8.8 that was in Russia that caused this one. [00:01:00] Um, but we’ve had earthquakes off the coast of. California where, you know, they’re like four point something or five something, and that actually triggers a tsunami warning that’s potentially more serious because of the close proximity.

Uh, so we actually developed, uh, in California an early detection and warning system that is triggered, um, you know, mobile phone, uh, alerts and updates based on the, the detection of the P waves from an earthquake.

Allen Hall: What’s a P wave?

Joel Saxum: P Wave is down, ShearWave is left and right. So sheer wave would be moving this way.

P wave would be moving up and down.

Phil Totaro: The P waves, um, are the first indication on, you know, like for the US geological survey, they’ve got those things that, you know, monitor the, the, um, vibration of the earth or whatever it is that they’re monitoring. Um, a P wave will be the first thing triggered when there’s an actual earthquake.

[00:02:00] That’s the thing that happens fast, like super fast, and they can detect it. Anyway, so we’ve de we’ve developed an early warning system when, when we have issues and inclusive of, uh, you know, tsunami warnings. But I’m, I’m kind of, you know, 300 feet up, so I have less to worry about.

Allen Hall: It’s a good place to be.

Well, there’s some offshore warnings off the coast of Germany because, uh, they held their latest offshore wind auction. And it was for about two and a half gigawatts of capacity in about 180 square kilometers of water. And they didn’t have any bidders at all. Zero bidders and the industry from wind Europe to the, uh, German Offshore Wind Association or, or saying like, yeah, no one’s gonna bid on these things because there’s too much risk and there’s negative bidding, quote unquote negative bidding, which means that you have to.

Pay money for the rights [00:03:00] to build out the wind farm and everybody in at least Germany. And when Europe is saying that CFD contract for difference is, is the way to go. And until Germany switches over to a CFD model, you’re gonna continue to have no bidders. Now Phil, this is a big problem because Germany is planning to develop a, a.

Significant amount of offshore wind gigawatts worth many gigawatts worth by 2030. Is there gonna be a change into the German auction system? Will they move to A

Phil Totaro: CFD? We certainly hope so, because what they’ve been doing up to this point with, you know, trying to attract like zero subsidy bids is clearly not working.

Germany’s economy minister, uh, came out after the, the auction result and said, um, well, we’ll have to look at this and why that happened. Um, you know, were the designed areas actually appropriate and did we. Consider the potential risks for [00:04:00] developers? Were they underestimated? Um, well, yes, they were, uh, first of all, and there was nothing wrong with the design areas of the, you know, the 10.1 and 10.2 that they were trying to auction off.

It’s the fact that. You know, in a high interest rate environment, nobody’s gonna wanna make, uh, a zero subsidy bid on something where they’re not gonna necessarily be guaranteed the, the PPA that they need. Um, and when you’re not willing to, to guarantee them the PPA in advance of the auction, that’s, that’s one part of it.

Um, the other part is that, you know, with uncertainty and, and risk associated with, um, you know. Access to supply chain components and things like that. Um, you know, you’ve got countries like Germany and the EU in general saying that they wanna wean themselves off of China and, and Chinese parts. Well, good luck with that, first of all.

Second, second. If you’re gonna domesticate everything that’s [00:05:00]necessarily gonna raise the cost. So you’ve gotta be in a position to, you know, accept, uh, a higher price and, and give, you know, if you’re the government, you have to be able to give some kind of certainty.

Joel Saxum: I’d love for someone from, from that, uh, how do I say this?

Like, not organization, but from that area, from who’s been involved in this to reach out to the podcast. ’cause uh, what I’d like to be a fly on the wall. ’cause this is what I don’t understand, Germany. Big wind market onshore, big wind market, offshore, large player, and wind in general, right? Big companies over there.

We got RWE over there. That has done a lot of offshore things like where was the consultation between the government and trade groups, organizations, because you know, like there should be a feedback mechanism in the early stages of planning this that says, Hey, potential suitors, what do you think about this process?

Will it work? And I have to imagine that they all emailed back and said. This isn’t gonna work for me. Um, I don’t know though. Right? So I’d love to hear from someone involved in that process to be able to kind of share with [00:06:00] us this is how it went, because we’ve watched it happen now time and time again.

There was another one of these not too long ago, Denmark had the one that was, had basically zero subscribers, right? So, hey, governments, uh, you have a great trade organization over there. Wind Europe, you have, um, a lot of players local to you. It’s not like you’re trying to figure this out, uh, blindly. Why not

Allen Hall: collaborate?

Oh yeah, that’s totally true. We had just had MAD and Andres Nash on, uh, who were talking about the Nord project up in Norway, and that’s going through a bidding process sort of starting now. It’s in September. It really gets serious. But even there, there’s a significant number of changes that are happening in companies that are dropping out because they’re raising the stakes and trying to get companies that have a lot of offshore wind experience and not.

Bring somebody new into the game where they were gonna make mistakes. They, they figure if you have developed a, was it 200 megawatts or 500 megawatts [00:07:00] Joel Offshore already? It was some significant number. I think it was 500.

Phil Totaro: I mean, if, if there was any way that they could try and like, make this about like, we only wanna work with eor.

Like that’s basically what they’re trying to do. I mean, like, I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, sure. But like if Simply Blue Group comes in there and says that they wanna be able to develop if Stat Craft who had previously been involved in that, was in there and then pulled out because they weren’t getting the, the, you know, guarantees from the Norwegian government either.

I mean, this is, this is kind of the, the systematic. Uh, issue within Europe at the moment anyway, because they’re the ones talking about, well, we wanna wean ourselves off of Russian gas. Well then do it. Like, don’t sit there and say, you can only do it if you’re doing it with, you know, 18,000 criteria in place.

Like, make it easy for the developers. Um, the money will flow, like investors will want to plow money into, you know, the development of these [00:08:00]projects, but get outta your own way and, and make it happen.

Joel Saxum: It’s kind of reminiscent to me. I guess this is for our US listeners. I was reading an article today about the, the, uh, no offense Phil, but the flight out of California.

It was the amount of people leaving there and there, and it was a, it was a, it was a, uh, letter written from a CEO of a development company that was saying basically like. It’s the hardest place in the United States to do business, and businesses are leaving in droves. People are leaving in droves. It’s like last year, 920,000 people left the state of California like a net loss.

Wow. Yeah. It was crazy. Like there’s 52, 50 5 million people there. But to lose. Basically 2% of your population in one year. That’s crazy. But the reason being is, is it’s the hardest place to do business in the United States. There’s barriers all the time. There’s, there’s permitting issues, there’s this, there’s that.

For real estate development companies, taxes, all this stuff that makes things difficult. Taxes is a big one. Right. But, but that’s what this, that’s what this to me looks like over in the, the EU right now is like you’re making it difficult for people to [00:09:00] do. And no wonder why people don’t want to do it.

They’re gonna look for the easiest place to stick their capital, or the easiest and safest place to stick their capital.

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Well, India has implemented new sweeping regulations that will shape the global wind turbine supply chain for at least a little while. The [00:10:00]ministry of New and renewable energy now requires all wind turbine manufacturers to source key components including blades, towers, generators, gear boxes, and some of the bearings from.

Government approved domestic suppliers. Now, I talked about this in newsflash a couple of days ago. Uh, but more information is coming out as we learn about it. The rules also mandate that all turbine performance and operational data must be stored on servers within India, uh, prohibiting real-time data transfers abroad.

So that forces Phil remote operation centers to be. Within India and they’re also talking about research centers that they must be within the country also. So, um, Sulan couldn’t have their research center in Pakistan. Not that that would happen, but they would have to have

Phil Totaro: it in India. But they actually have one in Germany.

Um, for those that don’t know, uh, and you know, there are several. There are several other, [00:11:00] um, Indian OEMs that, or who have licensed, uh, technology from Western companies that you could argue that they would have to domesticate, including, you know, a Donny group, which license and. Licenses, uh, a wind turbine design from, uh, wind to energy based in Rostock, Germany.

So you, you’ve got a situation there where what they’re really trying to do is kind of curb the rise of the Chinese in the market. Um, because at the end of the day, what a lot of those things are geared towards is precluding, um, China from just dumping. Um, goods in, into India. The data thing is interesting though because as you mentioned, they have to have, uh, everything kind of, um, co-located within India and that’s to prevent the realtime data flowing back to China, um, for these Chinese OEMs to be able to analyze it or, you know, remote operate and [00:12:00] control, uh, turbines from China.

Um, they want that, um, within India so that the people who are performing those kind of remote, you know, working in the remote operations center are, you know, either Indian nationals or would be subject to Indian law.

Joel Saxum: I think there’s, there’s something to be aware of here though, too. And, and Phil, we’ve had, this is a much larger macro conversation.

We’ve had this one before, but it’s about, uh, protectionism and growth. Because, you know, there has been countries that have been taken advantage of in the, in the history, and India’s definitely one of them that has been taken advantage of in the past, over the last 300 years, um, that we know that to be true.

Um, but sometimes when the pendulum swings and you start putting regulations and things like that, you can actually hurt yourself a little bit. And I’m just thinking about like, you know, we, you talk about like wanting to preclude some of the Chinese involvement. Okay. But there is West, there’s a lot of Western stuff there.

There is like say, even in, does it go this far? Envision in Vision has a presence in India, big time. [00:13:00] Envisions blades are designed in Boulder, Colorado. Right. So does that affect that? And, and they’re built, a lot of ’em are built by LM and lm, but LM has factories in India, so there’s a little bit of a change there.

Um, we did see in, and I don’t know if it’s a maybe leading up to the, the, the, this Siemens GAA sold their services unit in India couple, 4, 5, 6 months ago. So maybe they heard some whispers in the, in the waiting in the wings going like, well, we’re gonna have to relocate there anyways. We might as well sell this thing.

Well, they, they

Phil Totaro: had to, but that was, yeah, I, I, your, your point is made. But yeah, I, the, the reality of this is what it, what it does is it necessitates. A CapEx investment in the country, and the only way that somebody justifies making a CapEx investment in the country, any country, it doesn’t matter if it’s India, Brazil, the us, anywhere, people need to see visibility to a return.

This actually kind of ties in to what we were talking about with with the German [00:14:00] offshore wind auction. If anybody that wants to invest money, they need to be given a certain amount of EE. Even if you’re not gonna give ’em a guarantee, you have to give ’em a certain amount of, uh, credibility that they’re going to get some kind of a return on the investment they’re making because you’re asking people to spend hundreds of millions on domesticating production If you wanna create a domestic.

Market, you still have to facilitate the technology transfer, the knowledge transfer and the investment, the, the foreign investment that’s necessarily going to facilitate that. If, if you don’t have domestic companies that are competent enough and capable enough to, to build something themselves, so whether it’s wind turbines or solar or battery storage or whatever, then you’re necessarily trying to attract.

That capability from someplace else.

Joel Saxum: I’ve, I’ve, I’ve watched this in, uh, oil and gas in Africa. Oil and gas Africa, early [00:15:00] years, man, it came in and, and all of the majors came down, their Exxon, bp, shell, like, they, but they came from abroad because they, the expertise was not in country to do it. And then once it was like kind of pseudo established, you saw all of these governments, which there’s, there’s they, there’s this own problem in government relations in, in Africa anyways, but, um, you saw these governments set up all this, these barriers and these things to, to try to.

Benefit for the people that corruption got brought into it and all kinds of things. And after a while, a lot of these players like you see over there, like you see small players and local players. You don’t see. Exxon and Chevron and stuff making big splashes down in Africa anymore. They’re just not playing in it.

They have their existing assets. They’ve sold a lot of ’em to smaller companies. They’re running ’em. That’s, that’s still being, and they’ve moved on. They’re in Guyana, they’re in Brazil because they don’t have to deal with the stuff that they got barriers put in place over there.

Allen Hall: What will Europe think about the India supply chain if it does get up and running to the level they want it [00:16:00] to?

In relationship to leaving China and the components that come from China, would India be that source then? I think they kind of already are, aren’t they? I mean, there’s a lot of stuff comes from India.

Phil Totaro: A little bit, not as much as they want to be. It. That’s your next best option in terms of affordability and certainly India wants to be a major export hub, but this whole concept of that they’ve put in place of make it India is really to support their, their domestic growth in their domestic industry.

Basically, if you’re not already in India as a western company or even a Chinese company, the barrier to entry in the market is going up. As I mentioned, you know, you’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in CapEx and investment, and the only way you’re going to pull the trigger on that is if you’re seeing a trillion dollar return because you, you know, a lot of these companies want like at least a five x [00:17:00] multiple on whatever CapEx they’re plunking down.

Again, especially in this kind of an interest rate environment. Now, if interest rates go down, their threshold goes down.

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North America received over $158 million in financing to upgrade the Twin Ridges wind farm in Somerset County. I know where that is. Uh, boosting capacity to a hundred. 70 [00:18:00] megawatts, that’s a 30% capacity increase. And comes as data centers nationwide are looking for power and that that tends to be the area where a lot of data centers are located or will be located.

Uh, president Trump was just there in Pennsylvania and said, uh, wind energy in particular is not gonna power these data centers, these AI centers. But that doesn’t seem to be stopping anybody. Uh, excess renewables. CEO Jim Spencer reports strong demand from data centers across North America for wind and solar power.

Uh, so even if President Trump is in the neighborhood complaining about wind turbines, what is actually happening on the ground is wind and solar are gonna be powering a lot of those data centers because it’s lower cost and easier to install.

Phil Totaro: And it’s available electrons. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, do you really care what electrons are feeding?

You know, your refrigerator.

Joel Saxum: At the end of the day, this is just gonna be business cases that are gonna win [00:19:00] out, right? You want an AI data center online, you need power. Where are you gonna get it? So your business case, like do you want it built in the next six to nine months or do you wanna wait five years?

Okay. Business case wins out. We want

Phil Totaro: it now. You’d be lucky to get it in 2031. We’re gonna have a nuclear power station on the moon before we get gas powered, you know, AI data centers.

Allen Hall: Why are we doing that? Why are we, why are we spending money for nuclear power on the moon space, race, Allen space race, with whom?

China, because China’s gonna put a nuclear reactor on the moon. Is that what’s

Joel Saxum: gonna happen? Maybe we’ll figure out how to beam it back, shoot electrons through. Vacuum space back to earth or something.

Phil Totaro: But it, it actually, let, let’s tie this back in because that’s kind of the point. You, you can, you can say that you’re gonna go build something and, and it might be a pie in the sky thing, but you’re gonna be out of office by the time somebody wants to even start building that.

Because once you’ve figured out all the technical requirements to be able to even go do that. The administration’s gonna change, and then that’s just gonna be on the scrap [00:20:00] heap. So it, and it’s the same thing. It’s like, you know, like Joel just said, you want your power and you want it fast. You’re gonna go with wind and solar.

You’re gonna go with whatever electrons are available to you. You know, you’re, you’re not gonna be picky. You’re not gonna wait six or seven years for gas.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. When we’re talking gas plants for six or 7, 5, 6, 7 years down the line, we’re talking about these big ge big, big, you know, like the 500 megawatt machines, right?

Yeah. The nine nine series. I read an article the other day about, uh, a data center in, I think it was Ohio, Alan, we’ve been talking a lot about data centers in Ohio lately, on and on and off there, but I think it was in Ohio and it was, it was fired by like. 28 of these little gas turbines. Like they were little ones, right?

They were little like the si, like I looked, I saw the picture. It was like a drone flying over and like each of these little gas turbines was like the size of my pickup. Where are those coming from? [00:21:00] A

Allen Hall: DIY

Joel Saxum: project? No, no. They were bigger than that. They weren’t a Generac, it wasn’t a Honda Whisper. Quiet.

Yeah. They’re, they’re aero derivative generators. So what’s the, who’s building those? What’s the capacity on those? Like where is that gonna be a thing? GE builds those and Siemens, so you can get those. What’s the timeline on one of them? What’s the, what’s the wait time on. A queue list for that.

Phil Totaro: It’s shorter than, you know, the bigger units like a ge you know, seven FA or seven F whatever now.

Uh, or a nine FA or nine F whatever. Now, um, those are the ones that are like five, six years. Um, you know, wait list. The, a derivative engines are cheaper, less complex, easier. To make and faster to deploy, but then we get into the same, I mean, Joel, like, if you were gonna build a wind farm, do you build it with one, you know, five megawatt turbine, or do you build it with, you know, 25, you know, kilowatt size things,

Joel Saxum: but I think [00:22:00] you’re just, you’re, you’re up against the supply chain problem, right?

So like it’s, if you want to do this quick, like you can do that, but at the end of the day, does it really make. Does it make sense or should you just put, I mean, okay. In Ohio you’re not, there’s not a whole lot of wind farms. There’s a whole lot of wind resource. So if you’re gonna build ’em there, you need some kind of power.

Phil Totaro: But also the reason why we, we chase economies of scale and wind energy with, with turbine size is that. It’s less footprint and less to maintain. It’s, yes, it’s a single point of failure, so you need higher reliability with the one turbine instead of, you know, 25 smaller turbines. But you’re, you’re talking about, you know, the, the trade off between redundancy versus, you know, o and m complexity.

And cost.

Joel Saxum: Well, I, I completely agree with you, but I’m just thinking at the end of the day where the majority of data centers are going in the United States, Virginia, that kind of place, like Ohio, you need power. Your, your option right now is like [00:23:00] solar and batteries over there. Right? Or aero derivative engines where you’re gonna be burning fuel like bastard.

Do they sound like an airplane?

Phil Totaro: Sort of, yeah. I mean. They’re loud. They’re all loud anyway.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, that’s true.

Phil Totaro: That’s how, I mean, that’s how they came into being was they, they basically adapted an aircraft engine for power gen, you know, static land-based power generation use. Well, speaking of

Allen Hall: Ohio, Ohio’s Orphan Well program has dramatically increased its cleanup efforts from our friends over in the oil and gas business.

Uh, there are a lot of abandoned wells. Ohio and in the last five years they plugged about 1200 holes from oil and gas and about 2300 since 1977. So every year, Ohio is plugging several hundred oil and gas holes. And Joel, I guess I didn’t [00:24:00] think of Ohio as an oil and gas center. If you move a little bit to the East Pennsylvania.

Obviously oil and gas central for a long time in the United States, but there’s a lot of abandoned oil and gas wells in Ohio. To the point where, uh, they received about $80 million in federal funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law, uh, with up to about $300 million available through 2030 to help fill some of these wells.

And they’re still looking for them because they’re long abandoned. It could be under buildings, they could be covered with trees at this point. Who knows where they are, except from the emissions. That’s the only way they’re gonna be able to find them.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, the trouble here, and this is something that a lot of people don’t think about, um, okay, so Ohio is on the edge of the Marcellus Shale, right?

It’s the same shale play that’s in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Southern New York. It’s just that same edge, right? So when they found in the early ages of the United States and we started getting petroleum from [00:25:00] onshore resources, Pennsylvania was ground zero and it kind of flowed over into there. So you end up with this situation where you have rugged.

Remote terrain hills, uh, you know, tough to get to where they, these, some of these wells are, you know, a hundred years old where there’s no, you know, there’s, there’s, there’s terracotta pipe and stuff. Like, there’s not good metal pipe in those things. So then, and they are leaking because they were not plugged, right?

The companies have dissolved. There’s all kinds of stuff that’s just gone, right? There’s no records. Uh, we didn’t do a good job of record keeping in the early days. So how you find most of these. Is there’s a two to take a two stage approach. You look, you can look at classical maps and stuff, but that’s only gonna get you so far.

But you look at satellite imagery for methane gas detection, and you can find methane gas plumes from satellite imagery, the US government can, and they’ll get you narrowed down to like a, uh, depending on how bad the plume is, a one to 40 acre chunk. Then [00:26:00] you take a drone that has a methane sniffer on it, and you fly around with a methane sniffer until you kind of narrow in on the plume.

Then you use a metal detector and you find the area that’s time consuming, right? But the risk reward here is, and this is what people don’t understand when we talk about why we’re plugging these wells, it’s because we’re plugging them to get rid of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases leak into the environment.

Climate change, all this bad stuff, right? So we always think about CO2, CO2, CO2, but what’s coming outta these wells, because of the way that oil and gas wells work, they are co-located with natural gas and coal beds, coal bed methane. When methane leaks outta the ground, methane comes outta the ground and it’s about 30 times worse than CO2 30 times worse than CO2 per unit.

For as a greenhouse gas for, uh,

Phil Totaro: atmospheric problems. And when we deorbit that satellite that tracks the methane emissions, I think it’s gonna make things a lot harder to do. Are [00:27:00] we doing that, Phil? Apparently. I mean, that was one of the other little rants that he went on the other day. He was like, we’re gonna blow up this satellite that’s for tracking climate change, but it’s actually tracking like the methane emissions from oil and gas.

Allen Hall: I thought Google. Posted those emissions, right. Didn’t Google open up the satellite imagery to see where, uh, methane or as Rosie calls it, methane originated from

Joel Saxum: uh, uh, CH four plus? I know that there’s resources online where you can go look. Uh, and why I know that is because I was actually a part of a research project that was a really cool laser interferometer on a fixed wing drone to find methane concentrations and then automatically map them with a fixed wing drone down to the source.

Um, and while we were in the middle of that project is when they, the government released the ability for this satellite to do it. And I was like, well, there goes that. We don’t need this thing anymore.

Allen Hall: Well, why wouldn’t these billion dollar oil and gas companies take responsibility for the holes they previously dug, or at least be [00:28:00]responsible and say, all right, there’s some abandoned wells in my general vicinity.

Why wouldn’t I plug those as a service to humanity?

Joel Saxum: I think there is a few players that do that. But the gov, because they’re not forced to do it. They’re not spending the money outrightly. Right. There is a couple of like, uh, grassroots organizations. There’s one up in Montana, I can’t remember the name of it, that has taken this on, and they will take donations from some of these oil and gas companies, and they’re like, we’re doing good, and we’re plugging these wells.

And this guy, this guy, and his team goes and does it. But I mean, you can’t, you can’t put a dent in what’s out there.

Allen Hall: Well, just think about the Ohio numbers. $82 million. It is plugged about 1200 wells. So do the math. It’s not that much money per Well, I think, uh. Pick your oil and gas company throwing $80 million to help a state out plug these wells is nothing.

It’s a drop in the bucket.

Joel Saxum: That’s how much money in federal funding they’ve received. They’ve, they’re, it costs way more, costs way more [00:29:00] than $82 million to plug 1200 wells.

Allen Hall: Right. But you see what was done though, right? I, I assume the state of Ohio is pitching it a bunch of money to, to do this also, but I, I, I don’t understand.

If oil and gas is gonna be the responsible party, why they’re not responsible for the cleanup of the things they’ve left behind and on purpose, bankrupt and ll seeded and buried. Yeah.

Joel Saxum: And I think for the most part, like the, the, the players that had have control or do this, it’s a lot of Permian awesome cat drilling company.

Like it’s not Chevron and bp, right. It’s

Allen Hall: Oh sure. But eventually those wells ended up in a bigger player. They all do at some point. Unless they’re completely dry. I super frustrating watching that. Go on

Joel Saxum: this week’s Wind Farm of the Week is Reviere de Mulloon in Quebec. I probably got that wrong, sorry, to my EDF friends up there in Canada.

Um, but this [00:30:00] wind farm is near the town of Sine and Charlevoix in Ana, Las San John in re in, uh, Northern Quebec. So this. Wind farm. It was uh, two phases, 2014 and 2015, phase one and phase two built by EDF and at the time biggest wind farm in Canada and one of the largest in the United States. It was 175 GE 2.0107 meter rotor machines, which you don’t hear about that often.

Uh, so this was again built by EDF and it’s an interesting project ’cause it was built across rugged terrain. I’ve actually driven through this wind farm. And it is timber, it is hills. It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful country. But to be thinking about that project and how they built it, amazing. Uh, so they did, uh, this is cold climate, right?

So GE put, uh, all, all the turbines are equipped with low temperature packages, reliable for operation in Quebec winters. Including ice detection, icing systems and de-icing systems. So that being said, we are having a webinar, uh, shortly, I think in the [00:31:00] next few weeks. Correct me if I’m wrong, Alan, about de-icing systems.

Yes, we are with the OG ping. All right. So, um, in, in other interesting things about this wind farm, the extensive wildlife studies, because this is I think one of the only wind farms I know of that, uh, had a caribou migration path through the middle of it. So they, uh, not only monitored that for before construction, but they’re monitoring it through construction to make sure that don’t.

Um, affect any of those local populations of animals. Uh, but, uh, despite remote access and severe winters, uh, proactive o and m planning all the way to down to crazy things like specialized vehicles and track vehicles and covers over the top of trucks to watch for falling ice and using helicopters for inspections and access.

Um, really, really neat, uh, o and m planning up there. Uh, this wind farm actually has a really high availability rate. So, uh, the Riviere de mu lane is a rare combination of large scale engineering complexity and ecological responsibility. Congrats to our friends up at EDF in Quebec. [00:32:00] You are the Wind Farm of the Week.

Allen Hall: Well, that wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Thanks for joining us as we explore the latest in wind energy technology and industry insights. And if today’s discussion has sparked any question or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out to us. On LinkedIn and we’re always on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show. So we’ll catch you here. Next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

https://weatherguardwind.com/indian-domestic-german-offshore/

Renewable Energy

Conference Recap, Suzlon Targets Europe

Published

6 hours ago

May 19, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Conference Recap, Suzlon Targets Europe

Matthew Stead recaps WindEurope Madrid and Blades Europe Edinburgh. Plus Suzlon unveils its Blue Sky platform for Europe, Muehlhan consolidates six specialist firms, and Mingyang keeps hunting for a European home.

Speaker: [00:00:00] The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now, your hosts.

Allen Hall 2025: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with Matthew Stead, who is back in Australia, but not at home.

He’s up in Queensland. Or actually, not even on– in Queensland, technically. He’s on an island off the coast of Queensland. Where are you at, Matthew?

Matthew Stead: Uh, Moreton Island. It’s, uh, like a resort island off, uh, off of Brisbane, so beautiful outside.

Allen Hall 2025: Well, you need a little bit of resort time because you’ve been to two conferences, and you spent a good bit of time in Austria after that.

So you were at WindEurope in Madrid, and then following that, you went right over to Scotland for Blades Europe. So I wanna hear your thoughts. We’ll start with, uh, WindEurope and what was going on at that conference. It did sound like there was a pretty [00:01:00] good attendance, and some people that I have talked to about it really en-enjoyed being in Madrid.

It’s just

Matthew Stead: a bigger city. Um, first time I’d ever been to Madrid, and, uh, yeah, the show was amazing, actually. I was, I was a bit blown away by, uh, I think the OEMs were back out in force. You know, so like the Vestas, Siemens were, um, really– and Nordexes and so forth were really back out in force, so that was really good to see.

Um, the, some of the larger operators had really, really strong presence as well. So you could see that, you know, Iberdrola, Res, um, those sorts of companies were, um, really, you know, putting a big effort in and meeting their customers and, um, really showing, uh, the world who they were. So that was really, um, you know, really good to see.

There were so many people seriously. Um, the queues for food at lunch were, were, um, one of the major problems. Um, so, um, yeah, it was really a lot of people, so that was really exciting. Um, and I mean, for me, I was [00:02:00]trying to catch up with, with partners and friends and, yeah, it was, it was jam, jam-packed just meeting people in the industry.

Um, probably a few other things. So s- you know, SkySpecs and Aerones had a really strong, um, presence there. So, um, SkySpecs and Aerones were, were doing really well. Um, maybe one of the, um, surprises for me, and I know this has been a topic on a few other previous episodes, was there was a lot of interest in bird and bat detection.

I, I, I think there had to be, like, five companies that were, were– had really big setups, and it was a really, really big topic around cameras and so forth. So, um, that was a, a big topic. And, um, then there, there was a really, really strong, you know, supply chain, you know, from, from vessels to cables to, you know, repairs.

Allen Hall 2025: What was the ratio of offshore companies to onshore companies? I’m always curious.

Matthew Stead: You’re looking through the, the list. Um- I would, I’m only guessing it [00:03:00] was probably about 40% had an offshore focus of some kind. So it was definitely a strong offshore focus. Um, obviously, you know, a lot of onshore, offshore combined companies.

But yeah, definitely the word offshore kept on popping up a lot.

Allen Hall 2025: Because Spain is mostly onshore. Like, um, like 99% onshore, right? I think it’s a couple of small projects going offshore. Does it look like the onshore business is gonna pick up, uh, just in terms of the activity on the floor in Madrid?

Matthew Stead: Uh, yeah.

Um, I, I think, you know, like I said, you know, those big operators like the REZAs and the Iberdrolas and, and the OEMs, I, I think it’s just a given that, um, you know, things are buoyant. Um, well, they appear to be definitely very buoyant. Uh, I think we’ve heard, you know, some of the positive, um, financial news from a few of the OEMs recently.

So yeah, yeah, it seems like o- onshore is, is maturing further, further, further. And so you went straight

Allen Hall 2025: from Madrid, right, to [00:04:00] Edinburgh, Scotland. That was a change in weather, I would assume. Uh, probably about a 20 degree Celsius difference. 25 down to 15, yes. Whoa. Okay. Yeah, that’s a good bit. Uh, but the Edinburgh conference, that’s the first time that Blades Europe has been to Edinburgh.

I, at least I don’t remember them being there before. That tends to be a more technical conference than Wind Europe. Uh, the, the Blades conference is obviously focused on blades, and all the relevant experts in Europe do tend to show up there. What were some of the hot topics at Blades Europe this year?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think it was, um, an interesting conference. Um, I, I’d been to Blades USA, so I was able to contrast, um, Blades USA a little bit. I think probably the differences here were, yeah, there was definitely some strong, strong, uh, experts there, like you say. Um, you know, Birgit, um, our friend was, was in attendance and a few of her colleagues from Statkraft.

Um, I think, and or, uh, actually ORE Catapult, the, the [00:05:00] UK research, um, offshore renewable energy research, um, they did some great presentations. I really, um, they really shared some really good insights. So, um, ORE Catapult were talking about life extension and, um, you know, looking at the, the fatigue on blades and, uh, how they’re, how they’re going to perform and life extension.

So some great stuff from ORE Catapult there. Probably another key topic that came up was around, uh, sort of related to life extension, but also recycling. The, there was a really good session on the new IEC standard. Um, um, to, you know, full disclosure, I was actually on the panel. So I, I thought it was a great panel.

But, um, the new IEC standard for blade operations and maintenance, um, is really well a-advanced now in its development. Um, very strong risk focus, you know. So depending on the risk then drives your, your blade O&M program. [00:06:00] Um, so that was a, a great talk as well. Uh, and then maybe finally, um, something close to my heart, um, I think the, the, you know, the maturity of CMS companies.

There actually, there were five blade CMS companies there, which is probably the biggest turnout I’ve seen around blade CMS, um, ever. And so it was good to see that sort of, um, interest and growth, um, and the need for, for blade CMS. Uh, and, um, obviously the last one, lightning. So lightning always an issue.

Lots of discussions around lightning, um, you know, through Greece and a few of the, the, the Balkan go- Balkan states. On the blade recycling front, there’s a

Allen Hall 2025: company in Scotland called ReBlade that is involved in some of the recycling efforts. Did they give a presentation of, of what they’re up to at the moment?

Matthew Stead: Uh, yes, I think they did. Um, they’re talking about setting up a, a site in a, a [00:07:00] couple of sites, and I think Inverness was the, the location where they’re, where they’re setting up a site. The, um, the port is supportive, so they’re working through those, those, those challenges. You know, getting a site, getting transport and access to the blades.

Um, working out when, when the, when the blades will come to them. You know, the storage of blades. Um, the, the end, end uses for those blades. Getting all that supply chain, um, lined up was, you know, yeah, it was, that was quite thorough and quite, um, yeah, inspiring.

Allen Hall 2025: And on the CMS side, what are operators trying to monitor?

‘Cause usually have something in mind that they’re going after.

Matthew Stead: For better or for worse, there’s still some serial, um, failure modes. Um, and so the industry is looking at very particular, you know, challenges that, um, certain make and model have. Um, so root insert failures was definitely one of those, um, one of those topics.

Um, and that was actually one of the, the, the [00:08:00] roundtable discussions at, uh, Blades Europe. Some other, um, monitoring around, you know, lightning and- lightning damage and what’s happening with the LPS. That was also, uh, another big topic for, for monitoring. And then a few other sort of general, more, more general, um, you know, natural frequencies of blades and seeing if the natural frequencies are changing, indicating a change in stiffness, which relates to potential damage.

So yeah, there was– it was quite a mix of the types of, um, CMS that was discussed.

Allen Hall 2025: Has the digital twin finally died? Anybody talk about that?

Matthew Stead: There’s actually a current call-out for a new research project in Europe around digital twins. So, um, yeah, one of the larger, one of the larger operators is, is putting, pulling together a team to talk about digital twins, so-

Allen Hall 2025: I, I think this is one of the more difficult things to do, but just because you’re dealing with a variety of blades and blade factories and unique issues that pop up that are…[00:09:00]

You, you really can’t model until after they happen. And after they happen, everybody knows about them anyway. So what’s the point of the digital twin if you can’t detect things early? It, it, it is a great concept, but hard to implement.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. And why? Why would you do it? I mean, you, you’re only gonna do it if there’s a benefit, and what is the benefit?

So, but I think, uh, actually at Blades Europe, digital twins was not really a topic. And maybe one thing I forgot to say is that the, um, Wind Power Lab did a, a good, um, presentation on carbon blades as well, so.

Allen Hall 2025: The, the carbon blades are, is a very good discussion, just because the trend has been lately to scrap blades and bring new ones on site.

And the carbon can be difficult to repair, or it takes a long time to repair, and you just don’t have the manpower or woman power to go out and fix it. So the, the fastest option is to build a new blade. But it does leave a lot of blade waste, which is where the industry is not going. Uh, recyclable blades, which is [00:10:00] in process at the moment, will make that easier, but you just don’t wanna be recycling blades.

You like to be able to repair them. Composites are repairable. And it’s, it is so odd that they, they wanna continue on that pathway, but we’ll see. We’ll see. You don’t really learn the lesson until you do it.

Matthew Stead: Um, however, you know, the, the presentation on carbon blades was, um, you know, highlighted a lot of the challenges, but also highlighted some of the positives and the, you know, how they do help.

Um, and so there was a lot of support for carbon blades, but there’s a lot of unknowns and, um, and there was a lot of discussion around how do you even test if the LPS is working. Uh, it’s just impossible. So, you know, traditional methods on carbon blades, yeah, it just don’t work. So, um, but there was a lot of support that the carbon does bring benefit.

But yeah, I agree with you. There’s a lot of challenges there.

Allen Hall 2025: That’s one of the things we learned years ago back in the late ’80s, early ’90s when we, at least in, in the [00:11:00] States, started building a number of carbon fiber aircraft. And the repair situation and dealing with repairs in, in remote locations became difficult.

And you’ve learned how much training it took to keep an industry running, and you’re starting from zero for a lot of places that all he had worked on was aluminum. It, it’s a completely different world. You’re, you’re training tens of thousands of technicians around the world. You weren’t planning to go do that, and now you are.

So it just, it adds to the cost.

Matthew Stead: It also ties into the OEM, um, you know, providing, you know, details on how to repair those blades because they’re not, they’re not just a standard item, so-

Allen Hall 2025: No, you, you don’t wanna be grinding into a protrusion if you can avoid it. It- you’re just never gonna get it back into that original form because protrusions are in some part magic.

And taking a grinder to them is not gonna… It’s breaking the magic. All the magic will be leaving that protrusion when you do that. Yeah, very [00:12:00]difficult. Delamination and bond line failures in blades are difficult problems to detect early. These hidden issues can cost you millions in repairs and lost energy production.

CIC NDT are specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become expensive burdens. Their nondestructive test technology penetrates deep into blade materials to find voids and cracks traditional inspections completely miss. CIC NDT maps every critical defect, delivers actionable reports, and provides support to get your blades back in service.

So visit cicndt.com because catching blade problems early will save you millions.

Well, as we know, the wind industry has long been dominated by a handful of European and American turbine makers, uh, particularly in the, quote-unquote, “West.” Uh, but that landscape may be [00:13:00] shifting. Suzlon, the Indian turbine giant that nearly collapsed under about a $1.5 billion of debt just a few years ago, is back.

The company has unveiled a new turbine platform aimed squarely at Europe, and says it will build its first factory on the continent if it wins enough orders. Vice Chairman Girish Tanti, uh, delivered the announcement at the WindEurope conference in Madrid, where Matthew was Signaling that Suzlon believes its time has come.

And since you were there, Matthew, did you hear any news on the floor, any discussion on the show floor about Suzlon entering Europe?

Matthew Stead: Well, actually, yes. So, um, um, there was actually a good, uh, contingent of Suzlon people at, uh, Blades Europe. So, uh, they attended, uh, Wind Europe and then Blades Europe. Um, and I, you know, I was able to have a bit of discussion with them.

I think, I think, uh, they were quite optimistic about, um, [00:14:00] you know, moving back or moving into, into Europe in terms of manufacturing. Um, however, there was an element of skepticism. Am I allowed to say that? So they, uh, were, they were not completely, um, convinced that it’s gonna happen, but, uh, they were certainly excited by that.

It was definitely a, a clear possibility, but not a given.

Allen Hall 2025: Well, they have a, a new platform called the Blue Sky platform, um, which will have, I think, two turbines here, a 5 megawatt and a 6.3 megawatt, which is squarely aimed at Europe and also the United States, for that matter. And building a factory, though, doesn’t make a lot of sense if the cost driver for a factory in Europe is the European employees, which it tends to be when you hear the discussions about the cost structure, it’s about the employees.

I’m not sure why Suzlon would make blades or nacelles in Europe unless they could avoid tariffs or taxation, because India is a very [00:15:00] cost, uh, driven, uh, manufacturing facilities writing country. So why would you wanna go build another expensive factory, probably in the realm of a couple hundred million pounds, uh, if you’re gonna go do it?

It probably doesn’t make any sense to do that as well as just selling turbines into Europe. It seems like the easier path.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. And then you’ve got all the, like, the quality control challenges and, you know, you get the cultural challenges. So yeah, to be honest, I don’t qu- I don’t quite understand the logic behind that either.

Um, maybe there’s, there’s some things that we don’t know about behind the scenes in terms of tariffs and other, other incentives that we don’t know about.

Allen Hall 2025: Would you see operators taking, uh, a Suzlon presentation and maybe even writing plans for developing with Suzlon turbines in the next couple of years?

Is that a, a feeling that Europeans would, would do that, or is Vestas mainly and Siemens Gamesa so strong in Europe that it doesn’t make any sense unless [00:16:00] you’re in sort of the periphery countries of Europe?

Matthew Stead: I mean, my first exposure to a wind turbine was a Suzlon turbine in Australia, and there are many, many, many Suzlon turbines in Australia.

And they’re all, they’re all still working. They’re all still reliable. So I mean, from a reputation and reliability and, um Yeah, history point of view, I can’t see why not. I mean, you know, uh, the operators will see that, you know, they’ve proven themselves. They’re not new kids on the block. Um, and so why wouldn’t an operator think about it?

Allen Hall 2025: Well,

Matthew Stead: in

Allen Hall 2025: this quarter’s PES Wind magazine, which you can download for free at peswind.com, there is a nice article from Muelhen Wind Services, and that is a growing company. A lot going on there. Our friends at AC883 just joined Muelhen a f- few months ago, and is being part of that conglomerate. And, and we know that obviously building wind farm used to mean [00:17:00]consulting with dozens of contractors, and this is where Mue- Muelhen has really s- stepped into the breach here.

So from blade repair at one company and heavy lift cranes at another company, all that had to be managed separately. You’re calling s- different companies all the time. And watching asset managers and site supervisors do this, uh, it is a thankless job. Well, Muelhen’s trying to change that a little bit, uh, and they’re saying that that model no longer works, and I totally agree with them.

It’s insane. Uh, but so Muelhen has consolidated six specialist firms under its one brand, and covering everything from port pre-assembly to long-term operations and maintenance across Europe, the US and Canada, uh, and Asia-Pacific. Its CEO, Søren Hoffer, uh, puts it plainly, “The next phase of wind will not be won by turbine size alone.

It will be decided by the supply chain’s ability to execute.” Boy, [00:18:00]couldn’t say truer words. Uh, I’ve worked with Muelhen or my company, Weather Guard Lightning Tech, has worked with Muelhen on a couple of projects over the years, and we’ve always had, uh, great service from them, and we have talked to a number of operators that love them, that love using Muelhen.

So it’s not a surprise that they’re trying to grow and expand and make life easier for the operators.

Matthew Stead: Sounds like a brilliant move, really. I mean, you know, pulling all these sort of things together is, is a real challenge, isn’t it? I mean, coordinating all these subcontractors, um, getting to turn up at the right time, and yeah, I mean, it just sounds like a brilliant move, and I think that we need more, more, more efficient service companies to service the growing fleet.

So the more they can get organized, the better.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah, the scale matters here, and the expertise matters. As we’ve have a couple hundred thousand turbines that are [00:19:00] operating in the, quote-unquote, “West,” it does make sense to have a larger player that has seen most of those turbines and has some experience with them.

It’s always the scary scenario when you’re working with a new company. Have they been on this turbine before? Do they know what they’re doing? Do they know- Lockout tagout. Even simple things like that come to the forefront. And the, the trouble is on some of these smaller companies that are in that business is that, uh, you just don’t get the level of service, you don’t get the level of response, you don’t have the horsepower if something were to, to go wrong on site.

They don’t have the cash to, to bring in a second crane or another crew to get this job done. It, it does become scale at some point. And, uh, for a long time in the wind industry, particularly United States, it, it has been a lot of, quote-unquote, “mom-and-pop operations,” and those are slowly getting acquired by the likes of Muehlhan.

I, I, I think this is inevitable at some point. Uh, from the asset owner’s, uh, desktop watching this go on, [00:20:00] how do you see, you know, a large operator interfacing with Muehlhan? Are they gonna do just one-stop shopping at this point? They’re, they’re not gonna have three or four different companies to work with, that they’re just gonna lock into, uh, Muehlhan?

‘Cause, uh, that’s what I see.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. I, I think, you know, from the, the WOMA Conference in, in Melbourne, we saw a bit of a, bit of a shift towards, um, outsourcing, at least in Australia Pacific region. And I mean, if, if you’re gonna outsource, um, you’re, you’re probably gonna join up with a, a Muehlhan, um, equivalent.

So, you know, that way it just takes some of the risk out of, out of it, so it, it sort of makes sense. Um, the other observation I’ve heard is that, you know, because of the seasonality of blade repairs, it’s really hard to keep hold of, um, blade techs. And so if you’re a global company, you’ve got at least some opportunity of using the ses- seasonality and keeping hold of the good techs and, um, you know, so, you know, you know, summer in, in North, North, uh, America, and then, you know, summer in [00:21:00] Australia.

So it, it, it allows these company, allows these companies to keep hold of their good people.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. And that, that’s always been the yearly problem, right? That you have a, a crew of a couple good crews in the summertime, and you come back the next summer and it’s a whole different group of people and yeah, that, that, that’s trouble for the industry.

Well, a- and it’s good. It’s fi- it’s finally good to see this happening, and I know, uh, we’ve talked about it internally here at Weather Guard of who to work with and who to partner with. We like working with companies that have scale, and I think we’re finally there. So it’s really interesting to see this article from Johan in PES Wind.

So if you, if you haven’t read the article, you should go visit peswind.com and take a look. There’s a lot of great content in this quarter’s issue, and y- you don’t wanna miss it. So go to peswind.com today. 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 [00:22:00] 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 peswind.com today. So when, when the energy prices spike like they’re happening right now, uh, the Iran war being one of the main drivers, and obviously gasoline prices have jumped quite a bit, here’s what happens.

The China’s clean energy sector goes to work, and they’re racing to make connections and make sales. As electricity prices jump up, gas prices jump up, everybody wants to try to find a cheaper way to provide energy to their countries or locales. Uh, China’s there to offer it. So it’s solar panels, batteries, EVs, and even wind turbines are, are looking for homes out of China.

Uh, for European wind professionals, [00:23:00] the most important part comes from Mingyang, right? So they were unable to get a production facility in Scotland, but they haven’t given up yet. They are still searching for a home somewhere in Europe. And as of today, I don’t think they’ve found it. They’re s- I think they’re still looking for some country to host them.

But how long is that gonna go on, Matthew? I, I think with the domination of Vestas and Siemens Gamesa in Europe and Suzlon trying to make an entry, will Mingyang and other Chinese manufacturers eventually find a home?

Matthew Stead: It’s interesting. I think, uh, if you look at the airline industry, you’ve always had premium providers, and you’ve always had low-end providers, and I think there’s always a place for all of them.

And so I re- I reckon they’ll find, I think they’ll find their place in, in the market and just, you know, it might just take a while. But they’ve got the strength, haven’t they? They’ve got the product. They’ve got the strength. So it’s just a matter [00:24:00] of time.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. I, I, I d- I do think eventually it will happen.

But Vestas and, and Siemens Gamesa have done a pretty good job of controlling it, and wind Europe, honestly. Wind Europe has not been a proponent of a Chinese manufacturer in Europe, so that generally will help slow down any business plans they would have But at the same time, there’s a lot of opportunities around the world that’s not necessarily in Europe, right?

South America has strong ties with China. They’re– And Chinese companies are, are starting production in China. There’s a lot th- things happening there. You’re gonna see that in Africa and other places. So it doesn’t necessarily have to happen in Europe, which is, I think Europeans and Americans think, “Well, we can’t have China in those locales.”

Fine. But it isn’t like China doesn’t have other opportunities to, to sell turbines or solar panels or batteries. There are plenty places on the planet where

Matthew Stead: people that

Allen Hall 2025: need

Matthew Stead: lower cost energy, and they’re gonna find them. Um, I did attend a, a panel [00:25:00] discussion on Türkiye, um, and the growth, and there was a lot of growth in Türkiye around onshore and offshore.

And so maybe Mingyang, that might be a, a place, um, for them to, to start, you know, on the doorstep of, of Europe. The stepping stone, so to speak. Stepping country.

Allen Hall 2025: Is there risk in that, uh, uh, if, uh, uh, Mingyang decided to put a plant in Türkiye? Is, does that come with some political aspect? Because I, I, I don’t remember.

Türkiye t-tends to play, uh, uh, k- kind of like Switzerland in, in terms of working with different, uh, political systems over time. Yeah.

Matthew Stead: I, I’ve had a bit more to do with a few, a few, um, sort of organizations in Türkiye recently and, um, you know, it’s highly professional, highly, you know, logical, and so I, I can’t see why it’d be a challenge.

So I think, yeah, that stepping stone into Europe might be a, a logical way to go. Well, maybe

Allen Hall 2025: we’ll see that in the next [00:26:00] couple of months. I don’t know. There’s gonna be a lot to happen there. There’s so much money being spent in Europe on renewables, wind, solar, battery, all the above, that there’s plenty of opportunity, and every company that has a product that’s gonna be trying to sell it in Europe right now.

It’s a smart move. Absolutely.

Matthew Stead: I think the other thing that we’ll probably be talking about a little bit more is EV trucks or, you know, electric trucks.

Allen Hall 2025: You think so?

Matthew Stead: I reckon we’ll be talking more and more about electric trucks.

Allen Hall 2025: Does Europe even have a, a le- a real true EV tractor-trailer, large truck?

What do they call… I guess they call it a lorry.

Matthew Stead: I don’t think yet. But that’s why I’m saying I think this is a topic that’s gonna raise itself. Um, I’ve, I’ve seen some numbers recently which says that it’s a bit of a no-brainer to go from diesel to, um, to battery now.

Allen Hall 2025: So is Tesla gonna be the, the winner there just because of their, I don’t even what they call it, the Tesla truck?

Is that what they call that now?

Matthew Stead: Not the Cybertruck, the, the truck truck.

Allen Hall 2025: Electric semi-truck. There you go. [00:27:00] Thank you, producer Claire.

Matthew Stead: I think you’ve gotta watch, you know, you’ve gotta watch BYD and a few of the other, the other, um, other companies.

Allen Hall 2025: Do they have something as large as what, uh, Tesla is offering today?

Because Tesla is offering a true semi or tractor-trailer

Matthew Stead: I, I, I must admit I’m not a, a huge expert on the topic, but I’m sure Rosemary is.

Allen Hall 2025: She drives the big rigs? Is that what she’s doing?

Matthew Stead: But I think we– Yeah, I think, I think it’s an in-interesting thing to watch because, um, certainly fuel prices in Australia are definitely pushing, um, this idea of, um, electric trucks.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah, diesel prices are really high in the States. I- if they’re high in the States, I can’t even imagine what they are in Europe or Australia. They must be through the roof. So if you have a diesel vehicle, although they run forever and are pretty efficient, the price of fuel is insane right now.

Matthew Stead: And, you know, if you, if you take that a step further into mining, so Twiggy Forest, um, and Fortescue, you know, switching to [00:28:00] electric, uh, trucks and electric mining, yeah, it makes sense.

Allen Hall 2025: Does the math work out on that? Uh, obviously Fortescue is taking, uh, really a pretty significant risk in that they’re developing their own electricity generation sites via wind and solar and battery, the whole thing, and they’re converting some of their larger vehicles to electric. Does that hold a big risk, or is this just a financial no-brainer, particularly when diesel prices are so high?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think it’s a financial no-brainer. Uh, and that’s why partly I think we’ll be talking about trucks because, you know, once the finances make sense, um, there’ll be a faster transition. And I think, you know, Fortescue is not a silly company.

Allen Hall 2025: Fortescue is willing to dabble, right? So they’re willing to, to see where the technology is and spend a little bit of money and possibly it works out, right?

I think there’s– you have to take a little bit of risk if you’re in that business because you are spending so much money on fuel. [00:29:00] You can spend a couple million dollars playing in different areas to pick an eventual winner. Obviously, they’re gonna– Well, it’s not obvious at the moment, but it, it seems obvious to us being on the electricity side.

Electricity is gonna be the answer. Renewable energy is gonna be the easy way to do it, the lowest cost way to do it. There you go. Go do it. Well, American Clean Power’s event, uh, which is in Houston this year, will be happening June 1st through the 4th at the convention center downtown in Houston. It’s gonna be warm, everybody, so if you’re traveling from a cooler country like Denmark to Houston, bring something cool to wear.

It will be warm in June. It, it– Houston is just a very warm place, and it’s quite humid, so it’ll, it’ll be a, a unique environment. However, it does sound like there’s gonna be a, a, an– A number of interesting companies and a lot of people that are attending that event this year, and one of them is gonna be Matthew and EOLOGIX-PING with Weather Guard Lightning Tech will [00:30:00] both be down at the event in a booth and seeing everybody and, and, and meeting a whole bunch of, of, uh, new people that are getting into the industry, which is, to me, is always the fun part.

Like, we just meet so many really fun people. Uh, and Matthew, you know, we had a discussion internally about that, like, uh, our, our new, uh, chief commercial officer, Nikki Briggs, has been commenting. We’ve been talking to so many operators around the world, and after every, uh, little meeting briefing that we have, we do a post-briefing, and she goes, “They were so nice.”

And I s- yes, Nikki, the wind industry people are fantastic to work with. Like, they’re all focused on doing something positive, and they’re trying to, to do it the best that they can. And there’s a lot of constraints to it, and they’re making a number of hard decisions. But when we all come together at American Clean Power here in the States, hey, we can kinda commiserate and [00:31:00] talk about what’s happening and catch up.

And I feel like we need a little bit of catch-up time in this industry, particularly here in the United States.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, um, I, I definitely agree. And I, I found, you know, previously I used to work in the construction industry and work with engineers and, you know, transport, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And actually, I found that the renewable industry, there’s a lot of really open people, really happy to have a discussion, um, not the big egos, so I completely agree. And, um, I’m thinking back, um, I first met people in the wind industry in, you know, around 2012, 2013, and, you know, I still know a number of those people and really appreciate catching up with them.

Um, so actually, Berend van der Pol was probably one of the first, and, uh, Birgit Junker was, um, maybe one of the second, so yeah. And I’m definitely looking forward to ACP.

Allen Hall 2025: If you’re, if you’re down in Houston at American Clean Power, definitely stop by a- and say hi to everybody from [00:32:00]EOLOGIX-PING and Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and hey, learn about all the things that are going on because both companies have new products that’ll, were gonna be announced at the site.

Uh, we’re already getting inundated with requests on the Weather Guard side. It’s insane. We’re telling people, like, “Slow down, slow down, slow down. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk to you about it when we get to Houston.” But, uh, expect a very attentive audience this year, which is exciting. That wraps up another episode of “The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.”

If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas- We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It helps other wind energy professionals follow the show. For Matthew, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:33:00] Podcast.