Weather Guard Lightning Tech

TPI Blade Factory Bids, Vestas Wins Offshore Deal

Allen covers Vestas’ turbine supply deal with RWE for the 1.4 GW Vanguard West offshore project in England and its bid for TPI Composites’ blade factories in bankruptcy court. Plus Germany’s Nordlicht One foundations arrive ahead of schedule and Enel buys $1 billion in US wind and solar assets.

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

You know … there is a company in Denmark that makes wind turbines. Vestas.

And this week … Vestas had itself quite a week.

On one hand … the Danish giant just locked in a deal to supply ninety-two of its massive V236 turbines to RWE’s Vanguard West project off the east coast of England.

One-point-four gigawatts of offshore wind. Each turbine … fifteen megawatts.

That project just won a Contract for Difference in the UK’s Allocation Round Seven. RWE and its partner KKR want a final investment decision by this summer … and power flowing by twenty twenty-nine.

And this is part of something bigger. RWE signed preferred supplier agreements with Vestas back in December of twenty twenty-three for the entire four-point-two gigawatt Norfolk Wind Zone. That is three massive projects … off one English coast.

So Vestas is building turbines for the British. But here is where it gets interesting.

Over in a Houston bankruptcy court … wind blade maker TPI Composites has been carving up its assets since filing Chapter Eleven last August.

A firm called ECP V acquired the bulk of TPI’s remaining operations. They were the only bidder. The auction … canceled.

But certain facilities in Mexico and India? Those were carved out of the deal entirely. And the company circling those assets? Vestas.

The very same Vestas building turbines for England has put in its own qualified bid for the blade-making plants that once served it as a customer.

So while one hand signs turbine contracts … the other reaches into bankruptcy court to secure its own supply chain.

Now … across the North Sea in Germany … the Nordlicht offshore wind cluster just hit a milestone of its own.

The first monopiles and transition pieces for Nordlicht One … finished ahead of schedule. Sixty-eight foundations. Each monopile … eighty meters long. Nearly thirteen hundred tonnes of steel.

When complete … Nordlicht One will be Germany’s largest offshore wind farm at nine hundred and eighty megawatts. Combined with Nordlicht Two … the cluster will generate six terawatt-hours of clean electricity every year.

And then there is Italy’s Enel. The power giant announced it is buying eight hundred and thirty megawatts of American wind and solar assets from Excelsior Energy Capital … for one billion dollars.

That deal closes later this year. And it will push Enel’s North American renewable capacity to thirteen gigawatts. Globally … Enel Green Power now commands sixty-eight gigawatts of clean energy.

So let us step back and look at the picture. A Danish turbine maker wins a massive English contract … while quietly bidding on bankrupt blade factories to protect its own supply chain.

German foundations arrive ahead of schedule. And an Italian energy giant bets one billion dollars on American renewables.

From the North Sea to the Gulf of Mexico … from English coastlines to Houston courtrooms … wind energy is not slowing down. It is building … faster.

And now you know … the rest of the story. Good day!

TPI Blade Factory Bids, Vestas Wins Offshore Deal

What do progressives hope for, given the runaway criminality of the U.S. president?

The woman at left is what is properly called a “radical,” from the Latin for “root.”  Pull it out by its roots, or in this case, burn it to the ground.  I’ve heard this viewpoint expressed dozens of times, most recently by the wife of an old school chum.

I’m as disgusted by the downward spiral that Trump is inflicting upon the United States is experiencing as the next guy, but I can’t get on board with this.

My message here: every decent U.S. citizen wants this turned around, but we can do this without ruining the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans.  Trump is suffering a plummeting decline in voter supporter.  We’re more than halfway home back to reason, compassion for others, and most of all, rule of law.

I appreciate how upset you are, but I beg you to reconsider.

Note to a True Radical

At left we see the rationale behind the statute of limitations in U.S. criminal law.  You aren’t the same person you were seven years ago.

We also see the intersection of Western philosophy and Eastern religion.  Our egos delude us into the misperception that we and the exterior world are permanent and unmoving.

For you prog rock fans of the late 60’s and early 70’s, the song that Jon Anderson of Yes wrote called “Close to the Edge” is about the Hermann Hesse novella “Siddhartha,” in which the protagonist finds enlightenment by beholding the constancy of change in the flowing river.

A side note, music that is “about” something is called “program music.”  Anderson said this, for some reason, about his composition, “I hope folks like “Close to the Edge,” because it’s the first and last time I’m ever going to do this.”

The Only Constant Is Change