Published

2 years ago

June 27, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

R&D Test Systems: Digital Twins for Wind Turbine Testing

Allen Hall and Joel Saxum interview Dr. Elif Ecem Bas, a PhD project engineer at R&D Test Systems in Denmark. Dr. Bas discusses how R&D Test Systems is leveraging digital twin technologies and hybrid testing to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of testing wind turbine components, particularly pitch bearings.

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!

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Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. As wind turbines grow in size and complexity, testing these components has become increasingly expensive and time consuming. To address these challenges, R&D Test Systems is leveraging digital twin technologies to improve the efficiency of their test bed.

Benches, ultimately reducing testing time and costs. And if you don’t already know, R&D Test Systems is a leading company in the wind energy industry, providing testing solutions for wind turbine components on a massive scale. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Ecem Bas, a PhD project engineer.

At R&D Test Systems in Denmark, Dr. Bas earned her PhD in structural engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno, and is currently focusing on digital twin technologies at R&D Test Systems. In this interview, we will delve into the applications of digital twin technology and wind turbine component testing and learn more about Dr.

Bas’s work in this cutting edge field. Ecem, Welcome to the program.

Elif Ecem Bas: Thank you. And thanks a lot for the introduction.

Allen Hall: So there’s a lot to learn here because Joel and I have been following the digital twin saga over the last several years because you see a lot of of news articles and information about digital twins and OEMs or have been looking at it and a lot of smaller companies have been trying to prove out digital twins.

But we haven’t seen a lot of it being applied in a place where I think it’s important, which is in the testing phase. And R&D Test Systems if you haven’t worked with R&D Test Systems, build some of the largest pieces of test equipment in the world to test generators up to 25 megawatts and all kind of blades, just insanely big things.

So what is the benefit of using Digital Twin on such large test equipment?

Elif Ecem Bas: Let’s come one step back. As you mentioned in your introduction. Testing is necessity for all the wind turbine components and their subcomponents as well. This is required by the standards and this is required by the design and also the manufacturing.

So we will not get rid of testing. Testing is very important. But as the wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger, this time to test these components takes also a lot of time. And for as an example for a blade to test the Fatigue test to make a fatigue test for a blade. It takes one year or more than a year to do the saw

Joel Saxum: Constant movement.

Elif Ecem Bas: Yeah, exactly to see all the damages through the blade. You have to do that and also for a highly accelerated lifetime testing of an assault. This also takes six and eight months and also testing this. These are large facilities, right? And testing this will also cost money. tens of million euros bought to establish and run this.

And this leads, of course, longer time to market. For new and more powerful wind turbines. In detail systems, we are trying to develop digital tools to overcome these challenges and to have these turbines to roll onto the market. So and also yeah, cut cost on it. And what we are using digital twins in the testing, it is very necessary because we would like to reduce the cost of the down time in the testing itself, in the test execution itself.

Allen Hall: So there are portions of testing, from my understanding, and I’m an electrical engineer and I’m a mechanical engineer, but I’ve spent about a lot of structural testing. Those tests take a long time, they’re very expensive, but sometimes the result we get out of those tests isn’t very useful in the real world.

On the other side of this, you’ve got two problems. One is that, does the test match what’s happening in service? That’s a really great question. The second half is, how much do you know about this product before you start testing it? Or are you testing the way? You’re touching the engineering aspects properly to evaluate that for the real world.

And I think you, you run into two problems here and I want to understand this part first, which is you model the component, but you don’t model all aspects of it. And I want to, I Can you walk through that a little bit, like what you’re trying to do with a device, a blade, or a gearbox, or anything else, a pitch bearing?

Elif Ecem Bas: As you mentioned, there are two aspects. So in the component test, we just take one component and test it, right? And with our, Digital twin technologies, we focus on both simulating the complete system, whereas we only test one component and model the remaining parts. So this is one thing, and we call this hybrid testing because one part is tested experimentally, whereas the remaining components are modeled numerically.

And we do this in In a closed loop system where we share at every time step, we share the commands and feedbacks with the test bench. So this is one aspect where we test. Only one component, let’s say it is the pitch bearing, and model the remaining part, which is the blade and the hub and the other parts, the other blades.

Allen Hall: Alright, so that’s interesting. That’s a complicated model though, right? When you try to do that.

Elif Ecem Bas: Exactly.

Allen Hall: So you have to simplify it so you can model it. How are you finding those sort of the key characteristics so you can model it on a test bench properly?

Elif Ecem Bas: Why we do hybrid testing? Hybrid testing is to get the both advantages from the experimental world and from the analytical world.

So we do hybrid testing for the components that we cannot model properly. In this case, it is, we choose that it is the pitch bearing because it’s very hard to model.

Joel Saxum: Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Elif Ecem Bas: Yeah. And also the pitch bearing itself. So bearings are designed to roll, right? But the pitch bearing is rolling a little bit and then exposed to the bending moments for their lifetime.

So it’s against to its own nature. So this is why also predicting the failure mechanisms of the pitch bearing is a bit hard. Another thing is, when it is failed, it is very hard to backtrace what was the cause of this failure, because you cannot model it properly. So what we are doing is, since this part is hard to model, we put it in an experimental setup.

And the blade and the remaining part, the other kinematics are relatively easier to model.

Joel Saxum: That’s a good word. Relatively. Yeah.

Elif Ecem Bas: And so it took that part and we use that simplified models to apply more realistic loading scenarios to the pitch bearing. In order to get its behavior.

Joel Saxum: A question here like Allen said earlier pitch bearings is a headache for, man, what would you say, 90 percent of the people we talk to, Allen? Oh, easily, yes. When we’re thinking about you guys advancing the testing mechanism for us, because it’s, it is, just, if you picture it in your head, It is, a bearing is designed for that rolling surface, however, this not only is exposed to the root bending moment of the blades, basically, on a fulcrum, pulling and pushing on it, but it’s also having gravitational loads at the exact same time, going up, sideways, down so you have this really complex load scenario.

You guys coming forth with something that could hopefully accelerate lifetime testing,

Elif Ecem Bas: Yeah. Also, we are looking into testing extreme cases in this scenario. So picking up extreme wind load event and test this and hopefully see the development of a failure with the test.

Joel Saxum: That with everybody with pitch bearings.

If you talk to anybody in the manufacturing sector, it’s it’s really hard to do an accelerate at any kind of lifetime testing. For that pitch, because it isn’t when you look at it in the crate, right? That is a robust piece of metal. That’s a big, bad thing, right? If anybody’s ever seen one of these it’s impressive how big it is and how heavy it is and how much steel there is.

But to test that you can’t you can’t do a life cycle test in six months on that thing. It’s just not possible.

Elif Ecem Bas: Exactly. And also what. We hear from the test centers that they cannot see the failures with this highly accelerated lifetime test on it. So what we are looking into, okay, we have this extreme load case scenario.

Can we apply this with hybrid testing and can we see the development of the failure of this component?

Allen Hall: Let me ask you about the complexities of pitch bearing, because I think Joel brought it up at a really high level, but I want to focus in, drill down to how complex this is. So you have this massively long blade, right?

The blades are getting longer, so the center of gravity is moving further and further out, the center of lift on them is moving also, the blades are flexing, right? Then you got the gravitational pull. piece. But on top of that, now you’ve added a control system in the turbine, which is pitching the blades as they rotate around the 360.

So you have this, and you’re not necessarily sure what the OEM is doing with their pitch control system. That’s not widely disclosed as to say it that way. So when you’re looking for failure modes on a, particularly a new blade with a new control system, On mostly an existing bearing structure, you have a lot of unknowns there.

And we have, as we have, Joel has pointed out, we have a lot of operators around the world that are complaining about pitch for each breaking and yet they passed all the required tests for to get type certification. So now we’re going back and this is where I think the brain powered R&D Test Systems really matters here.

Now you’re able to apply some knowledge because now we see these failures. And then can you model those failures? Are you able to digital twin the failure mode and then place that back into the new testing regime?

Elif Ecem Bas: Yeah, first of all, we have to see that if we can track these failures with the hybrid testing while applying these extreme load scenarios.

And as you mentioned, in our, now in our test configuration, we have two actuators, to apply the bending moment of the blade. And we also have the third actuator to model the pitch angle, to control the pitch angle. So we are also making it yeah, rotate to pitch, and then to apply the bending moments. We are But these cal these are all coming from the simulation world, so all these bending moment calculations are coming from the simulation world of this blade.

So we calculate a bending moment at the blade, which will be applied to the pitch. And we apply this in the test bench itself.

Allen Hall: So let me ask, let me go down this rabbit hole a little bit further. Because it’s a very complicated mechanical problem, right? It’s probably one of the most difficult mechanical problems out there today because of the quantities of product and the cost involved.

You have this, you have a fixed hub diameter for the most part as the blades get longer. So the load paths in that are are unique. There’s not they’re not simple, right? So when you’re creating a piece of test equipment to go evaluate and in this hybrid condition, I’m trying to go through the thought process of what R&D Test Systems is trying to do here because you have so many variables you have this I’ll call it a black box of control system like there’s inputs and there’s outputs and so you’re looking at the outputs into the bearing How do you then when you go to create that piece of test equipment to test it?

determine how these failures are occurring. Do you just, do you design the equipment based upon that control system, that digital twin?

Elif Ecem Bas: So for this specific case, it is slightly different. We have this research and development project with the university, Aarhus University and FORCE Technology, and Together with this team, we developed this hybrid testing framework for pitch pairings.

All of us together are, is designed this let’s say test setup. But this is not the similar ones that we develop here. We usually develop large scale test benches. This is considerably small, and we would like to get yeah, apply the know how and see the results of hybrid testing.

And what we are also helping with our customers here, as you said, there are so many people are involved. So the the control system of the, uh, OEM is their own IP protected and the blade is maybe the blade model is that they don’t want to share.

Allen Hall: Definitely IP.

Elif Ecem Bas: Exactly. It’s also even the wind load could be an IP issue.

So what we are also trying to to give our customers as a service is how to combine these pieces together.

Allen Hall: Okay, that’s brilliant. All right, so then that drives the cost down because you’re applying so much knowledge ahead of time. So when you get to the test scenario, you know what you’re looking for already.

These are the features. These are the failure modes because of the way the control system is designed and operating. This is how we’re going to test these bearings in a real world scenario. How much cost reduction and time shortening does that does that, does occur because of your digital twin?

Elif Ecem Bas: Another aspect of digital twin, as I just mentioned, we are trying to provide a platform for our customers to put their models into. Together. So it’s not that high, only the hybrid testing that we are focusing on, but we are also focusing on combining different simulation models. So it could be if it is a test bench, it is the test bench and analytical models that are combined, but it could be also test bench models combined with OEMs device under test.

So we are also looking into that. Yeah. So we are yeah, as also as you mentioned, this is extremely IP secured way and we are trying to solve this problem. In terms of time constant, like How much time can we reduce? Cannot give an exact number, but this will improve the collaboration between the partners.

As an example, this is apart from hybrid testing to prepare for a test. This can take several months. So how does how the people test is they design a component in a digital world. And then they create some load sequences and they contact contact to the test operators. They say they want to test this test sequences in their test bench.

So there are so many back and forth, even for the planning of this large tests. So what we are trying to do with these digital tools is to give our customers and also the test bench operators a platform where they can. Plug in their models and then execute these test scenarios beforehand before the test execution so that they can save time.

in both planning and they can also reduce time in the test campaigns that wouldn’t make sense.

Joel Saxum: Ecem, when we talked off air, we talked about a little bit about this, right? This kind of, this concept of the functional mock up interface and the function, yeah, and the functional mock up unit where it’s basically like you guys took the concept from the automotive world, from their advanced testing processes, right?

Elif Ecem Bas: The FMI standard was developed Yeah. Yeah. By an automate by automated industry. So this was and this standard is out there for several years, and it is quite mature in that industry. And what we are trying to do in the wind industry or also in the testing, we are trying to adapt This technology to our models in our system as well.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. The cool thing about that was you said basically, because it is a standard that’s been used for it, this is the black box stuff, right? This is how an OEM can protect it, protect their IP come to you guys. It goes through the functional mockup interface, that black box there, where they.

And then everything comes into your side, you’re able to test. But the cool thing about that is, is since it is an automotive standard, it’s the practices out there. People have knowledge of it. There’s multiple. I think you said over 200 different tools are available to work through with this as well.

So there’s a lot of stuff that’s. That’s there. It’s just getting the, basically the wind industry or the, that industrial testing that you guys do up to speed with the, what the rest of the world is doing and, or not the rest of the world, but different industries are doing.

Elif Ecem Bas: Exactly. There are many commercial and also open source tools that are available to use this Functional lockup interface standard.

Allen Hall: Can I walk through a test case? And I want to get a jams input on this because we see the, see this a lot. And Joel and I have been around a lot of wind turbines over the last couple of months. And as Joel has pointed out, pitch bearings is the main problem. You see a lot of cranes replacing pitch bearings.

Okay. So the question we get asked all the time is, Hey, the OEM has offered us an upgrade to these pitch bearings to prevent this problem. I want you to describe the problem and say it’s a problem. In the meantime, I have other pitch bearing manufacturers saying they have a replacement that doesn’t require the fix.

Now, both of those may be right, both of them may be wrong, but I think what’s happening now is that the operators are thinking about doing testing on their own. And if they do that, the, your hybrid digital twin approach makes a lot of sense for them because it’s going to, it takes the OEM and the other manufacturers of these devices out of the picture and lets them focus on what’s really happening.

Now How would they I’m thinking of a couple large OEMs in the United States and in Europe that have this problem, how would they connect with you to do that testing? Would they just say, Hey, Ajam, this is the turbine we have, this is the bearing we have. We need you to look at this fix or solution and just let you go with it.

Or how does that interaction work?

Elif Ecem Bas: First of all, we define which part. So which. What component are we testing? Then we design the test setup accordingly for this test for this hybrid testing scenario. Because as I mentioned, we need to have the pitch actuator, we need to have the other actuators to apply this to that.

And then, Once we want to involve the models, we have to walk through with them how to define these black boxes. Then we define, once we define the interface, because we will tell them what to share in between the test bench and the model. So we will not help with that. So they will have We can help them to put this in a black box.

And also we tell them, okay, you need these five signals that are coming to this test bench, and you will get these five to your model. So we define these interfaces. together with them and then help them to put this in this black box, let’s say, and then help them execute this test campaign.

Joel Saxum: Allen, what you’re saying here right now in my mind starts screaming joint industry project between the asset owners. Get a bunch of them together that have the same machines and go test them themselves. Try to find a fix. It could work.

Allen Hall: R&D Test Systems is the place to test it because they test large items and they’ve been doing it for years and they have all the technical know how and the equipment to go test it.

So R&D Test Systems is the right place to do it. I think you’re right Joel, connecting operators together to work with a job to create the control system, the black box, the hybrid, is the real link. that we’re missing at the moment. And that needs to be done.

Elif Ecem Bas: Just to give a comment, we don’t have, we don’t own the test.

We are not a test bench operator. We are test bench developers. So we know a lot about developing the test systems to test these equipments. So yeah, we don’t have our own test bench facility, but we help we know that side. And we can help our customers to develop these.

Joel Saxum: Yes. All of the things that we’ve been talking about, this is your baby at R&D Test Systems.

You’ve been your PhD is in it and the hybrid testing and everything like you are the expert in it. But my, where I’m falling down a little bit is that this is not this way of testing and this methodology and these idea of digital twins and hybrid testing, this isn’t standard yet.

So this is not in the IEC standard. This isn’t. A rule that they have to, anybody has to follow right now. It’s still in that R&D phase. We you’re sitting in this chat, this should be how we do it. And I believe that this is definitely the future, but how do you feel about, like, where do you see it going?

Do you see this being adopted as mainstream? This is how we’re going to test stuff, or is it still going to be an R&D thing for a while?

Elif Ecem Bas: Yeah, very good question. I think the industry needs Kind of this collaborative platform, both for hybrid testing and also digital twins, because we can see that this is Requirements because everyone wants to improve their both modeling and testing, and we for sure need to collaborate more to do you’re right for hybrid testing itself for components. Hybrid testing. There is no standards, but there is hardware in the loop testing, which is in IEC standards, which is not exactly. hybrid testing, but it is also hybrid testing. So I can see that it would also come at some point for component testing as well.

Yeah, I don’t know when, but it will come because this kind of there are so many challenges and we have solutions to these challenges. So I think it will come at some point. Yes.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. You’ve got two great partners in the University of Aarhus and force technology bringing in the issues and helping you develop those things.

But what you, I think what you are sitting on and your department, your team, what you guys are working on could be a fix for some of the large problems that our industry is seeing. You. Everybody’s complaining about OEM quality or OEM this, nah, I don’t want to bash on the OEMs, but like they’re getting components that are failing.

The answer could be, advanced better testing to develop better products before they go out into the field because now we have Platforms with 000 machines out in the world where they have a component that keeps failing on them. While that’s good for the aftermarket companies and the people selling the extra bearings.

That’s not good for the general grid and the energy transition, right? So you guys have that piece there that could be the link between making the wind turbines that are in the field more effective at staying, guaranteeing uptime. That’s what we want. That’s why you’re, that’s why we’re all here.

Allen Hall: And Joel, That’s a good segue because I think we wanted to highlight Ajam’s and R&D test systems technology and make sure everybody understood that there is an alternative out there rather than just taking the component from the manufacturer and saying, yeah, trust me there is another way to do this, which is to actually look at it from a systems perspective and that’s what Ajam is doing here.

Ajam, how do they, how do people get ahold of you and how to. How do people contact R&D Test Systems?

Elif Ecem Bas: Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, it’s Elif Ecem Bas. You can also find us in our website, rdtestsystems.com

Allen Hall: Ecem, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I’ve learned a tremendous amount. I know Joel has.

And thank you for addressing one of the big problems of wind energy today. I’m glad you’re working on this. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Elif Ecem Bas: Thank you.

https://weatherguardwind.com/rd-test-systems-digital-twins-for-wind-turbine-testing/

Renewable Energy

Tilt Renewables’ Dr. Liz Beavis on Wind O&M in Australia

Published

5 hours ago

April 9, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Tilt Renewables’ Dr. Liz Beavis on Wind O&M in Australia

Dr. Liz Beavis, Asset Manager at Tilt Renewables, joins to discuss O&M contracts, balance of plant, and lessons from Australia’s biggest and oldest wind farms. Contact Liz on LinkedIn or by email.

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!

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Liz, welcome to the program. Thanks,

Liz Beavis: Alan. I feel I’m a long time listener. First time caller, so it’s exciting.

Allen Hall: You are a long time listener and thanks for doing that. Uh, and Liz, I just find you to be a wealth of knowledge and, uh, we met on a couple occasions since I’ve been in Australia and it’s just, uh, a fun to connect here because I think a lot of the things that are happening in Australia need to be spread around the world.

A lot of, uh, good o and m practices happening in Australia, uh, from hard lessons learned. So that’s what I want to dive into today. And then the first one is, I don’t think many people realize this, that you went. From commissioning, Australia’s largest wind farm, Cooper’s gap to managing seven [00:01:00] of the 10 oldest operational wind farms in the country.

So you got some of the biggest, newest to some of the oldest assets. Uh. Uh, my question is like, when you started that, did you just kind of assume like wind, wind farms or wind farms or wind turbines or wind turbines and you could just basically own and end them the same, or do, or did it just occur to you immediately like, I need to take a different plan of attack here?

Liz Beavis: I think I, I knew nothing about wind farms when I turned up at Cooper’s Gap, so, so yeah, I got my, well, okay, we’ll go right back to the start. So I was working at a thermal power station and I was just thinking. There’s no future in coal. How do I get into renewables? And then a wind farm got built like 50 kilometers from my house.

I can, I can see it in the horizon. Um, and I thought, oh, they’re not gonna need a chemical engineer there, but I wonder if they need a site manager or something. And then the site manager role came up, I applied for it. So the services site manager. So, [00:02:00] um. That was July, 2020. That’s when I first started listening to the podcast.

’cause I thought I better find out something about this industry before I do my job interview. And so I’ve been listening ever since. But, um, yeah, so I don’t know. I was just lucky to get that role. And I turned up and, um, I think it was the end of September, 2020 first time I’d ever set foot on a wind farm ’cause of COVID and everything.

I didn’t, I didn’t go there for the interview. My manager was in Thailand. I just turned up. And, um, so they, they’d finished construc, they’d built all the towers where they hadn’t finished commissioning. And so we’re still working out of construction, dongas, you know, temporary buildings and um, and there was hundreds of people on site and it was just the absolute chaos of.

Constructing a two hundred, a hundred and twenty three turbines. You know, like there’s just people everywhere. And I thought, wow, I’ve just gotta figure out what I’m supposed to be doing here. There were a few technicians. I found out how many technicians I supposed to have. Just started recruiting, started figuring out what I was supposed to be doing there, and I just [00:03:00] learned so much.

In the two years we took over the new r and m building. We had failed gear, boxes, generators, transformers, overhead line, underground line, pretty much. Anything that could fail failed, and I got to see what we needed to do. Um, but through all of that, I was also thinking, oh, how do I manage this wind farm better?

I don’t know anything about wind farms, and I’m reaching out to the other GE sites, but the, the next biggest site was 75 turbines, and all of the rest of them are 30 and 40. So they’re saying to me, oh, you just get a team to go around. And I’m thinking. Well, that’s six weeks of work. You know, like, like everything is so much bigger on a bigger wind farm.

And then I’d reach out to the, the American sites. That had big wind farms, but their contracts were so different, and I didn’t understand at first, I started to realize, well, their contracts are completely different and their focus is different, and so they’re not facing the same issues that I’m facing.

Um, and then, you know, even speaking to a wind farm in [00:04:00] Sweden that was a similar size, but they, you know, they. They have to think about climate and what work they can do in winter. So I started to, as you said, you start to think, well actually everyone farms very different. And it’s, um, you know, you can learn from others, but you really need to understand how your conditions are affecting what you can and can’t do.

Um, and then, so then I got the job at Wally Power Services with as a portfolio manager for the renewables, um, fleet There. And yeah, a whole lot of really old turbines. And it was just so interesting to see that contrast between the new turbines and the old ones and um, and also being a independent service provider, what we could do and what the technicians.

So many clever technicians out there on wind farms, just figuring stuff out and, and fixing things that if you tried to do that within the OEM, you get really hamstring Engineers say, oh no, you can’t. You can’t do that. You can’t fiddle with that. Whereas once you’re released from that, for better or worse, [00:05:00] the technicians are just off sorting things out.

So that was really interesting to see that contrast. And now I’m with, um, tilt Renewables. So I’m the asset manager for Cooper’s Gap and Silverton Wind Farms. So I’m, I’m now seeing from the owner’s point of view how we actually manage these contracts with the OEMs and with ISPs and how we, how can we do r and m better?

Matthew Stead: And from the, um, from the ISP, um, experience, um, compared to your experience now, what are some of the biggest differences that you’ve observed between the old, the other sites and the, and the new site?

Liz Beavis: Yeah, I think it, it’s really just that you’re on your own. Um, so you’re relying on good technicians. To figure things out, you can, you need a parts and service agreement with the OEM, um, so you can reach out to them and ask for support, but they’re, you are the lowest priority.

So yeah, you don’t always get information, [00:06:00] so you just gotta be set up to figure things out. But then that does give you the freedom to make changes and to, to fix the things that you’re saying, whereas. Often the OEMs are so, uh, stuck with that mindset of, oh, we, we don’t want people to know we’ve got a serial defect.

So we’ll just keep kind of patching things up and hopefully, hopefully no other sites find out about this. You know, instead of just saying, Hey, we know this is an issue, here’s a good way of fixing it. ’cause just all I understand, all of the liability that throws, that, that flows from that, uh, you know. You can’t handle it.

Allen Hall: Does that change your perspective, knowing all those things? Do you have a, just a unique background in so many ways where you’ve seen, uh, pretty much all sides of wind operations. How do you think about that now? How are you, are you are addressing contracts differently or are you thinking about the way you staff differently just from your experience?[00:07:00]

How does that play into it?

Liz Beavis: Yeah, so definitely from a owner’s point of view. I understand what the limitations are of the OEMs and the ISPs, and so I know, I know what I can push them to do and what I can’t push them to do. And even though you’ve got the contract in front of you and you know it, it says you’re gonna do this, there’s certain things where you, you know, that you need to let it slide because it’s just not reasonable to push it.

You just, you just know that they can’t achieve things. Um. But then also going into new r and m contracts, you kind of know what’s critical, what to ask for, what, you know, what, what we need to make sure that we’re getting right from the start.

Allen Hall: How do you sort that out? Because I’ve heard, uh, I’ve talked to many operators.

that are doing O&M and they look at the contract much like you, and then they, they look at the contract and go, okay, here’s are the things I can probably get. Here’s the things I can’t get. How did you come to that determination is just because you’ve been so close at all this time? Because I think a [00:08:00] lot of people in wind that are new look at that contract, as the rule of law and you’re gonna get everything in there.

But I think the more experienced people realize it’s more of a negotiation or starting point, even

Liz Beavis: particularly, uh, like Comparing construction to O&M I say, construction’s the. sprint and O&M’s the marathon, and you’re in a relationship with this O&M provider for 10, 15, 25, 30 years, depending on your contract terms.

So you can’t go in at year three and just have a big fight with each other And you know you, need to, You need to be able to work together. So it’s understanding what the value drivers are on both sides and, um. And focusing on that. So, you know, for us as the owner, we, we just want generation.

So even though availability is what’s in the contract, really what we want is generation. So if we can figure things out together to get the maximum generation, and maybe that helps the O&M [00:09:00] provider save some costs because, they’re not just doing what’s in the contract, but they’re doing what actually helps us get generation.

That’s, that’s kind of the. That’s how we work. And then the contracts there. If, everything falls apart, you’ve got a legal document underpinning where you can say, hold on, you were supposed to do this. This is the damages we can claim. And this is where we can go with it.

But you’re not just enforcing every, clause. Because some of it’s been written so long ago, it’s not even relevant.

Allen Hall: Does that lead you down the path of shadow monitoring then?

Liz Beavis: My view is I would rather have, I would rather be at a point where I have a relationship with the OEM where we can agree that there’s no point me spending money that they’ve already spent and that.

That we get access to their data. Even if I pay half of what I would spend on shadow monitoring as an additional fee to the OM provider, so they get some revenue and they provide me with the data, I think that’s a better outcome for both parties than to [00:10:00] feel like I’m there looking over their shoulder monitoring what they’re doing.

So, I mean, it depends on what your relationship is, but our, our preference would be. That we’re working together and that we’re both benefiting from something rather than spending more money than we need to on doing something twice.

Matthew Stead: Maybe a question, Liz, in terms of your, you know, former, you know, thermal, uh, background, what, what sort of lessons learned or, or things did you sort of bring across from that, that previous um, experience?

You know, although six years ago,

Liz Beavis: I think that the first thing was safety. There was, um. There’s a big difference and, and particularly coming into a construction site, that’s, it’s always a challenge because there’s just this time crunch and cost crunch and, and it’s all just, we need to just jump in and get everything done.

We can’t stop and make sure we’re doing this safely or properly. Um, so getting my [00:11:00] team to stop thinking like that. We are here, we’re doing o and m. We’re here for the long term. If we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it properly. If we need to wait a couple of days to have the right tooling, that’s what we’re gonna do.

And just kind of slow everyone down and then, and get the right procedures and the equipment and, and everything. Uh, so we did that. Um, and then. I think the other thing I’ve probably just brought across is understanding of the market. So I was quite involved, um, with thermal generation and, um, market and bidding and um, and I think if you come into Wind Farm o and m, you’re kind of separated from that because you are just there to maintain the turbines and you, you don’t care what the market’s doing, but your owner cares what the market’s doing.

So being able to, to think about, well, what. What does my owner actually need? Um, and, and do that, you know, support that as well. Then you, you’re better at [00:12:00] delivering the o and m,

Allen Hall: right? Because it does add a little bit of perspective to it. I see a lot of operations and maintenance where availability is a thing, but it’s not like the top priority.

It’s, it’s odd how they think about it. At the end of the day, you’re producing power, and I know Tilt Renewable, having been to your offices there. Is focused on availability. You’re selling power to the grid. You need to be looking at what the prices are. You’re actually monitoring that. There’s, it’s a complicated enterprise.

It’s much more complex than I think, uh, you would think of a old power company, uh, particularly in the states where everything just kind of runs and it’s, it just happens in Australia. It’s a lot more freewheeling, I would say, and there’s more emphasis on. Making sure the assets are running, that they’re available and they are producing power.

That must change the way you think about managing the assets and particularly. You, you, there will be problems, right? There’s always problems. Are you, are you trying to then categorize [00:13:00] problems and trying to assess when you’re gonna take turbines out? Or you’re just saying, Hey, we just can’t fix this thing until next year.

There must be some sort of organization going on there. How do you think about that in terms of keeping your availability so high?

Liz Beavis: That’s one thing that I had to change my mindset. From thermal to wind because there’s a lot of work you can do on a thermal power station while it’s running. Whereas anything, anything you wanna fix on a wind turbine, you’re taking it down.

And then on a thermal power station, you have a six or eight week outage where everything’s shut down, 200 people turn up, everything gets fixed. And then you run it back up again and then you hope that it doesn’t come back down. Yeah. Whereas the wind turbine, it’s like, it’s, the way I see it is just if it’s running, it’s running.

You don’t go and stop it for any reason. You know, so it’s you, you only, you’re going there to do reactive work. When it stops and you’re going to do proactive annual maintenance work every 12 months, [00:14:00] and it’s really about getting the scope of your annual maintenance, right, so that you’re addressing everything.

And you know, the goal is like, this is what was drilled into me with GE was the goal is you go to that turbine once a year or twice a year if it has a semi-annual. Maintenance requirement, but that’s, that’s what you’re trying to achieve. So you’re trying to get the reliability to a point where you only need to go there when it breaks, and Oh, so you only need to go there for the annual maintenance and it shouldn’t be breaking down in between.

Unfortunately, that’s. Very difficult to achieve. I think. I think what it was interesting to see the older turbines, um, have a lot more engineering, uh, margin in them. Everything sort of does perform better.

Allen Hall: Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you because I do think there’s a difference between a slightly older turbine, even a turbine that was manufactured 20 years ago versus today.

It does seem like there’s a lot more knowledge about those turbines. Maybe it’s just, uh, tribal knowledge. Over time you’re gonna learn more about them, but there, there is a huge knowledge [00:15:00] gap. Between on a new turbine, you just, you just don’t know what you don’t know. How are you trying to address that?

Are, are you getting involved in RCAs or are you, are you trying to be proactive monitoring scada, the, it’s just a lot of your plate here. How do you try to manage all that and what’s your process there?

Liz Beavis: So the way the contract is structured, that’s all the OEM’s responsibility. Uh, but what, what we’re trying to do is say, well, we’ve got a lot of expertise in our asset management team.

Involve us. Like, we’d like to help. We can ask the questions, we can tell you what we’ve seen on other sites. We can, you know, we, we can actually help with this. Um, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s kind of awkward that, um. There’s no requirement in the RM phase for them to provide us with an RCA under this contract. So, you know, there’s some, there’s some contracts where they may have to, but, um, yeah, [00:16:00] I think that’s an oversight because we’re kind of guessing or we’re, we’re getting given.

Part of the information, but we don’t necessarily have the whole story. And I think the advantage that the OEM has is that they’ve got hundreds of thousands of turbines out there and they, they’re monitoring all of them. They, they should be able to figure out what’s going on a lot easier than I can. I’m looking at two sites and saying, oh, hey, is, is that an issue?

Or is, you know, they’ve got all that data. And, and that was the challenge with an RSP is that you, you’re only looking at a limited. Subset of sites, you’re not necessarily being able to put everything together, but I’m not sure that we all get the value of that knowledge, whether, whether they’re actually crunching the data or whether they’re keeping it to themselves because they don’t want us to know about serial issues.

Um, but yeah, I, I feel like the OEMs could be leveraging that more.

Allen Hall: Are you able to bridge that gap sometimes with the [00:17:00]OEMs? I do feel like the OEMs have. Pretty good. Uh, at a minimum. I mean, I think a lot of times they’re really good on the back offices, on the engineering side of the technical expertise and the subject matter experts do exist there, and they are pretty quick to get to the root cause of a problem.

But are you able to get to those back offices, to those engineering experts and to talk to them? Have you found a way to do that, that that kind of works for, for both sides of that, of that business?

Liz Beavis: Something I found really helpful is, um. We’ve joined some international groups. There’s a few groups around that say the O2 O, they’ve, they were O2 O wind, they’re now O2 O renewables and also epr, um, electric Power Research Institute.

So we’ve joined them. We are sharing sort of general, um, breakdown information and issues. Um. Within those groups. And so then we are hearing from, you know, there’s a wind farm in Scotland that says, oh yeah, we’ve got the same [00:18:00] component. We are seeing this issue. And then I say, oh, well I better go check if we’ve got that problem.

And then, you know, so, so we’re, we’re kind of owner to owner learning things, so that’s quite helpful.

Allen Hall: So you’re leveraging the other, uh, operators of the same turbines or, or really something similar to what you’re operating globally? That’s a, that’s a smart move and a lot of operators do not do that. I mean, and maybe in the States there’s a couple of, of organizations in the states, EPRI being one of them.

O2 O is, I think, uh, definitely popular in Europe. They’re both very effective. So in instead of having to rely on the OM all the time, you’re basically word of mouth with other operators saying, I have this problem. Does anybody else have this problem? Have you solved it? Or maybe what the OEM has said, maybe the OEM has has told another operator what the answer is.

Uh, is that the way you’re kind of thinking about attacking that problem?

Liz Beavis: Yes, but we’re not sharing any confidential information [00:19:00]through those forums.

Allen Hall: Never gonna do that. However, it does, I mean, if you get some heads nodding in those discussions, like an oh two, oh, uh, uh, meeting or even an EPRI meeting, uh, or e-cig in the United States.

Basically doing something very similar. A lot of times I don’t think operators use them, the, maybe the way that they should, they, they, they turn into kind of complaint sessions instead of solutions, uh, that could be shared. Are you finding that you’re able to get to some solutions through those organizations?

Liz Beavis: I probably found out more about failure modes and things to look out for. Necessarily then solutions. But yeah, it, it’s definitely, it’s definitely been valuable.

Matthew Stead: Um, and Liz, we went for a bit of a drive around your site. Once

Liz Beavis: I be how many days, Matt? You’re like, oh, come up for a day. And then I said, you’re gonna need to come for longer.

Matthew Stead: The one day turned into three days. It was a wonderful time. Um, um, however, I think a part of our conversation was about. All the extra balance [00:20:00] of plant. And, um, I know you’ve got a few te uh, pet topics around balance of plant, including, um, toilet facilities. So maybe you could, uh, share your thoughts on, you know, the, the forgotten part of the, the site.

Liz Beavis: Okay. Well, I can talk about toilets. Um, I think, I think we got away with. Um, small wind farms with just an o and m building and, um, technicians could drive back to the toilet pretty easily. Now. Cooper’s Gap Wind Farm is um, uh, 123 turbines. The furthest turbine is an hour’s drive. No one’s driving, you know.

Back from the turbine and then to the r and m building and then back to their work site. So, um, we need to, we need to consider that in the design phase, but also I’ve just been talking about it every opportunity ’cause um, people just aren’t aware and that we need to think about what facilities we’re providing to our technicians.

And particularly in Australia, we’ve got a big [00:21:00] energy transition we’re trying to deliver and we’re not gonna get the workforce. If people think that wind farms aren’t nice places to work, so I, I think it’s really important. So I’ve, um, I have purchased a demountable containerized toilet facility that’s gonna go out into one of our furthest corners of the wind farm.

Um, so I’m gonna establish that and then look at where else we need to put them. And that was, um, $50,000 Australian delivered. So it’s really. A small cost considering everything else we spend on that one farm. Um, just to provide suitable facilities for our workforce. So, uh, I’m encouraging people to think about that and I’ve had some good conversations since I brought it up at wma, so it’s been good.

Matthew Stead: Yeah, it also struck me several, um, several challenges were a much bigger issue than you may have thought them to be at the start.

Liz Beavis: I think what I found interesting is, uh, o over all the different wind farms is, um, it’s [00:22:00] really difficult to predict what the civil cost is gonna be. You, you can have some wind farms that are just dead flat and have very minimal civil costs, but as soon as you build a wind farm.

On a ridge, you know, ridge line and you’ve got lots of bridges and steep roads and drainage issues. Yeah. And then depending on the erod ability of the soil and the rainfall, suddenly you’re out there grading pretty regularly. Um, I have now learned way too much about civil engineering, and it’s not my area of interest, but, um, I think there’s, there’s better decisions that can be made during construction and.

Design stage of the wind farm. There’s, you know, there’s some roads, uh, I’ve driven around as a civil contractor at one of my sites and, um, he was involved during construction and he’s also a landholder and he said, well, I told them to put the road over there where it would’ve been sort of gentle slope up the hill, but they wanted to just build a shorter road.

So they [00:23:00] just put a straight up the hill and then they had to bring, um, extra machines in to tow all the components up the hill. ’cause they made it too steep. But that’s then what they’ve left us. For RM to maintain, you know, so that it’s just bad decisions and, and I think it’s, yeah, it gets very fraught during construction.

And then, um, you know, towards the end you’re just trying to get the project finished and you’re trying to get handover and you’re just worried about the turbines, you know, like what’s happening with these generators. And all of that becomes a focus. And meanwhile, the, the civil work hasn’t been finished to the standard and the drains haven’t been built to the drawing.

And, and that’s just. The last thing on anyone’s list. ’cause we’re trying to get the turbines right. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s a cost that you then wear for the rest of the project, so it’s worth thinking about. Um, and in Australia we’ve also, it’s quite common for the electrical balancer plant to be maintained by the OEM.

Um, and we’re starting to find it’s not really their area of [00:24:00] expertise. They’re not really set up for it. You know, there’s sort of a question mark whether that’s. The best approach or whether, uh, as an owner, we are better to split that out and look after it ourselves, but then that complicates availability guarantees.

And who’s responsible for the underground cable? Yes. And there’s, there’s a lot to think about.

Allen Hall: I was gonna ask you about that because that is an important difference, uh, in Australia where the BOP seems to be, uh, more, or the responsibility of the operator than the OEM, and that must be at least somewhat Australian specific because of the nature of the country and the difficulties that are involved there, but.

Does that mean that as you, as the operator need to be bringing on people that know, uh, substation, architecture, underground cables, transformers, pads, uh, roads, all that, is that something that you just have decided that it makes more sense to do and we can probably do it [00:25:00] better, uh, as a, to make availability better and make the site more accessible?

Is that, is that the thought process that went into that?

Liz Beavis: I think the driver was, um. The lenders. So, so finance, um, they, and that’s, that’s why that there was a real trend for the fully wrapped contract. So a, a 25 year fully wrapped contract and, and the finance world is de-risked, you know, it’s magically de-risked because, because you’ve locked it in and it’s all just gonna get done.

And it’s, and now I think everyone’s realizing, well, it’s not actually DeRoot. Like there’s, there’s a lot. That we need to manage and, and now we’ve lost control over it. And actually maybe we’d like to pull that back, but it, it’s, it’s site specific. You know what you. What makes sense to, to give to the o and m contractor versus separating it out and managing it

Allen Hall: Well then let’s talk about the two wind farms you are involved with day to day, Silverton [00:26:00] and Cooper’s Gap, and now they are not next door to one another.

Silverton’s in New South Wales, far west. Right. And then, uh, Cooper’s Gap is up in Queensland, way up north Counter by Brisbane. Uh, those are what, 500,000 miles apart from one another. They’re a long ways away.

Liz Beavis: Yeah, I haven’t looked at how far they’re, but um, so I live near Cooper’s Gap, so everyone in Melbourne’s quite pleased with that because it’s a pain for them to get here.

’cause it, I, it’s a three hours, I’m three hours drive from Brisbane. That’s not even North Queensland. That’s, I’m still in Southeast Queensland. Really.

Allen Hall: Right. True. Yeah.

Liz Beavis: So then for me to get to Broken Hill, I have to drive to Brisbane and then fly to Sydney or fly to Adelaide and then fly into Broken Hill.

So it’s two flies. So we did have, we’ve got another asset manager who was very involved with Silverton, uh, for a long time, and she lives in Sydney. And so I. When I came in, because I lived near Cooper’s Gap, obviously I took Cooper’s Gap and then it made sense for me to also have Silverton because it’s another [00:27:00] GE three X site.

So that’s why I’ve got those two. Yeah. Uh, even though it’s not my closest site, so I go out to Silverton about four times a year. Um. I make sure I spend a week there and I drive around and look at everything, and I go up tower and I spend time with the team and I, I do feel like I don’t have as much control over that site as Cooper’s Gap.

I’m here most days and I’m, and I’m in the pre-start and I see where all the teams are going, and I go and talk to them. Yeah, so I, I get a lot more information and I think as an asset manager, it’s really important to be on site and to be up tower and to be talking to everyone. Um, so when I do go to Silverton, I make sure I go there for a long time, or I see some owners will just pop in for the day, or they, they’ll sort of come in at 10 o’clock in the morning and, and then leave.

So they don’t even see preset. You can’t really get a feel for what’s going on in site if you’re not. Um, so I would like to be at Silverton more often, but [00:28:00] I just don’t like the 12 hours of traveling it takes me to get there. Um, but um, we have, so teams is amazing, right? Like what we can do remotely now.

Um, I have a fortnightly call with the site manager and we go through what turbines are on and what’s off and what’s he working on and what issues. And, um, so I do get a lot of information. Um, not being on site and, and all the systems that we have access to, I’m constantly spying on them. They all know that.

But also I’m there to help. Like, I’ll, I’ll read the fault code and go, what does this fault code mean? That sounds really bad. And they’re like, oh yeah, we better go check that. So, um, yeah, we we’re working together. Um. And it’s really just, yeah, they know that we’re, we just wanna try and get the availability up.

We don’t wanna be charging them damages all the time. We, it, it doesn’t really cover our costs. So it’s better for all of us that we just improve the availability and it doesn’t matter who’s doing it, we just need to figure it out. [00:29:00]

Allen Hall: Well, Liz, you’re a busy person and in your off time you co-founded an organization called Power Up Queensland and you mentor female engineers.

Uh, and you have done that for a while throughout your career. What’s your message to women that are considering entering the wind energy sector?

Liz Beavis: Oh, we need more women in wind. Onsite, not just in the, in the head office. And, um, I’m fixing the toilet situation, so I’ve got it under control. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s really sad when I sort of look around at preset and there’s, I’m, I’m the only woman in the room usually.

Um, but yeah, I, like, I go up tower and, um. I think it’s, it’s a lot of fun if you’re, if you’re someone that likes heights and doing something a bit more physical. And I think also the, um, for the, from the trade point of view, you get to work across mechanical and electrical. So if you’re not, uh, you know, if you’re interested in sort of working across your trade instead [00:30:00] of just a purely being a mechanic or an electrician, I think it’s a really interesting, um, uh, workplace to be in.

You get. And, and there’s lots of civil work to do and, um. And then as an asset manager, you know, you can, you can come into that from a, from a mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or mechanical engineer. There’s, there’s lots of civil work to do, but even in our team, we’ve got people from finance and accounting backgrounds and, um, trade backgrounds.

So it’s, it’s, um, something that you can come. From a broad range of, um, disciplines. Um, and I just, I love being out and about this morning before I came on the call, I had to go out and put some signs out for a biosecurity issue. So, so I like, that’s the kind of thing, like I, I’m not stuck in the office. I just go for a drive and put some signs on the gate and yeah.

So it’s, you’re not stuck in the office. I think it’s, it’s really. It’s, it’s a really awesome job. [00:31:00] So I encourage, yeah, people that want, don’t wanna be in the office and actually be outdoors and involved and doing some physical stuff. It’s a good job.

Allen Hall: Well, Liz, you’re a wealth of knowledge and uh, it’s always great to see you in Australia and thanks for coming to the Woma event.

If people wanna reach out to you and connect about o and m issues or entering the wind industry, how can they do that?

Liz Beavis: Um, so I’m on LinkedIn. Maybe I can just put my email in the show notes because I get, I get a lot of LinkedIn connection requests and I sort of don’t know who’s who.

Allen Hall: We’ll definitely put your email in the show notes, and I know we’ve had a lot of discussions of, of getting you on this podcast.

I’ve been really looking forward to this discussion, and this has been great. We need to have you on more often. So, Liz, the invitation is. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast and yeah, we’ll see you soon.

Liz Beavis: Thanks [00:32:00] El.