Weather Guard Lightning Tech
MotorDoc Finds Bearing and Gearbox Faults in Minutes
Howard Penrose of MotorDoc joins to discuss current signature analysis, uptower circulating currents wrecking main bearings, and full drivetrain scans in minutes. Reach out at info@motordoc.com or on LinkedIn.
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Howard Penrose: [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.
Allen Hall: Howard, welcome back to the program.
Howard Penrose: Hey, thanks for having me.
Allen Hall: It’s about time everybody realizes what motorDoc can do. There’s so much technology, and I’ve been watching- Yeah … your Chaos and Caffeine podcast on Saturday morning, which are full of really, really good information about the motorDoc as a company, all the things you’re doing out in the field, and how you’re solving real-world problems, not imaginary ones- Yeah
real-world problems. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and
Howard Penrose: whatever annoys me that week. Exactly. And, and whatever great coffee I’m trying out. Yes. Except for a few. We’ve had the ReliaSquatch down our- Yes … um, a couple of times. Uh, yeah, no, I, I enjoy it, and we gotta get you on there sometime. I don’t do- I, it- … a lot of interviews other than an AI character we put in.
Allen Hall: It’s a very interesting show because you’re [00:01:00] getting a little bit of comedy and humor and s- Yeah … and a, and a coffee review, which is very helpful because I’ve tried some of the coffees that you have reviewed, that you’ve given the thumbs up to. But if you’re operating wind turbines and you’re trying to understand what’s happening on the drivetrain side, on the generator, everything out to the blades even, main bearings, gearboxes- Yeah
all those rotating heavy, expensive parts, there’s a lot of ways to diagnose them-
Howard Penrose: Yes …
Allen Hall: that are sort of like we can look at a gear, we can look at a joint, we can look at roller bearings, whatever, but motorDoc has a way to quickly diagnose all of that chain in about- Yeah … 15 seconds.
Howard Penrose: Well, a little longer than 15 sec- more like a minute.
A minute, okay. It feels like paint drying. But- Uh, in any case, yeah. Uh, uh, and, and what’s kind of funny is, um, back in the ’90s, uh, EPRI actually accidentally steered the technology away from its [00:02:00] core purpose, which was in 1985, um, NAVSEA, the US Navy, had done research on using current signature analysis for looking at pumps, fans, and compressors, the bearings, the belts, the components, all the rotating components using the motor as the sensor.
Not too much different than we are now. I mean, mind you, we got better resolution now, we’ve got, uh, more powerful– I mean, I look at my data from the ’90s, and now it’s completely different. Um, and then Oak Ridge National Lab, same thing, bearings and gears in motor-operated valves. So in 2003, we were the first ones to apply electrical and current signature analysis to some wind turbines in the Mojave Desert.
Wow. Yeah. So, um, nobody had tried it before. Everybody said it couldn’t be done. And, uh, that was a bad thing to say to me because- … it meant I was gonna get it [00:03:00] done. Right. At that time, um, we were looking at bearing issues and some blatant conditions with the, um, with the, uh, generator using a technology called Altest, ’cause I was with Altest at the time.
And, uh, I had taken an EMPath software and blended it with a, a power analyzer, and they still have that tool to this day. I was using that technology all the way through 2015. 2016, I should say. And then- And then switched over to the pure EMPath, which was more of an engineering tool. And then more recently, in 2022, uh, made the decision to ha- to take all the work we’d done on over 6,000 turbines, uh, looking at how we were looking at the data and what we were doing on the industrial side, and took a, uh, created a current signature analyzer that would do one phase of current to analyze the entire powertrain.
Allen Hall: So when you tell [00:04:00] operators you can do this magic, I think a lotta times they gotta go, “
Howard Penrose: What?” Oh, yeah, yeah. They don’t understand it because they’re used to vibration- Right … which is a point analysis system. Right.
Allen Hall: Vibration at this- Yeah … particular location. Yeah. One spot- Even if it’s- … or a couple
Howard Penrose: spots
triax, they’re reading through material, up through a transducer. Hopefully, they put it above the bearing and not in the middle of the machine like everybody is now, because everybody’s trying to sell a sensor. Right. True. They’re not selling a- they’re not selling accuracy. They’re just selling sensors.
Right. So, um- Yeah … you know, uh, I, I’ll, I’ll even talk about one of the companies here. We’ve got Onyx here, and they do it right. I mean, they’ve been doing it right pretty well because we’ve been doing some of the same towers they’re on, and we can match the data they’re getting. Oh, good. Right? Yeah. Uh, so but they get it in multiple spots, and there’s areas they can’t quite reach, so we’ll detect those areas as well.
So it’s a good melding of two technologies.
Allen Hall: Oh, sure. Sure,
Howard Penrose: sure. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you have electrical signature and you have vibration, but in [00:05:00] cases if you don’t have vibration, we’re a direct replacement.
Allen Hall: Because the generator- I
Howard Penrose: dare say that.
Allen Hall: Yeah. Whichever–
Howard Penrose: I dare say that, um, with- Well, the
Allen Hall: generator is acting as the sensor.
Howard Penrose: The air gap. The air gap in the generator s- specifically, yes. Yeah. Generator, motor, transformer. Right.
Allen Hall: Yeah. So any of those- Mm-hmm … you can clamp onto, look at the current that’s on there. Everything that’s happening on the drivetrain, in the gearbox, out on the rotor- Yep … main bearings, all of that creates vibration.
Creates a torque. T- a, a torque. Yeah. Yes, more exactly a torque. Yeah. And that’s seen in the generator, in the current coming out of the generator. Yes. So those signals, although minute, are still there. Yes. So if you clamp onto that current coming out of the generator, you’ll see the typical AC sine wave sitting there.
But on top of that- Is all the information about how that drivetrain is doing
Howard Penrose: Absolutely, and everything else. Anything electrical comes through [00:06:00] that. So what you do is just like vibration, you do a spectral analysis. So every component has a frequency associated with it, just like vibration. It’s, as a matter of fact, I, I keep having to try to explain to people electrical and current signature analysis is no different than vibration analysis.
It’s the same concept. We use the same tools. The signature looks just a little different. It’s a little noisier, um, but you need that noise in order to see everything. But we have a time waveform, and instead of, um, inches per second or millimeters per second, whatever, you know, uh, velocity, acceleration, and displacement, uh, what we end up with is decibels is the optimal method.
You can look at straight voltage signatures at those points or, or current signatures, but the values are so small that you have to look at it from a logarithmic standpoint. Right. There are some benefits to it versus vibration, and there’s some things that aren’t as good as vibration. [00:07:00] So, you know, we, we do…
You have to… Any technology is gonna have their strengths and weaknesses. Sure. So we will see everything all at once. Load doesn’t matter. Right. Speed doesn’t matter. It’s… Only reason speed matters is the location of the frequencies. Uh, so the higher the resolution, meaning the longer you take data, the less chance you have on a lightly lo- loaded machine of blending the peaks together.
Right. Um, on the flip side, if I have two bearings turning at the exact same speed, I couldn’t tell you which one it is. Because they’re the same. Right.
Allen Hall: And the mechanical features of that bearing is w- what creates the signal that you’re measuring. Exactly. So if a bearing has five rollers versus 10, just imaginary thing.
Yeah, yeah. Five rollers versus 10 has a different electrical signature, so you can determine, like, that bearing, that 10 roller bearing- Yes … has the problem, the five is fine. Yes. Yeah. That’s the magic, and I think people don’t translate the mechanical world into the electrical world. That that’s what’s [00:08:00]happening.
They,
Howard Penrose: they don’t because, because what’s happening is they named it wrong.
Allen Hall: Yes.
Howard Penrose: A majority of our users are mechanical folks. Sure. Our vibration analysts and stuff like, ’cause they know how to look at the signatures. Right. Everybody tries to force it on their electrical people, and electrical people go, “We don’t know what this is.”
Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s a matter of that training and, and, you know, in the electrical world, you’re not taught to look at that. Right. Yeah. It doesn’t matter. Mechanical world, you’re taught to look at that. So our intern, we were trying to bring in electrical engineering interns and found out that just wasn’t working.
So last year, I brought in my first, uh, intern that’s, you know, he’s been with us now since I brought him in. Okay. Uh, and, uh, Amar, and, uh, you know, he’s helped us develop our vi- uh, vibration software to go along with it. Guess what? It’s the same thing. It’s the exact same sy- system Um, but we just take in a vibration signal instead.
But he picked up on it immediately as a [00:09:00] third-year college student. I can take somebody with a decade as an electrical engineer with a PhD and they can’t figure it out.
Allen Hall: Well, because you’re, you’re taking real- Because it’s different. Yeah. It’s r- well, it’s real-world components-
Howard Penrose: Yeah …
Allen Hall: creating electrical signals.
That’s hard- Well, you have- … to process for a lot of people. Yeah,
Howard Penrose: yeah. It’s
Allen Hall: just not
Howard Penrose: something that we do every day. But that’s… If they, i- if we sa- i- i- if you’re looking at vibration and you start looking at the sensor, it gets complicated too, ’cause guess what? It’s an electrical signal. Right. It’s, it is technically electrical signature now.
It’s converting a
Allen Hall: mechanical signal- Right … into an electrical signal, which is what’s happening in the generator anyway. Yeah.
Howard Penrose: Whether it’s a piezoelectric cell that’s generating a small signal- Yeah … on top of a small waveform that you then take out, you demodulate, uh, or it’s, uh… So you take that carrier frequency out, or it’s a MEMS sensor, which is the same thing.
You know, the, it just sees some slower s- It, it does more of a digital output. So you, you, you know, you have those, or you [00:10:00] have this, which just basically uses a component of the machine to, to, as its own sensor. There is one other difference between them, too, and, uh, I find this very useful when I’m going out troubleshooting something that other people can’t figure out, uh, ’cause we use all the technologies.
So in this case, it would be, uh, the structural movement. Okay? So, so say I have a generator and there’s something wrong with the structure, and the whole machine is vibrating. So y- well, if I put a transducer on it, they might think that’s vibration or something else. We don’t see it. Right. We only see directly exactly what’s happening with the machine.
Sure. So a lot of times when we go in to troubleshoot something that people have done vibration on and everything else, it’s been pro- a, a problem for them for years. We walk in, and all of a sudden we’re identifying whether it’s the machine or it’s something else right off the bat. Then we can take a look at the vibration data and [00:11:00] say, “Okay, it wasn’t the bearing or the bearing, um, structure.
It was, you know, the mounting.” Right. It wasn’t
Allen Hall: fastened
Howard Penrose: down properly. Yeah,
Allen Hall: yeah. Right.
Howard Penrose: Go tighten that bolt. Right, exactly.
Allen Hall: Well, I mean, that’s the cheap answer. Yeah. I’d rather tighten a bolt than rip apart a motor or a generator- And, and- … every day …
Howard Penrose: and that’s the whole point. Now, there are other strengths that go with it.
So for instance, on the powertrain of a wind turbine, I can tell you if you’ve lubricated the bearings correctly. Wow. Because part of what we do is we do take those electrical signatures, and we convert those over to watts. Watts is an energy conversion. Sure. So you see that as heat or some type of loss.
So whatever, whatever’s being lost there is not being sent to the customer. To the outside. Right. Making money. So, um, if I’m taking a look at, say, a main bearing, I might see watts or kilowatts of losses. So you’re gonna have some ’cause you have friction, right? But when we see it increase on, say, a roller, [00:12:00] or the rollers, or, or the cage, that’s usually an indicator that I have a lubrication issue.
Or if we only see it on the outer race, that means that they didn’t clear out all the old grease when they were lubricating it, ’cause the rollers then have to ride across it- Right … ’cause it dries up.
Allen Hall: Sure.
Howard Penrose: Uh, and will carry contaminants. So if you see that, you go up, clean it up, you’ll extend the life of the bearing.
Absolutely you will. Without having to do a lot of work. So, uh, we, we look at our technology as more so early in the, in the stage of a condition. I don’t wanna call it failure, ’cause it’s not a failure. It’s something that’s mitigable. And I made that word up. You can mitigate it. Meaning you can go up and correct it and extend the life of that component.
Sure. Uh, in gearboxes we’ll see problems with, um… Well, the, the one we’re talking about here a fair amount is all the circulating currents going on uptower. We did that research. The current signature analyzer we have is a direct result of doing wind turbine [00:13:00] research just on circulating currents uptower, ’cause we conferred everything over to, to sound at 48 kilohertz.
And so that gives me a 24-kilohertz signal. That high-frequency stuff, which we’re researching in CGRE, and IEEE, and IEC, is called supra harmonics, which I– we talked about that before. Yes, we have. Yeah. And, uh, so when you start seeing that in the, in, in the current that’s circulating uptower because the ground that goes from the top of the tower down is for- DC
lightning protection. And lightning protection, yeah. It’s not meant for, um- Not for
Allen Hall: high frequency- Yeah …
Howard Penrose: currents. Yeah. Uh, we, when we measured it, when we mapped out dozens of towers of all different manufacturers, we found that the impedance about halfway down the tower is where it ends. Sure. The, the resistance.
And then the increased, uh, the high-frequency noise turns any of your shaft brushes into resistors. And at about 15 kilohertz, no current is [00:14:00]passing through them. It’s all passing the bearing, which becomes more conductive the higher the frequency. So with 60% of main bearings failing due to electrical currents, it’s actually currents that are circulating uptower.
It’s not static. There is some static up there, but it’s not static. It’s coming from the controls, the, the generator, and everything else. Inverters,
Allen Hall: converters.
Howard Penrose: And we’ve seen up to 150 amps passing through a, through a bearing.
Allen Hall: So I– We run across a lot of operators who have been replacing main bearings, and they don’t know the reason why.
Yeah. And I always say, “Well, call Howard at MotorDoc because I would almost bet you you have the f- high frequency running around uptower in the nacelle- And the next main bearing you put in there is gonna go the same way as the- Yeah … first one you put in there. Until you cut off that circulating current and then the cell, you’re just gonna continue with the problem.
Then you haven’t eliminated the problem, you’re just fixing the result of that problem. Yes. But it takes- Yeah, you’re, you’re- How, [00:15:00] how, well, how long- You’re replacing
Howard Penrose: a fuse.
Allen Hall: Right, you’re replacing a fuse. Yeah. How long does it take you to s- to determine- An expensive fuse. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, ’cause you’re taking the rotor down.
Yeah. Well, how, how fast can you determine if you have harmonics uptower that are gonna be causing you problems? 120 seconds.
Howard Penrose: Okay.
Allen Hall: So that’s the thing. I think a lot of- I mean,
Howard Penrose: that’s of the actual data collection time. So you clamp on uptower, uh, and then you can… Well, the way we have it set up now, you just tell it you wanna collect data every five s- uh, five minutes, and then you go downtower, let it collect its data, go back up, grab it.
Um, it’s like…
It’s huge. It’s this size. So, um, and then you connect- It plugs into a laptop. Yeah. Plug it into a laptop or any type of tablet. Um, it, it’s Windows now. I’m trying to get away from Windows. We’re gonna have Linux systems, uh, as well. Uh, and then you use that to, um, just collect that data, and then you press another button.
Now it pops up, and it tells you if you’re in danger or not, [00:16:00] the amount of current passing through the bearing, and the frequencies all the way out.
Allen Hall: So the ideal is you’re gonna have this kit with you in the truck. Yeah. And as you see these problems pop up, you’re gonna clamp on uptower. Yep. You’re gonna measure these circulating currents, and you’re gonna know immediately if you have another mechanical issue, a, a lubrication issue- Oh, yeah.
It’ll look at- … some kind of alignment issue, or- You’ll get all
Howard Penrose: of this information at once. So you- Right … if you go on the power side. So certain turbines, like anything that has the transformer downtower, you don’t have to climb. Right. GE. I mean, I don’t climb. So, uh, uh, you know, th- and that was part of the, the concept behind when we started down this path because I’ve been in the wind industry since 1997.
So one of the things I always saw was, and, and we talked about even, you know, here when it was called AWEA, and we were talking always on the health and safety side about wearing out the technicians. Um, so we discovered that, you know, what was it? Almost 60% of the [00:17:00] turbines you didn’t have to climb. Right.
Oh, yeah. And even the ones you do, you go up, you set it up, and it’ll tell you where you need to focus. The other thing in the powertrain, let alone the generator, when we do a sweep of a site– Now, if we do a straight electrical signature analysis, I’d term that one as a technician’s tool. Sure. That’s more of an engineer’s tool.
Uh, a lot more data, a lot harder to set up. But even though I’m saying harder to set up, it’s still pretty easy. It’s still minutes. Right. Yeah. Most technicians will collect data with, like, a couple hours worth of training. Yeah. You g- You basically gather that data, and if you’re getting a site, so we’ll go out– I love going out in the field.
So we’ll go out in the field, especially if it’s a tower we don’t have to climb I’ll knock out, uh, well, let’s just say I’ll, I’ll, I’ll name one. Say a GE 1.6. I’ll knock out one of those every eight to 11 minutes, depending on how you get to the tower.
Allen Hall: So that’s a full diagnosis of drivetrain- Yeah … plus anything odd happening- Yep
with circulating currents and all that [00:18:00] can- Oh, no, no. Circulating- Or just- … current, that’s a- That’s a separate thing at tower … separate study that- Okay … you have to do that uptower. But anything, anything drivetrain-wise, you can be in and out- Yeah … in a couple of minutes. Yep. Okay. So there’s a lot of operators that have end-of-warranties coming up, right?
Yes. There’s been a lot of developments, so they’re kind of running into the end-of-warranty, and they don’t know the health status of their drivetrain. Same thing for a lot of operators that are in- Yep … full service agreements, and they’re questioning whether they’re getting their money’s worth or not.
Yes. I always say, “Call Howard at Motordoc. You guys can have a whole site survey done maybe in a couple of days, and you will know all the problems that are on site for the lowest price ever”. Yeah. It’s crazy how fast you can do it and how accurate it is. I talk to operators that use your system, so I hear you.
Yeah. Your podcast, listen to your podcast, I’m calling your customers to find out what they say, and they love it. Oh, yeah. They can’t believe how accurate it is. Yeah. Well, the thing about that is we as an industry need to make sure that our turbines are operating at [00:19:00] maximum efficiency. Yep. And if a simple tool like the Motordoc EMPath system exists, we need to get customers, operators in line to start doing it worldwide.
Australia- Oh … Europe-
Howard Penrose: Yeah. We- … Canada. Australia, we’re trying to get into, but right now we even have OEMs using it through North- That’s good … and South America, Asia. Good. Uh, Middle East, um, and, uh, and some of Europe. Good. So it’s, it’s, it’s really taking off. Uh, I’d say probably our biggest market right now is Brazil.
Sure. They’re going crazy. Well, the, the turbines are- They’re having a lot of problems. Yeah.
Allen Hall: Right. And the, well, those turbines have a h- high usage, right? So because- Oh, yeah … the winds are so good, they’re operating at, like, capacity factor is above 50%. Yes. It’s insane. Yeah. So there’s a lot of wear and tear.
There’s no downtime for those turbines.
Howard Penrose: Yeah. Well, and, and people think it’s all the starting and stopping. It’s not. No. It’s a grid-related issue. So we have- Sure … we have a low frequency. And you know some of the stuff I volun- I, I’m, I’ve been volunteered for- [00:20:00] Yeah … uh, including the CIGRE thing. Um, so I get to sit in the grid code committees for IEEE and put my, and our input into that, uh, and kind of watch the back of the IBR industry, right?
Mm-hmm. ‘Cause there’s a definitely bias against our industry. Um, and I also, uh, get to hear what’s going on in the grid side of things from CIGRE worldwide, and it’s all very similar, and it has to do with low-frequency oscillating currents- Yes … called subsynchronous currents- Yes … which are low enough not to damage large synchronous machines.
And they thought, and there’s books written on this, by the way, multiple books written on wind turbine impact- Uh, and they’re seeing now, um… Well, we detected it first, along with Timken. Hank, uh, and, and I went out to a site, and we detected for the first time, because of how they wanna do the testing and where the site was located, we saw the oscillating torque [00:21:00] in the air gap, ’cause that’s one of the things the technology does.
It actually measures the torque, air gap torque. Sure. So we were watching the oscillating torque as a tower started up. And so we did, we went through the rest of that site looking at the same stuff in the same way. It increased our time and data collection, and time on site. But then we started looking for it at other sites, and going to pass data because I don’t have to go back and retake data.
Right. And we’re like, “Oh my God. It’s everywhere.” 16 hertz, 21 hertz, and 50 hertz. And we found a paper that specifically identified that as the sub synchronous frequencies for 60 hertz. So we know what they are also for 50 hertz. Once we identified that and we saw how much the torsi- torque was oscillating, we worked with Shermco, who got us some information on Y-rings that were failing.
Yeah. And they were all failing… When the metallurgy was done, they were all failing from fatigue. And you’re like, fatigue how? What’s fatiguing these connections? [00:22:00] Well, the fatigue is that air gap torque- Exactly … because you’re basically causing the, the, everything to oscillate a little bit, and that causes the windings to move slightly.
It’s a living,
Allen Hall: breathing machine-
Howard Penrose: Exactly … this generator
Allen Hall: is.
Howard Penrose: Yeah.
Allen Hall: It’s not
Howard Penrose: static. It’s definitely not sta- no electric machine is static. No. Even a transformer’s not static. Right.
Allen Hall: So- There’s a little
Howard Penrose: bit of wiggle going on there all the time All the time. And it’s minute, so it takes a long time. Right. And what, uh, uh, everybody…
Well, first people thought it was a particular manufacturer, which it wasn’t. Turned out every defig’s failing the same way. Sure. You’re fatiguing it. Yeah. Every bearing is failing the same way, even in the gearbox, main bearings, and everything else. Right. All of these conditions are happening across all the OEMs, but they’re not allowed to talk.
Well, this is, this is the thing that
Allen Hall: I like watching your podcast.
Howard Penrose: Yeah.
Allen Hall: The Chaos and Caffeine. It comes out Saturday mornings. It’s on YouTube. If you haven’t- Yeah … clicked into it, you should click into it
Howard Penrose: because a lot of these issues are discussed there. It’s definitely, um… [00:23:00] Let’s just say I’ll speak Navy quite a bit.
Allen Hall: It’s a great podcast, and I think what you’re doing with the EMPath system- Yes … at motor dock is really a game changer. Yeah. I’m talking to everybody, all the operators I know. I keep telling them to call you and to try the system out because it’s so inexpensive and it does the work quickly and efficiently, and it’s been proven.
There’s no messing- Oh, yeah … around when you’re talking to MotorDoc. I…
Howard Penrose: Somebody dared tell me that there’s no standard for it. There’s ISO standards for it. Yes. There’s IEEE 1415- Yes … which I chair. Uh, and there’s other standards coming out- This is- … associated with it. And there’s a document that I also chair for Sea Gray- Called A178, which is the practical application of the technology.
So it’s well-documented. There are traceable standards for it. I need more
Allen Hall: operators to call you- Yeah … and to talk to you and get systems in the back of the trucks that they can use to check out the health of their gear boxes and their drive trains and their generators. How [00:24:00] do they do that? Where do they go?
Where, where’s, what’s- Well- … the first place they should look for?
Howard Penrose: Uh, info@motordoc.com. Okay. I get all, I get all of those as well, so do my people. Um, or, uh, LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s really good.
Allen Hall: Look up anything. Yeah.
Howard Penrose: Yeah, yeah. So, so either the company at Motordoc, or, uh, I’m, I sh- I’ll show up either searching for my name or, uh, linkedin.com/in/motordoc.
Come straight to me ’cause I’ve been in, on LinkedIn forever, so- Right, just- … I got to do that … look up
Allen Hall: Howard Penrose, P-E-N-R-O-S-E. Yep. Or go to motordoc.com is- Yep, motordoc.com … the website address.
Howard Penrose: Yep. There’s a lot of great information there. And we have partners, and we have people. We’re growing the company.
You know, talk to me. I, I’ll- Yes … I like answering the phone and talking. It’s, it’s a thing. My people go, “Can we answer the phone one?” No. Um, but, but yeah, we, we, y- when you call us, you’re not just dealing with a single person. Right. The Motordoc is far more expansive. Right now, we [00:25:00] just got our partnership with, uh, Hitachi and, and Juliet- Yeah, that’s great
and stuff like that. Uh, we’re helping them with certain things. Uh, we’re partnered with some of the big OEMs, almost all of them, um, you know, helping identify the issues, you know. And, and when users contact us, often they’ll tell us what’s going on, and we’ll, we can, uh, sometimes say, “Yeah, it’s this, and here’s how we prove it.”
Allen Hall: Yeah. That’s the, that’s the beauty- Yeah … of calling Motordoc. So I need my operators that, that watch the show- Yeah … worldwide, go online, go on LinkedIn, get ahold of Howard, get ahold of Motordoc, and get started. Yep. Howard, thank you- And- … so much for being on the podcast. Yeah. This is fantastic. I love talking to you because-
it’s, it’s like talking to, you know… Uh, no, really, it’s talking like someone who’s a real good industry expert, who’s been there a long time, and understands- Yeah … how this
[00:26:00] works.
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PowerCurve Recovers India AEP, Silent Edge Cuts Noise
Nicholas Gaudern, CTO at PowerCurve, joins to discuss India AEP gains, DragonScale VGs, and Silent Edge noise reduction.
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Allen Hall: Nicholas, welcome back to the podcast.
Nicholas Gaudern: Thanks, Allen. Great to be back.
Allen Hall: So there’s a lot going on at Power Curve, and I saw some news online about Power Curve in India.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.
Allen Hall: Which is a new development.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, so we’ve been working in India for, for some years now, and we have, uh, more than 100 turbines out there with our equipment on, primarily vortex generators so far.
And what we’re seeing in India is some of the highest AEP gains we’ve ever recorded with our vortex generators And I think a lot of this is being driven by the fact that in certain parts of India, there’s some very unique, uh, environmental conditions, climatic conditions, and there’s parts of the year, like the dry season up in [00:01:00] the north of India, where you’re getting this very sticky dirt accumulating on the blades.
And it’s really quite dramatic when you see the photographs, but that means that the blades are actually starting to, to stall, have flow separation on them.
Allen Hall: I’ve seen pictures of that. Yeah. I was really shocked at the time, uh, ’cause I didn’t know it was just kind of a black, gooey- Yeah … kind of tar-like substance- Yeah, yeah
on the blades, and, uh, it, it was only on there a limited time. As soon as the monsoons come through and the rains hit, it would wash, eventually wash it off. Yes. But while it’s there, you could see the airflow over the blade surfaces. You, you could definitely see separation happening really early on those blades.
Dramatic.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, absolutely, and I think the, um… Like you say, it’s not all year. No. But it doesn’t have to be all year to have a huge impact on, on how many, you know, megawatt hours you’re getting out the other end. So there’s a few months of the year where this problem is particularly severe, maybe sort of December through to February, something like that.
And what we’re finding is that when you see, uh, the power curves for these [00:02:00] turbines, some of them aren’t even hitting rated power. They’re not able to hit rated power because there’s so much flow separation on the blades.
Allen Hall: Wow.
Nicholas Gaudern: And that, I mean, just imagine that. You’ve got a two megawatt turbine, for example.
Maybe it doesn’t cast- get past 1.5 megawatts for this, uh, time of the year. I mean, that’s crazy.
Allen Hall: Does the turbine try to adjust itself when that happens? Because the pictures I s- have seen indicates, like, the turbine is pitching the blades to, ’cause it knows- It can- …
Nicholas Gaudern: what the wind
Allen Hall: speed is- I mean, yeah … and it knows what it should be putting out, and it’s not putting that out.
Nicholas Gaudern: It’s very turbine specific, kind of controller logic specific, but what we see is even the turbines that try to do something, they’re very limited in how much pitch authority they have from the controller. They might be able to just do a little bit, a degree. Okay. Two degrees. You know, very, very small pitch adjustments.
And when you have this kind of dirt on the leading edges, a degree of pitch ain’t gonna save you really. Um- N-
Allen Hall: no. And I think that’s what we’re seeing. And it’s not gonna get that power back. No, no.
Nicholas Gaudern: No.
Allen Hall: But does it add extra load onto the blade structurally over [00:03:00] time when you do that?
Nicholas Gaudern: In terms of the pitching, or-
Allen Hall: Yeah, in terms of the pitching, where you’re trying to be more aggressive on the angle of attack to get the power out of the turbine.
Potentially. And the winds are still pretty strong, you just, the blades are inefficient.
Nicholas Gaudern: I think it’s one of those things where there’s, there’s so many interconnected items with the dirt and the controller and the structure. It’s actually pretty difficult, I think, to say with confidence how much life impact you would have from that.
But what I would say is the more that you might end up trying to pitch, if that’s what’s going on on some machines, that obviously puts wear on the pitch bearings themselves. But yeah, I think at the moment we’re kind of at the beginning of really trying to understand how some of these turbines do deal with this phenomenon.
But what we’re trying to do is get to a point where the turbine doesn’t really have to deal with it. Because if you fix the problem at the source, which is stop the flow separating, then the controller doesn’t really have to, to worry. It doesn’t have to try to, to fix it itself.
Allen Hall: Yeah. That makes a lot more sense.
Just the number of images I’ve seen over the last couple years from India-
Nicholas Gaudern: [00:04:00] Yep …
Allen Hall: you realize how difficult it is to operate a wind turbine there.
Nicholas Gaudern: So even when we, um, have this issue for a few months that we’re resolving with the VGs, we can still be seeing over the whole year more than 5% increases in annual energy production.
Because those months are really important. Um ‘
Allen Hall: Cause that’s when they need the
Nicholas Gaudern: power. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. For sure. And this is primarily coming from the vortex generators towards the tips of the blades. So that’s where you’re having this, uh, heavy contamination issue, and that’s where all the power would be produced.
So kind of the outer third of a blade is 50, maybe 60% of the power production of a turbine, maybe closer to 50. So that means that if you have a problem out there, it’s, it’s a big problem in terms of your annual energy production. So-
Allen Hall: Right …
Nicholas Gaudern: the VGs are, what they’re doing is they are, they’re injecting energy back into the flow.
Allen Hall: Redirecting the flow, in a
Nicholas Gaudern: sense. So, so basically you have all this contamination on the leading edge. It’s generating more turbulence. The flow isn’t able to retain, uh, remain attached [00:05:00] across the entire chord length. So the VGs are putting energy back into the flow and allowing it to remain attached all the way to, uh, to the trailing edge.
Allen Hall: So even with the blades are dirty-
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes …
Allen Hall: you get that power out- Exactly … put, that you really desire or-
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah …
Allen Hall: are paying for. Yeah. You, you paid a lot of money for that turbine- Yeah, exactly … you need to get the power out of it.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.
Allen Hall: And-
Nicholas Gaudern: So of course, you know, that suggests that if you had a, a super clean blade, you went and pressure washed it, uh, you would get, uh, an increase in power as well, and that’s true.
You, you- That’s true … you will do. But that’s a one-time thing. Um, so- And
Allen Hall: it’s expensive to do- Yeah … and time-consuming.
Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly. Maybe a few days later, the dirt’s back. So- Sure … you know, it’s not really a sustainable thing for you to be going out washing these blades the whole time. And washing the blades may not be great for the surface of the blade either.
So, you know, a VG is just sat there the whole time. It doesn’t matter if it’s dirt, bugs, erosion, frost, it’ll recover those losses that, that you’re seeing.
Allen Hall: Do the VG installations in a situation like that, [00:06:00] the actual location differ because of the contaminants that are present and the kind of, uh, leading edge effects that you’re seeing?
Do you design it for that environment? Or- Yeah … is every- Oh, you do. So- Yeah, we
Nicholas Gaudern: do. I mean, typ- typically our, our VG arrays are turbine model specific. But in India, we’re finding we’re actually having to be more site specific as well. Oh,
Allen Hall: wow.
Nicholas Gaudern: Because some of this contamination is so severe, we’ve seen that we need to design the VG layout a little bit differently to make sure that we’re giving enough, uh, energy recovery potential when you have these really severe, uh, situations.
Allen Hall: Are you using the AeroVista tool to do that? How do you, how do you quantify the contamination that’s happened on the leading edge at a particular moment or roughly on scale a- and then try to model that? That just seems like a difficult computation.
Nicholas Gaudern: It is. And, um, you know, we’re, we’re getting better all the time.
AeroVista is definitely part of that. So AeroVista’s primary function really is to look at, um- [00:07:00] AEP losses due to structural damages, things like erosion. But actually, erosion behaves very similar to dirt when it comes to, like- It, right … aerodynamic behavior. Yeah. So we can actually use kind of the AeroVista engine to help us understand what is the loss from different levels of contamination.
So we can add contamination levels into AeroVista, as well as, uh, erosion. And we can start to look at, well, what happens if the blade looks like this? What if it looks like this? And then this gets combined with our computational fluid dynamics, our CFD models that we’re running, three-dimensional, two-dimensional.
We sometimes do some aeroelastic modeling as well. So we basically have a big toolbox, and like with any engineering problem, it’s about picking the best tool for the job. So we just go in, and we have all these great tools, and we, we put them together in a workflow that allows us to design the, the best solution for each site that we look at.
Allen Hall: And it’s not India-specific in terms of leading-edge contamination. No. I’ve seen pictures from the US, Brazil, um, [00:08:00] Australia, a number of places where there’s just bugs. Yeah. Right? Those, especially in places where there’s large bugs- Yes. … you kind of get this splatter effect going on. Yeah. And you can have a really contaminated blade surface.
In the US, in the middle of the US, you’ll have grasshopper season, and-
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, absolutely …
Allen Hall: tho- those grasshoppers are big, and they splatter. And they leave a disaster. We’ve seen
Nicholas Gaudern: that in, uh, in the Midwest, for sure. Oh, yeah. Some really, really severe contamination from bugs.
Allen Hall: And you, you don’t think about, as an engineer or a site supervisor, that- All right.
This sort of, uh, grasshopper season that happens is affecting my AEP, but 100% it is. And that stuff is gooey, so if you ever drive through the Midwest in the summertime- … you run through, uh, any kind of insect swarm and try to get it off your vehicle. Yeah. It takes some scrubbing.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. It re- it really does.
And imagine when you’ve gotta go up there for, like, 100-meter diameter rotor.
Allen Hall: Right. ‘
Nicholas Gaudern: Cause that’s quite a challenge. So I think, yeah, they have all these challenges, uh, in terms of environmental conditions, and a lot of people consider aerodynamic [00:09:00] behavior blades quite binary. Either the blade is clean or the blade is dir- Or it’s dirty
or it’s dirty. Right. But it’s this entire spectrum. It’s everything in between, and I think that is kind of a little bit of a different way of thinking about the problem. And then it makes the argument around why to put VGs there kind of, uh, easy to, to answer, because the blade is never really truly clean.
Allen Hall: No. I… Unless it’s right after a rainstorm- Yeah … I rarely see clean blades. Okay, so the … If VGs are going on, are you using the DragonScale VGs to solve some of the India problems, some of the contamination problems?
Nicholas Gaudern: So DragonScale’s not in India yet. That’s something that we’re looking at. So we, um, we got all the tooling finished for DragonScale some months ago now, and we’re shipping DragonScale kits.
Uh- Oh, wow. Okay … not, not to India yet, but they are out in, in the field, and we’re gonna be having some more out just in the next couple of weeks, actually, which is quite exciting. We’re doing our first project, um, in Canada.
Allen Hall: Oh.
Nicholas Gaudern: So we’re starting to kinda come across the, the pond with the VGs now, [00:10:00] with the DragonScale VGs.
Allen Hall: So the DragonScales, uh, uh, uh, thank you for bringing a, a sample here today, but the, the DragonScales are really interesting in terms of just the way the airfoil shapes are and how they’re s- kinda stacked and layered- Yeah … and there’s different depths to them, heights to them, to get the flow back where you want it to.
Yeah. And it, I guess it depends on where you are on the blade. If you’re near the root, they’re gonna look something like this. Exactly. Yep. If you’re getting near the tip, they’re
Nicholas Gaudern: much
Allen Hall: smaller- Yeah, we have some smaller ones. Yep … scale, scale of this. So- This then, the Dragon Scales do require a little bit of computational knowledge of what’s going on- Yep
with the blade. And as you say, they- You just can’t willy-nilly stick
Nicholas Gaudern: them on … they’re, they’re quite different. You know, they’re quite different from a standard triangle of VG.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: And, you know, there’s lots of ways that you can create a vortex aerodynamically. And triangles- Sure … create a vortex, sure, but they, they really create one through a process of separation.
Yeah. You have a flow hitting this, this plate that’s angled to the flow. It’s rolling over the top, and it’s tripping into a, into a vortex. But that’s quite a draggy way [00:11:00] of- It is … creating a vortex. Yes. Um, so VGs work. We’ve seen that. You know, we have more than 2,000 turbines now with VGs, so we, we know they work.
Yeah. But Dragon Scale, the whole idea is not that we … This is still a VG. It’s still creating a vortex. Sure. But it’s doing it in a much more efficient manner, so we get the same lift recovery benefits, lift boosting benefits, but at a much lower drag. So we have a better drag ratio. ‘Cause it’s the drag, right?
Allen Hall: It’s the drag. The little triangular-
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah …
Allen Hall: vortex generators are draggy.
Nicholas Gaudern: So anything you stick on a blade, it, it has a drag. It has a parasitic drag component. Um, they have a huge benefit that outweighs that. That’s why we put them on.
Allen Hall: Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: But of course, you can always do better. And I think here we really try to take inspiration from, from lots of the aerodynamic developments we’ve seen over the past decades in aviation and motorsport and, and these other disciplines.
Allen Hall: Right. I always say these look like a Formula One
Nicholas Gaudern: add-on. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. A bigger blade. Or maybe some front slats of a aircraft or some, uh, gas turbine cascading elements- Oh, sure.
Allen Hall: Yeah …
Nicholas Gaudern: these
Allen Hall: kind of things. Yeah.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.
Allen Hall: Gas turbine people would easily recognize this. Yeah, [00:12:00] I
Nicholas Gaudern: think so.
Allen Hall: Uh, so the, the Dragon Scales then in terms of, uh, the location of them on the blade, would it differ than the triangular VGs in terms of generic location?
A, a
Nicholas Gaudern: little bit, but broadly it’s the same because- Okay … you know, ultimately the fundamental physics of what we’re trying to do hasn’t changed.
Allen Hall: Sure.
Nicholas Gaudern: Um, so we’re kind of, we’re addressing the same areas of the blade. But the Dragon Scale gives us a bit more flexibility. We can have these three fin versions that create a very powerful vortex, so we find those down in the root, ’cause that’s where we just want as much lift as possible.
Right.
Allen Hall: Yeah. Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: Uh, but out at the tip we actually have a two fin variant. Oh. Because there we’re, we’re more focused on L over D. We wanna maximize our lift-to-drag ratio.
Allen Hall: Sure.
Nicholas Gaudern: Because that’s where the drag really hurts you, out towards the tip.
Allen Hall: So are they in a strip form then? Yes. Very similar to the triangular VGs?
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly. So the, the smaller ones on the strip, just because they’re only, like, five millimeters high.
Allen Hall: Yeah. They wanna
Nicholas Gaudern: see more- So otherwise it’s, it’s kind of watchmaking if they’re individual- … little pieces, uh, going down on the blade. O-
Allen Hall: okay. Yeah. Well, that’s fascinating. All right. Uh, I wanna talk about [00:13:00] Silent Edge before I, I lose you today.
The Silent Edge product has been out in the field- Mm-hmm … and there has been some noise testing done, which I always think is very interesting because I’ve- Yeah … I’ve watched videos from, mostly from DTU, explaining how they do this, where they got the microphones around. And like- Yes … wow, that’s a really complicated test to go pull off.
But you just got through a series of these-
Nicholas Gaudern: We did …
Allen Hall: noise tests with Silent Edge. And you have the results back.
Nicholas Gaudern: We do, yeah. I mean, it was a really exciting, um, test program, and we were partnered together with, uh, Statkraft, who very kindly lent us a few of their wind turbines up in Sweden. Uh, and we are working with the Danish Technical University, DTU Wind, to help with the measurements and actually figure out what’s going out on the turbine.
So this was a project that we were, um, able to secure some funding from, from the Danish, uh, EUDP. So that’s the Energi [00:14:00] Teknologisk Udviklings- og Demonstrationsprogram.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. Nothing to do with the EU. It’s a very, it’s a Danish thing. Danish, yeah. But there is EU in the name. Right. Um, so they supported this project with Statkraft and DTU, and what we found is that when we put a Silent Edge on a, uh, it was like a two, two and a half megawatt machine, it had no serrations before.
Okay.
Allen Hall: So we measured- So just a out of the factory blade.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly, and it was in good condition. It had had a recent repair campaign, so the blade was in, in good shape. And then what we did, uh, or what DTU did, is they went out and they measured the noise of this turbine according to the IEC standard.
So there’s an IEC standard on how you should measure noise and what microphones to use and how to post-process it, and then we installed the Silent Edge serrations. And firstly, before we’d even done any measurements, we had people out at site, and they, they live out there. They’re the technicians. They see these- Okay
turbines every day, and they went, “What, what have you, what have you done to, to this turbine?” Because it sounded so different. It sounded much [00:15:00]quieter. The, the quality of the sound was very different, and they just, they just stepped out the car and went, “Wow.” “This is, this is really impressive.” Um-
Allen Hall: So what, give me a description of what the sound is.
I know generally, when you come with a standard blade, it has that kind of shoop, shoop-
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly … shoop. It basically just really brings down that perceived loudness of the sound, so it’s just a m- it’s a much quieter sound, and we’re also taking out quite a lot of low frequency component.
Allen Hall: Okay.
Nicholas Gaudern: That’s what- These serrations are really targeting the lower frequencies, so kind of around the kilohertz and, and under.
Allen Hall: Mm.
Nicholas Gaudern: That’s where these things are really starting to bring down the, um, the decibels.
Allen Hall: This- So, okay. So Silent Edge is, uh, sort of a unique design, or is a unique design i- in terms of the- What you see on the typical trailing edge, which are a bunch of triangles or dino tails, right? Yes, dino tails. Yes,
Nicholas Gaudern: yeah.
Allen Hall: Dino tails is, was the generic term for years, and they looked like dino tails, so, so it’s a good description- Yeah … of them. But these more, look more like a cathedral in
Nicholas Gaudern: a sense. Yeah, these, these are quite different though. So we have kind of this iron-shaped, uh, tooth fundamentally, [00:16:00] but we have three different tooth sizes, uh, and they’re asymmetric.
Allen Hall: Mm.
Nicholas Gaudern: And I would love to come here and tell you that we know exactly how this works. Um, but I can’t unfortunately, and, and that’s just how it is sometimes with engineering. We cannot simulate this in the detail required to really understand exactly why each geometric feature does what it does. And if someone claims they can do that, then, then I may be a bit suspicious.
Or, or I’d really like to talk to them, one of the two. Um, but that means that to develop this kind of product successfully, you have to go to the wind tunnel. Okay. Because the simulation is so demanding. So we go to the wind tunnel. We spent a lot of time in the Paul Ricard wind tunnel at DTU, so we can measure aerodynamics and acoustics at the same time And we went with lots of components and 3D prints, and we iterated through design paths, and we came up with this, I think it’s a really wonderful shape we’ve ended up with.
And it was proven out in the field because the final result was we reduced the overall sound [00:17:00] pressure level of the turbine by five decibels. And that is- Whoa … that is huge.
Allen Hall: That’s a lot.
Nicholas Gaudern: So in terms of, like, perceived, uh, loudness of the sound, that’s like a 30% reduction. So this is why the, the technicians who st- stepped out the car heard such a difference, because it’s a massive reduction in, in what the turbine produces.
So
Allen Hall: you’re lowering the decibels coming off the, the trailing edge. Yeah. But also moving around the frequencies so it’s a little less-
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, so a lot of that- … uh- That… So the- …
Allen Hall: noticeable
Nicholas Gaudern: also … the five decibels, that’s, that’s this OASP, or we call it overall sound pressure level. This is an integration of all of the reductions we see across the frequency spectrum.
Oh,
Allen Hall: okay.
Nicholas Gaudern: All right. So we’re getting more reduction at lower frequencies. Right. Good. There’s also some high frequencies. But the lower frequencies matter more. So what we do when we’re doing acoustic measurement is we A-weight, we, we weight the, the noise because it relates to how the human ear perceives sound.
Allen Hall: Sure.
Nicholas Gaudern: So it matters more to you, the one [00:18:00] kilohertz frequency than the 20 kilz- kilohertz frequency.
Allen Hall: Yeah. Can’t hear
Nicholas Gaudern: 20 kilohertz. E- exactly. So that’s right at the upper end. So we weight the results, and this is part of the ICE standard, to understand how the human ear perceives the sound.
Allen Hall: Oh, wow. Okay.
Nicholas Gaudern: Um, and this is where we get our, our five decibels
Allen Hall: from.
So this, this was really an iterative process then- Yeah … in the DT laboratory. Yeah. Ooh, wow. I didn’t realize that. Mm-mm. I, I figured you had gotten relatively close by computational methods and then- We- … honed it a little bit …
Nicholas Gaudern: we, we come sort of computate… We do a lot of computation around the angle of the serrations, because the angle of the serration is really critical for, uh, lift generation and loads.
Allen Hall: So when you’re speaking of angle, you’re talking about- E-
Nicholas Gaudern: exactly … this angle back here at the- You can see that angle there. Okay.
Allen Hall: Yeah,
Nicholas Gaudern: yeah. Because you don’t want to put a serration on a turbine and add 20% to the lift of the blade. Right. No. Because-
Allen Hall: That’s not- …
Nicholas Gaudern: lift means loads. Yeah.
Allen Hall: You know? Right. You’re adding load.
Nicholas Gaudern: So you have to be very careful about how you design these products to make sure that you’re not gonna add extra load to the turbine. And, and on the flip side, you also don’t wanna reduce lift significantly, which then [00:19:00] there’ll be less power produced. So it’s a bit of a balancing act, and this is where the computation comes in.
We do a lot of CFD on these to make sure that we’re, we’re handling the loads correctly.
Allen Hall: And how important is the material choice- Yeah … in terms of the noise quieting? Is there a little bit to it about, well, one, durability. Yeah. You, you want to put them on once and leave them forever, so there’s a lot of interactions between the air and these parts that are gonna flex and bend, and you got- I think there’s, you know-
20 years of
Nicholas Gaudern: doing
Allen Hall: that …
Nicholas Gaudern: the, you’ve, you’ve s- you’ve hit the, hit the nail on the head there. The durability is critical. Yeah. It doesn’t matter if you put these products on the blade, and they perform beautifully for six months and then fall off or, or snap or whatever.
Allen Hall: Right.
Nicholas Gaudern: So no, we, we make these products out of the same material as our VGs, and this is a material, uh, it’s an ASA, uh, plastic.
And we’ve had these out in the, in the field for a long time now, so we know- It’s- … this, this is great.
Allen Hall: It’s ex- it’s kind of a flexible material.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, there’s
Allen Hall: a little b- It’s stiff but flexible.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly. There’s a bit of give in there- Yeah … uh, which is important, but it’s very impact-resistant. Uh, it doesn’t really suffer much in terms of [00:20:00] UV aging, which is obviously critical- Oh, wow.
Yeah … when you’re, when you’re- Very critical, yes … out in the field. Yes. So yeah, we’re, um, we’re really happy with the material choice because we know from all our other campaigns with VGs that they last. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sun, rain, ice, snow. These products can survive out in the field for 20 years.
Allen Hall: That’s one of the things I’ve noticed, uh, looking at a lot o- of blade photos with OEM trailing edge serrations. That the little triangles on the back edges break off.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. And I think- There’s
Allen Hall: a lot of them. I was shocked on
Nicholas Gaudern: some sites. One thing you have to be very careful as well is, is lifting and handling as well.
Oh. So, you know, sometimes if these products are installed in the factory, then how do you safely transport that blade and lift that blade?
Allen Hall: You really can’t.
Nicholas Gaudern: So in some ways it’d be better if you put them on at site, but obviously I, I know that’s not always possible. No. So we’re typically acting, um, as, you know, a retrofit.
Mm-hmm. So in that sense we, we minimize a lot of that risk of the, the transport and handling that the OEMs may have to deal with.
Allen Hall: So [00:21:00] what’s next for Power Curve? What’s h- happening this summer?
Nicholas Gaudern: So we’re gonna be really pushing to get Silent Edge and Dragon Scale out in the field more. Yeah. Um, Dragon Scale is, is really exciting, and we’re gonna get our, our first, uh, turbines in different countries equipped with these products.
And Silent Edge, uh, we’re currently putting some of the finishing touches on the, um, the tooling, the injection molding tooling. So the part we have in front of us, this is actually one that we had in the wind tunnel. So this one here is a 3D print. A very nice 3D print. Oh, yeah, it’s- Uh, it’s had vapor smoothing on it, so the surface- It is really smooth
is, is super nice. And you can put these out in the field. So the, the trial with Statkraft was actually with 3D-printed components. If you wanna do a trial for a few months, it’s very possible to do it with 3D prints. Oh. And I, I think they’d actually last way, way longer than that, but, you know, the test was designed to put them on, measure them, take them off again.
Yeah. And that’s what we did.
Allen Hall: Offshore.
Nicholas Gaudern: Mm.
Allen Hall: Uh, uh, w- we’ve had some people write into the podcast talking about offshore wind turbines. And in the States, offshore wind turbines are [00:22:00] usually 10, 15, 20 miles from the shore, but that’s not always the case. Over in Japan and some other areas, the turbines are pretty close to shore.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, def- They’re
Allen Hall: almost-
Nicholas Gaudern: They’re definitely near-shore …
Allen Hall: they’re almost- Yeah. Yeah, yeah … onshore turbines, but because they’re offshore, they get really big, right? So y- you can build a really big offshore turbine. And some of the comments we have received is, “Hey, these turbines are noisy.”
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. And, you know, the, the water surface can do some weird things-
Allen Hall: Well, that’s what I wanted to know
acoustically. Okay. Yeah. That’s what I wanted to know- Yeah. Yeah … because if you have trees and hills that kind of block the noise- Yeah … that’s easy. But if you have a turbine and you live on the, essentially the beach- Yep … or real close to the shore- Yeah … that turbine is right there. In some cases in Japan, it’s not very far.
Yeah. You can see it.
Nicholas Gaudern: Particularly on a still day, you know, when you have a very flat water surface, that can mean that sound is able to propagate a little bit further than maybe it otherwise would.
Allen Hall: So is there a, a real need then to pay attention to the acoustics and noise- Yeah … coming off of offshore wind turbines?
Nicholas Gaudern: [00:23:00] I think, uh, c- certainly the near-shore, the things you’re describing now. Yeah. Offshore’s an interesting question because I think often, if I think about the UK and, and Denmark, they are quite offshore, and I think in that, in that sense, the noise is much less of a, a concern. And I think it may be more driven by regulatory r- requirements- Mm-hmm
than actual, you know, neighbor complaints perhaps. So noise is interesting because people put serrations on for different reasons. Yeah. Some put them on because there’s a regulation. Yeah. Uh, some put them on because they want to be shown to being a good neighbor, you know, doing the best they can to reduce noise- We should
Allen Hall: try to-
Nicholas Gaudern: which we should absolutely be doing …
Allen Hall: do that every time we can.
Nicholas Gaudern: And some are doing it because they have curtailment on their turbines.
Allen Hall: Yes.
Nicholas Gaudern: So in order to meet a regulation perhaps, they have to basically turn down the turbine, and it means that it spins slower. And if it spins slower, the noise is lower, sure.
But the power output is also lower. And what we found is that on some turbines that are in noise modes, they’re losing 3, 4, 5% AEP- Ooh. Ouch … [00:24:00]every year because they’re having to turn down the turbine to meet a regulation or to, to satisfy, you know, uh, neighbor relationships. But just imagine what that means for finances if you put a serration on.
You can turn the turbine up again, which you’re now addressing the noise at the source, so you don’t actually have to stop it spinning slower. You’re actually killing the noise where it’s being generated.
Allen Hall: So there’s a big financial incentive- Yes … to look at trailing edge and try to quiet them as much as you can, particularly onshore.
I think that case has- Yeah … been well made over time. I’m always shocked that a lot of operators that, uh, even in the US Midwest, and we s- we drive around quite a bit in the Midwest, there’s a lot of turbines that are near homes.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah,
Allen Hall: absolutely. Y- you know, there’s one or two or three homes. This isn’t like there’s a suburb right there, but there are homes out there, and, and they would like to have enjoyment of their property.
Yeah, of course. And if you can knock down the noise a little bit, it would make it
Nicholas Gaudern: a much more pleasant place. Well, if you take, you know, if you take 30-plus percent off the perceived loudness, that’s, you know-
Allen Hall: Oh, that’s very noticeable … that’s gonna, that’s gonna make a difference. Yeah, you’ll get a thank you letter- Yeah
for [00:25:00] sure. So that’s exciting. The- Yeah … all this is exciting. It- It’s
Nicholas Gaudern: gonna be, it’s gonna be a really great summer, I think, to get more of these components out in the field.
Allen Hall: So if, uh, an operator or an asset manager wants to get ahold of Power Curve, understand what Silent Edge is, and how to get it installed or put some dragon scales on this season, how do they do that?
Nicholas Gaudern: So you can check out our website, uh, powercurve.dk. That has all of our contact details on. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn, uh, as well. I’m often around these, uh- … events that we find- Yeah … uh, in different countries. So no, look, look us up, reach out by email, phone, whatever, and we’d be very happy to talk to you.
Allen Hall: Or reach out to the India office.
Nicholas Gaudern: Yes, that’s something that we’re hoping to have up and running, uh- So
Allen Hall: if you’re
Nicholas Gaudern: in India- …
Allen Hall: later this year. Yeah. Reach out. Yeah, that, that’s gonna be an exciting advancement. Yeah. Great. For
Nicholas Gaudern: sure.
Allen Hall: Nicholas, it’s great to have you on the podcast again.
Nicholas Gaudern: Nice talking to you, [00:26:00] Allen.
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