Published

2 years ago

February 15, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Revolutionizing Wind Farm Data Management: Thread’s UNITI Platform

CEO Josh Riedy explains how Thread’s UNITI software platform enables intuitive data management and analysis for drone inspections at wind farms, creating integrated “electronic medical records” for turbines. Visit their website: https://thread.one/

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 special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. If you’ve been paying attention to the drone inspection business, you may have noticed some significant changes in the last couple of years. The amount of data being acquired is astounding where the industry once lacked sufficient data.

Now we’re overflowing with it and new ideas and businesses are trying to solve the data overload problem and bring more of a uniform approach to inspections. Be that wind turbines, transmission lines, substations. Our guest today is Josh Riedy CEO and founder of Thread, and Thread is based in North Dakota in the central part of the United States.

Thread has developed some really interesting products and is really simplifying the way that we handle data. Josh, welcome to the program.

Josh Riedy: Thank you, Allen. Glad to be here.

Allen Hall: So we have a massive problem that the industry is going through at the moment where we want to acquire more data and that’s what Thread does in their platform.

And let’s talk about that in a moment here, but I want to understand the scope of the problem because we, Joel and I have been around talking to operators lately. And here’s one of the things they tell us, and it happened this morning, actually, on a zoom call they want to acquire more data.

They want to acquire the wind farm, the turbine, the blade, but also the transmission line, all the substation. They want to gather drone images of all of it. And the problem they were having was what to do with all the data that actually happened today.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. How do we manage it all?

Allen Hall: Yeah. And this revolve back to our conversation about what Thread is doing to answer that call.

So maybe you can describe what you’re doing to answer the call of we have a lot of data.

Josh Riedy: Allen and Joel. Thanks for having me again. And you touch on the heart of the problem. There is too much data and not just too much data. It’s sensitive information. It is not meant to be in the public sphere, and that is a huge consideration.

So the goal of Thread and our passion since 2018 has been to take that information and make it relevant to the customer, to the stakeholder that needs that information. And that’s not simple, because no large organization is just one modality. There are many different groupings within a given organization that have different needs.

And to get that right has been a pursuit for some time, but I do believe we are on the right track and we’re able to show the world that.

Allen Hall: I have really seen a shift Josh in what the engineers are asking for it was for the longest time Let’s take some images of blades and then they’re like wow I got this I can got some images of blades with drones This is fantastic Why am I not doing everything around this wind turbine and that means looking at the tower looking at the cell going down to the base of plant, right?

So the BOP and then those large operators are like, Hey we own everything out to the substation here, folks. We need to be inspecting that too. So that ended up in the that’s been a last two year problem. In the last two years, like, holy moly, we’ve, the engineers have just gone crazy on the amount of data.

Right. And I’m sure they’re banging on your door saying, Hey, if you’re here and you’re guys are doing inspections. Can you do the transmission line? Can you do the substation? I assume you’re hearing that from almost every operator at this point.

Josh Riedy: Absolutely, and even more than that, we’ve been able to experience that firsthand.

We have had the development arc with our co development partner in the industry, Xcel Energy, and if I could turn back the hands of time, And record the first conversation to the most recent conversation with Russ and their engineering team, you see a profound transformation that they’re beginning to get mastery over the process and their needs.

And with that comes very specific requests for what the software should do and what you’re really building is a cadence. You know, it’s not just one time, let’s get a picture and it stays there for a year or two years or five. It is, there are ongoing needs that are dynamic. And so how do you build that rapport back and forth to sites and site managers and technicians that may be hundreds and thousands of miles away?

That workspace is every bit as important as the record that data is generating.

Joel Saxum: You’ve got the UNITI platform, right? And that is taken and you’re able to take in. Any kind of data you want. So it can start from, you can be, we, you know, we’re focusing here on the course, drone inspections of wind turbine blades.

Great. But we can also take an images, LIDAR data, anything of the sort you, so you’re, you have this. Database and we could for, you know, operators and we could call it almost a specific like geo database. So you’ve got all kinds of metadata, imagery, all this inspection is living thing that can be refreshed, can be updated when you want to.

But you’re also creating the solutions and this I think was where Thread started. You guys have done a little bit of a pivot. You also have solutions in the field that are kind of changing the way inspections are done because classically. In the drone inspection world, as autonomous drones started and they became a thing, it was like, all right, cool, we got to contract these this company XYZ that has this drone, they’re going to come in, they’re going to do our inspections, but what you guys have changed the market to is basically drones as a service as well, so not only can you have the platform, that’s what we’re focusing on, that’s where we’re going in the future.

But you can help operators collect data more efficiently and more cost effectively as well.

Josh Riedy: Absolutely. And what you’re seeing is a paradigm change in the industry that, that coincides with where the pivot from fossils into renewables is going as a whole. Capitalization, self enablement, building.

The feedback loops at scale require enabling those very frontline workers to do the work. And it’s not just flying. You know, when you think of inspections, we think of taking a photo or operating a drone. What happens after that is really where the rubber meets the road. And Being able to automate that entire workflow so that it is a cadence where an engineer issues at order that goes or work order that goes onto site and a technician picks that up and acts upon it and that information is delivered back to the engineer to make an informed decision.

And that becomes part of a record. That is an entire cycle that, that frankly speaking, it took us four years to get right. But I’m proud to say that you can find that at scale across the U S and it is. Absolutely. Not just the future, it’s the present.

Joel Saxum: So you’re empowering that field to back office. A transfer of information because you know, even more progressively in the virtual world that we live in, you may talk to like you guys, Xcel Energy is your, you know, your development partner has been since the beginning, but your engineers at Xcel Energy are spread all over North America, right?

They don’t all work in one office anymore, so they can’t make decisions here and there. It’s not, it’s nodular, right? So there may be someone that’s dealing on a wind farm in Minnesota, but they may sit in Chicago or they may sit in, I Houston, wherever they are, but they can go like, Hey, I’ve been looking at this.

I’d like to see this. And you guys are providing the infield workers with the drone to, or the, with the, some of the power to go do that.

Josh Riedy: And that’s tremendously enabling when there is a cause to go take a deeper look. I often compare what we do to the healthcare industry. As ironic as that may seem, you may think a utility and healthcare have very little to do with one another.

But if you imagine what healthcare would be today without being able to log into a system and see your blood work, see your x ray, see your MRI, see your physician’s notes, see the pharmaceutical record that you have. Physicians could not treat or diagnose you. Well, hospital administer administrators could not manage the organization well and yet utility, while in many ways altogether different, has extraordinarily similar needs that parallel electronic medical or health records.

And so that is the very approach that Thread is taken for utilities, not unlike a company not to be named in Wisconsin that did so with healthcare nearly 20 years ago.

Joel Saxum: So, so with that being said, give us some examples of the data that you guys are integrating. Like, what is it, what is a holistic view of a, say, a wind farm project look like?

What kind of data are you bringing in?

Josh Riedy: Yeah, you know, if you think about a wind farm, at the onset, you mentioned all the pieces, you know, that there’s not just a series of blade images anymore. Whether it be the nacelle, whether it be the tower, whether it be the hub, whether there be the blades, whether it be the transmission or distribution lines that are on site.

Every single one of those into or assets need to be entered into a system so that you can holistically manage that site and what it is really creating a record of the site itself. We know sites are bought and sold. What if those sites had a record that could accompany the physical record and move forward to another customer or be used as a basis for warranty or insurance or financing?

The work that we do, the information that we gather has a tremendous number of uses and the cause or the way that information is being generated is the same. It’s focusing on those men and women that are on site that do a hell of a job maintaining those assets and giving them a place to put that information other than a notebook or in their own minds.

Allen Hall: So just so everybody knows. The UNITI system, you can actually check it out online at Thread.one, O N E, and UNITI is spelled UNITI. So you can just Google that and it’ll show up. So, this has been a concept in the working for a while. And you guys have been really pouring a lot of time and effort into getting this platform right.

And maybe you can describe some of the back office things we haven’t seen because This is a tremendous piece of software.

Josh Riedy: Oh, I appreciate you asking that. If you imagine the amount of nuance one piece I’ll take that’s often overlooked, working to get connectivity to remote sites, and not just any connectivity, but making those sites part of a secure corporate network.

You know, just in the news today, you hear that the cyber or the Chinese threats to cyber security for infrastructure, I can tell you that those threats are very real, but they are able to be mitigated, right? And so getting network on the site, especially these remote sites, having devices that are operating on robots that are certified into you.

Okay. A customer’s network. You know, that’s almost unheard of. But the devices that are on top of drones are actually secure devices that are corporate devices, just like a corporate laptop. That work doesn’t happen overnight. That work does not happen without a partner that is of the industry. And so we may be a startup in North Dakota.

But I like to believe we are of the industry because that’s who we’ve relied on to get this right.

Joel Saxum: You know, I, so I’m down here in Houston here for the last few months. And I love my network down here. Love the people I’m around. Go into these, you know, clean energy underground and take some lunches at the ION and the Greentown labs and all this fantastic thing here.

But one of the things that those VCs and private equity firms are starting to focus on is having that launch partner. Right. There’s people down in those facilities that are specifically dedicated to, to, cause there’s so many startups out there. This is great. We love to see the startup industry, but there’s a lot of people creating solutions for problems that are fringe problems or don’t quite exist.

And they don’t have the guidance to get it just right. But you guys have been working with Accel Energy for years on crafting exactly what a utility scale grid, grid tied operator needs. Within their organization. Can you tell us a little bit about that relationship?

Josh Riedy: Yeah. Happy to Joel and you’ve got it right.

My commentary would be is there is so much noise in that industry. So many people I’ve met in utilities and energy are numb to the promises that have been made. And what I see time and again is if you’re an outsider, if you haven’t paid your dues, what may seem logical to you does not work within the organization because you forget again about the workforce.

I think so many people look past a workforce and shame on them because those people show up every day and get the job done. So for us, it is incorporating that workforce whether that be a technician, whether that be alignment, whether it be a drone operator, an engineer, so on and so forth. Because in our product, each of those individual groups have had their fingers into it.

So where we started was being able to get a workflow correct that could go on the site and literally anyone could use it with minutes of training. If you heard, I haven’t said technology once in all of that. It’s about people. It’s about process. It’s about scalability. The technology is frankly the last part.

When you can diagnose the problem that is preventing scale, then you can apply the technology and in the end, it’s all about the data because the one piece that I can mention that again, we feel is overlooked is tying the back end system such as an Esri, such as an SEP, such as a small world To the front end data collection so that the entire workflow doesn’t yield a nicely organized set of images.

It yields information that is directly tied to the assets and the records you already have. I give the analogy back to electronic medical records. If I, If you came to me and I was your physician and you thought you broke your right ankle, I would order an x ray. From a technician that has the ability to understand exactly how to get the right shot of the bone that I believe is broken.

And they don’t x ray your entire body. They x ray exactly the part of the body I’m asking them to and they return that back to me that I can diagnose and turn to someone else to perhaps cast your leg. All of that has language around it. All of it is within the context of healthcare. Utilities are the same.

In that context. Is their life. It is their well being and it means everything to the technology and building of solutions. And I like to think our competitive moat isn’t solved by hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s solved by bringing people into the organizations, meeting the people and getting the solution right.

And then what we do that is extraordinarily unique as we prove it at scale before we ever go outside. Our products are proven they work. And it’s a wonderful relationship that I cannot be more thankful for having built that in 2018 and advancing it to today.

Joel Saxum: So, so let’s talk about this thing. We’ll go back to the medical records side of things.

I like that analogy. What is this? What is you, we have data that now we have the data collection portion. We have the data input portion. We have. The model of the database with all the data in it. Now, offline, we talked about you have some in house AI models that you can train for certain things and do certain kinds of analysis where you’re helping the engineers on the engineer side.

You also can take AI models or ML models from them. Input it. So there’s a different workflows and different data analysis where it can be operator agnostic. Can you share a little bit about that?

Josh Riedy: Yeah, absolutely. And again I’ll talk about it in terms of healthcare, because I think that makes it realistic because we’ve all been to the position.

We’ve all, you know, had our bad luck. So to speak, I bet you, you couldn’t tell me the company that built the MRI machine or the x ray machine. Perhaps you can, and you’re more perceptive than me, but you know what? It really didn’t matter. You needed to get the job done, right? And so you had to have whatever the tooling is.

And I think about that, whether it be a drone or whether it be a sensor or whether it be a robot or manned aviation, there’s a tool for the job. So if you think about. The tool for the job getting the information that’s needed, that is an ecosystem and the Thread portion of that ecosystem is very straightforward.

We take that information, we give it context, we do that in an automated fashion and we put that information into the hands of decision makers and in doing so we create a record for that asset. You know, we talk about patients and electronic medical records. People need to understand that I don’t care if you have a thousand transmission structures or wind turbines.

Each one of them is individual in their needs over time. Each one of them deserves a record. You can’t simply treat them all as one. And if we think about it that way, you can better manage small problems before they become large problems and before they become outages.

Allen Hall: So that then empowers, not just the engineer right now, we’re empowering the whole crew that’s involved in managing, operating, delivering power, right?

So now we’re bringing everybody together. Finally it’s taken a long time to get to this point. So the approach I think is spot on in terms of. Hey, let’s help the industry. Let’s give them the tools, let them manage the data. And then let’s be able to let a larger operator typically plug in their pieces of software to look at the data, analyze the data.

But the continuity, which is what Thread is delivering is the magic, right? Is that we are tying all those things together that are now disjointed.

Josh Riedy: Yes. And we’re taking the hands out of the pie, so to speak. If that work isn’t done at scale. You will never have enough people to make this efficient. Right?

Like we should be adding value, not subtracting value and adding additional cost. Exactly. And we should be selling this in a way that utilities consume everything else. I am all for professional services and third parties, but if we cannot add the component that is self enablement, it’s not going to work.

You know, it has to be another tool in the toolbox. It has to be another system that works and makes jobs safer, makes businesses more profitable, and frankly, better informs decision making. If we can’t do all of the above, we’ve failed in our endeavor.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. So you’re, You’re the goal of the Thread platforms.

So the solutions in UNITI and everything is to integrate. Into the workflow process where everybody can add things in it. It works for everybody, but you’re not creating a hindrance. You’re creating value add per se.

Josh Riedy: Yes. Every company that we work with should have a common denominator and we want that to be Thread.

The people may change, the tools may change, the sensors, so on and so forth, but the continuity of where that flows into and how it’s made to be a record is very much what we strive to do. And not just for one vertical, not just for wind or for solar or for transmission distribution. To manage effectively, you need all of that information together.

And the ability to have the flexibility or the flexibility it takes to make that come together is a key aspect. And we respect that and we want a thriving ecosystem. I want every drone company to be successful, every sensor company, so on and so forth. We believe we have the key to make this relevant to utilities and to make it a great business decision.

If we get there, everyone benefits because it is a new space that you can sell into.

Allen Hall: Absolutely. Now, one of the things, Josh, that I think that everybody worries about in the drone data space is there’s been a lot of really small companies with very little backing coming to the space and they’re there and operators have put some data in there, then poof, they’re gone.

You guys have set up a slightly different model. You have a very visible investor base with resources to, to make this go at scale, which needs to happen quickly. So do you want to describe who’s backing you at the moment?

Josh Riedy: Yeah. You know, we’ve had wonderful support first, beginning with the state of North Dakota.

I will tell you this in 2024, if you want to start a business, call governor Doug Burgum, call commerce commissioner, Josh Teigen, and show up in North Dakota. It is a great place to be. So there’s my plug to state government that we’re very thankful for. But a lot of that work, if people don’t know, the governor of North Dakota built Microsoft’s largest acquisition at one point in time.

And there’s a substantial Microsoft presence in Fargo, North Dakota. And kudos to him because he Understood what it took to get it done in his generation. And he’s supporting the next generation to be able to get it done. So from that North Dakota has been able to attract other investors in the most visible of the investors that Thread has is none other than Mr.

Wonderful himself from ABC shark tank Kevin O’Leary. And I have the honor of introducing him at. Of at all functions, the Chamber of Commerce annual dinner last week and had the opportunity to watch a hockey game with him. He is a fervent hockey fan, and he’s a Canadian, so he has been great for us.

But really, if you go back to the investment, I think one thing that differentiates us is we have real paying customers with real revenue in the utility industry, and we also have a business model that makes money, and so that passed to being profitable. And having real revenue from real customers makes investment that much easier.

And so relative to our contemporaries, we have not raised the substantial amounts of money, nor are we as far along in that journey, but I really like our positioning because what we had to do is swim upstream and that’s what we did and we changed the rules. And I think the world’s going to see how much it benefits the industry by working from a different approach, a different perspective, if you will.

Allen Hall: Yeah, absolutely. Now, I, now that we’ve talked about this, I’m sure all the engineers and technicians are all sitting there at their computer trying to figure out how to get a hold of Thread. So how do you get a hold of Thread? Where do you go to find out more about UNITI and to find out more about Thread?

Josh Riedy: Absolutely. The internet is a wonderful place. You can either search for UNITI or type in Thread, thread.one. Not to be mistaken with Threads, but Thread. one and look us up, reach out to us. We are a very small group, but we are very hands on and we love this industry. We’re passionate about serving it.

And I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak about Thread with you gentlemen today.

Allen Hall: Yeah. And if you want to go on LinkedIn, you can check out Thread on LinkedIn. Just type in Thread. It’ll pop right up and there’s plenty of information there on LinkedIn and on the website. The website’s fantastic, by the way, Josh, it’s an amazing resource.

So. Congratulations. This is very exciting. I’m really interested to see where this goes because I think you’re actually finally someone here with Thread is connecting all the dots together and it’s going to change the industry. So it’s great to have you on the podcast.

Revolutionizing Wind Farm Data Management: Thread’s UNITI Platform

Renewable Energy

Wind Industry Operations: In Wind’s Next Chapter, Operations take center stage

Published

11 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Wind Industry Operations: In Wind’s Next Chapter, Operations take center stage

This exclusive article originally appeared in PES Wind 4 – 2025 with the title, Operations take center stage in wind’s next chapter. It was written by Allen Hall and other members of the WeatherGuard Lightning Tech team.

As aging fleets, shrinking margins, and new policies reshape the wind sector, wind energy operations are in the spotlight. The industry’s next chapter will be defined not by capacity growth, but by operational excellence, where integrated, predictive maintenance turns data into decisions and reliability into profit.

Wind farm operations are undergoing a fundamental transformation. After hosting hundreds of conversations on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, I’ve witnessed a clear pattern: the most successful operators are abandoning reactive maintenance in favor of integrated, predictive strategies. This shift isn’t just about adopting new technologies; it’s about fundamentally rethinking how we manage aging assets in an era of tightening margins and expanding responsibilities.

The evidence was overwhelming at this year’s SkySpecs Customer Forum, where representatives from over 75% of US installed wind capacity gathered to share experiences and strategies. The consensus was clear: those who integrate monitoring, inspection, and repair into a cohesive operational strategy are achieving dramatic improvements in reliability and profitability.

Takeaway: These options have been available to wind energy operations for years; now, adoption is critical.

Why traditional approaches to wind farm operations are failing

Today’s wind operators face an unprecedented convergence of challenges. Fleets installed during the 2010-2015 boom are aging in unexpected ways, revealing design vulnerabilities no one anticipated. Meanwhile, the support infrastructure is crumbling; spare parts have become scarce, OEM support is limited, and insurance companies are tightening coverage just when operators need them most.

The situation is particularly acute following recent policy changes. The One Big Beautiful Bill in the United States has fundamentally altered the economic landscape. PTC farming is no longer viable; turbines must run longer and more reliably than ever before. Engineering teams, already stretched thin, are being asked to manage not just wind assets but solar and battery storage as well. The old playbook simply doesn’t work anymore.

Consider the scope of just one challenge: polyester blade failures. During our podcast conversation with Edo Kuipers of We4Ce, we learned that an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 blades worldwide are experiencing root bushing issues. ‘After a while, blades are simply flying off,’ Kuipers explained. The financial impact of a single blade failure can exceed €300,000 when you factor in replacement costs, lost production, and crane mobilization. Yet innovative repair solutions, like the one developed by We4Ce and CNC Onsite, can address the same problem for €40,000 if caught early. This pattern repeats across every major component. Gearbox failures that once required complete replacement can now be predicted months in advance. Lightning damage that previously caused catastrophic failures can be prevented with inexpensive upgrades and real-time monitoring. All these solutions are based on the principle that predicted maintenance is better than an expensive surprise.

Seeing problems before they happeny, and potential risks

The transformation begins with visibility. Modern monitoring systems reveal problems that traditional methods miss entirely. Eric van Genuchten of Sensing360 shared an eye-opening statistic on our podcast: ‘In planetary gearbox failures, they get 90%, so there’s still 10% of failures they cannot detect.’ That missing 10% represents the catastrophic failures that destroy budgets and production targets. Advanced monitoring technologies are filling these gaps. Sensing360’s fiber optic sensors, for example, detect minute deformations in steel components, revealing load imbalances and fatigue progression invisible to traditional monitoring. ‘We integrate our sensors in steel and make rotating equipment smarter,’ van Genuchten explained.

Other companies are deploying acoustic systems to identify blade delamination, oil analysis for gearbox health, and electrical signature analysis for generator issues. Each technology adds a piece to the puzzle, but the real value comes from integration. The impact of load monitoring alone can be transformative.

As van Genuchten explained, ‘Twenty percent more loading on a gearbox or on a bearing is half of your life. The other way around, twenty percent less loading is double your life.’ With proper monitoring, operators can optimize load distribution across their fleet, extending component life while maximizing production.

But monitoring without action is just expensive data collection. The most successful operators are those who’ve learned to translate sensor data into operational decisions. This requires not just technology but organizational change, breaking down silos between monitoring, maintenance, and management teams.

In Wind Energy Operations, Early intervention makes the million-dollar difference

The economics of early intervention are compelling across every component type. The blade root bushing example from We4Ce illustrates this perfectly. With their solution, early detection means replacing just 24-30 bushings in about 24 hours of drilling work. Wait, and you’re looking at 60+ bushings and 60 hours of work. Early detection doesn’t just prevent catastrophic failure; it makes repairs faster, cheaper, and more reliable.

This principle extends throughout the turbine. Early-stage bearing damage can be addressed through targeted lubrication or minor adjustments. Incipient electrical issues can be resolved with cleaning or connection tightening. Small blade surface cracks can be repaired in a few hours before they propagate into structural damage requiring weeks of work.

Leading operators are implementing tiered response protocols based on monitoring data. Critical issues trigger immediate intervention. Developing problems are scheduled for the next maintenance window. Minor issues are monitored and addressed during routine service. This systematic approach reduces both emergency repairs and unnecessary maintenance, optimizing resource allocation across the fleet.

Turning information into action

While monitoring generates data, platforms like SkySpecs’ Horizon transform that data into operational intelligence. Josh Goryl, SkySpecs’ Chief Revenue Officer, explained their evolution at the recent Customer Forum: ‘I think where we can help our customers is getting all that data into one place.

The game-changer is integration across data types. The company is working to combine performance data with CMS data to provide valuable insights into turbine health. This approach has been informed by operators across the world, who’ve discovered that integrated platforms deliver insights that siloed data can’t.

The platform approach also addresses the reality of shrinking engineering teams managing expanding portfolios. As Goryl noted, many wind engineers are now responsible for solar and battery storage assets as well. One platform managing multiple technologies through a unified interface becomes essential for operational efficiency.

The Integration Imperative for Wind Farm Operations

The most successful operators aren’t just adopting individual technologies; they’re integrating monitoring, inspection, and repair into a seamless operational system. This integration operates at multiple levels.

At the technical level, data from various monitoring systems feeds into unified platforms that provide comprehensive asset visibility. These platforms don’t just display data; they analyze patterns, predict failures, and generate work orders.

At the organizational level, integration means breaking down barriers between departments. This cross-functional collaboration transforms O&M from a cost center into a value driver. Building your improvement roadmap For operators ready to enhance their O&M approach, the path forward involves several key steps:

Assessing the Current State of your Wind Energy Operations

Document your maintenance costs, failure rates, and downtime patterns. Identify which problems consume the most resources and which assets are most critical to your wind farm operations.

Start with targeted pilots Rather than attempting wholesale transformation, begin with focused initiatives targeting your biggest pain points. Whether it’s blade monitoring, gearbox sensors, or repair innovations, starting with your largest issue will help you see the biggest benefit.

• Invest in integration, not just technology: the most sophisticated monitoring system is worthless if its data isn’t acted upon. Ensure your organization has the processes and culture to transform data into decisions – this is the first step to profitability in your wind farm operations.

Build partnerships, not just contracts: look for technology providers and service companies willing to share knowledge, not just deliver services. The goal is building capability, not dependency.

• Measure and iterate: track the impact of each initiative on your key performance indicators. Use lessons learned to refine your approach and guide future investments.

The competitive advantage

The wind industry has reached an inflection point. With increasingly large and complex turbines, monitoring needs to adapt with it. The era of flying blind is over.

In an industry where margins continue to compress and competition intensifies, operational excellence has become a key differentiator. Those who master the integration of monitoring, inspection, and repair will thrive. Those who cling to reactive maintenance face escalating costs and declining competitiveness.

The technology exists. The business case is proven. The early adopters are already reaping the benefits. The question isn’t whether to transform your O&M approach, but how quickly you can adapt to this new reality. In the race to operational excellence, the winners will be those who act decisively to embrace the efficiency revolution reshaping wind operations.

Unless otherwise noted, images here are from We4C Rotorblade Specialist.

Wind Industry Operations: In Wind's Next Chapter, Operations take center stage

Contact us for help understanding your lightning damage, future risks, and how to get more uptime from your equipment.

Download the full article from PES Wind here

Find a practical guide to solving lightning problems and filing better insurance claims here

Wind Industry Operations: In Wind’s Next Chapter, Operations take center stage

Renewable Energy

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

Published

13 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

Chris Cieslak, CEO of BladeBug, joins the show to discuss how their walking robot is making ultrasonic blade inspections faster and more accessible. They cover new horizontal scanning capabilities for lay down yards, blade root inspections for bushing defects, and plans to expand into North America in 2026.

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!

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Chris, welcome back to the show.

Chris Cieslak: It’s great to be back. Thank you very much for having me on again.

Allen Hall: It’s great to see you in person, and a lot has been happening at Blade Bugs since the last time I saw Blade Bug in person. Yeah, the robot. It looks a lot different and it has really new capabilities.

Chris Cieslak: So we’ve continued to develop our ultrasonic, non-destructive testing capabilities of the blade bug robot.

Um, but what we’ve now added to its capabilities is to do horizontal blade scans as well. So we’re able to do blades that are in lay down yards or blades that have come down for inspections as well as up tower. So we can do up tower, down tower inspections. We’re trying to capture. I guess the opportunity to inspect blades after transportation when they get delivered to site, to look [00:01:00] for any transport damage or anything that might have been missed in the factory inspections.

And then we can do subsequent installation inspections as well to make sure there’s no mishandling damage on those blades. So yeah, we’ve been just refining what we can do with the NDT side of things and improving its capabilities

Joel Saxum: was that need driven from like market response and people say, Hey, we need, we need.

We like the blade blood product. We like what you’re doing, but we need it here. Or do you guys just say like, Hey, this is the next, this is the next thing we can do. Why not?

Chris Cieslak: It was very much market response. We had a lot of inquiries this year from, um, OEMs, blade manufacturers across the board with issues within their blades that need to be inspected on the ground, up the tap, any which way they can.

There there was no, um, rhyme or reason, which was better, but the fact that he wanted to improve the ability of it horizontally has led the. Sort of modifications that you’ve seen and now we’re doing like down tower, right? Blade scans. Yeah. A really fast breed. So

Joel Saxum: I think the, the important thing there is too is that because of the way the robot is built [00:02:00] now, when you see NDT in a factory, it’s this robot rolls along this perfectly flat concrete floor and it does this and it does that.

But the way the robot is built, if a blade is sitting in a chair trailing edge up, or if it’s flap wise, any which way the robot can adapt to, right? And the idea is. We, we looked at it today and kind of the new cage and the new things you have around it with all the different encoders and for the heads and everything is you can collect data however is needed.

If it’s rasterized, if there’s a vector, if there’s a line, if we go down a bond line, if we need to scan a two foot wide path down the middle of the top of the spa cap, we can do all those different things and all kinds of orientations. That’s a fantastic capability.

Chris Cieslak: Yeah, absolutely. And it, that’s again for the market needs.

So we are able to scan maybe a meter wide in one sort of cord wise. Pass of that probe whilst walking in the span-wise direction. So we’re able to do that raster scan at various spacing. So if you’ve got a defect that you wanna find that maximum 20 mil, we’ll just have a 20 mil step [00:03:00] size between each scan.

If you’ve got a bigger tolerance, we can have 50 mil, a hundred mil it, it’s so tuneable and it removes any of the variability that you get from a human to human operator doing that scanning. And this is all about. Repeatable, consistent high quality data that you can then use to make real informed decisions about the state of those blades and act upon it.

So this is not about, um, an alternative to humans. It’s just a better, it’s just an evolution of how humans do it. We can just do it really quick and it’s probably, we, we say it’s like six times faster than a human, but actually we’re 10 times faster. We don’t need to do any of the mapping out of the blade, but it’s all encoded all that data.

We know where the robot is as we walk. That’s all captured. And then you end up with really. Consistent data. It doesn’t matter who’s operating a robot, the robot will have those settings preset and you just walk down the blade, get that data, and then our subject matter experts, they’re offline, you know, they are in their offices, warm, cozy offices, reviewing data from multiple sources of robots.

And it’s about, you know, improving that [00:04:00] efficiency of getting that report out to the customer and letting ’em know what’s wrong with their blades, actually,

Allen Hall: because that’s always been the drawback of, with NDT. Is that I think the engineers have always wanted to go do it. There’s been crush core transportation damage, which is sometimes hard to see.

You can maybe see a little bit of a wobble on the blade service, but you’re not sure what’s underneath. Bond line’s always an issue for engineering, but the cost to take a person, fly them out to look at a spot on a blade is really expensive, especially someone who is qualified. Yeah, so the, the difference now with play bug is you can have the technology to do the scan.

Much faster and do a lot of blades, which is what the de market demand is right now to do a lot of blades simultaneously and get the same level of data by the review, by the same expert just sitting somewhere else.

Chris Cieslak: Absolutely.

Joel Saxum: I think that the quality of data is a, it’s something to touch on here because when you send someone out to the field, it’s like if, if, if I go, if I go to the wall here and you go to the wall here and we both take a paintbrush, we paint a little bit [00:05:00] different, you’re probably gonna be better.

You’re gonna be able to reach higher spots than I can.

Allen Hall: This is true.

Joel Saxum: That’s true. It’s the same thing with like an NDT process. Now you’re taking the variability of the technician out of it as well. So the data quality collection at the source, that’s what played bug ducts.

Allen Hall: Yeah,

Joel Saxum: that’s the robotic processes.

That is making sure that if I scan this, whatever it may be, LM 48.7 and I do another one and another one and another one, I’m gonna get a consistent set of quality data and then it’s goes to analysis. We can make real decisions off.

Allen Hall: Well, I, I think in today’s world now, especially with transportation damage and warranties, that they’re trying to pick up a lot of things at two years in that they could have picked up free installation.

Yeah. Or lifting of the blades. That world is changing very rapidly. I think a lot of operators are getting smarter about this, but they haven’t thought about where do we go find the tool.

Speaker: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And, and I know Joel knows that, Hey, it, it’s Chris at Blade Bug. You need to call him and get to the technology.

But I think for a lot of [00:06:00] operators around the world, they haven’t thought about the cost They’re paying the warranty costs, they’re paying the insurance costs they’re paying because they don’t have the set of data. And it’s not tremendously expensive to go do. But now the capability is here. What is the market saying?

Is it, is it coming back to you now and saying, okay, let’s go. We gotta, we gotta mobilize. We need 10 of these blade bugs out here to go, go take a scan. Where, where, where are we at today?

Chris Cieslak: We’ve hads. Validation this year that this is needed. And it’s a case of we just need to be around for when they come back round for that because the, the issues that we’re looking for, you know, it solves the problem of these new big 80 a hundred meter plus blades that have issues, which shouldn’t.

Frankly exist like process manufacturer issues, but they are there. They need to be investigated. If you’re an asset only, you wanna know that. Do I have a blade that’s likely to fail compared to one which is, which is okay? And sort of focus on that and not essentially remove any uncertainty or worry that you have about your assets.

’cause you can see other [00:07:00] turbine blades falling. Um, so we are trying to solve that problem. But at the same time, end of warranty claims, if you’re gonna be taken over these blades and doing the maintenance yourself, you wanna know that what you are being given. It hasn’t gotten any nasties lurking inside that’s gonna bite you.

Joel Saxum: Yeah.

Chris Cieslak: Very expensively in a few years down the line. And so you wanna be able to, you know, tick a box, go, actually these are fine. Well actually these are problems. I, you need to give me some money so I can perform remedial work on these blades. And then you end of life, you know, how hard have they lived?

Can you do an assessment to go, actually you can sweat these assets for longer. So we, we kind of see ourselves being, you know, useful right now for the new blades, but actually throughout the value chain of a life of a blade. People need to start seeing that NDT ultrasonic being one of them. We are working on other forms of NDT as well, but there are ways of using it to just really remove a lot of uncertainty and potential risk for that.

You’re gonna end up paying through the, you know, through the, the roof wall because you’ve underestimated something or you’ve missed something, which you could have captured with a, with a quick inspection.

Joel Saxum: To [00:08:00] me, NDT has been floating around there, but it just hasn’t been as accessible or easy. The knowledge hasn’t been there about it, but the what it can do for an operator.

In de-risking their fleet is amazing. They just need to understand it and know it. But you guys with the robotic technology to me, are bringing NDT to the masses

Chris Cieslak: Yeah.

Joel Saxum: In a way that hasn’t been able to be done, done before

Chris Cieslak: that. And that that’s, we, we are trying to really just be able to roll it out at a way that you’re not limited to those limited experts in the composite NDT world.

So we wanna work with them, with the C-N-C-C-I-C NDTs of this world because they are the expertise in composite. So being able to interpret those, those scams. Is not a quick thing to become proficient at. So we are like, okay, let’s work with these people, but let’s give them the best quality data, consistent data that we possibly can and let’s remove those barriers of those limited people so we can roll it out to the masses.

Yeah, and we are that sort of next level of information where it isn’t just seen as like a nice to have, it’s like an essential to have, but just how [00:09:00] we see it now. It’s not NDT is no longer like, it’s the last thing that we would look at. It should be just part of the drones. It should inspection, be part of the internal crawlers regimes.

Yeah, it’s just part of it. ’cause there isn’t one type of inspection that ticks all the boxes. There isn’t silver bullet of NDT. And so it’s just making sure that you use the right system for the right inspection type. And so it’s complementary to drones, it’s complimentary to the internal drones, uh, crawlers.

It’s just the next level to give you certainty. Remove any, you know, if you see something indicated on a a on a photograph. That doesn’t tell you the true picture of what’s going on with the structure. So this is really about, okay, I’ve got an indication of something there. Let’s find out what that really is.

And then with that information you can go, right, I know a repair schedule is gonna take this long. The downtime of that turbine’s gonna be this long and you can plan it in. ’cause everyone’s already got limited budgets, which I think why NDT hasn’t taken off as it should have done because nobody’s got money for more inspections.

Right. Even though there is a money saving to be had long term, everyone is fighting [00:10:00] fires and you know, they’ve really got a limited inspection budget. Drone prices or drone inspections have come down. It’s sort, sort of rise to the bottom. But with that next value add to really add certainty to what you’re trying to inspect without, you know, you go to do a day repair and it ends up being three months or something like, well

Allen Hall: that’s the lightning,

Joel Saxum: right?

Allen Hall: Yeah. Lightning is the, the one case where every time you start to scarf. The exterior of the blade, you’re not sure how deep that’s going and how expensive it is. Yeah, and it always amazes me when we talk to a customer and they’re started like, well, you know, it’s gonna be a foot wide scarf, and now we’re into 10 meters and now we’re on the inside.

Yeah. And the outside. Why did you not do an NDT? It seems like money well spent Yeah. To do, especially if you have a, a quantity of them. And I think the quantity is a key now because in the US there’s 75,000 turbines worldwide, several hundred thousand turbines. The number of turbines is there. The number of problems is there.

It makes more financial sense today than ever because drone [00:11:00]information has come down on cost. And the internal rovers though expensive has also come down on cost. NDT has also come down where it’s now available to the masses. Yeah. But it has been such a mental barrier. That barrier has to go away. If we’re going going to keep blades in operation for 25, 30 years, I

Joel Saxum: mean, we’re seeing no

Allen Hall: way you can do it

Joel Saxum: otherwise.

We’re seeing serial defects. But the only way that you can inspect and or control them is with NDT now.

Allen Hall: Sure.

Joel Saxum: And if we would’ve been on this years ago, we wouldn’t have so many, what is our term? Blade liberations liberating

Chris Cieslak: blades.

Joel Saxum: Right, right.

Allen Hall: What about blade route? Can the robot get around the blade route and see for the bushings and the insert issues?

Chris Cieslak: Yeah, so the robot can, we can walk circumferentially around that blade route and we can look for issues which are affecting thousands of blades. Especially in North America. Yeah.

Allen Hall: Oh yeah.

Chris Cieslak: So that is an area that is. You know, we are lucky that we’ve got, um, a warehouse full of blade samples or route down to tip, and we were able to sort of calibrate, verify, prove everything in our facility to [00:12:00] then take out to the field because that is just, you know, NDT of bushings is great, whether it’s ultrasonic or whether we’re using like CMS, uh, type systems as well.

But we can really just say, okay, this is the area where the problem is. This needs to be resolved. And then, you know, we go to some of the companies that can resolve those issues with it. And this is really about played by being part of a group of technologies working together to give overall solutions

Allen Hall: because the robot’s not that big.

It could be taken up tower relatively easily, put on the root of the blade, told to walk around it. You gotta scan now, you know. It’s a lot easier than trying to put a technician on ropes out there for sure.

Chris Cieslak: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And the speed up it.

Joel Saxum: So let’s talk about execution then for a second. When that goes to the field from you, someone says, Chris needs some help, what does it look like?

How does it work?

Chris Cieslak: Once we get a call out, um, we’ll do a site assessment. We’ve got all our rams, everything in place. You know, we’ve been on turbines. We know the process of getting out there. We’re all GWO qualified and go to site and do their work. Um, for us, we can [00:13:00] turn up on site, unload the van, the robot is on a blade in less than an hour.

Ready to inspect? Yep. Typically half an hour. You know, if we’ve been on that same turbine a number of times, it’s somewhere just like clockwork. You know, muscle memory comes in, you’ve got all those processes down, um, and then it’s just scanning. Our robot operator just presses a button and we just watch it perform scans.

And as I said, you know, we are not necessarily the NDT experts. We obviously are very mindful of NDT and know what scans look like. But if there’s any issues, we have a styling, we dial in remote to our supplement expert, they can actually remotely take control, change the settings, parameters.

Allen Hall: Wow.

Chris Cieslak: And so they’re virtually present and that’s one of the beauties, you know, you don’t need to have people on site.

You can have our general, um, robot techs to do the work, but you still have that comfort of knowing that the data is being overlooked if need be by those experts.

Joel Saxum: The next level, um, commercial evolution would be being able to lease the kit to someone and or have ISPs do it for [00:14:00] you guys kinda globally, or what is the thought

Chris Cieslak: there?

Absolutely. So. Yeah, so we to, to really roll this out, we just wanna have people operate in the robots as if it’s like a drone. So drone inspection companies are a classic company that we see perfectly aligned with. You’ve got the sky specs of this world, you know, you’ve got drone operator, they do a scan, they can find something, put the robot up there and get that next level of information always straight away and feed that into their systems to give that insight into that customer.

Um, you know, be it an OEM who’s got a small service team, they can all be trained up. You’ve got general turbine technicians. They’ve all got G We working at height. That’s all you need to operate the bay by road, but you don’t need to have the RAA level qualified people, which are in short supply anyway.

Let them do the jobs that we are not gonna solve. They can do the big repairs we are taking away, you know, another problem for them, but giving them insights that make their job easier and more successful by removing any of those surprises when they’re gonna do that work.

Allen Hall: So what’s the plans for 2026 then?

Chris Cieslak: 2026 for us is to pick up where 2025 should have ended. [00:15:00] So we were, we were meant to be in the States. Yeah. On some projects that got postponed until 26. So it’s really, for us North America is, um, what we’re really, as you said, there’s seven, 5,000 turbines there, but there’s also a lot of, um, turbines with known issues that we can help determine which blades are affected.

And that involves blades on the ground, that involves blades, uh, that are flying. So. For us, we wanna get out to the states as soon as possible, so we’re working with some of the OEMs and, and essentially some of the asset owners.

Allen Hall: Chris, it’s so great to meet you in person and talk about the latest that’s happening.

Thank you. With Blade Bug, if people need to get ahold of you or Blade Bug, how do they do that?

Chris Cieslak: I, I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place to find myself and also Blade Bug and contact us, um, through that.

Allen Hall: Alright, great. Thanks Chris for joining us and we will see you at the next. So hopefully in America, come to America sometime.

We’d love to see you there.

Chris Cieslak: Thank you very [00:16:00] much.