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PowerCurve’s Innovative Performance Analysis

Nicholas Gaudern, CTO of Denmark-based Power Curve, discusses how advanced blade scanning, aerodynamic upgrades, and the AeroVista tool are transforming wind turbine performance analysis. PowerCurve helps operators use real data to maximize AEP and make smarter decisions about blade maintenance and upgrades.

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!

Allen Hall: Nicholas, welcome back to the podcast. Hi. Thanks Allen. Good to see you again. There’s a lot going on in wind right now. Obviously the elections that happy the United States are changing the way that a lot of US based operators are thinking about their turbines and, and particularly their blades.

I’ve noticed over the last, even just couple of weeks that. Operators and the engineers are paying more attention to what they’re actually getting on site.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yes.

Allen Hall: Instead of, uh, the sort of the full service agreement where, hey, they’re under warranty for two years, I don’t really need to do anything for a little while approach.

That’s changing into, I want to know what arrives on site, what am I getting and what problems are there with these particular blades that I may not know about because they’re new to me. Even though these blades, there may be thousands of these blades out in service. Mm-hmm. Me, my company doesn’t know.

Yep. How they operate. How they perform, particularly at this, this new site, I’m Repowering or, [00:01:00] or building new. That is a complete shift. From where it was a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. Yeah. And I think the biggest performance piece that people are looking at is aerodynamics, and I’m trying to understand how these blades perform, how they move.

Yes. What kind of loads there are, what kind I expect over the next year or two. And I think they’re just becoming now aware of maybe I need to have a game plan.

Nicholas Gaudern: Mm-hmm.

Allen Hall: And I, and that’s where power curve comes in, is like in the sense of have a king plan. Understand what these plates are all about. Yeah, yeah.

And try to characterize ’em early rather than later.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly. I think there’s been an increased focus on, on data and for operators, as you say, to understand more what they’re getting and not necessarily relying on just what they’re told. So, uh, I think a nice case study of that is last year we were helping a customer to build a, a digital twin.

Uh, of one of their turbine models that they, that they purchased. So what that involved [00:02:00] is, uh, going to site, doing a laser scan of a blade, understanding geometry, helping them to build up some aerodynamic and structural models of that blade. So then that customer was going to build an AEL model themselves of that turbine so that they could run load calculations.

They could look at, uh, site specific, uh, changes that could be relevant to that turbine’s configuration or how they operated it. And this isn’t really something that you saw a lot of, uh, a few years ago, but I think it’s great that operators, particularly when they have a larger engineering capacity, are starting to get into that game.

Uh, and it’s tough because it’s a lot of what the OEMs do, it’s their kind of specialist knowledge, but there’s a lot of smart people out there. Uh, there’s a lot of companies you can work with to help gather that data and build these products up.

Allen Hall: The OEMs right now are. Lowering the number of engineers.

Nicholas Gaudern: Mm-hmm.

Allen Hall: Staff reductions. Yeah. Uh, so getting a hold of somebody on the engineering staff, particularly with aerodynamics, can be quite hard. Yes. And in fact, I’ve talked to [00:03:00] some smaller operators that can’t get access to those people at all.

Nicholas Gaudern: No, no. We, we get told that a lot that, um, there’s, there’s customers calling OEMs and they, yeah.

They can’t, they can’t speak to anyone who really understands that the issues that they’re facing. But free now we, we have contact with a lot of OEMs. I would say that we have more aerodynamicists and power curve than some OEMs have now. Oh, that’s true. And that’s quite, that’s true. Surprising. You know.

Um, so it does mean that I think from a customer support perspective, it is harder for the OEMs to take on some of those really detailed or nuanced questions that an operator may have.

Allen Hall: Right. Operators are getting smarter.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep.

Allen Hall: And asking more pointed questions, not generic questions anymore. Uh, we’ve had, uh, junker on the podcast and I, when I ran into her last summer, she was basically saying that like you, you’re talking to operators now that are getting smarter about what they’re doing.

Yes. They’re asking more pointed questions. The OEMs can’t respond. So now what do you do? Yeah, that’s, that’s the Global Blade Group.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly.

Allen Hall: [00:04:00] Perspective, right? Where everybody’s starting to pool the resources together. I think that’s an

Nicholas Gaudern: absolutely great initiative. I mean, it’s something that’s been going along in various forms for a few years now, but um, now big it has joined Stack rt.

It’s kind of been relaunched in, in this new form that you were discussing with us. So, um, we are really excited to be part of that, I think kind of the way, uh. Our role sits within the group. We’re still working on, on the details, but we’re definitely gonna be part of that group in helping to, to share knowledge.

So the aim is that we will help, uh, educate basically to, to raise discussion points, to, to lead forums with operators about how they can understand their aerodynamics better, how they can ask more relevant questions of the OEM. So I think that’s what a lot this is about, just asking the right questions.

I think sometimes operators can feel a little bit, uh, blind. Uh, as to the best way to navigate a problem, but by knowledge sharing within the Blades group with other forums, um, I think that’s gonna make that a lot easier for everyone.

Allen Hall: And you’ve been tapped as [00:05:00] the lead of the aerodynamics group within the Global Blade

Nicholas Gaudern: Group?

Yes. Yep, yep, that’s, that’s correct. Um, we haven’t had a, a kickoff yet as such, but that will hopefully happen in the next couple of months. But yeah, the idea is that power curve will kind of. Lead that knowledge sharing around the aerodynamic subject.

Allen Hall: Yes. So if you haven’t joined the Global Blade Group, it’s free.

Yep. If you work for an operator, you can just join it and you should. So get somebody on your staff to sign up to get ahold of Burger and get going with that, because then you can tap into all the resources that they have. Them being, uh, the most recent one is the leading edge protection campaign that was just summarized, uh, a couple of weeks ago.

So that data set is out there and you want to have access to that. Mm-hmm. But I think more importantly, as the group goes forward now and has been emboldened again, the aerodynamic piece is the missing link for most operators. Yeah, it is.

Nicholas Gaudern: And it’s, it’s often an area that is, um, hasn’t had as much attention historically.

Uh, there’s just not so many engineers out there with that background. You know, it’s, um, [00:06:00] I wouldn’t say it’s any more or less hard than lots of other of the complex subjects within a wind turbine. There’s just, there’s fewer people, uh, who, who know the same, uh, level of, um, stuff.

Allen Hall: Yeah. And there’re being, those resources are being, uh, taxed quite heavily at the minute, uh, with all the activity it happen in the OEMs.

Now, as operators, uh, start to receive newer blades and you see. OEMs obviously moving to bigger turbines and to specific models, so there’s actually fewer varieties of blades than there were a couple years ago, but there’s still quite a number of blades out there. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So you, you’re going to get generally a more generic blade type at your specific wind site?

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, quite possibly.

Allen Hall: Yeah. I, I think especially ge renova is, is gonna be driving down to a, a limited set of blades and a limited set of turbines. So they’re gonna be trying to apply that turbine. More globally than they have in the past, instead of tailoring a specific set of blades vest is, it’s gonna do something very similar, I think.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and in that mode, [00:07:00] if you’re an operator and you’re receiving these blades, you don’t really understand what’s about to happen unless you do your homework ahead of time. And I think that’s where the opportunity lies today to do something really inexpensive and smart up front. To understand what’s likely to happen.

Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly. And I think that all starts with, um, as we talked about, gathering good data, whether that be a laser scan or detailed photographs or measurements or NDT, uh, putting some sensors in the blade, some CMS equipment. I think all of that stuff to help really build up that knowledge base early.

To help start planning for future o and m, uh, operations? Yeah,

Allen Hall: so the simple one as blades come on site is to do a laser scan.

Nicholas Gaudern: Mm. Yep. And that takes how long? A few hours. And, and it’s much easier on the ground than it is a tower as well. And then you can use that full kinds of things. Yes. It’s very useful to do aerodynamic studies on.

But then, uh, other stuff that might not seem so [00:08:00] exciting, but is super important. How do you move blades around a, uh, handling yard if you have a CAD model that’s much easier to plan? How do you, uh, look at a new stacking frame or a, a lifting device that you might need to purchase? Well, it all comes back to having that initial data.

And I think what we see, uh, at Power Curve is there’s a huge variety of aerodynamic upgrades that are shipped with blades. And even though, um. Two customers might buy the same blade. They might not necessarily have the same upgrade pack on from the, uh, from the OEM. So really understanding what’s in your fleet from the start.

Where are those VGs? Where are the serrations, where are the spoilers? That’s critical going forward to understand how to manage those blades. And we talk to a lot of operators, uh, about VGs and other upgrades. It’s, uh, surprising to us how few know what is on their blades. They just don’t know. They don’t have that information.

They just arrive. Yeah. So, so what happens if some of those add-ons need replacing? What happens if you are missing [00:09:00] potential? Well, you don’t have a good data set to go back to, to really understand the problem. So yeah, we’d really encourage that from the get go to, to document that.

Allen Hall: The, the discussion I’ve seen at operators about trying to get a blade model out of the OEM goes like this, Hey, OEM, uh.

I would like to have the blade model so I can do some analysis and we can operate this thing once it comes off warranty, obviously. And the OM says no.

Nicholas Gaudern: Hmm.

Allen Hall: All right. Well, can I scan it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, you own the blade at the end of the day. I own the blade so I I can scan it all day. Yeah. But they will not give you the model, but you can scan it.

And scanning’s not expensive. I get it. If they sent you the model, it’d be less expensive. Yeah. But that’s not going to happen. And you can’t even contractually get it because it’s ip. Yeah. Even though you can go scan the same blade.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.

Allen Hall: It doesn’t make any sense why you’re not scanning the blade at this point.

It’s so easy. Five years ago. Yes. Difficult

Nicholas Gaudern: today. Simple. Yeah. The scanning process [00:10:00] itself, I think where the real, uh, complexity comes in is then how do you convert that scan? Into a usable CAD model. I think that’s where the, the experience and um, and the skill of a, a good CAD engineer is really important.

So within, uh, power curve, we’ve been drawing blades for years and years and years now. So 30, 40 different blades we’ve scan, we’ve drawn, we’ve analyzed, and um, even the best laser scan may still have a few question marks around how you should interpret the data. So I’d encourage you that if you are going to go down that path.

Then, then call someone who’s done it a few times before and, and understand what’s going on.

Allen Hall: And then getting the details about the aerodynamic upgrades. I’ll call them quote unquote upgrades because sometimes I wonder if there are upgrades or not. Yeah. Uh, especially VGs getting those identified. It’s exactly where they are on the blade matters.

Trailing ulcerations, the kind of trailing ulceration you have, the sizes of them because they all vary in size [00:11:00] as you go up and down the blade, knowing where those are exactly out on the blade. And to me, when I see a variety of blade, a variety of blades made the same blade model, same blade revision.

Yep. But you start looking at ’em and you see those manufacturing tolerances move around quite a bit. It makes sense not to scan just one blade, but I’m probably gonna scan a variety of blades once they come outside. Yeah. Maybe they,

Nicholas Gaudern: maybe the OEM changes the philosophy about what they wanna do and I think with add-ons, um, there is a lot of, um, design philosophy involved.

With aerodynamics, as with lots of other disciplines, there’s a few ways you can skin the cat, right? There’s different ways that you can have a very similar effect with different products or different configurations, and I think you see that with aerodynamic upgrades quite clearly. So from some manufacturers we see, they’ll ship blades with bgs almost from root to tip.

From from the get go. You’ll see some OEMs that just have them in the route. You’ll have some that have none at all, and that that is still quite surprising, I think, because. Vortex [00:12:00] generators, particularly down in the root region of a blade to me, are, are kind of obvious now they’re proven. Uh, there’s a big stall zone in the root of the blade.

A VG array will help reduce that level of stall. Now you still have to engineer that solution. So perhaps one of the reason we don’t see all blades with them is the OEM didn’t have the capacity to engineer that solution because they didn’t have enough aerodynamics. Or they were too busy working on the next blade or whatever.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from those products being there. So this is why it’s important to, to understand what you’re getting and to ask the questions, well, why, why doesn’t the root of my blade have VGs on? Have you done a calculation that shows that they didn’t work? Uh, and if you didn’t, well maybe, maybe you could, or maybe you could talk to someone else.

Um,

Allen Hall: yeah, because you do see the offerings today. And the two obvious ones we see mostly in the states, particularly with VGs and add-ons, is Siemens VGs and trailing inspirations are everywhere. Yeah, all [00:13:00] over those blades.

Nicholas Gaudern: I think Siemens have been for a long time now, uh, very keen on add-ons. And I like that philosophy personally.

I, I think there’s, there’s a school of thought that says if you put an add-on on a blade, you’ve kind of, you’ve kind of failed. You know, you should have addressed in the design that problem, and therefore you don’t need to put an add-on on, but I would make an argument that there are so many things that an add-on product can do that are incredibly hard to achieve in a molded, uh, product.

So even if you think you could include everything in the mold, maybe the cost or the complexity of doing that. Is much harder than just sticking something on afterwards. So I, I don’t think there should be any discussion around it being like a bandaid or a cheat or a fix, or there should be an integrated part of a design process.

A VG will give you more stall margin. So if you design with VGs, maybe you can design your blade, uh, twist distribution a little bit differently. Uh, if you integrate serrations into your design [00:14:00] process, maybe you can change the type of error fo you use or the tip speed ratio that you run at, because the serrations can help reduce the noise.

So if you’re considering all of that from the get go, there’s a lot of power in these devices that are, as I say, are very difficult to achieve in just, uh, out of the mold product. Um, I, I think a lot of operators

Allen Hall: don’t realize how much impact those little plastic devices. Yeah. Can have on, on power production and which is revenue.

Yes. Straight revenue. That’s all that it is. Exactly. And they sort of discount them on some level because they made out of plastic. I don’t know why that is. It’s the, all the engineering and the literally thousands of hours of engineering and being in the wind tunnel, which is super expensive. Yes. To go figure these things out because you can’t calculate them with excel.

No, it’s, it’s way more complicated of a problem than that. You need,

Nicholas Gaudern: you need some higher fidelity tools. And again, I think that’s why there’s been, uh, differing levels of uptake among the OEMs, among different operators because it does require some, [00:15:00] some hard calculations to be done. Maybe some full rotor CFD calculations, but that is all within the grass.

Of what you can do quite economically today. You know, huge increases in computing, power cloud computing services. You can do this stuff

Allen Hall: Well. That’s the thing that I bring up to the operators quite often is I said, you use Chap GPT, right? Yeah. Yeah. And they go, well, yeah, yeah. Well, you realize the amount of compute power that exists behind those, that amount of compute that’s being built today is also gonna do CFD.

Yes. Is also gonna do all those complicated aerodynamic problems and solution sets. That we weren’t really able to do 10 years ago will be instantaneous to us in a couple of months. Yeah,

Nicholas Gaudern: I mean, we work with a, a cloud computing, uh, service, uh, at North. So they’re, they’ve been our cloud computing provider for, for a number of years now to run CFD on.

They’re just building some new data centers now in Denmark, and I believe they said one of them had a rate of power of 250 megawatts.

Allen Hall: Right. [00:16:00] Yeah. They’re having

Nicholas Gaudern: to build, imagine the, imagine the computing power behind 250 megawatts. Right?

Allen Hall: Because as GE Renova has mentioned in a couple of their more recent public, uh, notices, is that gas turbines are a big business for GE Renova for data centers.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And how much data center can you build in a year? Well, evidently about 20 gigawatts worth. Yeah. Quite a lot. Yeah. That’s a lot of compute power. Way more than the planet has ever had before. Yeah.

Nicholas Gaudern: So I think there’s, there’s some, I mean. The work we do, we think we’re quite innovative. We think we’re kind of, uh, leading the way in, in some fields, but we have to be very careful to, to stay on the train because very soon, uh, the computing power that’s gonna be available.

Might blow some of the stuff we are doing now out of the water. Sure will. So we, you know, we need to keep our eye on this fidelity. Yeah. The Fidelity’s gonna go

Allen Hall: way up, but the engineering that goes behind it still has to be there because garbage N equals garbage out. Exactly. You, you have to have people with

Nicholas Gaudern: the experience and the knowledge and the fundamentals because [00:17:00] even with things like vortex generators, there’s so many different ways you can use them.

And I think the two, the two biggest ways, uh, you know, going back to that comment about Blaze being shipped with VGs from root to tip. If you have VGs in the root, they’re fundamentally addressing stall from thick aerofoils. If they’re towards the tip, it’s more about robustness of the power curve, so helping the turbine deal with sub, uh, standard surface conditions, whether that be dirt, bugs, ice, fungus, erosion, whatever.

So even though you may be able to compute all this stuff, some of these fundamental nuggets of knowledge about how these add-ons should work or could work. It’s critical to help set up the problem. And, um, that’s, that’s where we come in hopefully.

Allen Hall: Well, let’s talk leading edge for a minute, just because there’s been a lot of data.

The Global Blade Group has published some five year study from a variety of operators that are trying different kinds of coatings and solutions. One of the things that I get asked weirdly enough is how much can I [00:18:00] possibly lose in a EP due to leading edge? And the numbers that are thrown at me are crazy.

Yes, people will tell me they’re losing 10%. There is no way you’re losing 10%. And

Nicholas Gaudern: that’s, that’s because they’re not using an engineering driven approach. Right. So we’ve, we’ve talked about data capture and, and sensible engineering. It applies to everything. And I think leading edge erosion is an example of something that just has too many reckons involved.

Well, you can actually work it out. Um, you can go to a wind tunnel, you can do CFD simulation, you can do our elastic simulations, and you can come up with a much more, uh, engineering driven and consistent, uh, loss number. So something that we’ve been working on for a long time now in power covers. How do you understand those losses?

And, uh, a year or two ago, we launched our ERA Vista tool, and that is. Uh, designed to take data from the field that real data we’ve been talking about, and combine it with the best engineering knowledge we can [00:19:00] to come up with that loss number. So, uh, a real blade model taken from a real laser scan, CFD simulation, scarda data, coupled into a, uh, a model of a turbine in, uh, in a blade element momentum form.

That is how the turbine would’ve been designed in the first place. So kinda this consistent tool chain. And what we find with leading a ros after analyzing a couple of thousand turbines now with a vista is losses one and a half, 2%. Something in that that’s, that’s a bit more realistic as a loss number.

Those are still significant numbers, but that’s, you should be worried about that number should. You don’t need to have it at 10% to be worried. No 1% on a big turbine is plenty enough to worry about. Right. Especially when you have a hundred of them. Yeah. So, so we don’t need the scaremongering, you just need that consistency and that, um, and that focus on what, what is actually happening and, and can I justify it?

So

Allen Hall: this goes back to a discussion you and I had a, a couple of months ago [00:20:00] about the spreadsheet that’s being shared around that was created at a university that supposedly. Tells us what the, the a EP loss is in an Excel like form. Yeah. That is being used so incorrectly right now.

Nicholas Gaudern: Uh, and it is like any tool, if you, if you use it in a smart way, then maybe you can get a sense of answer.

But trying to do something consistently and to see any kind of real difference between turbine models will be. Very challenging. Yes. Um, so what I like about some of these simple tools is it can help put you in a ballpark, right? That stops us having these silly conversations about 10% losses or 0% losses.

You know, it helps to kind of narrow the band, but if you then want to really understand, uh, what the answer is, much, much closer to reality. Then you have to have the blade data. Yes. Because every blade is different. Every turbine model is different. [00:21:00] You can’t have that generic setup if you want to have that, that subtlety so you can actually spend your money wisely.

Allen Hall: That’s the problem is that that tool’s being used sort of globally across a farm and everybody that’s involved on the engineering side and particularly on the finance side of the operators realizes I’m probably not gonna fix all of these. Yeah. Turbines. A hundred turbine farm, very common in the United States.

200, 300 plus. Now I need to know what turbines I need to go after based on real data. If I have a hundred turbine farm, I really want to pick out the 20 turbines that I’m gonna go put. Leaning as protection on. Yeah. I need to know that, but only when I really know it is to run it through Arab Vista.

And then it does give me the Yeah. The top 20

Nicholas Gaudern: EE Exactly. And that, and that’s exactly what it’s designed to do, to take, to give confident analysis that you can then base business decisions on. Yeah. Um, because there’s a lot of operators out there who would love to optimize how [00:22:00] they’re spending their, their own m budget.

And this tool will allow them to do that. Right. And I,

Allen Hall: I just, I’m starting to see more adoptions at Vista because that accounting

Nicholas Gaudern: Yep. Is starting to take place and then you can start planning for the future as well. Right. So, so let’s say you have five years worth of inspection data that you can run through the system.

You can then see how the AP loss has progressed over five years. Yes. Where’s it going in the future? Uh, maybe I’m finding that my turbines from one OEM are performing way worse than turbines from another OEM. Sure, and that’s just useful information.

Allen Hall: Well, even on the a EP loss from existing leading edge protection systems, some of the more draggy lossy, uh, leading edge protection systems.

Are still being applied today. So as those systems fail, the amount of drag, a lawsuit that is created when the system eventually wear out is way more than just leaving the, the turbine alone, honestly. Yeah. So it’s not, you [00:23:00] need to think of it as a, a, a larger problem. You

Nicholas Gaudern: have, you have to take that system level approach for sure.

Right? You need to think

Allen Hall: about, yes. Okay. Then my blade has say it’s 1% right now I’m gonna put this coating on, but the coating’s gonna last three years roughly generally. What happens at year three? Well, I’m gonna have a 3% loss break.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. May maybe the l break in some, in some cases might make the situation worse.

Right. So, you know, it’s about just choosing the right, the right tool for the problem, isn’t it? It is. When should I put, uh, protection on? When should I not, when should I clean a blade? When should I not? When should I apply VGs? When should I not? But unless you have the data coming in and you have that, uh, setup that we’ve been talking about earlier in the, in the discussion here, that’s really hard to do.

It is. So it’s,

Allen Hall: it’s really hard to do. And even the discussion about leading edge protection, the, the, the issue I have with a lot of them is that they do leave a significant lip Yeah. Right. In a croker area.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah.

Allen Hall: Some of [00:24:00] the providers of those systems are, are like, well, it doesn’t really make that much difference.

And they don’t have any aerodynamic data. And I’ve talked to a person that doesn’t know that much about aerodynamics obviously. ’cause there’s only a few handful of people mm-hmm In wind that know that much, but. I think, okay, yes, you’re gonna recover the 1% a EP loss that the blade roughness did have, but you’re not really recovering all that.

No, not necessarily necessarily what a vista will help also tell you, it helps, it

Nicholas Gaudern: helps make a good decision around that,

Allen Hall: right? So you may have a, a preferred LEP solution, but if it really doesn’t change your a EP, then what are we doing?

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah, exactly. And perhaps the structural implications weren’t that big on that turbine.

Right. So, so yeah, again, having that balance of the structural risk, the aerodynamic risk, I think, um, as you start gathering more and more inspection data as operators are having now that kind of risk, a score based approach where you’re bringing together structural risk, aerodynamic risk, financial risk, um, [00:25:00] and bringing all those things together, that’s, that’s where the money lies.

Allen Hall: The industry is getting smarter. About the way they spend money, which once interest rates went up and they know filter tower on the program. Every episode talks about interest rates and what effect it as. Yes, it does have an effect, but on an engineering group it has a really significant effect because you need to have a better model.

You need to have a better approach. You just don’t throw money at these problems anymore. You need to have an ROI based solution. That’s where Aero Vista comes in. That’s a real solution that’s been validated and has proven itself, and it’s gonna get you to the proper solution, the most cost efficient solution, the fastest way.

I haven’t seen a product out there, and I’ve been around quite a bit. I haven’t seen another product that even approaches that. No, no,

Nicholas Gaudern: I’m, I’m,

Allen Hall: I’m glad to

Nicholas Gaudern: hear

Allen Hall: that one. And it’s not gonna be on the spreadsheet, so if you’re working on a spreadsheet today, stop, pick up the phone, get on the internet. [00:26:00] Look up power curve.

They’re based in Denmark, but they’re worldwide. You guys are everywhere right now and start talking about cost effective solutions. Yes. Start looking at how to spend your money more wisely.

Nicholas Gaudern: Exactly. Exactly.

Allen Hall: Now’s the time to do that. How do people get ahold of you, Nicholas? How do I get people get ahold of power crew.

Nicholas Gaudern: So they can check at our website. That’s, that’s power curve. Uh, dk, we have all our contact details on there. You can look up myself, uh, on LinkedIn. Also our CEO, Neil’s Business Development. Emil, we’re all on LinkedIn. You can reach out there through the website. Yeah, we’d love to talk to you.

Allen Hall: Absolutely. So this year is the year to get your a EP figured out and to get all your add-ons figured out and to get your LEP approach, uh, aligned with the cost.

And I, I think this is the time that Power Curve will be in the lead of this. And hopefully your phone starts ringing a little bit more because we, we’d love to help them do [00:27:00] that. Absolutely. Because I do, I think there’s so much opportunity for operators to save money Yes. And, and to have more production.

Yep. Which is what we need. We need the industry, particularly the United States, need to be able to prove itself more than ever.

Nicholas Gaudern: Yeah. Just use, use the data, use the expertise that’s out there and Uh, absolutely. And uh, yeah, give us a call. Nicholas, thanks for being back on the podcast. It’s been great.

Thanks, Allen.

https://weatherguardwind.com/powercurve-performance-analysis/

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Moral Failure

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It really is amazing that the wealthiest people on the planet are so indifferent to others’ well-being.

Instead of being remembered as the guy who eliminated world hunger, or stemmed global warming, you chose to make another $100 billion?

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Moral Failure

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Morten Handberg Answers the Big RCA Questions

Blade specialist Morten Handberg on when an RCA pays off, what SCADA data can and cannot tell you, and why erosion gets written off as wear and tear.

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Allen Hall: Morten, welcome back to the program.

Morten Handberg: Thanks, Allen. It’s so– It’s, it’s so such a great, great pleasure to be back again.

Allen Hall: We have a lot to talk about today because of root cause analysis and the number of operators that are really struggling with RCAs, of when to do them or when not to go down the RCA pathway.

It, it– There’s a, a ton of confusion in the industry about it, and we thought, well, this would be a great time for Morten to come back and explain when is the right time for an RCA. So Morten, when is the right time for an RCA? What should we look for? Or wh- how big of the problem sh-should it be [00:01:00]before I find somebody to help me do this RCA?

Morten Handberg: So the obvious question is typically when something really bad happens, then I think everyone can agree that, you know, we should definitely do an RCA to get to the bottom of this. And that’s also just from a– It’s both from a technical perspective to sort of figure out, you know, why did this happen, and, you know, um, who…

Well, what is the, what is the main cause? Is it, is it something that, you know, it was happening while we were operating the asset, be it turbine or whatever? Uh, was it something that was inert in the bla- in the, in the turbine, the blade, the gearbox that was just waiting to happen? So that’s always very important to know.

Also because it tells you what is the chance of this happening again, you know, and, and can you prevent it in a meaningful way? Um, and there’s also a, a safety aspect to it because it’s– so it also tells, you know, uh, what if, you know, you don’t want blade falling left and right. You don’t want gearbox ex- [00:02:00] gearboxes exploding.

You don’t want towers to collapse. We can all agree on that. Uh, and you don’t want this to happen because you don’t, you don’t want to run the risk that someone gets hurt, uh, hurt by it. So then RCA is a really important tool to investigate and find out, well, what happened here, and how can we prevent it, and what is the chances that it happens another time?

So that, that is sort of the– That we can always agree and we would do it when, when something really terrible happens. Then there is the, you know, not so critical ones where, you know, you are just in time, uh, that, that, that you catch it, and then the question is, what is the– when is then the right time for that?

Allen Hall: There seems to be a couple of phases in the lifespan of a turbine where the RCA, it becomes a little more critical. In that first year or two, particularly if the turbine is under warranty or you’re getting close to the end of the warranty, there– at least from a lot of operators I have spoken with, that, uh, [00:03:00] they would like to do an RCA as more of a documentation of what has happened on the site to then maybe claim serial defect maybe l- at another point.

There’s just like the record-keeping part of RCAs, which I’m not sure is the right level of effort for what you’re trying to accomplish. Is, is the RCA the right approach there if you have a, a gearbox issue or a blade issue early in the life cycle of a turbine?

Morten Handberg: There is definitely before the end of warranty, there is a, there is an, there is an aspect, you know, when should you actually do an RCA?

And it should, it, it should benefit you in a way where you can– where there is an economical benefit, because it might not be a massive critical issue, but something that will lead to a lot of maintenance down the t- down the line. Um, but if you want to make it successful in the warranty claim, then you really need to know what is the, what is the cost behind it.

Is it wear and tear? Is it [00:04:00] a manufacturing defect? Is it, uh, environmental conditions, uh, that are, that are causing it? And these, these becomes really important. That’s also why you can, you, you can, you can do an RCA on erosion, uh, because it, it can be important if you see massive, uh, erosion degradation that you really want to understand, what are my local conditions?

Um, and a good example here is Australia, because Australia doesn’t work like Europe. We– You can take all the experiences we have from Europe, but it does not work in Australia. So you might want to do your, your, uh, root cause on that specific issue localized, uh, to really understand it, and that’s when RCA becomes really strong to sort of find out what are the underlying mechanisms, uh, that enables this.

But you can also pour in a lot of cost and effort into relatively minor defects, uh, or issues, um, where it does not really benefit you in the long run, and that will always be a challenge before end of warranty because you don’t really know what will, [00:05:00] what will hit you down the long run, and that’s where you, you know, then, then it becomes more of a strategic decision.

You know, breaking bolts, if you’ve seen one, maybe you don’t want to do an RCA on it. That does not really seem to matter to you that much. It’s just random occurrence. But if you start to see it, uh, in, in quick succession on multiple turbines, adjacent bolts, then it’s important for several reasons. One, you might– If you’re still within warranty, you really wanna know why is this happening and, and how do you fix it long term so this not– does not become a headache for the next 25 years?

Um, so you want to, you want– you really want to understand that. And two You can, you can live with a few broken bolts on the blade, but there, there will become a critical point where the blade will liberate and then, uh, it will, it will col- it will, it will, yeah, leave the turbine or, or collapse on its own, uh, depending on the turbine model.

And, and that is really critical to, to, uh, to avoid and, and to, uh, to [00:06:00]understand that. Um, and maybe the outcome of the idea of the RCA is monitoring, but that is a really important knowledge to have.

Allen Hall: That’s a good point about the monitoring aspect because I think a lot of times when a operator chooses to go down the RCA path, what they’re expecting is just to get a report of this is the conditions that created the damage or created the unexpected outcome Uh, it, sometimes you may not be able to get to that final answer, and the answer can be, we need to put conditioning monitoring on to have a better understanding of what the fault is.

That’s not a invalid RCA. That’s a really useful tool. But a lot of operators don’t think of an RCA as being that sort of outcome. That, that is actually where a lot of the industry problems can be solved, right, is to get the engineering up in upfront to then maybe have a little longer time or maybe instrument another [00:07:00] turbine to see how big this problem is.

I- is, is that the approach that which you would, uh, aspire to apply to some of these wind sites today?

Morten Handberg: I think that monitoring, uh, understanding the monitoring requirements is a very critical point, uh, outcome of an RCA. Both– And you can use it both during your investigation to sort of find out when you have, you know, uh, to, to find out how do you detect it efficiently, uh, but also what are the right methodologies and what is it actually that you want to achieve, uh, with mitigating this issue, and then what, what kind of, what kind of monitoring do you need.

So for instance, if you have, if you have, if you have cracks starting in your laminate, you know, do you need acoustics? Uh, do you need deflection monitoring? Um, is it es- is it vibration monitoring, or is it, um, or is it some kind of, uh, video monitoring, um, that or, or infrared scan that, that, that you need to, to keep, um, to, to, to ca- And again, the essential [00:08:00] part is then how do you catch it in time that it does not become a critical issue?

Uh, and, and then by using the RCA to find out, well, what is the best methodology to, to detect this and detect it in a cost-effective way, uh, that, that leaves you in, in good shape to, to maintain your turbines. That is a, you know, that is a really strong value proposition for the RCA.

Allen Hall: Morten, when I talk to a lot of operators about doing an RCA, uh, they don’t have access to high-speed scada, scada data.

They, they have access to low speed, depending on what their arrangement is with the OEM. Uh It’s really hard to get the high-resolution data, and they do not have the algorithms that maybe be able to tell them something about the turbine. They’ll just have sort of raw data streams. How important is it to get some of that high-speed data and the understanding of how that turbine is working as a, a fault [00:09:00] happens or s- some sort of failure happens?

Morten Handberg: It kinda depends on what it is that you’re, that you’re looking for. So for a lot of… for, for, so for SCADA data, it will, it will give you, um, a more holistic view of what, how the turbine is performing. It will give you the power production, wind speeds, wind turbine, uh, the blade pitching. Um, so it kinda gives you an understanding about how it is, how, how it is operating, but it st- does not really give you any specifics about the condition of, of the blades, of the gearbox, of the bearing, of the main shaft, of the tower.

So, um, so it does, so you don’t really have any, any detailed sense of that. You do have alarm logs, and they can be quite important. But in order for, uh, to sort of, uh, to tie that in with the failure that you’re seeing, you have, need to have a very, uh, a very strong sense of, you know, have, need to have an accurate sense of when did this actually happen.

So establishing the timeline of when the failure occurred, that, that sorta increases [00:10:00] the value of SCADA data. Um, so you can– The, one of the things you can learn from SCADA data is you can see the performance was, were, versus what, how the power production is. And then you can start to see, you can start to see how the, you know, if there’s any deviation, um, uh, that ties up in environmental conditions that, that sort of, that would affect the, the, uh, any of the turbine components.

And then SCADA data can be a very, uh, very important tool in addition to your other analysis. But you still need… But SCADA data is only a part of it, and it will only give you a s- a sense of, uh, com- with the alarm logs, it will give you, it will give you, it sorta help you build the timeline of what actually happened here.

And I can give you an example. So- If we’re looking at a blade failure, and we sort of know, well, the blade broke in half at a certain point in time. It was, uh, a very rapid occurrence, so it, it was not something that happened over a very long period of time. It was, it was a quick succession. When [00:11:00] did we start to go wrong?

Um, then scatter data can be really good to sort of, you know when it failed because the turbine did restart. But was that when things went wrong? Not necessarily. Uh, there could be times before that when you could have had tower oscillation, so shock effects. It can, it can be, um, it can be, uh, alarms from the pitch system that says, you know, the, that there is something with the blade.

It does not really behave right or that it can’t really turn right. Um, and/or the, the turbine does not really produce as it should. That can then, that can then help you establish, okay, how far back is this actually? When, when does this really start from when it collapsed and then when does the issue started to occur?

Um, so then, then, then scatter data becomes useful, but it’s not something that will tell you it was lightning, it was manufacturing, uh, or otherwise. That scatter data doesn’t really work for that, but it helps you establish the timeline of it.

Allen Hall: All right. That’s very interesting, uh, because I think that plays into some of the questions about [00:12:00] insurance and when you have a damage or some situation where you have had exceeded the deductible, right?

So you’re, you’re, now you’re into a couple hundred thousand dollars of a claim of some sort. There’s two opposing opinions about RCAs that right there is, one is I’m gonna file a claim. The insurer will perform the RCA and come back to me with what actually happened, and then we can figure out the financial details.

The other side is, I wanna have an RCA so when I hear back from the insurer, uh, that they, uh, my RCA aligns with their RCA, that we’re in agreement. And if we’re not in agreement, uh, how do we handle the difference? What is the right approach there? Is there a right approach there?

Morten Handberg: Often where you would start is, uh, you would actually a- if, if there is an issue and you’re, as an operator, is concerned, you would often start with going to your OEM and saying, “Hey- We see [00:13:00] this.

This does not seem right, or this component failed. We need you to provide an, an RCA and if you have a good contract, then the OEM is obliged, uh, to provide that. But that will state, that will be stated in, in your contract if they are required to do so. So I would, I would use my contract for that. Then if, uh, they don’t are required to perform an RCA, they don’t want to, or you’re unsatisfied with it or, and you have filed an insurance claim, then, uh, then there might be an obligation for you to carry out an RCA.

Or there might be a strong desire for you to sort of either find out, well, is the OEM right? Um, or is there something I need to challenge them on here? And then an RCA become– And that, that, that’s when you want to do your own RCA. Uh, and then whether or not you, the insurer, uh, will do an RCA, that, that sort of depends on the, on the process of the claim.

Uh, if there’s any, uh, if there’s a [00:14:00] contes- some, some contention, uh, between the parties. Um, more often than not, there is, there is a, there is collaboration between all parties if all are interested in, in seeing things coming to, to the right end, and that they use– sort of let the RCA be the, be the guiding star and that everyone can agree, okay, whatever the outcome of the RCA is, we’ll stand behind that as long as it’s carried out in a professional manner.

And these different boxes that we want to have checked, that they are all verified and there’s documentation for it. So it can be an, it can be a good tool to, uh, to sort of, uh, have an alignment on the, um, on, on a, on a claims process, really.

Allen Hall: I wanna touch on how the OEMs play into the RCA. So l- let’s use the example which is happening here in the United States quite a bit, and also in Europe offshore, which is leading edge erosion And the question regarding wear and tear versus something that’s a claim, and [00:15:00] if ex- there’s been accelerated leading-edge erosion, trying to put a root cause to that.

Is it a manufacturing issue? Is it a location issue? Is it a maintenance issue? It could be all of them or a combination thereof. Uh, how does that work? And is the RCA the right approach there just to put some markers in the ground as to what the issue really is or the underlying causes are?

Morten Handberg: Yes, but it has to be an independent RCA.

Um, because there, um, if there is invested interest in having one result over the other, then there will always be distrust between the parties. Um, you know as well as me that a lot of leading-edge degradation, I would say, is being marked out, marked out as leading-edge erosion. Uh, but from some of our previous talks then, you know, there is very much difference in leading-edge erosion defects because you can have scratches, you can have voids, you can have, uh, peeling, chipping, and you can have erosion.[00:16:00]

Um, but and, and they look very distinct, but often they get thrown into the same category, and they get thrown into the same cause, being wear and tear, which is ridiculous because, um, a lot of it is, uh, uh, uh, you know, some of the key defects they’re manufacturing with, uh, driven. So peeling and voids, that is manufacturing, and they are driving a lot of the erosion.

But if that gets masked as erosion, then, well, it’s just an environmental de- effect, so we can’t really tell. And I think also, you know, a lot… there’s a lot of, uh, issues regarding leading-edge protection systems peeling off, and then they don’t work as well, which is also somewhat, you know, we, we talked about this before ear- earlier in the podcast, you know, Australia having their own issues.

I think one of the issues that they have is environmental conditions, that’s very obvious, but that leading-edge protection systems are notoriously difficult to install there because of the hot and at times humid conditions, and they don’t work very well with a lot of [00:17:00] leading-edge, uh, products. So that would mean it’s not an environmental effect that caused a leading-edge erosion, uh, systems to fail, to fail.

It’s the application. Um, does that mean that Australia need their own product? Yes, but they need systems that are reliable and applicable in their con- in their conditions that will lead to, uh, stronger durability. And again, that’s what you need the RCA to, to, to figure out. And if you have a, an RCA carried out by someone who wants it to be wear and tear, then regard- then unless you can…

they, they, they come up with something else than wear and tear, you will always have a, a slight distrust in the result. So that’s why I would always argue, if you have concern for leading-edge erosion, then absolutely go to your O&M, figure out if they have a– if they’ve seen it before, they are keen to, to engage and provide a suitable solution and, and, you know, share actual knowledge.

But I would always keep in back of my head that if, if you’re not [00:18:00]100% sure about their– them telling the right– you– they’re, they’re telling you the truth, I would get it sanity checked, and I would carry out my own independent study which is what a lot of O- O&Mers are doing.

Allen Hall: That’s a really important bit of information for sure, Morten.

When going out to look for an RCA provider, what tends to happen, at least in the United States, and I think, uh, Australia can be this way at times and, and Europe definitely is, is that the chosen supplier of the RCA is one of the acronym companies. We all know who we’re talking about here. Just because they’re large in scale and they have a lot of capabilities, they have a lot of engineers, and, uh, they b- some of these things are pretty routine, and it does seem like they can, can do this job.

But I’m seeing more and more independent companies doing RCAs because of the level of detail. Some of the bearing issues that have popped up really require an expert in [00:19:00] bearings. Some of the tower issues require someone, especially foundation, someone who’s knowledgeable about concrete. Uh, same thing for lightning.

Usually you need somebody who knows something about lightning to be involved instead of a, a, a larger organization. What are you seeing in that space today? Are you seeing more, uh, narrow focus, uh, independent groups or engineers working on RCAs, or is it still mostly the big companies that we all know?

Morten Handberg: I would say that, uh, all of the acronym companies, uh, all have very good, talented engineers employed.

I don’t think we need to d- you know, we can all agree on that. But, uh, what I can sometimes be concerned is whether how much politics plays into their, um, their output. Um, so what would be important for me if I was, if I own a wind farm and my expertise is blades. So if I needed someone to look at my tower or my, my gearbox, I would find an expert within that [00:20:00] field.

I would definitely find someone in my network or, uh, uh, or, uh, otherwise that I know can provide an independent and honest opinion without, uh, having any any relationship to any of the OEMs or component suppliers, um, including the, including the coding suppliers. They’re all good. They’re all, uh, very, uh, all, all very skilled, have good products.

But they’re gonna want someone to look at, you know, what is the best solution for me with what is out there, um, and not be blindsided or focused on what is, you know, uh, other in, in interest in that.

Allen Hall: Right. Because it, it’s, it’s sometimes hard to tell where y- everybody’s intentions lie. It’s like hiring an attorney, I think, at some point, and that’s what I tell people is it’s like hiring an attorney.

Do you want an attorney that’s on your side, y- y- or and helping you? Do you want someone who’s more like a judge that’s just an independent person [00:21:00] or, or an advocate? Like, what are you looking for exactly? And it, uh, you need to think that out, uh, before you make your selection. And a lot of times there’s just a couple of defaults, which I have Have done really well, obviously, because the larger firms have a lot of engineering experience and have seen things globally, but not necessarily– That’s, that doesn’t mean they’ve seen your particular, uh, problem, particularly on a, on a new turbine design.

Those are really difficult RCAs, in my opinion. And Morten, you see this all the time on new turbines. Like, those are the

troublemakers in, in– from engineering to try to solve the problems ’cause they’re, they’re new.

Morten Handberg: Yeah, and we’re, we’re, we’re playing catch up, uh, with the, with the technology, and we’ve, we’ve been, been, been like that for for quite a few years now. And, and whenever, uh, a, a new blade that is, uh, ten meters long, well, we think we know what the, what the previous versions, how they worked and, uh, and what, what could go wrong with them, and that’s both in terms of the structure, in terms of the, uh, storage, in terms of, of lightning.[00:22:00]

But it seems like, you know, there’s some-always something new popping up, uh, and also in new environments that we’re installing turbines creates new problems that we haven’t really foreseen. And, and again, if something that you’re not expecting then suddenly starts to appear, that’s also when you, you really want to, to use the RCA tool to, to sort of get to, uh, get a handle on what is going on and get an– and get that deep dive understanding about what it is, because it will help you, uh, uh, understand, well, what are my risks going forward, and what can I do to mitigate?

Uh, and, um, yeah, on, you know, uh, and is there, is there, is– Do I need to, to look at, uh, putting a claim together?

Allen Hall: Morten, this is super helpful. I know a lot of operators around the world, uh, really question when to do an RCA, and if they should be doing RCAs, is it worth the spend? And you’re a great resource on that just because you’ve done a number of RCAs over the years, and you’ve been involved in [00:23:00] other companies that have performed tho-that task, and you have a, a sense of reality there of, uh, probably not an RCA, but probably some engineering time.

Or no, you really, really need to be on an RCA right now. How do people get ahold of you and, and to pick your brain about that an-and to get some, some knowledge, uh, to help them make their decision?

Morten Handberg: Um, yeah, you can always look me up on LinkedIn, and I am always happy to engage. Uh, if anyone has a question on, on blades or on RCAs or on maintenance, um, my door’s always open, and I’m happy to have a chat, uh, and share my knowledge.

That’s how I’ve been operating for my entire career, and that’s how I intend to continue. So please feel free to reach out, and ha-looking forward to, to the, to the discussion.

Allen Hall: Morten, it’s great to have you back on the program. Looking forward to having you again in the future.

Morten Handberg: I, I’m loo-looking forward to many more, more, more, more times on your show, Allen.

Thank you so [00:24:00] much.

Morten Handberg Answers the Big RCA Questions

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Banning Sharia Law in the U.S.

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