ORE Catapult Showcases UK Wind Innovation
Emily Rees and Magnus Willett from ORE Catapult discuss the upcoming UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight in Edinburgh. The event brings together innovative companies that are establishing the UK as a global leader in offshore wind energy, from small startups to major manufacturers.
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Emily and Magnus, welcome to the show. Hi, it’s great to be here. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having us. You, you’re both preparing for the UK offshore wind supply chain Spotlight 2025, in which Joel and I are looking forward to attending up in Edinburgh on December 11th. Uh, and it’s an event that showcases where the UK stands in Global Offshore Wind Development.
Uh, but Emily, I, I know there’s some challenges in the UK at the moment and, uh, the UK is working through those. Want to talk to some of the. Those challenges and how the spotlight is gonna help work through those. Yeah, uh, of course. So, um, I think that, you know, we as the uk like have identified quite a while ago that offshore wind was a really massive opportunity for us.
You know, we’ve got a really amazing offshore wind resource, [00:01:00] um, and. So we really wanted to take advantage of it and, you know, push forward with a, with that industry. Um, the things that we’ve come up against is that, um, ability to then provide homegrown, um, supply chain, you know, actually have, uh, businesses in the uk being that, that main supply, um.
In the first port of call, you know, there was the, uh, a lot of the, um, sort of components that we, we sort of have to, to build the fixed bottom offshore wind was all coming from abroad, so it’s like, right, well, how do we reap the benefits internally of this really amazing industry that we can build? And so, um, having, uh, supply chain spotlight events where we can really shine a light on the different companies internally in the UK that are actually providing services and providing, um, the supply chain for offshore wind, um, is, is super critical.
And the, the catapult, um, the offshore renewable energy catapult, uh, where Magnus and I both from, um, is, you know, [00:02:00] really key into making that happen. I know when you look online at the re catapult and you see like the people that you partner with, the organizations, the, I mean OEMs, um, all of the innovative technical technology companies that are coming out there, it it, it’s, it’s so great to see.
Right. And then this is me sitting in my, my American chair a and I talked about this. We talked a little bit about it off air, about the fact that wind energy in general, when you’re, when you’re talking offshore wind, onshore wind, it is a huge. Industrial and economic opportunity for all the countries that are involved in it.
And simply because things like this don’t come along that often, right? Like you have the, you know, the automo, I look at it like that, like the automobile was a thing, right? Like, oh, we went from horses to this. This is a huge opportunity. It made a lot of people, a lot of money, put a lot of people to work.
Wind is the same thing in my perspective, and maybe not at that grand of scale, the automobile, of course, but. You are seeing with your organization, the involvement with people like we have the, the Siemens facility in [00:03:00]Hull, and I know you guys do a little bit of work with them, uh, bringing that manufacturing onshore into the uk.
But not only is it bringing manufacturing what you’re doing here with the UK offshore wind supply chain spotlight is taking. The small companies, the, the, the, the two person companies, the 10 person companies, the 50 person companies, and saying, Hey, we also have really smart people here that are doing really cool things in operations and maintenance or like, you know, helping with some cool innovation for, uh, construction or development.
So there’s a lot of things happening in the uk. I mean, one of the reasons why we’re talking to you guys right now is we want to, we wanna show the rest of the world that you guys are taking advantage of this opportunity and hopefully spur more people on to do the same thing. Absolutely. Right. I’m, I’m, I think the, the key thing for us is in the UK we’re now at a point where we’re trying to maximize the supply chain opportunity and, and, um.
The supply chain is a, is a big pyramid, right? You have, you do have your OEMs and your tier ones at the top, but that stretches all the way down into the university spin outs. And, [00:04:00] um, and the kind of the one two person bands and the, and Orca pull we’re, we’re here to support them as much as we are to support those larger organizations.
Um, and we’ve, we have to, you know. Uh, supported likes of GE and, and, and Siemens through our, our big testing facilities and blade test facilities, drive train facilities. But we’re also testing kind of two, three person, um, organizations. New, um, dynamic cabling solutions for floating wind, right? So we span across an entire, um.
An entire supply chain. And I suppose part of the Supply Chain Spotlight event that we run, um, every year is, is to, is to give all organizations an equal playing field, to present themselves, to project developers, to OEMs, to government, as to why their technology, why their business can solve some of the biggest challenges that offshore wind has in the uk.
But also globally, right? Um, this is a global [00:05:00] market and the, and the uk, um, is, is is a leader in the deployment and the operations in the maintenance phase. And we have a huge amount of knowledge and we wanted to share that, uh, globally as as, as well as here in the uk. I know we have some questions and some topics we wanna get to, but I want to focus on that one point you said there, Magnus, of the the level playing field.
’cause when we were exploring this supply chain spotlight, one of the things that popped up to me was it doesn’t matter who you are, you get the same booth, whether you’re Siemens cesa, or you’re, you know, the two person band, same. Same, same style. Yeah. You, you get, everybody gets a level playing drill because everybody’s solution is needed.
I like that a lot. Yeah. It, it, it, it’s one of the core principles for us every year when we sit down with our, with our events team and our supply chain acceleration teams, it’s, you know, that’s a firing principle is to make sure that everyone gets a, a fair and equal opportunity to participate. And, and Magnus, the consequences of not having a supply chain in the UK are, are really severe when you look at it because of the.[00:06:00]
The amount of deployment the UK is talking about, the, the complexity of some of these projects, particularly floating offshore. There’s a lot of, uh, technology that needs to be developed and it needs to be developed very quickly, and especially on the servicing side, the o and m side. Uh, there’s a ton of knowledge sitting in the UK that can solve these problems, but it, it does feel a little odd.
I, I’d have to say, as a small business owner, I know how hard that is, is to take that first leap into. Showing a product, trying to get it introduced. If you come to the spotlight and in a couple of weeks in, in, it’s in December, so it’s not that far off. When you get to an event like this, this is the opportunity you need to get started or to expand, which makes I, I think, answers so many questions about how the UK is going to move forward in offshore wind.
We will work, um, through a number of different initiatives to understand, um, the challenges the industry is facing. [00:07:00] So we have a pretty good handle on, you know, what are, what are the challenges that they’re facing now, but also the challenges. What are the, what are the challenges they’re gonna face in five years time?
Right? Um, commercialization of technology does take a while. Um, and so we need to understand those challenges. And so Spotlight is, is is also part of that, right? It’s that knowledge sharing that, that exchange of information between, between the, the various different elements of the supply chain and the project developers to say, this is our challenges.
This is the solution we have and try and do and try and bring them together under one roof, um, and, and showcase their technology. And it’s important we get it right. You know, we, we, we, we have a, uh, an an, an ongoing energy transition. There’s an economic opportunity there. We have to try and maximize that, um, and provide as much opportunity for job creation, for IP creation.
Economic development and, and, and, and, and everything and, and far and few in between. So it’s super important we get that right. And part of that is just, [00:08:00] just you shine a, shine a light on these companies. A lot of things are happening in the UK at the moment, particularly offshore wind. But there’s been several wins and, and particularly into the way that the, uh, systems, I’ll call an overall systems of offshore wind are established from, uh, geez OCS to CFD to re catapult to all the s subject matter experts that are, that are there.
I wanna talk to that a little bit about, because I think a, a lot of other countries don’t realize necessarily the strength that is already in the United Kingdom. I think that the, the key thing here is that the sort of mentioned earlier that the, the, the UK has, um, been very, um, on board or at least signed up very early to this opportunity that we had to take advantage of a resource that would give us energy security in a, um, in a renew.
Right. So offshore wind being that opportunity. [00:09:00] So what that meant though is that, um, a long time ago, I mean, it was 20 years ago that the, the, the rocks that you mentioned, the renewable obligation certificates were the first piece that was put in there to try and incentivize companies to. Um, purchase their electricity from renewable sources.
So it’s like, right, okay, we know that we want to be starting this opportunity. Let’s, let’s, uh, put in a mechanism that’s, um, and, and incentivize that happening. But that what then evolved from that was then, um, we realized that, okay, we need to do more to really incentivize this happening. We need to put in some, um, some proper incentives to, to get developers to be really sure that they’re gonna be able to make money.
Out of these quite at the time, you know, quite high, uh, high risk on big developments. Um, and that was when we had feed in tariffs or fits. Um, and then we moved into A-A-C-F-D, which is a contract for difference scheme, which essentially means that the government [00:10:00] guarantees that, that a company that’s created, that’s generating, um, renewables will get a price for their.
For their electricity. But the great thing about contract, the difference and why they’re better, well, or they’re a different mechanism, let’s say, to just standard, you know, guaranteed price, which is what a feed in tariff is, is that if a company actually makes more money, if they’re, they can sell that electricity for higher, then the strike price that was agreed with the government for the contract for difference, they actually have to pay that back.
So it’s almost like a, um, it’s a, it’s a. It’s much less of a, um, uh, a penalty, I suppose, just for the gov, you know, just for the, uh, an administration kind of trying to provide a, a, a revenue support. There also potentially is benefits if say there’s a, like, so for example, um, when we had incredibly high gas prices in the UK and all of the renewable energy, um, generators were actually making more money than they were anticipating, um, over 600 million.
Pounds was put into the u [00:11:00] was brought, put back into the UK like, uh, system. So, yeah. Anyway, the, the contracts for difference has been, has been really beneficial in that front. But actually what it’s been done is it’s meant that we’ve driven competition to, uh, to ’cause developers actually really want to get involved.
It also provides much better assurance for these big projects, which then incentivizes better margins for the developers. So make bigger turbines. Get your, you know, smarter financing, like put in place, um, operations that bring down your cost and then you can make more money and, you know, off you go. Um, and it’s really been a massive success story in bringing down the cost of offshore wind and therefore making it a actually realistic and viable.
Uh. Energy, uh, and electricity, uh, generator in comparison to our, our, you know, gas, um, generating, uh, plants and things. Why do you think that other Northern European countries haven’t followed suit in the same scheme? In, in those countries there’s quite a lot [00:12:00] more, uh, sort of government mandating of like, this is the way that we are going forward.
And there’s much more of a support on that front. I suppose Norway’s quite a good example of a, of a, a country where you’ve got a lot of. There’s a much higher, uh, support that’s provided from that, um, from that governmental sort of standpoint and let, it’s like, it’s like what the UK is also trying to do is it’s trying to generate competition, whereas it’s not necessarily, so I don’t get the impression that from those, the other European countries that maybe are not implementing CFDs is that they’re not necessarily so worried about the competition to drive down the cost.
Whereas the UK has been very much, that’s been a real. Um, motivator for implementing the revenue support systems that we have, but they absolutely have revenue support mechanisms to make offshore wind and wind energy, you know. Work for them. It makes absolute sense because it fits with the strategy that we’re talking about here, right?
[00:13:00] Like it’s, it’s, it’s, the idea is bring innovation, bring new strategy, bring competition, uh, embolden the, the country to come up with new solutions for manufacturing, for operations and maintenance, for all these different things. And that’s what you guys at the Ora Catapult are there to do. That’s your remit.
We’re here to bolster this supply chain, to make these things happen. I mean, we, we, we have gone through challenges, um, in terms of, um, the CFD, you know, particularly with the inflation re increases over the past few years. But the government has listened. Um, and then they, uh, and have made some changes. And, and that includes what’s called the clean in clean industry bonus, which is, is gonna help, um.
Uh, provide some funding into, um, uh, or encourage, uh, developers to support local, homegrown, um, supply chains, which are low carbon. Um, so really investing in sustainable su supply chains for the industry. Um, so I think, yeah, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve absolutely had our [00:14:00] challenges with the, with the CFD, but we’ve got a government who seem to, to be willing to listen to the industry and, and find that compromise between what’s right for the, the UK taxpayer.
Um, um, and then also what’s right for, for building industry. Um, and that’s, you know, we have a number of different mechanisms at re catapult to, to support the supply chain, but also to support the project developer and, and, and the OEM to help grow that sort of, uh, sustainable clean energy supply chains that can do things like, um, and she should do a lot of the manufacturing, um, uh, for floating wind.
Um. Foundations and, and, and the assembly of, of, of turbines and everything. So it’s, you know, it, we, we’ve had our challenges as well and we’re listening and we’re adapting with to, to an evolving market. I think. So what are those areas that are the focus for ORE Catapult to push forward offshore wind?
What technology areas are you focused on right now? We look across the whole, uh, life cycle of, um, [00:15:00] of, of the, of the project development, uh, of our offshore wind farm. Um, a big challenge in the UK at the moment is that it, it typically takes about 14 years for. For a project to go from sort of initial leasing all the way through to kind of FID construction and, and actually, um, generating power.
So, so that’s a, that’s a, a huge amount of time. So we, one of our kind of focus areas is around project pipeline or we, we call PO Project Pipeline, which is, um, environmental, uh, so data collection and trying to fast track that consenting. Process not to, to, to, uh, remove away from environmental protections which are in place, but to try and use new technologies, which can better inform our decision making in the consenting process.
Um, so that’s one, um, that, that, that we focus in on. We focus in on supporting the next generation of turbines. Um, so. Uh, when I first started in the industry, uh, six, six years ago, uh, uh, or, [00:16:00] or castle, sorry, six years ago, you know, it was, it was a novel to have a sort of a, a 10 megawatt, uh, uh, turbine, right?
Or, uh, and, and, and I think 12 megawatt was sort of the standard. And now you, you’re hearing 22 megawatt kind of, uh, uh, commonly referred to 20 megawatt, uh, turbines. Um, and even, and even bigger, right? So. That’s a huge challenge and that’s a huge area of supply chain development that can, that can come with that.
Not just the big fancy blades and, and, and, and, and towers and the cells, but the, the ancillary technologies which go around that, um, floating wind absolutely has to be, is, is, is a key, key area for us as, as well. And that’s sort of how do you integrate new, new turbine solutions with new. New platforms and what are the challenges there?
Um, but a big, big focus, um, in the UK and, and a big sort of strength that the UK is in that operations and maintenance space utilizing the data that we’re generating. And, and, and that’s something that, you [00:17:00] know, in the uk if you look at our supply chain, that’s a huge part of our USP. That’s the part that we can export.
That’s the part that we have a knowledge to share with, with the rest of, um, rest of the world. Going back to the UK offshore wind supply chain Spotlight 25. So that’s gonna be in the beginning of December this year in Edinburgh. How many companies are gonna be there from the uk? Off the top of my head, I don’t quite know.
And it’s usually, uh, somewhere between about, um, 80 company, 80 to a hundred companies exhibiting. Um, so those are companies who we have supported through one of our support mechanisms. Oh, man. I mean, Alan, think about that. Here in the United States, if we were to put this event on tomorrow. How many companies would you have show up that are innovative, that are doing some technology, that are doing something to support the supply chain?
I mean, of course, besides, like, we have a lot of ISPs and people out here doing the, the boots on the ground work. But I mean, I, I think you can count ’em on your hands, your fingers and toes. I think we’ve got 80 or a hundred that we can even put in an event. Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you honestly, one of the things that I [00:18:00] have, I found quite, um.
Inspiring. Right. When I, when I came into the, the Wind industries, I was like, I’m, I’m a relative newbie, right. You know, Magnus has been with the Catapult for six years. I’ve only been with the Catapult for a year. Um, and so it, my, I’m, I’m quite fresh faced, you know, I, I get quite excited about various, you know, opportunities in the wind space, but I was super inspired to see how many companies are pivoting from using expertise from that they’ve used in other offshore industries.
Right. And they are bringing it to. To offshore wind and the applicability of it, because it feels like one of the big issues I had coming away from oil and gas and coming into offshore wind is I felt like when I was in my oil and gas services company, we didn’t talk about the things that we could provide at the offshore wind industry from a services point of view.
And I honestly was absolutely like when I arrived and was like, hang on a second, there’s so many places that you can apply that expertise and that knowledge. [00:19:00] So many, and that is why the UK is doing really well, right? And it’s one of the really inspiring things that we are doing is we are going, Hey, you’ve got all of this experience and knowledge for operating for offshore in the North Sea.
How about, how about just, you know, you can use it for, for offshore wind and we can benefit that industry from it. That’s not, that’s not just the uk. The US has that too. It’s not just oil and gas, right? It’s automotive. It’s aerospace. Like it, there is, there’s a lot of expertise across the UK and the number of companies that we see, so.
Their, the light bulb moment that their technology could apply to offshore wind. And they ha you have a conversation with them and they go, oh, that’s great. We could provide that. And it’s, and it opens up a new door to them. Um, and that, that’s really, um, I suppose if I could put a core, core part of what we do, it’s, it’s, it’s providing that expertise.
It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s providing the, the knowledge and the knowhow about the [00:20:00] industry to these companies. And, um, yeah, spotlight is part of giving them that. That and that opportunity to scream about what they can do. There are so many great companies in the UK and I think they miss the opportunity to be in renewables that the expertise like Megan’s, like you were talking about, they have expertise.
They’re extremely bright engineers and scientists and technology people, and even on the accounting side and the project management, there are so many experts in that field that are sitting in the UK that never thought about. If I can get an offshore wind that expands my business, I grow into this new marketplace, it gives me a little more of economic security.
That’s huge. And now is the time to get into a, a spotlight or to just even to wander the floor to see what it’s about. And I think this is an easy opportunity because to go to the spotlight 2025, it’s relatively inexpensive. You’re gonna Edinburgh, it’s not hard to get to. It is a massive opportunity to [00:21:00] look around and just kind of feel out what is there for you.
Absolutely right. So it’s, it’s a very, very, uh, relatively low cost, um, uh, e event to attend. Um, the companies who are there, we, we support to be there. So, um, we provide them with the ex exhibition space. Um, and, and they, they, they get to showcase their technologies as, as, as well. And, um, learn. Learn from one another, right?
So they’re not just trying to speak to project developers and, and to, to government or, or, or even to us. They’re there to speak to one another and figure out how can we collaborate more together? We have complimentary technologies. Um, you know, how do we fit, how do we, how do we, how do we put that jigsaws together?
And that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s a real key, um, thing there as well. And, and that’s the thing is that when we talk to, uh, UK companies, we’ve had a number on the podcast that have tremendous products. Absolutely tremendous products. They don’t realize. Maybe next door, [00:22:00] just up the road as another company is doing a complimentary piece and connecting those together I think is key.
Even though the UK relatively is a small country, some, some in some ways is very kind of hard to get around and it’s hard to figure out where all these places are because a lot of these small, innovative companies are not necessarily, don’t have flashy names or great. Big websites or don’t spend a hundred thousand pounds on a booth somewhere, so it’s hard to find them.
But in, in these kind of events, these, these more dedicated, focused events on technology and growth, particularly in the uk and these spotlights are fantastic of connecting companies together. This is the, this is your opportunity because a lot of other conferences are so much more expensive. They’re further away.
They’re probably in Germany or in Denmark or in Spain. This is the one, this is the one to see what is really happening at the Ground Street level in the uk. And we need to get people to sign up because one of the things it’s gonna happen is [00:23:00] that you’re gonna run outta tickets for this, even though it’s in December.
It’s gonna get busy as soon as everybody realizes, like, yeah, I, I need to get over there. So this event is in Edinburg, it’s UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight 2025. It’s in Edinburgh on December 11th at the Royal Highland Center. Which, from what I can tell, looks like a beautiful facility. Is there anything else I should know before I get ready to come to that event?
I mean, it’s right, be right beside the, the, the Edinburgh airport. So it’s super, super, super easy. Um, I think for me the, the, the kind of, the big plea would be from a, an international audience, from the audience, um, uh, is, uh, across, across the US is that there is innovative companie. In the uk who could maybe compliment your technology, right?
So we’ve talked about the, the uk, UK to UK company collaboration and, and action. There’s, this is a global challenge, right? There’s, this is a global market. Um, we need more collaboration between, between countries, more opportunities for [00:24:00] collaboration. So if, if you have, um. Uh, audience members who want to learn more about the UK and, and are developing a technology or they have a solution or a service and they’re thinking, you know, we could be doing this, but there’s a uk, there might be a UK company there, there, there probably, there probably isn’t.
There’ll probably be a spotlight as well. And Emily, you’re promising good weather in December in Edinburgh, right? Obviously there won’t be any rain. Nice and warm, sunny, balmy, almost. Yes. I think balmy is exactly the words that I would describe Edinburgh in December. It’s charming and wonderful, and you’ll get the proper Scottish, uh, gravitas that comes with the, the, the grayness and the rain.
I mean, it wouldn’t be right without that experience, so you, you need to google this event to sign up. That’s the easiest way I found it. It’d just go UK offshore wind supply chain spotlight 2025 and you’ll see it. You can click in and register. It’s inexpensive. It’s in December. You know you want to go, you wanna be in [00:25:00] Edburg in December.
It’s beautiful. So Emily and Magnus, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Love having you, and looking forward to the event. Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you very much.
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The people in Northern Europe and other spots around the globe are miserable? Democratic socialism has been the driving force in making the people of the following counties the seven happiest on Earth (in order).
Finland
Iceland
Denmark
Costa Rica
Sweden
Norway
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Vineyard Wind Battles GE Vernova, UK Funds Blade Innovation
Fraunhofer studies uptower carbon blade repairs, Vineyard Wind’s fight with GE Vernova deepens, the UK backs offshore innovation, and a 26-year Horns Rev study tracks how birds adapt to 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now your hosts.
Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall. I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, Yolanda Padron, and Matthew Stead. Fraunhofer has published peer-reviewed feasibility research in wind energy science. And Rosemary, I don’t know if you read wind energy science, but there’s a lot of good information there about wind turbines and mechanical aspects.
Not much on the electrical side, but a lot about mechanical. Uh, in, in, in wind energy science, uh, they had a discussion or an article about repairing damaged pultruded CFRP spar cap planks while the blade stays on the turbine. Using finite element analysis on a 81.6-meter [00:01:00] blade from a seven-megawatt offshore turbine, the researchers found that a shear web window cut out as short as one meter drops buckling resistance from 20.7 times critical load to four times critical load, a reduction of over 80%.
The fix? Temporary external clamping frames with a pre-tensioned span-wise rod to carry gravity loads, combined with internal push rod assemblies and external stringers profiles to restore buckling resistance, all installed and removed uptower. Wow. I know we’ve discussed the carbon pultrusion repair situation and how critical that is or h- how difficult it is.
I didn’t realize it was that difficult, Rosemary, that if you actually try to replace a one-meter section of a carbon pultrusion, you’re re- reducing the, the, what, the, the buckling resistance by 80%? [00:02:00] Holy moly.
Rosemary Barnes: I don’t think that’s even 100% pultrusion specific, right? They’re talking about cutting a, a window in the shear web.
Allen Hall: Yes.
Rosemary Barnes: So that could be for any kind of repair you might have to do that, including if you need to repair, like sometimes you need to repair the, the shear web. Um, and even though, like, they’re not doing a lot of heavy lifting, um, that’s kind of a structural pun, um, they’re still super important. If they’re not there, then you’re gonna have big problems pretty immediately.
The way that it works with repairs is that there’s certain kinds of damage that you know that you can just do uptower. The technicians know they can do it. They don’t need to call an engineer. The engineer doesn’t call- need to call the expert engineer. But when you need to do something a bit unusual, like a whole meter of web removed, then you’re gonna need to get an engineer to, um, dial in the, y- the, to rerun the design codes basically, um, but with this weak structure now to see is this okay and is it okay, you know, uh, [00:03:00] obviously a turbine that is just, um, idle or it’s not even idle, it’s just fixed in place while they’re repairing it, that has different loads on it to one that’s operating.
So, you know, they’ll run that and make sure that it’s safe, um, before they do the repair. So what I really like about Fraunhofer is that they in some ways, like- Maybe it’s not cutting-edge science or engineering because they are largely repeating what is already well known in industry. But the problem is that industry doesn’t tell everybody else.
And so it is, like, such a vital role to then go and illustrate, um, to everybody else what, what’s happening in industry. And they, they are… Like, there is this problem with wind energy where academia and industry are not, um, talking too much, and a lot of the academic stuff just doesn’t relate at all to what’s happening in the industry.
But Fraunhofer do, like, 90, 90% of the time seem to get it at pretty right.
Allen Hall: When a carbon protrusion is [00:04:00] used, that really localizes where the load is versus in, in some of the more fiberglass designs that I’ve seen, the shell is actually taking some of the load. It’s not all in the shear web, so to speak. So doesn’t that sort of focus the loads into one location a little bit more when you move to carbon?
Isn’t that the point?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Well, the carbon fiber is, is a lot, lot, lot stiffer than, um, fiberglass, and it’s, it’s a lot stronger. So yeah, you are designing… I, I mean, always the spar caps have been the main load carriers, the, um, you know, the main laminate, the bit between the shear webs or over the shear webs.
Um, but it’s, yeah, it probably is, um uh, e- exacerbated or the increased effect when you add carbon fiber. But the, the thing about carbon fiber is it’s so susceptible to small damages or small deviations, so like a tiny little bit of fiber waviness, like if your fibers aren’t perfectly straight, then you can easily get a, a crack.
And [00:05:00] carbon fiber can also be a lot less forgiving than fiberglass. It is not uncommon that it will just break, and you didn’t even know there was anything wrong. So that damage intolerance is what led to people moving away from carbon fiber fabric and into pultrusions, because they’re made with perfectly straight fibers.
Um, but it, it raises some, uh, problems of its own because y- yeah, like how do you repair that? You can’t, um, you can’t get the fibers as straight again unless you repair a whole plank, um, because like they look like, like two-by-fours or something. You know, like they look like little fence palings, basically.
Black, black fence palings. Um, and so yeah, you, you’d have to repair, replace a whole one, and then you’ve got like a big chunk of structure that’s missing there, so that’s pretty hard to do uptower. I, I don’t know anybody that does those uptower, actually. Um, m- maybe they can now with this reinforcement method, but I would still not enjoy being in a blade that was missing a, a [00:06:00] pultrusion and up in the air.
Allen Hall: The offshore versus onshore equation, it, it would make more sense onshore to actually drop the blade, I assume. Offshore adds difficulty, but it sounds like with all the rigging a- and assembly that you would have to do offshore, it, it probably is gonna be close in terms of total cost to do an uptower repair versus a downtower repair I would think.
It, it– Wouldn’t you think it’d be roughly right?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, like in, in offshore, there’s always more motivation to do complicated, um, expe-expensive uh, things that will save you from having to do something even more expensive, like bringing, um, a whole blade back. Uh, yeah, going out, getting the vessel with the crane, bringing the blade down, and taking it in is just incredibly expensive.
So you can spend a lot of time faffing around reinforcing a blade uptower before you, um, you know, would come out behind. But you know what? While we’re on topic of carbon pultrusions, I think it, like it, um, it’s almost bypassing the, the biggest risk with them ’cause [00:07:00] what I see is the– Like it’s one thing when you know you’ve got damage that you need to repair, but far more common, I think, is that you don’t even know that you’ve got damage.
It’s very hard to, to see what’s going on in there. Um, I mean, people aren’t just going up periodically and doing ultrasounds, ul-ultrasound scans of their entire blade. But even if they were, it’s still not that easy to find all of the, the little damages in, in pultrusions. So, um, yeah, that’s something…
‘Cause it’s not such an old technology. It’s been around for, I, I don’t know, like not even 10 years these have been, being used consistently, probably more like five, um, that there’s been a lot of them out there. And I just, yeah, I, uh, maybe I’m overreacting because all I see is broken blades in my career, but, um, you know, I am a little bit worried that we’re gonna start to see as, you know, fatigue builds up, that we might start to see some more like sudden breakages in these blades.
Allen Hall: If Fraunhofer’s working on it, there must be a reason for the [00:08:00] analysis and all the engineering time that they spent on it, that it’s a concern. I don’t know how you would do it offshore, honestly, because of all the wind loads. That you would have this damaged blade, and yes, you would have all the engineering calculations, but I would just see the safety people being very concerned about it.
Because if it does go free, you have a couple of people up there minimum, and who knows what’s below.
Rosemary Barnes: But even the amount of time in between knowing that you have to, um, replace a pultrusion and actually getting up there to do it, like I’d be surprised that it didn’t break in that, in that time because it is such a big, a big, a big thing.
Um, so yeah. Uh, but super interesting work and I do, I, I do really, really appreciate that the Fraunhofer exists to, you know, do this sort of stuff and, um, give us the information w-we need to get a better understanding.
Allen Hall: Delamination and bondline failures in blades are [00:09:00]difficult problems to detect early. These hidden issues can cost you millions in repairs and lost energy production. CIC NDT are specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become expensive burdens. Their nondestructive test technology penetrates deep into blade materials to find voids and cracks traditional inspections completely miss.
CIC NDT maps every critical defect, delivers actionable reports, and provides support to get your blades back in service. So visit CICNDT.com because catching blade problems early will save you millions
UK government has deployed 15 million pounds, uh, which is about $20 million, uh, through Innovate UK in a coordinated push to move offshore wind technology from prototype stage into commercial supply chains. The package has three components: a 10 million [00:10:00] pound offshore wind innovation program, open competition for high potential businesses, a five million pound wind innovation hub to align industry, government, and research, and a 12 million pound effort for phase one of a large structures innovation center on the Isle of Wight, with Vestas already signed as its first industry partner for sustainable blade development.
So the, the large structure innovation center is a composite center which is gonna be doing some advanced technology work on blade design. And I think there’s no better place to do that at the moment than in the UK. But it does open the door to a number of UK firms, and even outside the UK firms, to get involved in the UK offshore and somewhat on the onshore side.
This has massive potential, I think, within the UK and outside the UK, Matthew.
Matthew Stead: I, I know from my own firsthand experience that, um, uh, actually getting into the wind space is, like, really [00:11:00] hard. So for this sort of, um, incubator and support around, um, you know, setting up businesses, I, I think this is a really, really good thing for the UK government to be doing.
Um, ’cause, yeah, how do, how do you build up a future industry if you, if you don’t have the new businesses coming through? So I, I think it’s a, it’s a, it’s a great thing that the UK government’s doing. And yeah, and how do you get small companies working with the larger OEMs? How do you get the innovation?
Yeah, it’s, yeah, I think that’s probably, you know, got five gold stars for the UK government.
Allen Hall: What are the areas that they should be focused on over the next couple of years? Obviously, blades is, is a massive one. I’m sure Vestas is gonna be deeply involved with that. Are there some other areas in technologies that the UK should be orienting its supply chains towards?
Matthew Stead: I’m personally 100% biased towards blades ’cause w- we know that, you know, um, if we look at the failures and we look at the failure rate, you know, where is the greatest growth in failure rates? It’s blades. Um, [00:12:00]you know, why, why are we still having failures? Why haven’t we learned? You know, where is the knowledge exchange?
Um, so I- I’m biased, but I think it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s needed in, in the blade space. Yeah, as what, you know, Rosie and you were talking about before, um, you know, knowing more about, um, what’s going on, how it can be repaired, how it can be dealt with, I think is super, super critical.
Allen Hall: Well, Vineyard Wind has its 62 turbines in the water south of Martha’s Vineyard, but the project is delivering only partial power while GE Vernova works through its outstanding repairs.
Now, the financial pressure is breaking into public view on two fronts. Boston landlord BP Hancock LLC is suing Vineyard Offshore, uh, the Avangrid and BP joint venture, for nearly $1.2 million in back rent at its John Hancock Tower offices. Uh, separately, GE Vernova wants out of its turbine supply contract, claiming Vineyard Wind owes [00:13:00] it over $300 million.
Vineyard Wind fires back that it is actually owed more than 800 million from GE Vernova, so that, that saga will continue for a while. But it is a little odd that the rent is not being paid by Vineyard Wind at, at, in the John Hancock Tower. And if you’re familiar… That’s downtown Boston. If you’re familiar with downtown Boston, that, the John Hancock Tower is one of those iconic buildings you see in pretty much every downtown photo of Boston.
There must be a lot happening at the moment at Vineyard that they’re not able to pay the rent, or they’re trying to shuffle some money around or, or seek more financing. Sounds like they’re in a refinancing phase, honestly. Yeah,
Yolanda Padron: I know that at, at times there’s– it’s really common for, for an asset manager to think, you know, “Oh, we have X amount of money,” and then all of a sudden you– it’s all of the, the additional [00:14:00] repairs or the additional operational costs stack up to a bit more than they thought they were gonna have, and then maybe they don’t even have enough money to go do trash removal or anything.
And that happens, and it’s more often than, than we’d like to admit. Um, but this is on a bigger scale, right? Like, this is a project that we’ve talked a lot about, everyone’s talked a lot about, and it has a lot of eyes on it. And so for it to, to be so behind on rent on such an iconic place and such an important place and such an important part of the country, backed by a very important company, it’s really, it’s really interesting to, to think about kind of what they’re thinking.
‘Cause in, in my mind, right, like, if I was the people backing them, I would think, “Okay, well, the f- first thing’s first, like, let’s not give them any additional reason to hate us right now.” Right? Or like, you know, the public opinion is really big on these kind of things. Um, so I, I don’t, I don’t know what the, what [00:15:00] the exact plan is here.
Allen Hall: Well, I wonder if this is part of the, the negotiation with GE Vernova, that, uh, the, the payments and the, the power which leads to payments, uh, hasn’t been at it- its desired output from Vineyard Wind and is this an effort to, uh, shore up their legal case with GE Vernova to say, “Hey, look, uh, Avangrid’s not gonna throw a bunch of money in, even for rent.
This project needs to stand on its own two feet, and it can, but GE Vernova needs to be involved with it and get the turbines up and running to the level at which they were contracted to do”? Is this part of that play? ‘Cause it just feels like it. You know Avon Grid has the money to pay the rent. That’s not even a question.
It’s, but it’s why they are not doing it is probably the bigger question at the moment. Is, is it just all legal maneuvering at the minute?
Matthew Stead: I, I wonder if it’s a bit like, uh, you get the utility billing, you get the [00:16:00] electricity billing, you put it in the, the drawer over there, and then you forget about it, and then you forget to pay it, and-
Allen Hall: It’s a million dollars
Matthew Stead: $1 million out of, uh, 600 or whatever billions, you know? Maybe it was, maybe it was just a simple oversight.
Allen Hall: It could totally be oversight, but it’s, it seems like with the amount of attention that Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova are, are getting, and they are literally within a stone’s throw of one another, they can s- I’m– You could probably see the GE Vernova building from the John Hancock Tower, that, uh, you, you think that some of this would get settled, but it’s not.
It’s still going on. It’s, it’s crazy. It– With, and with Avon Grid and BP still being involved with it somewhat, uh, there’s something happening behind the scenes that has not poked its head up yet. It’s coming, though. This is all coming to a head pretty quickly. The– Massachusetts needs Vineyard Wind to run.
They really do, and it’s, it is a little surprising at [00:17:00] times that the state of Massachusetts is standing on the sidelines in this.
Matthew Stead: As wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it, difficult. That’s why the
Allen Hall: Uptime 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 to wind, PES Wind has the high-quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit peswind.com today. In this quarter’s PES Wind, there’s a lot of good articles in there. If you don’t have a copy, you can go to peswind.com and download one. A interesting article from Safe Lifting, which is a European-based lifting company that does basically bespoke engineering on lifts, and they’ve been making a push that’s saying that the next wave of projects depends on bigger [00:18:00] turbines, of course, which means bigger lifts, but they need to have some standardization to them.
Uh, things like spreader beams and rigging systems that are pre-built and pre-validated, uh, just reduce the overall engineering time it takes to do these lifts. Uh, and rental equipment models are a lot lower cost than buying OEM-specific or site-specific lift equipment, trying to keep the capital costs down.
That’s one of the big pushes in the wind industry is lowering the overall cost of installation. It does make sense, but it– as we were talking off-air a minute ago, a lot of lifts for basically the same kind of turbine are different. The, the connection points are different. There’s a lot of engineering that goes on there, and as the turbine sizes reach 15 megawatts plus, and the cells are massive, blades are massive.[00:19:00]
But it does seem like in a lot of other aspects of wind, there is some standardization, an IEC spec or some sort of overall guidance document for the industry that like, let’s put the lift points here, here, here, and here and lift with the right equipment. And Matthew, we just haven’t done it in lifting, even in smaller turbines, same thing.
Matthew Stead: Oh, it’s crazy. Um, I was, I was thinking about it, and, you know, my, my suggestion would be that, you know, when I buy 100 turbines, I should get, um, a blade lifting kit. It’s like when you buy a car, you, you get a, you get a kit to change the tire, don’t you? So I would’ve thought it would be just fundamental. Um, but, but, but we know that the wind industry is not always logical.
Um, so what is, what might be considered normal in a car is not normal for a wind turbine. Um, but yeah, uh, you know, this sounds like a perfect way of going to have more of a sort of standardized and, you know, not, not wait for the OEMs, but actually lead this and, and [00:20:00] drive this standardization. So yeah, thumbs up from me.
Yolanda Padron: I think this is really cool. Uh, I really hope that if we can standardize the way that we do that, we can make sure that the teams are trained in, like, the standard ways of, of lifting. I know that, um, I’ve, I’ve seen a few cases where someone didn’t know, there hadn’t- been exposed to a particular blade type and they were in char- you know, in charge of, of lifting it to, to, to do a blade replacement and then, um, they accidentally ended up damaging the blade and so you had this bad crack that they kind of painted over because it was a little bit embarrassing for them at the time.
And then, you know, a year later it’s like, well, okay, well, maybe next time ask someone, um, if you if you don’t know the, the exact lifting protocols or, or if you mess up, you know, let someone know. Um, but, but [00:21:00] yeah, the, you know, a lot of these, these smaller and, and larger structural cracks that, that come from, from lifting errors would be avoided if everybody was doing the same thing or the same two iterations of Of lifting standards, which is really exciting
Matthew Stead: Y- y- if you’ve got a wind farm, y- y- you’re guaranteed you’re gonna have to drop a blade at some point, aren’t you?
Allen Hall: And a gearbox
Matthew Stead: and a generator It’s, it’s pretty much a given. So like, like I said before, I reckon it should just be part of the standard kit that you buy, is you, you, you buy a substation, but you also buy a lifting, a lifting kit as well.
Allen Hall: It’s one of the more, uh, dangerous parts of wind is lifting, clearly, and we’ve seen that over time.
And, uh, having standardized equipment, back to Yolanda’s point, does make a lot of sense because if you’re out there doing this quite often and you have different rigging for every different OEM, you can get crosswise, and things happen. And if we had some standardization there, that would make a tremendous [00:22:00] amount of sense.
That’s why, uh, Safe Lifting wrote this article on PES Wind. So if, if you wanna read this article, just visit peswind.com. When engineers plan an offshore wind farm, they try to account for everything, including seabirds. And at the Horns Rev wind farm in the Danish North Sea, the layout was meant to leave birds a clear way through, but the birds had, uh, ideas of their own.
After 26 years of patient monitoring, researchers found that the turbines did not simply chase wildlife away. Instead, they reshuffled the entire neighborhood in the sky, turning some species into avoiders and others into opportunists. So this has been a big discussion in the wind industry for a long time, particularly for offshore wind projects, of what to do with the birds.
And the early assumption was that, hey, let’s just give them a pathway where they can fly [00:23:00] through, and birds have made up their minds. Some are taking that path. Others are avoiding it because of the change in the which, uh, species are hanging out where. This is a remarkable outcome, and it’s been going on long enough that there’s, uh, some statistical relevance to it now.
Do we need to get some bird psychologists involved in these offshore projects on how we think of how birds behave? Because I think to the engineering community, you know, like, you, you put a road there for you to fly through, bird, and then you decide not to. This is at a different level than engineering.
Yolanda Padron: I think it’s great to do as much as you can do, right? It’s amazing that they did all of this work. It is kind of funny. I mean, it’s, it’s sad. I’ve… I’m, I’m gonna get into trouble on LinkedIn or something by someone. I, I mean, it’s, it’s sad, of course, if, if birds get hit, right? But it’s, it’s, we can’t control everything.
You [00:24:00] know, as much planning that went into this, it’s
And what’s the next step here?
Matthew Stead: Well, first of all, 26 years? Is that correct? Yeah, 26 years. I mean, m- I, my- the thought that came to mind is that sometimes engineers don’t understand the natural environment. Sorry, just, just take that as a, as a observation. But, you know, I- it just reminds me of when, um, when civil engineers lay out paths and pavement, you know, they put a path in, but then people walk around it.
People do whatever they wanna do. And so, you know, I, I don’t think we can actually design out some of these things because we just will never understand the bird, we’ll never understand the human. Um, so yeah, I think put a little bit of effort in. I think going back to what Yolanda said, just put a, a bit of effort in.
But yeah, actually, there are some things in this world we can’t control.
Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I mean, [00:25:00] there’s, there’s of course endangered species. There’s of course, you know, a lot of, a lot of monitoring companies out there that do a really good job. Depending on what you need and depending on, you know… You can tailor your site needs around w- what’s gonna happen, right?
Or, you know, if you know that you’re in the migratory pattern of a particular species- There’s, I know there’s a lot of very smart people hard at work to make sure that your site is tailored to fit what needs to, what needs to happen there. And it’s great. I think it’s a great, it’s great to know, you know, that, that people in this industry care about birds.
I know I once had to go through extra check at TSA because the, the person there said, you know, “Oh, you work in wind? Save the birds.” And then he sent me through this, like, a lot, because he, he thought I was killing birds every day. Um, so I mean, you know, [00:26:00] we’re not killing birds out here, and it’s great, and it’s lovely to see all the hard work that goes into this.
But it, but it also, it’s, it’s important to note that the plans aren’t gonna be 100% foolproof, and that’s okay. You can just try your best.
Allen Hall: What’s the one bird you would assume as an engineer would not care if the wind turbines were there or not? The bird you see absolutely everywhere around the sea.
Matthew Stead: Seagull.
Allen Hall: Seagull. They do not care. They love wind turbines. They’ll use them as perches. I’m sure that, uh, yeah, a lot of, uh, technicians had to deal with seagulls, uh, hanging around the wind turbines. That has to be a thing. So it just depends on the species, for sure. Which is unique, right? E- every species has its own separate personality and things that it likes to do.
Uh, so in some of the wind turbines, I’m sure the seagulls are probably an annoyance, but they’re gonna let them be. And s- and some other species just don’t wanna be around the wind turbines, so even if you put a pathway through them, they’re just not gonna be [00:27:00] there. That’s an interesting finding.
Matthew Stead: It’s like onshore as well.
I mean, cows and sheep love to stand in the shade of a wind turbine, so they like to hang around. They scratch themselves on the, on the, the stair. You know, they, they rub themselves on the bolt covers. You know, they try and eat stuff. Goats, goats are particularly bad.
Allen Hall: Goats are really aggressive on wind farms for finding wires.
Absolutely. An- anything to eat.
Yolanda Padron: Raccoons.
Allen Hall: Yes. Raccoons.
Yolanda Padron: Snakes.
Allen Hall: The snakes do hide out in the shade. That is one thing you gotta be careful about is, uh, especially in Texas, of kicking over a rock and finding a snake, so make a lot of noise when you’re walking in Texas. That’s the plan. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime: Wind Energy podcast.
If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found some value in today’s conversation, [00:28:00] please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show.
So for Rosie, Yolanda, and Matthew, I’m Allen Hall, and I’ll see you here next week on the Uptime: Wind Energy podcast.
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