Connect with us

Published

on

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

New ONYX CEO, Smarter Farmland Contracts

The hosts cover some recent turbine failures, Onyx Insight’s new CEO and strategic acquisitions, research about wind turbine farmland contracts, and an article about hybrid brakes by Dellner.

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: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Rosemary Barnes in Australia and Joel Saxon in the great state of Texas. Just before we hopped online to record this podcast, Rosemary was telling us about a number of turbine problems on LinkedIn and. Rosemary wanted to comment on them. These are some of the larger turbines. Rosemary are newer turbines.

Uh, some of them onshore, some of ’em offshore

Rosemary Barnes: for the, yeah, for the most part. Um, yeah, both onshore and offshore. Some a little bit older, but the common thread is, um, [00:01:00] just like spectacular fail failures of multiple blades of one across multiple turbines of one, the one I saw most recently. Had blades smashed to pieces.

It had towers that had just like fallen apart. Like it was, um, like they weren’t bolted together. Like it was just blocks stacked on top of each other and they had, you know, just an angry baby had just topped them over. That’s what it looked like. And um, I think what’s really interesting is reading the comments in those and it just, without fail every single time, the first few comments are gonna be.

Um, justifying how that is just cool and normal, like either by the company itself or the turbine manufacturer itself saying, oh, you know, oh, this was just a prototype. So, you know, it doesn’t matter that it fell apart, like. Forgetting about the fact that, okay, it’s just a prototype, but it’s still an operational turbine that people would’ve been inside it to install it.

They’re inside it to maintain it. You know, people are inside those things. They’re not supposed to be able to just fall apart by the time that it gets to that point.

Joel Saxum: I, I, I think I’ve seen some of these same posts, Rosemary, and one of the ones that I saw recently [00:02:00] was not even, it wasn’t new, it wasn’t prototypes.

It was, it was like, there’s a picture, there’s three turbines with, or four turbines and there of the, of the dozen blades in the picture, nine of them are gone. It’s just a nelle hub with like little stubs on three turbines, and those are only like 850 kilowatt, one megawatt, 1.5 megawatt machines. They’re, they’re old.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Yeah. And so I think a typhoon went through in that particular case and I made a comment, you know, like it’s either poor turbine design or it’s really poor site assessment. In either case, it’s a failure, right? Like you don’t put wind turbines that can’t withstand a typhoon in a place that gets typhoons.

Um, but you always, you always say people saying how this is actually great engineering. And I just thought this is just the classic example of that, um, that was written under this latest post, and I’ll just read it out. The pictures point to the designers of these turbines. Having done that, designing to a certain wind speed, having done that to a high degree of consistency, I note three failure types [00:03:00] in the pictures, blade snap, tower, buckling and bolt failure, pointing to all parts, having been designed to the same survival.

Wind speed looks like they did their job well. And it’s just like, oh, what, you look at this, at this path of like it’s Godzilla has run through this wind farm, and you’re like, oh yeah, that looks like a job done. Well, well done guys. It’s just like, if we can’t learn anything as an industry from these kinds of things, then, you know, how can we expect to have a, a bright future for the industry?

Like it? It’s one thing to fail, but if you look at a failure and say, that’s actually a success that is. Just the worst possible outcome we have. We have to be able to say what went wrong, what do we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again? You have to. You have to learn, otherwise you’re going backwards.

Allen Hall: Are you worried about unexpected blade root failures and the high cost of repairs? Meet eco Pitch by Onyx Insight. The standard in blade root monitoring. Onyx state-of-the-art sensor tracks blade root movement in real [00:04:00] time, delivering continuous data to keep your wind farm running smoothly and efficiently.

With Eco Pitch, you can catch problems early, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Field tested on over 3000 blades. It’s proven reliability at your fingertips. Choose eco Pitch for peace of mind. Contact Onyx Insight today. To schedule your demo of Eco Pitch and Experience the future of Blade Monitoring, there’s been a series of leadership transitions that is really changing the face of the wind industry.

Onyx Insight. The Macquarie Capital Back Condition monitoring specialist who’ve had in the podcast, um, has appointed Alexis Grennan as this new chief executive officer Alexis Bringss dearly 20 years of experience from Joel. Schneider Electric where he most recently served as CEO of the digital grid division, and his expertise in smart grid software solutions and energy management systems positioned him to lead [00:05:00] Onyx Insights expansion beyond its current 28,000 wind turbines under monitoring across 35 countries.

So obviously Onyx is a big provider of CMS systems. They are the sole provider of CMS systems on GE turbines at the minute. Onyx is making a lot of moves. They just acquired 11 I recently also. So they’re, uh, what it looks like right now. They wanna be the, the leader in CMS.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, I think it’s, if you go deeper into their history a bit.

You know, the couple of CMS solutions around gearbox was really where they started then. Then they got to the eco pitch thing, and then now the blevin. And I think if you’re sitting in that boardroom, you’re thinking they want to be the center hub for IO ot, IOT being sensors out in the field. Anything that comes in, they want to be able to amalgamate it and help people out in that direction.

Um, you know, a new, a new CEO that has, uh, 20 years at Schneider [00:06:00]with digital grid. That’s awesome. Right? Good hire there. I would think. Um, I, I do see this as a trend in wind. You’re seeing some more CEOs and senior leadership coming into organizations from outside of wind directly. Some of the bigger capital holders, you know, the Goldmans of the world and the Macquarie’s and that kind of things, if they have portfolio companies, you’re seeing people be placed in leadership roles that are coming from outside of wind and bringing expertise from, of course, usually energy, software, supply chain, these kind of things that we need, but some fresh blood at the leadership level.

I like to see that.

Allen Hall: Well, the addition of the grid coming into Onyx, is that an expansion plan? Because there is a lot of work going on expanding the grid and monitoring the grid and making the grid carry more energy than what it was originally designed for. And I’ve listened to a number of podcasts over the last month that talks specifically to it.

It, it is a definite growth area. [00:07:00] You think this could indicate a move into other areas besides just the basic wind? CMS. Solutions.

Joel Saxum: Well, let’s think about it this way. So in wind, when you have wind specific companies, you’re starting to see intenders or you have been seen intenders for the last few years, even just the most basics inspections.

Okay? We’re inspecting blades. Use your RFP. Now those blades say, and blades plus BOP. So we want you to do the transmission lines. And then you’re seeing some of ’em that are BOP plus substations. So all the sub, all the way back to the edge of the wind farm where connects to the grid. Um, so companies are adjusting, like you’ve seen Skys specs adjust to that.

You, you know, whether it’s partnerships or expanding things internally and other companies as well, even down to the ISPs starting to do more and more and more because they’re being asked to. This makes sense because, uh, at the end of the day, if you’re working for a subset of customers, there’s only so much budget in.

Of turbine work and if you wanna expand your company and grow, you need to expand in other [00:08:00] areas. So why not just keep it going down the line of connection to the grid, inter, inter wind farm issues, those kind of things out of the wind farm. So I, I don’t know if that’s ON’S plan, but I can see that. I think that from a strategic standpoint, it makes sense.

Allen Hall: Well, as Schneider is involved in all kinds of aspects of the grid worldwide, so I would assume bringing in a new CEO would open up maybe some horizons to Onyx and maybe there’s adjacent businesses that they should be in because they have a lot of technology and they’re pretty smart group. They may want to expand outwin just a tiny bit just to, to test the waters, see what they could do there.

Well, going to solar seems like an obvious choice, but there could be other areas that they may want to look at, at least in the short term to see if they can add value.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. Grid infrastructure. Right. I think that that’s a, we talk about it regularly that our, our entire global grid is aging quickly. It’s aging fast, and with the changes coming [00:09:00] on board with.

You know, different generation types, all the batter, different types of battery storage, and you know, like our, our conversations with Joe Chicon over at Podge about, uh, frequencies on the grid and all these different changes and load changing and AI data centers coming up and on and off and on. Um, it’s really highlighting the need for a future digital grid, uh, and upgrades to it.

So Onyx is probably, you know, in the wind world that we see, they’re probably sitting pretty. In a pretty good spot as compared to most companies to be able to engage in that and bringing on someone from the digital grid side of Schneider. Smart move in my my opinion, I dunno. Rosie, what are your, what are your thoughts on that

Rosemary Barnes: in general?

I think it’s really good to move people around to similar industries or a little bit different, different roles. Uh, I think that that’s a, um, a real way to drive innovation forward by bringing in different perspectives. I know that I. I found myself appearing more innovative when I lived in Denmark. You know, just purely [00:10:00] because I had seen and experienced and done things in a different, a different way, solved similar problems in a different way.

Um, just, just through what I, you know, the kinds of engineers I worked with earlier in my career. It was different to the way that a lot of Danish people had been taught to approach problems. And it just, you know, when you bring in a few slightly different people, it really expands the um. Amount of options that you have on the table for solving new problems as they come up.

And all of these kinds of industries are doing stuff that hasn’t been done before, right? So I think you do want to have as many different options that you, as you can come up with to, um, end up with the good solutions and you’ll get more options if you don’t choose people that are all from the exact same background.

So I think in general, that, um, it’s always good to, to shake things up

Allen Hall: in this quarter’s PES Win magazine, there’s a lot of great articles that you. Need to read. And the way to do that is go to PS wind.com and download your free edition. [00:11:00] And we wanna talk about an article in the magazine this quarter, Joel, which is Hybrid Breaks Ya Breaks.

Why you would use ’em, why they’re, this is a little bit different than what we typically see on like a GE machine. Uh, Siemens GAA uses these quite a bit, which are sort of a passive and an active, so they’re a break. So there’s a hydraulic cylinders and there’s some active pads that close, but there’s also some static pads and they’re using slip rings instead of a, a bearing surface to rotate the jaw.

So if, if that makes sense. You to do an active system, uh, you can really put stress on your, on your ball bearings and probably flatten them over time if you keep squeezing enough. With this system, it’s a little more control, a little more precise. So you’re, I, I think the, the argument they’re making is that it, uh, simplifies the system, so there’s some complexities to it, but overall.

It costs less, [00:12:00] and that’s what we should be doing in engineering, right? Trying to figure out ways that maybe just cost a bit more for a component, but less overall.

Joel Saxum: Is it a direct retrofit? Like is this a, Hey, we’ve, we’ve had, we’ve had a component fail, so we want to put a new system in. Or is it like aix, swap it out now as a CapEx cost?

Or is it like during Repower, when are they putting this on?

Allen Hall: It’s from Donor Wind Solutions, uh, and they’re doing, doing it as part of OEM work, right? It, it does take a little bit of finite element analysis because of the way it loads up the, the yaw system. So you want to make sure that it doesn’t overload it if you’re gonna use it, but it’s one of those things in wind like, uh.

Try to choose a simpler system on a smaller turbine. As you get larger and larger, your approach probably changes. And this is what Ner is pointing out.

Joel Saxum: I’ve noticed that actually, if you’re, if you’ve frequented any wind conferences, technology shows, exhibitions, you will know where NER is because everything on their booth is lime green.[00:13:00]

Um, I love that. I think it’s a great approach, uh, which everybody knows. It’s, it’s like seeing the Dema, the Dema ships or the SVA ships in a port. You’re like, you know what? That one is right away. Uh, but del nor, but that’s what Nert does, right? They, they are. They have parts that are direct replacements.

Great. This is the part we’ve made it a little bit better, but it’s a direct replacement. But they also are re-engineering things, making them better, uh, for the long haul, uh, from a operations standpoint. ’cause I’ve seen some of their pitch, they have different kind of pitch systems and stuff as well that they are, are retrofits for, for, uh, specific machines that have trouble with them.

Um, but yeah, uh, this one to me, I’m not an expert on jaw brakes. Of course, that’s not my thing. Uh, but I do know that whenever you have to deal with that YA system, whether it be the gearing, the brakes, or the, you know, like the, the pucks and the GE go bad all the time. Like it’s an undertaking, uh, down to the point where people have developed UPT tower machining processes to fix, uh, issues with the YA system and whatnot.

So, um, if they’re, if, if someone is putting this [00:14:00] much engineering effort into fixing a problem, it’s definitely a problem.

Allen Hall: Yeah. Even think about the problem though, you have so much weight. Up into the cell and you’re trying to pivot all the time, and the wind is trying to move into the cell whether you want it to or not.

The YA system kind of takes all the abuse. So designing a system to last is really the key here. Without breaking things, I mean how many turbines have we seen where the YA gear teeth have been damaged or broken off? Because the brake system is not really de-stressing those teeth. It matters a lot. So as we get more and more efficient with wind turbines, we gonna be thinking about all the different components that go into a wind turbine and making them more efficient, making ’em last longer, making them cost less.

So if you haven’t downloaded the latest PES wind. Magazine do it. You can read this article from Donor. Just visit PS wind.com. As Wind Energy Professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it difficult. That’s why the Uptime [00:15:00] podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future.

Whether you’re an industry veteran or new. Wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit PES wind.com today. Well in the US when a wind company wants to put some turbines on your farm, uh, the operator just talks to the, each farmer individually and negotiates a deal. Now a lot of those deals are very similar, but you may find from neighbor to neighbors, slight differences and farmers are getting.

Smarter over time. Clearly. Uh, a professor or assistant professor up at Purdue University in Purdue is in Indiana, kind of central part of the United States, explains that landowners can be paid up to $10,000 per acre annually [00:16:00]to lease to wind energy companies. And that’s a great amount of money. We’ll take that, but, and the turbines only occupy maybe one to three acres, and so you can continue to farm your several hundred acre parcel.

Uh, but. This professor notes that the farmers are starting to consider other factors than just the money, including the visual impact community relationships, which is the big one I think lately. And political beliefs about renewable energy, which jolt talks about all the time in Wisconsin. Uh. The advice from the professor is have an attorney to review the lease and to make sure that the wind operator is going to restore the land to its original condition once they stop using the turbines.

And I think that makes a ton of sense. So you’re seeing a slight shift in the way that landowners are coming to agreement with some of the operators. It is about the money, a large part of it, but they’re also trying to navigate the neighborhood situation where they don’t make their neighbors upset. You can imagine a lot of them have been there for generations and they don’t [00:17:00] want to really make the neighbors mad at ’em.

Uh, so you’re seeing a lot different types of leases coming about now than maybe you saw five years ago even. And that has evolved, uh, quite a bit. But the money is still good. I think most people, at least in the United States, most farmers will. Like to have that additional revenue. It just makes the farm much more profitable over time.

But that same situation doesn’t exist worldwide. And Rosie, are you seeing something different in Australia? It does seem like there’s a little more spreading of the wealth in, in terms of revenue.

Rosemary Barnes: I actually listened to a good podcast episode on this recently. Uh, it was the switched on, not the Bloomberg switched on, but the renew economy switched on.

Um, and they interviewed a now retired farmer who had, had one of the very early wind farms, um, in Australia, put on his farm. And I mean, his story was o overall very positive. It it, the [00:18:00] time when they started talking about it was during a very severe and prolonged drought in Australia and he had actually been trying to sell off land, um, just to keep the.

You know, keep the lights on, um, and was unable to sell. Like just there’s no buyers at any price at that time. And then, so the wind farm came and he, he also mentioned how important it’s to get, um, lawyers, good lawyers advising on the contract because he mentioned that he was getting paid every year before construction as well.

And that it ended up taking 10 or 14 years, I can’t remember the exact amount of time, but a long time. Between starting to talk about it and actually having the wind farm built. And if he hadn’t have had that, he said he wouldn’t have been able to make it. So, um, that was one thing. But yeah, so and so overall it was very positive for him.

He was eventually able to sell his farm and, and retire, um, nicely with a profitable farm. He also mentioned that he was able to do a lot of upgrades on the farm with the money, the revenue that was coming from the wind turbines. So when we went to sell, it had all new fences and, you know, stuff like that [00:19:00] that made it very attractive and easy to sell.

Um, but he also mentioned a few things that were just really bad, and he sounded really angry in that episode, um, where, uh, he, he said at that time it was like the wind developer knew everything and the farmers knew nothing, and they tried to keep it that way. Like he had a brother on a neighboring property was also in discussions about wind turbines, and they were forbidden from talking to each other.

I think that that’s a lesson that’s been learned over the last 10, 20 years in Australia, is that. It’s really worth it to put a bit of effort upfront in, um, listening to what people’s concerns are and then doing something about it. Uh, I think there’s been so much emphasis on like listening and talking and listening.

That’s not the important part. The important part is then understanding what the issues are and then, um, you know, removing those, those barriers. And, you know, money is a big part of that.

Joel Saxum: I spent. A eight plus years dealing with these issues in the field with landowners on, on oil and gas [00:20:00] projects, right?

So there’s stages of oil and gas projects from exploration to production and all these different things, and they, and everybody gets different lease payments and, and access payments along the way. And, and if you, you know, if someone has locked up your land in the seventies, you may only be getting five bucks.

And if someone has this, they’re getting more. It’s, and it, what ended up happening is, is. You need to, you need to, and we’re in the, we’re in the same space of wind because those same people, those same professionals, landmen and permit agents and stuff that worked in oil and gas work in wind and solar as well.

It’s the same companies. It’s the same ideas.

Allen Hall: Yeah. Same groups.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, same groups. Um, they, they need to distinguish and make sure they’re taking care of participating landowners and non-participating landowners. And the non-participating landowners, just like we’re talking about here, they’re just as important as the participating ones because they’re the ones you’re gonna piss off.

Uh, so, so you’re starting to see some payments going directly to them as well. Like if you’re within X amount of feet of a turbine, even if you’re not on your land, you are starting to get a little bit of a payment [00:21:00] in some areas, in some spots. Um, but one thing I wanna flag is, at the beginning of this, we talked about a lawyer, bringing a lawyer in and having them look at certain things.

I would say this and maybe the wind industry developers are gonna hate me for this. But there’s a legal, legal concentration called, um, a, a favored Nations clause or a most favored Nations clause. If you are a part of anything of this sort, make sure any, any signing, any contract for wind, uh, non-participating.

Participating. Make sure you have a clause like this in your contract because it will basically State wind Farm goes in a hundred turbines. If they’re offering you five bucks an acre and they’re offering your neighbor a thousand, you get a thousand too. It makes, it makes everybody equal in the playing field.

It doesn’t give anybody, uh, you know, better terms and conditions. Once one person gets a term and condition, that’s good, everybody gets it. That has that most favored nations clause in their contract. So have a lawyer institute that if you’re gonna be a part of one of these.

Allen Hall: Yeah. The other thing that was pointed out in the [00:22:00] article was, uh, a lack of increasing payments adjusted to inflation.

So some of the farmers are pushing back because inflation is relatively high. So if you got $10,000. Per acre per year in 2035, he may want to see something more like $15,000 per acre per year because of inflation. That to me makes a lot of sense, but I know a lot of leases don’t work like that. They’re just.

Fixed price. It’s today’s price and it stays that way until the end of the lease. It’s just simpler to do. There’s a lot less math to do. But Joel, as you see more, uh, farmers getting advice, taking advice, do you see this evolving into a more of a standard contract where they. Do have the favored nation.

They do have inflationary increases based on cost of living or some federal standard so that you’re, instead of having to negotiate every contract completely separate, you’re getting [00:23:00] something a little more universal, including helping the neighbors.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. The tough thing there is that a lot of wind.

Okay, so we’re like, I’m just gonna pick the United States example. You’re in different states, you’re in different counties, you’re in different areas, right? So if you go to Minnesota and you talk to someone in Minnesota about their mineral rights, they more than likely don’t know what you’re talking about.

Yeah, because that’s not a thing up there for most of Minnesota. Some of Minnesota is right, the Iron Range and whatnot, but if you talk to someone in Texas about mineral rights, that’s just as important or of more important than their actual real property surface rights. So they know and, and they have to build contracts around certain things the same way oil and gas contracts were like at oil and gas contracts at, you know, early days were easy.

It was X amount per acre. That’s it. Uh, now you have people buying strata and leasing strata out of, uh, subsurface things, and you have. Payments tied to payments tied to production, right? And I haven’t seen a whole lot of wind payments tied to production. I don’t know if that exists or solar, um, [00:24:00]that that can be a, you know, a shared upside or shared downside type thing.

Um, if someone’s gonna pay me $15,000 an acre, I’m just taking the cash. I don’t care what your production is ’cause that’s a great rate. So, so, um, you, you know, I think that. Using these organizations that have been doing this for a long time, that is a smart way to go if you’re an operator, uh, that know how to navigate the town halls and that know how to do these things professionally because there is actually just like you have to have a real estate license.

There is a professional landman license, uh, of, to do this kind of stuff. Uh, so there’s schooling, there’s certifications, all this. Again, I’m just talking in the United States here. Um, but, uh, I don’t know if I see a across the board. Federal type contract. ’cause it’s just too many municipalities, too much, too much going on.

Allen Hall: Well, we’ve been looking at a lot of wind farms the last couple of months on the lightning side and realizing, you know, how [00:25:00] dedicated the wind farm installations are to putting ’em on ridge lines, even if it’s a, a. A hundred feet higher. So that tends to spread out the wind farms. Unlike in some parts of Kansas where there isn’t a lot of variation in the, uh, in the surface in other places.

We’re just looking at Oklahoma, uh, where the turbines are specifically falling ridge lines. So you’re gonna end up crossing a lot of property lines when you do that, I assume. And you and I have been on a number of sites where. We’re going from one turbine to another and we’re crossing three or four different property owners and not that far of a distance.

Fences and gates. Right? The fences and gates. Bet. So even if you don’t have a turbine on your property, you may have a road on your property. And the how they navigate that. So if, if, if, if whoever’s. Taking on those contracts and negotiating on those contracts has a load of work to do. It’s going to be,

Joel Saxum: and like I like, I think I go back a little bit like it’s gonna be dependent on where you are, because a contract in Kansas is gonna look a lot different than a contract in Wyoming versus a contract in Texas just simply [00:26:00] because of local laws, access rights, these kind of things.

I’d say, I mean, however, one of the, that’s one of the things that’s cool to touch on is some of these farmers and ranchers, like when I was in oil and gas stations in Wyoming, they loved when the exploration crews came ’cause they would get money for roads. And they’d be like, oh, these old two tracks. Make that into a road that can take an 18 wheeler down then, then you can have access.

And they’re happy, happier than hell. This week’s Wind Farm of the Week is the Alta Complex owned by TerraGen out in California. So at one point in time, of course if you’re a part of wind lore in the United States. You know that this was the biggest wind farm in the United States at 1,550 megawatts. It was also the third largest onshore project worldwide.

Now there’s been a couple of the Sun Zia projects and stuff have been a bit bigger, but this thing is massive. Uh, spreads across about 9,000 acres and holds, hosts almost 600 turbine. Uh, so it started in 2010. Multiple phases of construction, uh, ended in 2014 and financed with almost $3 billion. [00:27:00]Uh, and it’s in that Tehachapi Pass area.

So, uh, it has, it actually still does have some capacity for expansion. Uh, but we wanted to share this one because, uh, just the size and scale of this thing, uh, being that it’s so big, uh, and as well. Long-term power purchase agreement signed with Southern California Edison. Uh, the output averages enough power to, to power about 450,000 homes annually, uh, which is just massive.

Uh, it’s created over 3000 jobs. And I think this one, the economic story might be the, the, the, the feather in the cap, uh, is it in his injects over $1 billion into the regional economy, which is just massive. So, uh, kudos to the wind industry for making this one happen. Uh, but looking ahead, uh, it is a bigger part of that Tehachapi wind resource area when it has the expan or has expansion potential of up to 10 gigawatts.

Uh, as California continues to grow out, its renewable grid. So this week’s wind farm, the Ulta Wind [00:28:00] Complex, so owned by TerraGen out there in California, the Wind Farm of the week.

Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate all the feedback and support we receive.

From the wind industry. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out to us on LinkedIn, particularly Rosemary, and please don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. So for Joel Rosemary, I’m Alan Hall. And we will catch you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

https://weatherguardwind.com/onyx-ceo-turbine-failures/

Continue Reading

Renewable Energy

The Trump Delusion

Published

on

As shown here, there are (formerly credible) people who are telling us that Trump is restoring Americans’ trust in government.

Do they truly believe this?

The Trump Delusion

Continue Reading

Renewable Energy

When Truth No Longer Matters

Published

on

One of the casualties of the post-truth era is that the statements of our “leaders” no longer are required to have any basis in fact.  What Jim Jordan says here is a fine example.

When he says “better” here, is he referring to runaway inflation?  Trump’s purposeless and illegal war with no end in sight?  His blatant corruption and criminality? His having, quite successfully, divided the American people into groups that hate each other?  The enrichment of billionaires at the expense of the working class?  The carefully engineered collapse of the environment so as to favor his donors in fossil fuels?  The demise of the U.S. educational system?

Please be clear.

When Truth No Longer Matters

Continue Reading

Renewable Energy

CNC Onsite Cuts Repair Costs With Uptower Machining

Published

on

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

CNC Onsite Cuts Repair Costs With Uptower Machining

Søren Kellenberger, CEO of CNC Onsite, joins to discuss uptower yaw gear repairs, flat tower flanges, and replacing 1,000 blade root bushings across 26 turbines.

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 YouTubeLinkedin 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!

Allen Hall 2025: Soren, welcome back to the podcast.

Søren Kellenberger: Thank you, Allen, and, uh, nice doing it, uh, face-to-face- Yes, it’s great … and not as a team, uh, call. Right. That’s

Allen Hall 2025: true. Yeah. You’ve been doing a good bit of traveling, and you’re the new head of CNC Onsite.

Søren Kellenberger: I am, yes.

Allen Hall 2025: So congratulations on that.

Søren Kellenberger: Thank you very much.

Allen Hall 2025: And all the exciting new things that CNC Onsite [00:01:00] is doing, plus all the things you have developed and are now out in the field implementing, the, the list goes on and on and on.

I’m alwa- every time I talk to you, “Oh, we got a new-” Yeah … “machine to do something uptower.” So it’s all uptower, which is the, the beauty of CNC Onsite. You’re thinking about the operator and the cost to pull the blades off and do lifting the cell off and all those things. If we can do it uptower, we can save 30, 40, 50% of the cost of a repair.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: That’s where CNC Onsite is just really killing it. You guys are doing great. Thank

Søren Kellenberger: you. Of course, we like what we do, but, uh, thank you.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, it’s good, it’s good. And, and so w- let’s talk about the things that I know about, and we’ll start there, and then we’ll go to all the new things you’re doing.

So the one that I see a lot of operators asking about is yaw tooth. Yeah.

Søren Kellenberger: Uh,

Allen Hall 2025: deformations, broken teeth on the yaw gear. That’s a big problem. And when I talk to [00:02:00] technicians, and I have them texting me about this, like, “Oh, well, I just weld on the gear back on, weld the tooth back on.” That’s a short-term solution.

That’s not gonna be long-term. The long-term solution is the CNC Onsite. Can you explain what you do to permanently fix these yaw gear problems?

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. So what we do is actually we start by getting information about the, uh, original yaw ring, so the dimension of the teeth, and we get some load data. And, uh, then we start designing a replacement segment.

Uh, so what we ac- the process is actually that we bring a CNC controlled machine uptower, mount it on the yaw ring, and then we mill away that worn area, uh, creating a small pocket. And then those, uh, segments that we have designed, they are prefabricated. We bring them up and mount them in, in that, uh, pocket and bring the- The yaw ring back to where it’s, you can say, original design, uh, [00:03:00] that way.

Yeah

Allen Hall 2025: It’s better than the original design, ’cause you’re actually putting in better teeth than the, the manufacturer did originally.

Søren Kellenberger: True. Yeah, yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: So that happens, so you’re, you’re machining out those old teeth, broken teeth, putting the new set of teeth in th- and that all bolts in, and that’s it. That’s it.

But the, the difficulty is getting the machinery uptower to do that. That’s where a lot of your, your technology comes from, is getting this very accurate, uh, well-defined machine uptower and doing very controlled grinding and milling. Yes. So can you explain what that system looks like? If I’m gonna grind off those yaw, broken yaw teeth, how big is that kit?

Søren Kellenberger: It… Obviously, it depends a little bit on the turbine size. Sure, okay. Yeah. So, uh, it, so the, the newer five, six, uh, 10 megawatt turbines have larger teeth, so yeah, there you need a, a larger machine.

Allen Hall 2025: Okay.

Søren Kellenberger: But let’s say for, uh, Vestas three megawatt, the, the [00:04:00] complete machine weighs about 250 kilos. That’s it? So yeah.

So it, it comes up in smaller components. We just use, uh, the, the internal crane in, in the nacelle, and, uh, then we can lift the components to the yaw ring, assemble the machine, and then we are basically good to go. So it take, takes less than a day to get everything up and, uh, get set and be ready to, to machine.

Allen Hall 2025: So if you wanna fix a yaw gear problem, how long does it take from start to finish to get that done?

Søren Kellenberger: It typically, it takes one day to get everything up and get ready, and then per six teeth, which is a typical segment, it takes about a day to machine that. Okay. So, uh, let’s say you have, uh, somewhere between 10 and 15 teeth, it’s, uh, two to three segments.

So we do that in a week. Um-

Allen Hall 2025: Wow … and- ‘Cause the alternative is call a crane, have them lifting the cell off.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Take the yaw gear off, put a yaw gear on, if you can find a yaw gear. Yes. Put the nacelle back on. [00:05:00] Well, and I guess obviously the rotors are coming down too, so- Yeah. You’re talking about- Yes

hundreds of thousands of dollars in downtime. Yeah. It’s a big ordeal. The CNC Onsite method is so much easier.

Søren Kellenberger: We will just put our equipment in the back of our truck- … and then, uh, we’ll, we are ready to mobilize in a few days. So yeah, we can significantly, uh, bring down the downtime and, and as you said, the crane cost is of course extremely high.

And then you can add all the project management. You know, con- do I actually have my access roads, uh, still available? Right. Is the crane pad intact? And all of that stuff you need to organize. You can just forget about that and, uh- And

Allen Hall 2025: get it done …

Søren Kellenberger: get it done. Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. There’s, there’s a lot of owners, we, everybody knows who the machines are that have the, the, the yaw tooth problem.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: So if you’re one of those owner operators, you better get ahold of CNC Onsite. Now, flanges on tower sections. It’s become a, a really critical issue. You hear a lot of, of [00:06:00] operators, OEMs talking about, “I’m putting together these tower sections and those flanges don’t really meet up quite right.”

Søren Kellenberger: Yep.

Allen Hall 2025: “I’m creating uneven torque patterns, bolt pat- my bolt tightening is not quite right.”

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: And it never really seats right, so you have this mechanical, built-in mechanical problem. CNC Onsite is now fixing that so those flanges are actually really flat. Really flat, yes. ‘Cause that’s what you need.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. They’re highly loaded.

Søren Kellenberger: If, if you want, uh… If you want your joints to be, uh, basically maintenance free, uh, we can, uh, achieve that with machining the flanges. And then, of course, you need to be in control with your bolt tightening process. Sure. But if you do those two things, you can have maintenance free bolted connections, and there’s so much money to be saved in the operations.

Um, and of course, when you have these bolts that end up fatiguing, some of them don’t get caught in time and you end up ha- having a catastrophic failure on the turbine. Uh- We’ve [00:07:00] seen that … because you have that zipper effect. Once a bolt starts breaking, the neighboring ones take that extra load and it accelerates really quickly.

Uh, yeah. Sure does.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah. It’s a very serious situation, but it starts with this very simple solution which is just make the flange flat.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. But I think it’s some… a part of the issue is that those buying the towers aren’t necessarily responsible for the operational cost of maintaining that bolted connection.

So they might save a little bit of money when they buy the tower sections with rougher tolerances, but you will spend the money 10 times in the operations. Uh, and, and that’s, I think that’s where some of the operations, uh, re- the, the, those responsible for operational costs should, uh, get a little bit more CapEx spend, uh- Oh, sure.

Yeah. And, and then, uh, actually save a lot of money and, and reduce risk. Uh, it’s a huge, huge risk

Allen Hall 2025: It’s, it’s one of those lessons learned. You [00:08:00] don’t know that they should be flat. You shouldn’t know… You don’t know your flanges should be flat until you experience the problems, and then you want all your flanges flat from here on out.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: But there’s only one way to do that really, and that’s to call CNC Onsite to come in and to make them flat.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Because it’s a difficult thing to do. You really need to have the machining prowess and the tight tolerances that CNC Onsite’s gonna deliver in a tool that can actually be adapted to that tower ring and make those surfaces flat.

It’s complicated. Exactly.

Søren Kellenberger: It is. Uh, but that is what we do every day, so, uh- Yes, I’ve noticed … yeah, so

Allen Hall 2025: so- You take on those challenges

Søren Kellenberger: So we are optimizing our machines to be not only fit for one-offs, but actually to go into a manufacturing, uh, process. So we have op- optimized our machines a lot with, uh, automatic alignment and, uh, stuff like that to, to really make that process, uh, easier.

Because it has been considered that when you had to machine a flange, you weren’t in [00:09:00] control with your production, uh, processes. But I think that is, um, a bit of a misinterpretation. It’s, it’s a little bit like saying when I have a casted component, I cannot get a bearing fit, uh, in my cast process. That’s not because your cast process is wrong, there’s just some limitations to what you can do.

Sure. And it’s basically the same here. Yes. And, and if you apply that con- uh, planned machining, you can gain some real benefits, uh, later on and the cost will, of course, drop dra- dramatically if you plan it, rather than call for one, uh, every time you have one that is out of tolerances and, and you can even narrow those tolerances down and get the benefits from maintenance-free bowler connections.

Allen Hall 2025: Right.

Søren Kellenberger: Uh-

Allen Hall 2025: Right, ’cause you’re gonna pay for it for the next 20, 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. That’s absolutely right. Now, you’re getting involved in some of the safety aspects of operating a turbine. Uh, some of the pins and the lockouts on the low-speed gearboxes get a little worn over time, so the hole [00:10:00] you put the pin in gets worn.

There’s a lot of loads on that and- Yeah … it starts to oblong out and eventually, if you’re trying to work on that gearbox, you’re trying to keep that and your technicians safe, which is what you’re doing- Yeah … that lockout pin doesn’t quite fit in the hole and it creates a little bit of a safety risk.

Yeah. So now CNC on-site’s coming in and saying, “Hey, wait a minute. We can realign that, clean that hole up, make that safe again.”

Søren Kellenberger: Yes.

Allen Hall 2025: Explain what that looks like and what that process is to do that.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. So again, it’s the same thought like with the, with the O-ring, uh, that instead of bringing a component down and trying to fix it, we have designed some machinery we can bring uptower and then make that repair.

So basically what we do is that, that we mill that hole a little bit larger and then we bring a bushing, uh, that we, uh, freeze into that hole- Okay … and to recreate that tight fit again with a, with a locking pin. Uh, so it’s, it’s not that [00:11:00] complicated, but you still need to know, of course, what you are doing.

So finding the center of the original hole is one of the critical things because you want the center of the new ring to be in that same position- Sure … to make sure it fits with the pin

Allen Hall 2025: right. So- Right. You can’t just take a drill up there and try to clean out that hole. No, no. That is not the way to do that

That,

Søren Kellenberger: that

Allen Hall 2025: won’t work. No, no . I’m sure it’s been tried, but- Yeah … no, you wanna have accurate mach- actual, uh, tight tolerance machinery up there to, to align that hole, drill it properly, put that insert back into that spot- Yeah … which is gonna be a hardened insert so it’ll last longer, right?

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah, yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: So once you do that, y- it’s a permanent fix to a otherwise nagging problem.

That’s wonderful.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: So, th- again, that kit just goes right uptower, right up the, the lift, right up the cl- crane- Exactly … and bang, you’re done. Yeah. Okay.

Søren Kellenberger: So all our machines are designed to be able to be lifted with the internal crane-

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah …

Søren Kellenberger: of that specific nacelle.

Allen Hall 2025: Okay.

Søren Kellenberger: So obviously as the cells go bigger, they have more load cap- uh- Me too

load capacity. Yeah. So for the smaller [00:12:00] turbines, the machines come in, in a bit smaller parts- Okay … so that we are sure we stay within that 250 or 500 kilogram or even whatever the limit is of, of that- Yeah, yeah, yeah … crane. And then we can, uh, reassemble everything uptower and still do tolerances within a few hundredths of a millimeter.

And, and I think that is, that is really the core of, of what we do that, that we can achieve those workshop tolerances on site, um-

Allen Hall 2025: It’s crazy when I tell people that. I say, “Well, you know, CNC on-site, they can’t… I mean, those, those tolerances can’t be that tight.” And I say, “No, no, no, no. They’re talking about, you know, fractions of a millimeter,” which in, in American terms means fractions of a mil.

Yeah. That’s 1/1000th of an inch. That’s the tolerance you’re doing.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Uh, and that means quality at the end of the day. If you can machine things that tight, that means what you’re getting is gonna be right for that job. Yeah. It’s gonna fix that, fix that problem permanently, which is the goal. Yes. Don’t recreate the problem.

Just fix it once and be done. Now, blade root [00:13:00] inserts, huge issue. CNC on-site has been developing tooling to drill out those existing inserts and, and put in new inserts, and you’re having success with that.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: That’s a… it seems like a complicated process, but you have owned that quite well. Talk about what that machinery looks like today, how you’re doing that process, and what have you learned from doing some, uh, field work.

Søren Kellenberger: It’s, uh… we actually, we’ve, we’ve developed two different machines now. Okay. So we, we have, we have one that is, uh, fully CNC controlled, uh, when you need to do a lot of bushings. Yeah. Um, that one takes a bit more, uh, time to set up, but, but, uh, each drilling process is, is really fast. Uh, and then we have developed a semi-automatic machine as well, uh, which is a little bit easier to mount, mounts directly on the blade.

And it’s, uh, really perfect when you only have smaller areas of the, the blade root where you don’t need to replace all bushings- But maybe typically it’s, it’s in the high load [00:14:00] area, which is 15 to 20 bushings maybe. Right. Something like that, right? Yes.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah.

Søren Kellenberger: So, so there we can just mount it directly on the blade and, and then drill from, uh, from there.

Um, and it works really well. We completed, uh, the first large scale, uh, commercial, uh, project, uh, together with our good friends from, uh, We4C. Uh- Right.

Allen Hall 2025: Yes.

Søren Kellenberger: And, uh, and now we are producing, uh, two more drilling machines- Oh … uh, for, for new upcoming, uh, projects also together with, uh, the guys from, from We4C.

Allen Hall 2025: Wow.

Søren Kellenberger: So now it’s, it’s starting to, uh, to pick up. Um, it’s been a relatively long process, and I guess no one really wants to be the first mover on, uh, on new technology, right? Right. So we’ve had a lot of questions. Oh, that… And that looks interesting, but how many, uh, turbines, uh, or how many blades have you repaired?

And it’s been up until now, well, it’s only tested in the lab. Uh, but now we have the first, uh, large scale commercial, uh, project with, uh, 26, uh, turbines, [00:15:00] uh, repaired and, uh, and 1,000 bushings, uh, that were replaced, uh, across those, uh, 26 turbines. So-

Allen Hall 2025: Wow …

Søren Kellenberger: so I guess that is now large scale. Uh-

Allen Hall 2025: That’s large scale.

Yeah. Yeah. I would consider 1,000 a large scale test. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And that brings all those turbines back to life.

Søren Kellenberger: Absolutely. They are up running, uh, full power again, so, uh, that is, uh-

Allen Hall 2025: That’s huge …

Søren Kellenberger: really nice.

Allen Hall 2025: For the operator, I’m sure they love that.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. And, and of course, uh, there’s, there’s been a lot of discussions about blades and, uh, bla- the, the waste, uh, issue you have on, on worn- Oh

out blades. Sure. So by being able to fix them instead of replacing them, not only is the, the cost for fixing a blade a lot lower than buying new ones, uh, but, but also from a, an environmental perspective. The not having to scrap them and create that waste is, uh, is also a nice, uh,

Allen Hall 2025: thing. Yeah, it’s one of the things that pops up more recently about replacing blades, and I think the [00:16:00] industry and the operators are pushing back on that.

Uh, because a lot of times the OEM wants to replace a blade, it’s just easier for them to do.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: But the reality is, is that yeah, you’re creating this additional problem. What are you gonna do with the disposal of this blade? Do we really need to do that? Is it so far gone that I can’t recover it? I think a lot of times, especially with fiberglass blades- Yeah

you can bring them back to life.

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: Just with a little bit of engineering, uh, prowess and some good machinery- Yeah. You can, you can make magic happen, and that’s what CNC OnSite is doing. So that, that’s really amazing that, uh, you’re starting to get more adoption of that on, on the blade root inserts. I know across the United States there’s all kinds of issues, and you’re proving it out.

I think the adoption rate in America and all over is gonna really step up. Now, uh, you always have some cool new project, sort of top secret. What are you working on that the world needs to know about?

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah. W- I mean, we are constantly, uh, [00:17:00]expanding our, our line of services. Uh, so- Sure … so we are just out there trying to listen to what kind of issues do we see in, in the industry-

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah

Søren Kellenberger: and how can that be fixed, uh, uptower. So, so some of the, the latest, uh, innovations we’ve been doing is a, a new machine on, um… to, to do shaft milling. Uh, so that c- that can be on generator shafts, uh, for instance. There are some machines out there, but we’ve decided to go, uh, against CNC control- Okay

because it gives us a lot of, uh, opportunities both on, on speed, uh, of the process. It’s a more safe, uh, way to, uh, to do it.

Allen Hall 2025: Sure.

Søren Kellenberger: And we can actually also do different, uh, shapes on the shaft, so, so we can do more advanced, uh, repairs. Okay. We, we don’t need to stick to a certain diameter all the way. Now we can, we can mo- make grooves, and we can do, uh- Really?

all sort of sorts of stuff, uh- Oh … along that process because it’s CNC controlled.

Allen Hall 2025: Oh, sure. Okay. Um, and- Boy, okay. That makes a lot of sense. So you can actually take a, a, a basic, [00:18:00] basic, basic design of a shaft and make modifications to it- Yeah … to extend the lifetime and make it work better.

Søren Kellenberger: Yes. So typically we would mill down, uh, the shaft and- Sure

install a sleeve- Sure … to recreate a, a bearing fit, for instance.

Allen Hall 2025: Right. Yeah.

Søren Kellenberger: But we have possibilities to, uh, to create, um, grooves or anything that would do a stress relief or whatever you need, lubrication, or if you, if you want to do something, uh, afterwards, we, we can do that with, uh, with our machines.

Uh- Yeah. So yeah, we, we have some new machines for, for hollow shaft, uh, machining, so we can do stuff, uh, inside the main shaft, for instance. We can do stuff on the, the outside, as I mentioned on, on the generator shaft, but that could be on the gearbox as well. So- Sure … sometimes we see issues on the main shaft to, to gearbox, uh, connection.

Allen Hall 2025: Yeah.

Søren Kellenberger: We are able to, to fix, uh, those, uh, things uptower. Wow. And, uh, so yeah, lot of new, uh, stuff being, uh, developed.

Allen Hall 2025: That’s, that’s awesome.

Søren Kellenberger: [00:19:00] Yeah.

Allen Hall 2025: And I, I know you guys are busy, but- If somebody wants to get ahold of CNC Onsite and get work done this year, they better be making phone calls to you- … quickly. So I, I know your order book is filling up and you’re, you’re having to devote crews and machinery and time.

Yeah. How do people get ahold of you and get on that contact list and can start working the process?

Søren Kellenberger: I would say go into, uh, cnconsite.dk and, uh, there we have all our, our contacts. Uh, so just reach out. There’s a, yeah, formula you can, uh, fill in, uh, or you can find our direct contacts in our webpage, and, uh, then we can start looking at it.

So we are quite busy, but we are always- Yeah … open for, uh, discussions and, uh, yeah. That,

Allen Hall 2025: that’s a problem with being successful, is you’re just always busy running around trying to take care of problems, and that’s the thing, is that everybody I talk to that’s used CNC Onsite loves it-

Søren Kellenberger: Yeah …

Allen Hall 2025: and loves the process and loves the work you do.

So there’s gonna be a lot more phone calls and a lot more orders coming your way, and that’s- Yeah … that’s awesome. [00:20:00] Soren- Yeah … it’s so good to see you again and it’s so good to see you in person. Yeah. And congratulations on the promotion and everything that’s happening at CNC Onsite.

Søren Kellenberger: Thank you, Allen. It’s a pleasure.

CNC Onsite Cuts Repair Costs With Uptower Machining

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2022 BreakingClimateChange.com