Published

1 year ago

April 24, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Solving Wind Turbine Pitch Bearing Problems with Malloy Wind

We interview with Cory Mittleider of Malloy Wind, a company specializing in providing bearing solutions for wind turbine applications. Cory shares insights into common pitch bearing failure modes, how Malloy Wind analyzes failed bearings to develop improved designs, and the importance of factors like grease and manufacturing processes in bearing longevity. Visit https://www.malloywind.com/ for more info!

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!

Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.com
Weather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.com
Intelstor – https://www.intelstor.com

Allen Hall: Welcome to the special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with my co host, Joel Saxum. If you were an owner, operator, or technician in wind, you have come across pitch bearing problems. And those pitch bearing problems can get really hard to detect early. But once you see them, they’re expensive to repair.

So Joel and I thought it was time to bring on an expert. In bearings to the podcast. So our guest today is Cory Mittleider of Malloy Wind. And Cory has an extensive background in wind bearings. Now, Malloy, if you’re not familiar, is based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is in the middle of the United States.

And Malloy Wind specializes in providing solutions for wind turbine. applications. So they’re a total wind focus organization. They offer a variety of services, including upgrading gearbox bearings, blade bearings, main shaft bearings, pitch motor renewals, and generator bearings. Cory, welcome to the program.

Cory Mittleider: Hey guys, thanks for having me.

Allen Hall: So there’s so many questions about pitch bearings and just having been down in San Diego at the ACP OMNS one of the complaints is, Oh, I got a huge bearing replacement program going on this summer. And my first thought was of you were thinking, wow, you guys must be really busy because Bearings are probably after lightning, it’s lightning and then bearings were one and two of the problems for wind turbines at the moment.

Cory Mittleider: Yeah, it’s been it’s been a busy couple of years. There’s certainly standout platforms that are having their own platform specific failure modes that we’re discovering as we work with operators.

Joel Saxum: Yeah we talked a little bit off air about some of that thing. Okay, so we’re in lightning space.

We know if someone calls and says, I have this turbine with these blades, you go, Ooh, you got problems. So I know that it’s the same thing in the Bering world, generators, like you know the ones that are going to happen. So when you guys initially talk with someone, What are some of the points that you asked them right away?

Okay. They’ve called, what are we looking at?

Cory Mittleider: Sure. Sure. So to your point, it’s a lot of platform specific. We know platform X has this history of problems. Platform Y has a different set of history and platform Z is a pretty stable, pretty robust platform, for example. So we start to, to investigate, is it one of those platforms that we already know has some issues that we either maybe have something developed for, or are currently working on.

We talk about how soon are they experiencing their first failures or how are they detecting them? And most importantly, I think is how long do they plan to run the site? Are they two thirds of the way through the life of the site? Then, we probably propose a different solution to them than we do to some of the worst case scenarios where they’re having failures in the three year ballpark and they’re trying to get to 25.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, no. One of the things that we talked about was, hey, you’re on platform A. With bearings, but you have bearings B and C, same design. But different manufacturers, and sometimes you run into issues there as well.

Cory Mittleider: Yeah. It’s really interesting when it comes down to it. There’s only four parts in a blade bearing.

There’s the rings, the rollers, the seals, and the cage or the spacers, depending on the configuration. It sounds easy, right? But there are a lot of process controls quality checks, things like that. That can be done to ensure. The best long life operation. We actually got a call about three years ago from an operator in our neighborhood that said we have platform a and we have two bearing manufacturers installed across our fleet, all from original build.

The site was about 10 years old. They said, why are all of brand X failing and none of Brand Y. So we worked with them. We investigated that a little bit and we found exactly that, that the bearings are the same dimensions, from a raceway load capacity point of view they should have been the same, but what we found is it was some subtle manufacturing differences from the way the the races were hardened. control point of view. And corrosion protection of the bolt holes, for example, that were leading to that. So very small details, right? That lead to larger implications a decade later.

Allen Hall: And just seeing some of the pictures. That Malloy Wind has on its website and there’s some great technical information about bearings. So if you want to know anything about bearings, go to the Malloy Wind’s website and start looking at the technical explanation, because it’s written in English for in simple terms that even I can understand for me.

Yeah. For people like me that don’t know a lot about bearings, that was really helpful because I’m a picture person, right? I want to see how, what the, how these things break down. The pictures of these pitch bearings coming apart was fascinating because essentially, from what I could tell, it starts to degrade internally and it starts to blow out the seal.

So it starts spitting out metal parts that. Once that begins, it’s bad stuff. You really can’t fix it from there. That’s my understanding of it.

Cory Mittleider: Yeah, then maybe I’ll dive into that, right? Yeah, to your point and you mentioned right at the top that blade bearings are almost impossible to get a health assessment on.

It’s not like a high speed gearbox bearing where you’ve got vibration and temperature because it’s running fast and at full revolutions. But Blade bearings are they don’t ever go full revolution and they go so incredibly slow. So you really can’t apply any of the traditional bearing monitoring tools.

That we’re used to, right? So health assessment is incredibly difficult. Even when you look at the construction of the traditional two row four point bearing type that’s used as a blade bearing it actually stops you for the most part, for most part from even trying to bore scope them.

Joel Saxum: But you can’t access them by design.

Cory Mittleider: Yeah. Yeah, you really can’t access it. To your point Allen a lot of the times what what leaves people to look at them or operators to look at them is pitch faults. For example, especially electric pitch turbines, you’ll start to see an increase in pitch faults, asymmetry type stuff or overload over current on electric pitch.

Or I think you mentioned the seals come out, and grease leaks all over, you’ll get dirty blade ruts, and that’s a signal you can see from further away. But you may have some blade bearing health issues. What we do we and we support in the field. We don’t climb. We don’t do the installation removal, but as the bearing distributors, the bearing experts supporting these operators we’ll get pictures from the field.

We’ll get a call. What am I looking at? If they’re not used to navigating that kind of external inspection, we help that way. But when we get I say a new platform with a new failure mode. We haven’t heard of, we’ll have them replace it. We bring it back to our shop in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and we’ll dismantle it.

And I think there’s a couple of those pictures, those dismantling pictures on the website that you talked about. It’s it’s a terrible job. It’s dirty. That grease is really sticky, especially electric pitch turbines. That tooth the open gear grease is really sticky stuff. But you work through it, you dismantle it.

Sometimes they’ve been locked up such that we had to cut the bearing in half. To get inside to see it. Other times we’re able to remove the filling plugs, pull the balls out and rotate the inner ring around. And that still takes half a day to do. So it’s a really dirty process. Then you got to clean everything after you get it dismantled.

But then we put all that diligent diligence and effort into we’re inspecting the rolling elements that came out, inspecting the raceway, looking for signs of wear. Or electrification or, what they’re called micro pitting or spalling of the raceways, things like that, that help inform the updated designs that we are offering to operators that have had these premature failure problems.

Joel Saxum: One thing you talked about offshore, and this is just a funny note when you were talking about an extreme cases. We’re like, how do they know when it fails? When does the seal go bad? When does it get enough holes in it? And you’re like, yeah, sometimes you have water that runs into the hub from the outside, or you got to put, you got to make sure you got your hard hat on when you get out of the truck, because you might have pieces of bearing falling down from the top.

Cory Mittleider: So to that point, one of the common problems in the last five or eight years has been cage failures. And I’ll emphasize this by saying none of the failures I’m talking about are, I’ll say design failures in terms of, usually when you talk about bearings, the design life is based on rolling contact fatigue, right?

The raceway fatigue. All these premature failures are other failure modes. It’s the real world. It’s the environment. It’s things like that. So in the last several years, it’s been cage failures has been a big topic, which is internal that cage will start to rub and tear up. It’ll get overrolled by the rolling elements.

It’ll get sharpened. And start to tear up that seal and evacuate and cut up that seal and that’s where the grease comes out. Eventually that cage can degrade so much that the balls begin to bunch together because there’s so much gap opened by the cage that’s missing, that was, that’s no longer there.

So I I’ve seen some where All the cage was gone from the blade side row, for example, and only about half left in the hub side row because there are two rows. And I, if I remember right, it was about 40 to 50 degrees because the balls were all bunched together. 40 to 50 degrees didn’t have any balls.

Joel, to your point then you can see straight through it. And on my shop floor, that’s easy, right? You can see the blue rag underneath. But I have heard techs tell me that they’ll be out in a hub and they’ll see all kinds of water is ingressed, or they’ll one just last week at OMS told me that he was in a hub and it was dark.

I don’t know if it was night or what was going on, but he looked and he saw starlight through the gap where balls, cage, and seal all should be blocking your view of that. Just gone.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. So As we’re recording this, I have on my other screen here, some of their technical resources go malloywind. com. And it has a bunch of tabs on there, but one of them is resources. And I’m looking at technical things. I’m looking at the ones that says blade carry blade bearing cage failures. And there’s pictures here that literally, it looks like a pineapple grenade. Like it’s just fragments Sharp fragments, right?

They look like they would if you touch them like they would just cut your hand up and there’s tons of them.

Allen Hall: I want to talk about grease for a minute because from my experience working on car engines and all kinds of rolling products, airplanes what you grease these bearings with is really critical to lifetime.

Is that part of the magic here? Not only just the way that the bearings are built and some of the hardening and the coatings, but is the grease and proper maintenance there part of keeping the bearing to have a longer life?

Cory Mittleider: Absolutely. So grease, I like to view it as grease already is.

A compromise. It’s just a carrier for oil. Oil is what you need, the lubricant that separates from the soap and gets between the balls and raceways. So definitely lubricant health is important. In all bearing applications in blade bearing specifically, because the whole bearing is turning end over end during operation, that ball can move up and down the raceway or move micro movements right around the raceway.

So the additives in the blade bearing grease does support avoiding things like false Brinelli. So that, that can be important there. But yes, the frequent relubrication cycle, some turbines it’s put a bunch in at a six month interval, walk away and come back. Other turbine models have auto lubricators, which maintain a more consistent level of grease in that bearing.

So both options do exist. And to your point Allen On the electric pitch turbines that use a, an electric motor and a pitch driver, a gear box with a spur gear on it they have teeth cut into the bearing. Most of them it’s on the inner ring, but there are a couple turbines electric pitch that use a geared outer ring.

That needs grease too, right? That needs a lubricant in place to to support that so you don’t end up with metal to metal contact and rubbing and wear on gear teeth. We actually have seen that in some turbines that Didn’t have as diligent grease applied to the gear teeth during operation as well.

Joel Saxum: Is there a certain kind of grease that you recommend or is it seasonality, right? Do you put a different grease in when it’s going to be cold if you’re in those kind of climates versus when it’s hot? Or is it Specific to a manufacturer.

Cory Mittleider: Yeah,

no, cause you can’t really purge the grease, right? It’s just, so you couldn’t say you couldn’t switch it in that scenario.

But largely we typically as the bearing supplier, we don’t really change the grease. We use what the OEM specified. But to your point we do know that some turbines have an Arctic package, which may have a different grease than the either tropical or standard. package that’s applied to the turbine so that can influence what grease is put in the blade bearings.

Allen Hall: So then the failure mode for, if it’s not grease and lubrication, the other failure mode, which I picked up from your website, was the sort of the stresses on the bearing where you take this big strong metal bearing and you shape it like a potato chip. So you’re putting this incredible stresses on those rings and on the rollers.

Is that I assume that’s built into the design though, right? Are they made to handle those stresses or is that something about the way it’s installed or the blade or how it’s operated that creates those stresses?

Cory Mittleider: With wind we often talk about say design modes is a topic of conversation.

I view it as air is invisible. They probably had a pretty good idea, but there’s, who knows what we don’t know. Whether it’s, whether she or turbulence there’s probably some unknowns going on in these applications is how I like to view it. What we do know is we do know there’s deformation to your point, right?

We do know from the failures we’ve done from the X ray analytics that our manufacturing partners have done with their FEA tools. We do know that there’s deformation going on. Everybody we’ve talked to pretty well acknowledges that yes it’s deforming. And what you’ll see when you look at that tech article sitting on our website is that one of the other failure modes to your point, Allen, is is ring cracking.

That one’s a little, it’s not a new problem. We’ve seen ring cracking and wind probably a decade ago already, but the prevalence is increasing. So it’s been a much more active topic. It’s happening on younger turbines. So it’s been a lot more active conversation for us.

Joel Saxum: Would you tie that younger turbines to larger turbines, right?

We’re talking, if you’re talking older turbines, you’re, You’re six, eight ton blades, and now you’re getting 10, 12, 15 ton blades. Is that why you’re seeing more?

Cory Mittleider: Sure. That’s how I view it too. When we look at the blade bearings support a moment, right? So that’s forced at a distance.

And when you look at the center of pressure for, from an aerodynamic load the center of pressure is further out on a longer blade. And when you look at just strictly the weight of the blade, the center of mass is further out. So at the same time as the aerodynamic load is getting higher, the weight and the bending moment from the gravity load is getting higher.

One of the diagrams that I know I have in those tech articles is we simplify it into two different load sets, the aerodynamic load and and the gravity bending moment load, just from the way we presented on the website. Obviously the FEA tools can consider everything in a very much the more complex application that it is.

But Both of those have gone up at the same time. So really and then at the same time, the blade bearing diameter has gone from maybe 1. 9 meters to 2. 5 meters. So it’s only grown by two feet, 600 meters. Approximately because that’s how you support a moment load, right? A larger diameter would reduce that applied load to the raceway.

Definitely attributed to that. We’ve seen when we talk about ring cracking in the younger turbines, it really seems like once we broke about a hundred meter rotor diameter is where that conversation has picked up for us. In in the last.

Joel Saxum: For five years, like I say, the immediate thought that came to my mind was we talk with quite a few people in Brazil and their average megawatt size down.

There’s three

Cory Mittleider: for new installations.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, for new for just the average fleets because their fleet is so young. So they’ve only installed a lot of brand new, bigger turbines. They had, they don’t have a lot of 20 year old, 15 year old turbines on. So I’m thinking to myself Man, they must, the bearing issues they must have down there.

It’s going to be fleet wide.

Cory Mittleider: To, to the point from earlier manufacturer A or B does have a reputation for certain failure modes, right? We know, we know those. And to that point we’ve, we, because of our tech articles both on our website and what we shared on LinkedIn, we have talked with operators in.

South America, South Africa, actually a couple different places in Europe. We’ve been able to set up some teams meetings and share, some of the investigation that we’ve done to help inform them where to look, how to start addressing it, both on turbine models that we know that are global turbine models, but also on some that we don’t know that aren’t installed in the U. S., but they just happen to be, similar failure modes.

Joel Saxum: So this is the important thing I wanted to get to here with Malloy wind and the awesome place you guys fill in the market. So we know that when you buy a turbine, you get whatever the OEM built for blade bearings, pitch bearings, yaw bearings, whatever that may be you.

That’s what you get. Malloy fills the space where if that fails, or if you need new ones, if you’re doing a repower, if you have some kind of issue, you guys are the experts and you have feedback mechanisms built in. So like earlier in the call or earlier in the chat here, we were talking about you guys going and Diving into the problem, getting that problem bearing or representative problem bearing of a fleet or whatever it may be back at your shop, tearing it down.

But then you guys go the next step further to provide value to the industry. Can you walk us through that?

Cory Mittleider: Yes, so that process so we work really closely with one particular manufacturing partner IMO based out of Germany. They know a lot from the analytics side, from the manufacturing side, and then also some feedback they’ve had from education globally.

But our role in the U S here is to work with those operators and collect that empirical data, right? The tear downs the, even the real world stuff. And the nice thing about working with them has been that we can use the baseline knowledge that they had from 30 years of history, little 30 years of history and wind.

In blade bearings for them and inform that and we take their, this basic part number we’ve known from from a serial production point of view and add on to that, right? We’ve added, for example, two years ago, we took a blade bearing that was designed about 20 years ago for an older turbine model, and we’ve taken all the best practices of a 2021, 2022 wind turbine blade bearing.

And applied it to that. It’s improved sealing, it’s corrosion protection, it’s different raceway hardening practices, orders of operations in in manufacturing processes that, that weren’t known back then, but we’re applying all this field education to the new product. So that’s what that looks like.

Allen Hall: I love that. That’s how the rest of the industry should work. That’s why Malloy exists, right? Because it’s hard to find somebody who knows enough about bearings to then incorporate design changes into the next generation so you don’t have those problems. There’s not a lot of Corys around. That’s why we want to have you on the podcast.

And from a Malloy Wind standpoint, you’re then Really changing the industry, right? And in a sense that you have an OEM product, it’s pretty good, starts to fail, and operators want to upgrade or put something on them that’s going to last. That’s why they’re coming to you. That’s a big change for the industry, right?

It just makes the wind industry more resilient in the long run. And that’s where we need to go. And as Joel’s pointed out many times, there’s a lot of companies that are in the wind industry that don’t do that service. Don’t provide that actionable information. And when you weren’t across one, it’s so remarkable because you just want to hold them up and say look here, this is the way it should happen.

Look at Malloy Wind. Here we go.

Cory Mittleider: That’s interesting. I so I started at Malloy almost 15 years ago now, and I started supporting other industries. And that’s that’s how we support all of the industries across our company is we look at and we’re not just say, hey, there’s a part number we can offer you that part number.

We like to ask why. I guess is what I like to say. Why are you replacing it? So that’s I guess I cut my teeth doing that learning with from our shop and to our other our other industries. And I’ve just applied the same approach as we discover problems with our wind customers too.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. At the end of the day A bearing is a wear part. Now it’s a long, a very long life wear part, right? It’s not like the brakes on your car where you’re like, yeah, it’s going to go now. They should last a long time, but they do wear down, right? Especially in industrial applications.

But you guys so let’s talk about this then when customers come to you, are they usually Hey, we’re repowering or is it like, man, we’ve got a fleet wide issue. We need to solve it. What do you think that split is?

Cory Mittleider: Yes. So repower projects aren’t as active in the aftermarket, I think. So a lot of the repowers are done with OEMs, right?

So you’re using those turnkey OEM designs that we talked about already. There are some repowers, I like to call them overhauls. Where you’re starting, I like to describe you start on the low speed side because that’s the big stuff. That’s the heavy stuff. It’s stuff takes a big crane, right?

You start at the blades, the hub and work backwards. So on those overhaul projects we are able to help offer something that I’ll say we learn of the history on that platform and apply this 2024 current generation wind. Blade bearing technology to make sure that they meet their goals. On the other hand, there are some turbines that are to your point, Jill, younger three, four, five years.

They maybe had their first failure in blade bearings two and a half, three years. They’re really striving to hit the 20. And some of these newer sites that we’re talking 25, maybe 30 year. Is the desirable time horizon to operate those sites. And if, if an application doesn’t matter what the application is if a blade bearing failed in three years that’s a big problem and you need an impactful solution.

To try and get another 22 years out of that, for example.

Joel Saxum: Otherwise it’d be replacing them every three years.

Cory Mittleider: Yeah. Yeah. We have some bigger solutions for that big of a problem and then other ones like the one I mentioned a minute ago they made it to 10 years maybe they’ll try and hit 20 and maybe they’ll try and coast a little past 20, get a little gravy on the end.

But let’s do. So we have a little bit of different tools we can apply. We have we can do a little bit better. We can update the design by that 10, 15 years, the corrosion protection, the bolt holes, larger balls, maybe things like this, we can still use the same basic bearing type. We don’t need to bake this big overhaul change like we do.

So that’s why we ask the questions we ask early on. What’s your failure rate? How old is the site? And what is your time horizon? So we can try and apply the right tool to help them meet their goals.

Allen Hall: Malloy Wind is a big resource. People should get on to your website and check out all the information you have there.

How do people get a hold of Malloy Wind and how do they get a hold of you if they have bearing issues?

Cory Mittleider: I’ve always got my email on just about any of us, right? So I definitely have my email address which is cmitleider at malloyelectric.com. Cause we are, our wind division is a part of our bigger company Malloy electric wind at Malloy electric, much easier to spell his is a good one.

We have a shared inbox shared amongst the inside team here. Or message me on LinkedIn, like Allen, you did recently. So yeah, LinkedIn website, email phone is my direct line is 605-357-1076.

Allen Hall: There you go. So if you have bearing issues, better give Cory a call. All right, Cory, thank you so much for being on the program.

Joel and I have learned a tremendous amount.

Cory Mittleider: Thanks, guys.

https://weatherguardwind.com/wind-turbine-pitch-bearing-malloy-wind/

Renewable Energy

#1 Guide To Calculating Electrical Load For Home Appliances

Published

6 hours ago

May 20, 2025

Alice Rush

Calculating the electrical load for home appliances is essential to ensuring that your electrical system can safely and efficiently meet your household’s demands.

Given that electrical codes and regulations may change over time, it’s crucial to consult with a qualified electrician and adhere to the most recent Australian standards.

This ensures that your electrical system is up to date and in line with the latest safety measures, providing you with a sense of security and confidence. So, here’s a guide to calculating electrical load for home appliances.

Calculating the electrical load for home appliances in Australia involves a systematic approach to determine your daily and peak-hour energy consumption. So, how do we calculate the electrical load for home appliances?

Let’s first understand what load calculation is.

In this blog post:

What is Load Calculation?

Electric loading is the term used to describe a device that draws electrical energy. An electrical load utilises electrical power. It is typically in the form of current and converts it into various conditions such as heat, light, or mechanical work.

In simple terms, load calculation is like figuring out your home’s total power needs. It’s a crucial step in designing, sizing, and managing electrical systems to ensure safety, efficiency, and reliability.

A load calculation considers all the electrical appliances, devices, and equipment connected to the electrical system. The process can determine the necessary capacity, wire size, circuit breakers, and other components.

How to Calculate Electrical Load for Home Appliances?

Here’s a step-by-step guide to calculating electrical loads for home appliances in Australia:

List Your Appliances: List all your home’s electrical appliances and devices that contribute to the electrical load. Include everything from lighting and kitchen appliances to entertainment systems and heating/cooling equipment.

Determine the Power Rating: Find each appliance’s power rating in watts (W) or kilowatts (kW) on a label or nameplate attached to the appliance.

Some appliances might state the power rating in amps (A) and volts (V). To convert the information to watts, you can use the load calculation formula Power (W) = Voltage (V) × Current (A).

Determining Load Types: Electrical loads can differ based on their characteristics. The primary load types include:

Continuous Loads: These loads operate for three or more hours at total load capacity. Examples include lighting and heat pump systems.

Non-Continuous Loads: These loads operate for less than three hours at total capacity. Many appliances fall into this category.

Motor Loads: Electric motors like refrigerators or HVAC systems have unique starting and running load characteristics.

Consider Duty Cycle: Not all appliances run continuously. Estimate each appliance’s average daily usage or duty cycle.

Calculate Daily Energy Consumption: To calculate each appliance’s daily energy consumption, multiply its power rating by its average daily usage. This will give you each appliance’s daily energy consumption in watt-hours (Wh).

Daily Energy Consumption (Wh) = Power Rating (W) × Average Daily Usage (hours)

Sum Up the Loads: Add up all appliances’ daily energy consumption values to determine the total daily electrical load in watt-hours (Wh). Remember to include fixed and portable appliances.

Most electricity bills in Australia are calculated in kilowatt-hours (kWh). To convert your total daily load from watt-hours to kilowatt-hours, divide by 1,000 (since 1 kWh = 1,000 Wh).

Total Daily Load (kWh) = Total Daily Load (Wh) / 1,000

Peak Loads: Consider peak loads besides the average daily load. These occur when several appliances operate simultaneously. Ensure that your electrical system can handle these surges in demand.

Considering Power Factor: The power factor measures how effectively electrical power is converted into sound work output.

Power factors must be considered when calculating loads, especially in commercial and industrial applications, as they affect equipment sizing, such as transformers and generators.

Voltage Drop: Voltage drop is a concern for long-distance electrical circuits. Load calculations should account for voltage drop to ensure that the voltage supplied to the loads remains within acceptable limits.

Sizing Components: The size of various electrical components is determined based on the calculated load. It includes selecting the appropriate wire size, circuit breakers, transformers, and other protective devices to safely and efficiently carry the load.

Safety Margin: It is advisable to add a safety margin to your calculated load. This extra capacity can accommodate unforeseen power usage increases or future electrical system additions.

Consult a Qualified Electrician: Consulting a qualified electrician is not just a suggestion; it’s a necessity.

A licensed electrician can ensure that your electrical system can handle the calculated load, guide you through the process, and provide reassurance that your system is safe and efficient.

They will consider factors like voltage drop, circuit capacity, and the size of your electrical service panel.

Codes and Regulations: Always follow the latest Australian electrical codes and regulations, which may change over time. Your electrician will be knowledgeable about these standards and can help ensure your system is compliant.

Documentation: Proper load calculations should always be well-documented. This serves as a reference for future use and ensures that electricians, engineers, and inspectors have the necessary information during the installation and maintenance of the electrical system.

Proper load calculation helps prevent electrical overloads, voltage issues, and potential hazards, making it a fundamental practice in electrical engineering and construction.

But how do you calculate a house’s electrical load? Let’s not get confused over terminology. In this context, calculating a house’s electrical load is the same as calculating the electrical load for home appliances.

How To Increase Load Capacity?

Increasing the load capacity of an electrical system or circuit is a complex task. Only qualified electricians should do it. Here are some general guidelines on how load capacity can increase:

Upgrade Electrical Service

If your home or facility consistently operates near the maximum load capacity of your current electrical service, consider upgrading the service.

This involves increasing the leading service panel’s amperage and the utility’s incoming electrical supply. As it often involves significant changes to the electrical infrastructure, this task should only be performed by licensed professionals.

Replace or Upgrade Wiring

Older homes may have wiring that is not rated to handle modern electrical loads. Replacing old wiring with higher-capacity wiring can increase the electrical system’s overall load capacity. Again, only a licensed electrician should do this.

Install Additional Circuits

If specific areas or rooms experience overloads, installing additional dedicated circuits to distribute the load more evenly may be possible. Adding a new circuit for a high-demand appliance can help spread the load.

Upgrade Circuit Breakers

Circuit breakers are designed to protect circuits from overloads. In some cases, if your electrical system can handle it, you can upgrade circuit breakers to higher amperage ratings.

Energy Efficiency Measures

Implement energy-efficient home appliances and lighting to reduce the overall load on your electrical system. Energy-efficient appliances consume less power, which can help free up capacity for other devices.

Utility And Professional Consultation

If your load requirements are significant, you should consult your local utility company. They may need to upgrade the transformer or lines coming to your property to accommodate higher loads.

Always consult a professional electrician when considering changes to your electrical system’s load capacity. Electrical work can be dangerous, and incorrect modifications can lead to many hazards and damage to appliances and electronics.

What Is The Average Power Rating Of Home Appliances?

The average power ratings of home appliances in Australia are generally similar to those in other countries.

However, power ratings vary depending on the appliance’s brand, model, and efficiency. Additionally, energy efficiency standards and labels are used in Australia to encourage the use of more energy-efficient appliances.

Refrigerator: Average: 100-800 W (varies with size and efficiency)

Microwave Oven: Average: 600-1,200 W

Oven: Average: 2,000-5,000 W. Electric ovens mostly have higher power ratings than gas ovens.

Cook top or Stove: Average: 1,200-3,500 W per burner

Dishwasher: Average: 1,200-1,800 W. Some energy-efficient models may have lower power ratings.

Washing Machine: Average: 300-500 W for standard models

Clothes Dryer: Average: 3,000-5,000 W. Electric dryers have higher power ratings than gas dryers.

Air Conditioner: The average power requirement for window units is 1,000-5,000 W. Central air conditioning systems can vary widely in power requirements.

Water Heater: Average: 3,000-6,000 W. Tankless water heaters may have higher power ratings during use.

Television: Average: 50-400 W

Computer: Average: 100-800 W. Energy-efficient desktop computers use less power.

Lighting: The number and type of bulbs used vary widely. LED bulbs are highly energy-efficient and typically use 5-20 W, while incandescent bulbs can use 60-100 W or more.

Ceiling Fans: Average: 10-100 W. Ceiling fans with lights may have higher power ratings when the lights are on.

Appliances’ actual power consumption can vary based on their specific features and usage patterns. Energy-efficient models labelled with star ratings are widely available in Australia.

These can help reduce electricity consumption and lower energy bills. To find the precise power rating of a particular appliance, refer to the manufacturer’s documentation or check the label on the appliance itself.

It should provide detailed information about its power consumption.

Contact Cyanergy for a proper energy audit for your house. Get a free quote or talk to an expert.

Your Solution Is Just a Click Away

The post #1 Guide To Calculating Electrical Load For Home Appliances appeared first on Cyanergy.

https://cyanergy.com.au/blog/1-guide-to-calculating-electrical-load-for-home-appliances/

Renewable Energy

Vestas Buys LM Wind Power Factory, Increased Data Center Demand

Published

7 hours ago

May 20, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Vestas Buys LM Wind Power Factory, Increased Data Center Demand

This week we discuss uncertainty surrounding the IRA bill, GEV Wind Power’s acquisition by Certek, and the sale of an LM Wind Power factory to Vestas. Plus Blackstone is in talks to acquire TXNM Energy, pointing to increase data center demand. Register for the next SkySpecs webinar!

You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here’s your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.

Allen Hall: Well, welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, Joel and Rosemary.

It’s been an exciting week. A lot going on in a, in America in regards to what’s gonna happen with the IRA bill. Nobody knows the, it’s like, uh, as tense, as tense can be. You, you don’t even really see a lot of articles about it at the moment. Everybody’s just in, in kind of hold mode, like, hold your breath and hope something bad doesn’t happen.

Joel Saxum: I think the interesting thing there is when something like this pops up, you would tend to see a lot of LinkedIn opinions and you’re not. I think a lot of, a lot of people are kind of moved. They’re kind of, [00:01:00] nobody’s really saying too much. We’re kind of waiting to see,

Allen Hall: yeah, waiting for that spicy take.

Usually from Rosemary, but she hasn’t written that article yet. It must be coming. Rosemary.

Rosemary Barnes: Well, I haven’t been writing a lot of anything on LinkedIn recently. Um, yeah, a bit, I’m bit busy. I got, I got really sick of, uh, LinkedIn as well when I, I over posted for a few months and. I got over it. Started, started to hate it when people would, would write a comment on my post.

Yeah. And I’m like, just stop talking to me. Go away. And I’m like, yeah, you were the one who made this post. So you That was my, that was my sign to, um, yeah, to, to move away for a little while. Yeah. But it’s also, uh, I mean, you know, like I, it’s not a topic that I am an expert in. ’cause obviously I’m, you know, I don’t live there, so I’m not, yeah.

I have. I have heard a few podcasts talking about it. Um, there’s that one. Um, uh, do you guys listen to that podcast? That’s, it’s like [00:02:00] the original Energy gang crew, but none of them are on the Energy Gang anymore. Now they’ve got their own new podcast. It’s like Dig Ashore. And, um, the other two, sorry, I don’t, I don’t remember their, their names.

Joel Saxum: They just started

Allen Hall: that one.

Rosemary Barnes: It’s called, maybe it’s called Open Circuit.

Allen Hall: Oh, maybe I have, yes, I know what you’re talking about.

Rosemary Barnes: It, it’s really good. It’s very, uh, it’s too American Central for me to listen to every episode, but for, you know, Americans then, I’m sure that that’s, uh, that’s good. Um, they, they speculate a fair bit about it.

Um, and also the, um, podcast that has Jesse Jenkins on it, which is called Shift Key, um, they talk about it a bit as well. So I have, I have heard a fair few takes on it, but, um. Yeah, I don’t know. I’m, I’m waiting to see, to, to be honest, as a non-American, I’ve just written off American Wind Power for the next few years and, uh, you know, just like, wait, wait, wait a little while to like, uh, get started again.

But it, you know, it doesn’t affect me so much. I don’t, I, I don’t have [00:03:00]projects in America. Um, so I. Not affected day to day,

Joel Saxum: a and a half a dozen part load leads that I was in a hand, but now I’m not gonna

Rosemary Barnes: do. You know what though? I, it is actually incredibly challenging for me too because, um, Australians and probably every non-American, like I, my business insurance will not cover me in the us They just absolutely not.

There is not, it is not possible for me to get insurance. To do projects in the us Um, and it would only be possible if I actually started an American company. That would be the only way to do it. So, um, that is a big disincentive for me to expand into America. Um, just ’cause your legal system is very, very different to the rest of the world and um, yeah, insurance companies won’t take that risk so.

That’s why that, that’s why I’m not expending to America. But you know, the rest of the world is a big place. So,

Allen Hall: well, if you don’t spend all your time on LinkedIn, then maybe you can then join us on the webinar. We have an up on Wednesday, May 28th at 11:00 AM East Coast, US and it’s about lightning damage and lightning [00:04:00] strikes and it’s one of another, one of the monthly Sky Specs webinars with uh, PES Wind and the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

We have some really interesting guests. In this one, Matthew Stead from eLog Ping and Matt Segal from EDF. So if you know Matt Segal, uh, he knows his way around blades and blade repair and he has a really solid approaches on how to deal with the damage, that’s gonna be a great discussion. So if you have lightning damage and pretty much every operator that I’ve talked to has some lightning damage at the moment, uh, you’re gonna want to attend that.

Webinars free. So it’s Wednesday, May 28th, 11:00 AM. East Coast and you just sign up in the show notes below. Really simple

Joel Saxum: as busy wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it difficult. That’s why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. I. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert [00:05:00] insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future.

Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit PS wind.com today.

Allen Hall: So the big news of the week, well there’s actually a couple, uh, big news articles this week. Uh, GEV, wind Power, which is a large repair company. Based in the uk, but they have a lot of their business in the United States.

Uh, was acquired by a company called CEC and Joel just doing some research on cec. It looks like a holding company. That’s what it seems like to me. It’s owned by David Harrison, who is based in the uk and it just looks like they’re gonna continue to, uh, try to grow GEV, but it also includes Wind Power Lab from Denmark and rig com.

Joel Saxum: From Australia. Yeah, they group their ctec. Um, I know that GEV Wind Power is, um, they, they have huge plans for growth, right? They’ve got the office in Dallas office in [00:06:00] Poland, the Wind Power Lab office in Copenhagen. Rig com office, I believe is in Melbourne, down in Australia, down by Rosemary. And then they have of course the big office for the UK and Hull and that’s for offshore and onshore.

Uh, but they’ve also just not opened another office up in Canada. So big, big expansion plans for GE v windpower. This CEC capital injection, uh, is gonna help for sure, right? They’ve got a, they’ve got a existing our infrastructure, uh, for the GEV WINDPOWER group. Uh, and they’re gonna keep ’em all in place and they’re just gonna con continue to grow.

So, uh, look to see some more things coming out of the, uh, GEV group. Put this injection to cash.

Allen Hall: Yeah, because GEV, when Power Lab and Rcom were part of the Bridges Fund, which was owned by Hojo

Joel Saxum: Well Bridge, so Bridges was a technically a think minority shareholder in the GEV group. Uh, but that was Goldman Sachs money, uh, bridges was right.

So now, now we’re going, CTEC is Macquarie money, so [00:07:00] Australian money. Being injected in. Well,

Allen Hall: that does make a little bit of sense though. Australia is gonna be a huge renewable powerhouse. It already is. So it makes sense that a Australian money would be involved in this because, uh, yeah, there’s gonna be a lot more wind turbines in solar activity in Australia.

It’s gonna pick up pretty well, so might as well grab a company early while you can and, and continue to grow it. The other thing that that happened today was LM wind power. Selling a factory up in Poland to Vestus. Now, we’ve all talked internally about what is happening at LM Wind Power because they’ve had a a number of staff reductions over the last year or so, and then they had the blade problem up in Canada.

It does seem like a lot of the design activities are moving towards the United States from GEs point of view. [00:08:00] That leaves a lot of LM factories with that are making blades for somebody else. Rosemary, when you were there, uh, LM did make blades for almost everybody for quite a while. It looks like they still do, but now they’re selling off the non GE factories.

Is that the plan?

Rosemary Barnes: I, I don’t know what the plan is. Uh, um, yeah, not inside anymore, so I don’t have any insider info, but, uh, I did spend. Quite a lot of time actually at that factory in Glen. And it’s definitely one of my favorite, favorite wind turbine blade manufacturing facilities that I ever visited. Um, they get a lot, they get a lot done there.

That is like what I could say. The team there is amazing. They, the amount of stuff they can get through in, you know, one shift is like. Double what it is in some other factories. So I think, you know, from, from that perspective, without knowing what best has paid for it, I think it’s a, um, a good call if they get to keep the personnel.

Um, so yeah, [00:09:00] it, um, good for Besters. I was actually looking at some information recently, something unrelated, but I, I came across some, um, research reports. Actually. There were academic papers and it had, um, they had gone through all Vista’s recent, um. Like, uh, all of their annual reports and also all the other listed companies.

So there’s, you know, there’s a few listed wind, turbine blade manufacturer, wind turbine manufacturers, um, where they will give, you know, a breakdown, public information, a breakdown of how their money is spent in profits and that sort of thing. Um, and they had this little chart that showed how much, um, the different manufacturers that they looked at, how much they were spending on their staff, and how much they were spending on research and development.

Vest, uh, staff were paid far more than the other, um, manufacturers that were on there.

Joel Saxum: That’s geopolitical though, right? Like Siemens, Siemens Committee said a lot of employees in Spain, they just, they’re cheaper employees, a cheaper labor force than it is in Denmark or Germany.

Rosemary Barnes: But also, so that, but also, [00:10:00] um, investors spent way more on research and development than, than the others.

And that’s like, I have gotten that impression, you know, ’cause like a lot of what I do with my YouTube channel is. Looking at new, new kinds of things that people are doing. And time after time, it was vest that had investigated this interesting thing. You know, like vesters are the one that have the, um, have tried a multi rotor design out and like actually to the point of making a prototype and, um, installing it.

Vesters are the ones that have done the in cable stayed, um, tower and, yeah, like again, put it up the, you know, like over and over again. There were these things where they maybe didn’t even believe that there was an imminent commercial case for this technology, but they were doing it to, to learn and just improve their general knowledge and to also.

Um, be ahead of the curve when things changed enough to make this new technology maybe make sense now they would have the information they needed to move, move fast on that. Well, that’s my, my take on why that makes sense to them. So, yeah, I, I, I do, I am starting to get the impression, and I’ve never worked at [00:11:00] Vestas or even, I never even did a blade project for Vestas while I was working at lm, but that’s definitely the impression that I’m getting, that the, you know, they’re kind of retaining more of the essence of the original.

Danish wind turbine companies, then the others have more become globalized, Americanized or yeah, like, um, Spain fight or you know, like what, whatever. From all the mergers that have happened, um, the culture has been diluted, but, but festers, I still, still see pushing the envelope. I mean, they haven’t always been profitable, so, um, you know, is the strategy right or not?

But then, you know, every western manufacturer and every. Every, every wind turbine manufacturer, no matter where they are in the world, including China, um, have had periods of unprofitability. That’s for sure. So, yeah. Um, I, I just think it’s interesting that they’re taking a real different approach.

Joel Saxum: Well, that’s what I was gonna say, uh, kind of rosemary before you jumped, said it’s cultural thing, right?

Like, they’re vestas, they’re Denmark, they’re the, the, you know, I guess you can, you could have this argument [00:12:00] between the Danish and the Dutch about who wind power kind of. First, there’s a cultural thing there too, right? Like you have DTU right there, you have the university at our, I wanna say it, right, orus.

Uh, but you have, you have all of these different facilities there that are also lending to that research, right? There’s a lot of grant money that gets funneled through DTU. And if you look at those projects with those couple of universities there in Denmark, you see a lot of times Vesta is tanked. On those projects.

There may be some other, um, third party companies or a lot of it being sponsored by the university, but you see Vestas in a lot of those. So I think it’s a, I’d like you said, I think it’s a cultural thing that the Danish still haven’t be, that still haven’t, that it’s a good thing that they’re doing what they’re doing.

I, in my opinion, but that they haven’t become. This larger global fired thing, right? Where they’re still kind of sticking to their roots?

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I mean, I like it as an engineer and I will say that a lot of, um, my best ex colleagues from LM have ended up at Vestas. Um, so, you know, I think that they are, they do, they do [00:13:00] attract, you know, like people who like to work on really interesting problems.

But I also have been around long enough to know that, um. The most interesting engineering problems are not always the most business savvy things to be working on. So that’s why I don’t wanna comment about it, you know, as a business strategy or, you know, suggest that, you know, investors are definitely going to, you know, remain dominant in the future.

Um, because a lot of the times the, you know, like over engineering is a thing and, uh, you can’t be competitive if you have you, you know, like a good, good engineering is really about. Doing the minimum that you, that you need to make the product that succeeds in the, in the market. Uh, doing any more than that is very satisfying to an engineer, but, um, it is not the, not usually the smartest thing to do for, you know, making a profitable business.

Allen Hall: good engineering is knowing when to stop. Which is the hardest part of engineering. ’cause you never wanna stop. You need to stop and make some money. Yeah. [00:14:00] Don’t let blade damage catch you off guard. OGs. Ping sensors detect issues before they become expensive. Time consuming problems from ice buildup and lightning strikes to pitch misalignment and internal blade cracks.

OGs Ping has you covered The cutting edge sensors are easy to install, giving you the power to stop damage before it’s too late. Visit eLog ping.com and take control of your turbine’s health today. So private equity, giant Blackstone’s infrastructure arm is reportedly and talks to acquire TX and M Energy, which is Texas and New Mexico.

And so utility companies serving about 800,000 homes and businesses across the New Mexico, Texas area. Uh, the discussions are still fluid. There’s not a lot of details. However, it does seem like this is a play by Blackstone to maybe set up some data centers and to get. In line to get a data center set up is really hard to do right now because you have to talk to an existing operator and [00:15:00]get them to get approvals and there’s paperwork and there’s applications.

Once you buy, uh, a large energy producer, you can kind of control that a little bit and there’s reasons to do it because Texas and New Mexico, there’s a lot of real estate there. Renewables are really easy to install. It makes this acquisition. Much more desirable, I think just because of where it is now.

TX and M was going to be acquired a couple months ago, Joel, by Avan Grid, except that got stopped by the administration. Uh, that was about a year ago, right? Where that deal got canceled for. Was it competitive reasons or was it because it was. Avant grid, which is not a US entity is, is that what the deal was?

I don’t remember

Joel Saxum: exactly why it got canceled. I just know that it was a regulatory approval thing. It wasn’t a, it wasn’t a due diligence problem or anything like that. It was just regulatory approval, [00:16:00]

but.

When I, when I read this article, I thought immediately, have you guys ever, have you guys ever seen the movie Inception?

No.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, you gotta say Inception. What’s wrong with you, Alan? Oh my God.

Joel Saxum: In the movie Inception, they, they have an issue where they’re like, we need to convince the pilot of the plane to do this, and we need to convince the stewardesses to do this, and we need to convince the, the, this person to do this. And they have a really rich fellow with them.

And they’re like, how are we going to get past these problems? And he’s like, I’ll just buy the airline. So in the movie, the guy just buys the airline and then he gets to do whatever he wants with the airplane and, and how they do their inception tricks, whatever. That’s exactly what I thought about when I saw Blackstone do this, right?

We wanna get these data centers on, we wanna do this, we wanna do this. It’s like, man, this is gonna be, this is gonna be difficult. We’re gonna have to convince all these people. We’re gonna have to do this regulatory approvals and get in line and queues. It’s like, what if we just buy the power company?

Okay. Just do that and you can do whatever you want

that. That [00:17:00] makes sense. I think it’s a genius thing and I think it, I’m surprised that it’s taken this long to do it and there hasn’t been some other larger players that have tried it. So I just just saw a thing yesterday, a chart that said there’s over 5,300 data centers in the United States right now.

It’s like 5,386 or something, which is Corey way, way larger than I thought it was. And we’re, and if you look at a global scale, we’re way in front of the next person. And I don’t remember exactly what it was, but everybody you talk to in the energy world is going, Hey, more data centers, more data centers, more data centers.

And it is, it’s, it’s, I listened to a podcast theater. They’re talking about wait until you see the next six months. What’s gonna happen with data centers? As, as you see, Google searches declining for chat GT requests. It’s gonna be all data centers.

Allen Hall: So EPRI is saying 48% of utilities nationwide are now receiving data center requests exceeding one gigawatt with almost half facing requests that exceed [00:18:00] 50% of the system peak demand.

Wow. That’s a lot of energy to be requesting.

Joel Saxum: So last summer, peak demand in Ercot, and I’m gonna talk Texas right now, right? ’cause this is where a lot of these data centers are going. ’cause Ercot is gonna, the Wild West. T’S peak demand last summer was 87 gigawatts at one point in time. They have it projected by, I think it was like 2031.

That peak demand is gonna be 213 gigawatts. And

Allen Hall: is that based on population or is that based on data center growth,

Joel Saxum: data center growth. That’s only five years away, six years away, and you’re talking almost triple the demand.

Allen Hall: Can, can we veer off just slightly on this discussion, which is the existing talk about the IRA bill and how they wanna change it.

So it’s gonna be harder for renewable companies to apply for the tax credits and production tax credits and all these little nuances that add up to something much more massive. They’re, [00:19:00] if the administration does that. And Congress passes it and whatever else happens, okay, fine. But in this data center demand, you cannot get enough gas turbines built to support that.

You can’t order one

Joel Saxum: and receive it before 2030. Right. So what are we talking about? You have to put solar and wind on the grid right now. ’cause it’s the only energy generating facility that’s, that’s that’s timely enough to get to meet demand. Right.

Allen Hall: Those, we just do not have the infrastructure right now in the United States or elsewhere.

Like a Siemens who makes a lot of gas turbines, can’t supply the demand. That’s about to happen. So the demand is gonna get so dang high. You’re gonna, you’re gonna go from 20 29, 20 30, uh, order book to 2035 order book probably in the next six months, the way it sounds. What are they

Joel Saxum: gonna do? Could you see a player that doesn’t, that knows turbines but doesn’t [00:20:00] do gas fired turbines coming in?

I don’t know who all the players are, right? I know GE sells ’em. I know a couple others, but like, like a steam, like a Rolls Royce is Rolls Royce sell gas turbine power plant turbines. They know. They know turbine technology couldn’t. Why? If you were them, wouldn’t you look at this demand and go. We should start building these things.

Allen Hall: Joel, to build a gas turbine is really difficult. It’s like building a jet engine. On steroids, it’s, and to make it something that’s really reliable, it is not easy. That’s why it takes so long to build these things. It’s not just a startup. Well, yeah, what are you gonna do? Build a second factory next door to the one you have and spend a billion dollars to set this thing up.

But you’re not gonna be able to make the first turbine for at least five or six years. That makes zero sense, because all of a sudden if the data center, uh, compute goes away, like some software engineer figures out how to do this a lot with less power, basically a lot less power to do it. Then poof, all their order book disappears and all that money they spend on a [00:21:00] factory disappears and no one’s willing to take that risk.

So who’s steps in the middle of this besides wind and solar and some batteries? Wind and solar betters right to, that’s the fastest way to get power onto the grid, even if it’s disconnected from the main grid, right? Even if you go geothermal,

Joel Saxum: you still need turbines. You still need turbines. Turbines are not quick to make.

And you can’t build a nuclear plant in about 10

Allen Hall: years. No. So what are we, Rosemary? What are we doing? And here’s my thought this morning. I woke up this morning like, this is a huge problem. What are we gonna do? My first thought was like, well, everybody’s gonna go to Australia because the power is plentiful and it’s only a data cable to America.

That’s what’ll happen. Rosemary?

Rosemary Barnes: Uh, I don’t, I don’t think data centers, I think data centers is primarily a US problem, and then there’ll be a few, and not even like, it’s, it’s localized within the US as well. People aren’t just like, people think with this, you know, data center growth that it’s like.

Everyone’s gonna worry about it. But you need data [00:22:00] centers, um, near where the, you know, the tech companies, the AI companies are, because they don’t, you know, they can’t be located on the other side of the world from where their data center is, if they’re gonna be, you know, running all these, um, these learning models.

And then you need them near population centers as well for, um, you know, so that they have them, them close by. I think the biggest thing with data centers that’s gonna be different to what everybody’s panicking about is that it is not gonna be the, um, the, the demand people are predicting is not going to come, come true to anything.

Like the extent, extent that what has been predicted. I think it will grow and it will grow a lot, but I, I, you know, like the growth that people are predicted is, um. Well, IM implausible for a start to actually achieve it. But I think also, like if you look back through history, I mean, you know, people always predict, you know, that you get a big amount of growth early on and people don’t really know what the, you know, the size of the exponent is.

And so when they project out into the future, you can get things wildly wrong and we have a history of you, you know, look back through the predicted energy use of all sorts of new [00:23:00] technologies over the, um, decades or, you know, centuries. Then you’ll see predictions that were just crazy in hindsight.

We’re really early in the AI thing, so algorithms are gonna be refined. Um, chip designs are gonna be refined. Even, you know, like everything else around data center’s gonna be refined. Maybe quantum computing is gonna make a difference in a few years. You know, like maybe something that hasn’t been invented yet.

You know, like five years ago people didn’t think AI would be doing what it is today. There’ll be some other technology in five years that’s doing something that we couldn’t foresee. Um, so I, you know, I think that it’s more likely that the. Unexpected technology developments are on the side of bringing down the amount of power.

Allen Hall: Yeah. But the way that tends to go in industry is once you’re on a pathway, there’s very little that’s gonna deter you off that pathway. So even if there are significant improvements, you’ll see the main path still be followed. And that’s gonna be the trouble with these AI data centers, is that they’re gonna [00:24:00] project out, they’re gonna get their.

Mindset about doing it a certain way, and they’re gonna go, and if you talk about saving 10% here or there, they’re like, if it’s gonna take 10 more weeks to get that done, we’re not gonna do it. We’re gonna continue down this pathway.

Rosemary Barnes: No, but they’re doing it all the time. They heard about a, a data center, it was designed and, um, you know, planned for a certain amount of compute, and then the chip designs improved and they totally changed it.

And so now it, you know, it’s the same power, but it, um, processes much more. And we’re gonna. We’re gonna say a lot. A lot of that I think.

Allen Hall: I think the chat GPT usage and the AI usage is relatively low, and I know US engineers like to use those services because we like the new tech and we want to be involving our fingers in it and see what it’s all about.

I think the vast majority of humanity really hasn’t touched it yet. When they do, it’s gonna go

Joel Saxum: crazy. Did you see that Google’s alphabet stock? When they, they just released a, they did, it was an earnings report, but they released the end. This is the first time that their number of search engine [00:25:00] entries, whatever requests.

Dropped and it’s because, because, and their stock dropped by 10% that day that happened. Yeah. Like that’s, and and, and like you said, we, people that are in the know are using, I use it all day long. Right. My, uh, my partner uses it all day long, but the general populace hasn’t gotten into it yet. But once they do, it’s.

It’s so much better than Google, so much better than Google. Like you don’t have to know how to Google things anymore. You could just like ask a question that you’re talking to a person and it just gives you the answer,

Allen Hall: right? It is much more, uh, interactive, human, interactive, uh, interface than what Google ever was, and you still have to have little tricks to get Google to give you the right answer at times.

This is much more intuitive and if you think about your phone and how you try to Google things on your phone, it’s that interface is terrible. Absolutely terrible. It’s been terrible for five plus years. This AI interface, all of them, perplexity is the one that [00:26:00] I like at the minute, is really simple. It’s like asking somebody a question, like asking a librarian in the old days, where can I find this information?

Tell me what’s going on. Poof. There it is. And it provides justification, rationale behind it, all those kind of things you like to have as an engineer. But I do think the growth of this, if it is as powerful as it is today, the growth is gonna be phenomenal. And the power usage is gonna be nuts,

Rosemary Barnes: but I’m not sure that you are, um, aware of how much growth is baked into the forecast currently.

I’ve just brought up, um, an article that Michael Lere wrote on Bloomberg, NEF, um, about ai. And it, it’s interesting there because he goes through the economics of it, um, and he draws on some, uh. Questions that a guy David Kahn made, um, from Sequoia Capital that he says, David Kahn says that to justify the capital expenditures applied by NVIDIA’s [00:27:00] near term revenue pipeline, they would need to generate annual revenue from AI services of 200 billion.

And then, um, with their new updated NVIDIA sales forecast storing it, it’s been updated to 600 billion. Um, and that is, uh, yeah, like half of the aggregate revenue of Amazon, Microsoft Meta and Google Parent Alpha. So if you assume 600 billions will be, um, uh, it’ll be the world’s 100 million wealthiest people, then that’s $6,000 a year.

Um, and then, you know, like, obviously you can go a bit further down, but it, it’s um, like not impossible, but it’s also, that is a massive amount of growth that is already. Factored into the, that pipeline. So I think, I just think it’s more evidence that that is a, like a, that is a pretty optimistic take on, you know, immense growth and that it’s far more likely we’re gonna see less, less growth than that.

I still think we’re gonna see crazy growth, but. I think that the, [00:28:00] that the, the current pipeline that the, you know, current investments, if you, um, sorry, not investments, but the current plans for, for growth of companies like nvidia, they don’t just factor in incredible growth. It’s like incredible squared, incredible cubed growth that’s factored into their pipeline and it is gonna.

Scale, scale back again that I, I don’t think anyone can know, but that’s, that’s, I really think that that’s the most likely thing to happen.

Allen Hall: Building chips and building power plants are two wildly different things in terms of the time it takes to do it. Building a gigawatt of energy production takes time.

Building another chip is just clunk. There’s another one. It doesn’t take that much time. So I think the ability to create the chips is gonna far exceed the ability to power them.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, and that’s why you see like that project I talked about where they um, you know, the chip capability changed so much in between when they started the project and by the time they went to actually put the chips inside the building.

Um. You still see the power [00:29:00] stayed the same, but just the compute in increased. Um, so yeah, I think you’re right.

Joel Saxum: I still think that the, the good play is investing in a cable lay vessel. I’m telling you the the, the s the SF uptime cable lay vessel.

Allen Hall: This is my wild conspiracy theory at the moment, is that Elon with his satellite network, SpaceX and starlink and all that, allows you to put an AI center anywhere on the planet that it is cheap to power it.

Joel Saxum: A handful of geostationary satellites. Is and And if you devote them to one data center or to a family of data centers, somewhere that has to be cheaper than laying cables across the OS. Ocean.

Allen Hall: Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Elon’s gonna buy the center of Australia, lay out solar panels. Too hot. It’s gotta go somewhere cold.

I’m talking

Joel Saxum: Canada Green. Greenland. Greenland,

Allen Hall: [00:30:00] Greenland. Greenland. There you go. There’s a perfect conspiracy case right there, Joel. You hit all the triggers at one time. Well, well, we’re, we’re not gonna solve this this week. Uh, but it is an important issue and it is coming up a lot. And I know that it is not gonna stop the discussion.

It is ramping up and there’s a lot of energy being spent trying to figure out, can we even solve this problem? What’s happening with the IRA bill or the potential changes to the IRA bill can aggravate this and make it a lot harder. Uh, be prepared. Very interesting times. Joel Rosemary. Another great episode

Rosemary Barnes: and un unsupervised today.

I often wonder if these ones where we don’t have producer Claire here, um, you know, reigning us in, do we lose subscribers on these episodes or are people, you know, like really attracted to our tell it like it is, uh, kind of rambling, rambling style on these ones.

Allen Hall: Stay tuned and we’ll see you all here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:31:00] Podcast.

https://weatherguardwind.com/vestas-lm-factory-data-centers/