Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Taiwan Offshore Cable Damage & Japan’s Floating Wind Center
The crew discusses Husum Wind, Arthwind’s blade consulting work featured in PES Wind, and a major cable damage incident at Taiwan’s Greater Changhua offshore wind project. They also cover Japan’s plans for a national floating wind test center, Australia’s offshore wind development struggles, and feature Scotland’s Moray West wind farm as the Wind Farm of the Week.
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!
Speaker: [00:00:00] 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: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with Joel Saxum up in the great state of Wisconsin.
Phil Totaro is in California, and Rosemary Barnes is here, but she’s in a vehicle in Australia somewhere. But there has been a tremendous amount of news over the last couple of days, and I think we should talk about some of them. Uh, I guess it’s, it’s a where the group would like to go. This week, guys, you know, we’ve been talking about the administration for the last several weeks and about administration out, uh, the latest is with, uh, the administration in [00:01:00]court about Empire Wind.
Do you want to even talk about that stuff this week or do you wanna move on to some things? A little happier? Let’s do happier. Alan. I think we should, we need some different news. I feel the same way, Joel, you know, uh, when this podcast comes out, everybody’s, everybody’s gonna be in Husam, Germany having a great time, uh, talking wind energy, particularly in Europe.
And it sounds like that event is gonna be bonkers from what I can tell on LinkedIn.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. The, I mean, HU is only second to Hamburg right in, in Germany there. Everybody that I go, they enjoy it. Husam is like the, the. Correct me if I’m wrong, Phil, but I think it was like the first place they had onshore wind in a big way in Germany.
Phil Totaro: Yes. So it’s vestus, um, put up a factory there, uh, and was selling wind turbines to farmers. It’s also where they used to do, the reason that it’s there is they used to do an agriculture. Um, event and then they used to invite some of the wind guys. This is going back to like the, you know, late eighties, early nineties.
[00:02:00] They used to invite the wind guys, or the wind guys used to show up to try and sell turbines at this agriculture event. The amount of people interested in wind got to such an extent that they started doing a separate wind event. Um, and it got. Before they started the separation with the, the Wind Energy Hamburg, um, event, they, uh, that got to a point, I mean, I remember being there in what, 2015 or 2016 when it had to have been.
30,000 people in a field in Huso. You know, I, my best memory of it, I think was when, uh, well it was eon at the time, but, uh, they had a guy running around, passing out hot dogs. And I had a eon hotdog.
Joel Saxum: Phil, I wanted to share with you. This was a Deutsche Wind Technique show, San Antonio a CP. They had margaritas with the Deutsche Wind Technique logo in the margarita, like foam, the foam on top of the margarita once, and they were passing those out at an event.
I thought that was spot on.
Phil Totaro: The hot dogs [00:03:00] are not branded in any way, although that would’ve been a good idea to like, you know, stamp the button or something.
Joel Saxum: What, how do we do that for weather guy to the next event? How we have like lightning bolt popsicles or something? Oh,
Allen Hall: I’m sure that can happen.
Lightning bolt cookies, maybe. Well, cookies. We all love cookies. Who doesn’t love good chocolate chip cookie? You know who told me about Husam first was Lars Benson and at AC 8 83 and he described it as just a. Complete craziness in the middle of a field. You had to go rent a house to stay there. But it was a heck of a lot of fun.
And I thought, well, if Lars is having fun, it must be really fun. ’cause
Phil Totaro: Lars likes to have fun. I used to have to take the train on a daily basis from Hamburg because there was no way you could even get a house or a hotel. It was so busy, uh, in, in that little town. Um. So, yeah, it was, it was quite an experience and they’ve eventually worked out all the logistics.
’cause they used to not even have like, shuttle service from the train station to the event. Um, but there were so many people that demanded it that they started [00:04:00] adding these kind of amenities, uh, which, which was nice.
Joel Saxum: I did wanna share this one. Uh, you mentioned, uh, Lars Benton, Alan, um, Lars and the team over at a CA 83.
Recently Lars stepped, stepped into the executive chair and handed over the. The main keys to the organization to Yannick, so Yannick Benson, the new CEO at a C 83. So a little bit of a management change up there in Canada. That company growing, selling spare parts, doing blade work, doing service work, all kinds of good things.
Allen Hall: Yeah, if you need spare parts, you better be calling Yannick. It’s, it’s spare parts are hard to get at the moment and I know Yannick and Lars have connections and places you can’t get to, so it’s a good place to reach out to AC 8 83. Just in time for a husam. The new PES win magazine is out. This thing is heavy.
It’s full of great articles and I’ve been thumbing through it, uh, recognizing a lot of people that I know in the magazine and that’s awesome. Uh, but Joel pointed out that, uh, Amond Costa Rego [00:05:00] is in it from Earth Wind. And, and Arthur Wind is, we’ve, we talked to Armando a couple of months ago, Joel, down in Nashville.
That seems like an eternity ago.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, I’ll tell you what, uh, Armando night chat quite regularly. We’re on the WhatsApp telling jokes, talking family stuff off and on, and that man is everywhere. Uh, I talked to him last week. He was in Mexico. He was in Chile. He was in Argentina at all the wind events. He’s got wind, uh, power Brazil coming up.
I know he’s doing a big thing with the ARS wind team down there for that. He was at a CP Nashville. He, for OMS, he was at a CP in Phoenix. He’s like every event everywhere. He’s there every, no matter what Europe. South America, it doesn’t matter. Um, but yeah, the article they’re showcasing, of course what Earth Wind does is as a blade consultant, they’re top tier.
They’ve got a large team. They have a lot of experience inside the factories, um, auditing blades as they’re coming off the lines. Internal inspections, external inspections, blade expertise. Uh, they’ve got their [00:06:00] own platform, ARS Next, which is kind of, um, it’s, it’s, it’s solid, right? It’s good. Yeah. It’s good stuff for, uh, validating repairers realtime feedback.
Um, I know they got some little AI engines for chat bots and stuff in there. They’re doing some, some really cool things. Um, so, and if you haven’t, if you’ve met r Armando, you’ve probably also met our good friend Rodolfo, uh, who is, who is a. A strong right hand for Armando and uh, that team down there is, um, they’re doing big things in Brazil.
Allen Hall: Yeah, a lot of great things happening at Earth, wind, and they are worldwide. If you need help with inspections or technology, or blade management or turbine management. Earth Wind is definitely a place to check out, and you also need to check out PES Wind, so if you haven’t downloaded your copy, you can go to PS wind.com and download your copy today.
As Wind Energy Professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it difficult. That’s why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES [00:07:00] Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need.
Don’t miss out. Visit PES wind.com today. You wanna talk about cables? You wanna talk about storage batteries? I think we should do the, the cables and batteries. You pick the order.
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I mean, they relate. I’m sure one will flow into the other.
Allen Hall: Well, if more things could not go wrong, forested at the minute, and I know, uh, we’re watching Orid all the time, watching the stock price, watching them get their feet back underneath of them.
Stead has a lot of projects still going on today, and I think everybody forgets about that, that they’re a worldwide company and they’re doing great things all over. Uh, but they had a setback in Taiwan, so an export cable was damaged at the greater Chenwa two B offshore wind project, uh, which is going to push back the completion of that project.
To sometime in [00:08:00] late 2026, it’s about a 300 million Danish kroner hit on the, on the revenue chain, uh, which is about $50 million. It’s not a huge deal, but when I read this article, Joel, the first thing I was, I thought about you saying that on offshore, the biggest risk isn’t the actual turbines, it’s the cable, and there’s a lot of damaged cable as they’re deploying ’em.
What likely happened here in Taiwan?
Joel Saxum: Well, it’s an in, I think the first off, it’s interesting that they’re taking the hit. I, I don’t, I think that’s the, the headline, but that’s gotta be an insurance policy that’s covering this. There’s no way that Ted’s covering $50 million ’cause they, ’cause this should be under built, under construction policy.
So onto the technical side of things. Cables can be damaged in many ways. Um, I mean, you can damage them, loading them onto the ship. You can damage them in offloading of the ship. Failure modes are stretch, stretching, compression, bending if you exceed a certain [00:09:00] radius when you bend it. Um, because remember the export cable is gonna be, I mean, half a meter across at a minimum, right?
They’re, they’re huge. So, um, you even go to the point where. There’s a, there’s a concept called touchdown monitoring. So you’ll have the cable lay vessel, and there’s the stinger that sticks out the back, that the cable comes outta the reel and goes down the stinger. When it goes off the stinger, it cannot exceed a certain radius, and when it gets to the ground, it can’t exceed a certain radius, uh, of curvature.
So there’ll be an ROV, a remote operated vehicle, that camera down there flying along with the vessel to watch that radius to see how it’s doing. And that’s the touchdown monitoring part of it. So they know a lot of times. If they’re laying, if they have an issue. The trouble here is splicing a cable like that when there’s a break or a problem, like it’s damn near impossible.
Now, the Greater UA project is in shallow enough water where you can put divers down. So there’s a possibility of putting a bell, putting an enclosure and splicing something, [00:10:00] but oof, that’s expensive too.
Rosemary Barnes: But is there any suggestion that it was, um, that, was it sabotaged? Was it accidental? Because that’s what my, um, worry is, uh, with this happening in that region.
Even if it, it was just, you know, one of those, um, so somewhat mundane failure modes that you described, it probably is gonna bring to everybody, like front of everybody’s mind, um, that. Yeah, sabotage of a cable is a really, a really good way to be able to take out a whole wind farm. Um, and in that region, at least, like they’re really struggling for renewable energy solutions.
And if they’re not trusting in subsea cables, then, which is already problematic because a lot of the neighbors in that region don’t want to be trusting, um, trusting each other with something as critical as. Electricity supply. Um, but yeah, I think, you know, if they have to rule out subsea cables because they’re perceived security risk, um, or real one, then, you know, then they’re going down to some of the crazier options like Japan’s [00:11:00] looking at where it’s like, we’re gonna import liquid hydrogen, we’re going to coal-fire ammonia in our coal plants.
Uh, you know, all these sorts of things that just get more and more and more expensive than just putting electricity down a, a cable. So, yeah, I, I just wonder if anybody’s talking about, um, about the security aspect of it.
Joel Saxum: It seems that it’s in construction and when you’re under construction, of course there’s gonna be a ton of vessels around there.
So there, I wouldn’t suspect it was actual sabotage. I would think this is just a construction thing and there, and another reason behind that is an offshore construction in general, whether it’s p I’m talking pipe and cable lay and pipe and cable lay accidents, incidents. Losses happen quite regularly, really at a kind of a high rate compared to other things.
So I don’t think it would be a sabotage problem, uh, right now, but who knows in the future as well.
Allen Hall: Well, I just asked chat GPT, because this is the only place I can actually find some information about it. There’s really nothing online talking about what actually caused the damage in chat. [00:12:00] GPT as Rosemary pointed out.
Gotta be careful, but let me just read you what it says right now. Uh, the Chenwa Telecom subsea cable was damaged earlier this year in January, and it looks like a potentially Chinese linked, uh, ship happened to do that damage. So this sounds familiar to some things that have happened over, uh, in near Northern Europe.
Sure. Yeah. Oops.
Rosemary Barnes: Ask chat GPT for its source, because if you couldn’t find anything on the internet. How did it, it’s not like it has friends in the industry that are talking to it, you know? Um, so I, yeah. Is that a, a hallucination that’s, you know, gonna start an international incident?
Allen Hall: Yeah. You think this podcast could start an international incident?
That would be interesting. That I’d want to hear, but, uh, no. It does seem like a, a, a cable was damaged as, uh, earlier this year, and it wouldn’t be the first time that China was involved in cable damage. And it would be normal not to talk about it if it was sabotaged. So it does [00:13:00] seem a little bit odd that, uh, you don’t hear anything about it.
But back to Joel’s point, if it is an insurance claim, the insurance company’s not gonna talk about it. No. Or is not gonna talk about it because it’s under dispute probably. But, um, back to your comments earlier, Joel, about watching all this happen underwater and watching the cable drop. They know what the, the bottom of the sea looks like, where this cable is supposed to go.
Have many, haven’t they removed all the big obstacles for the cable to actually lay down or do they have a route that avoids
Joel Saxum: all that? Yes and no. Um, so I’ve been watching some of the geotechnic on that, uh, in that area, and there are very difficult geotechnic. Um, so if you remember a few, maybe last summer there was a jack up rig that, that fell over.
Over there. Right? Okay, so that’s difficult. Geotechnic, right? So when you’re running a, when you’re running a geotechnical study on a cable layer route, usually it goes like this. You’ll cruise down it with [00:14:00] multi-beam echo cylinders, so you can see the surface basically. So you can read what’s there, rocks do, sand, whatever, and you do a wide sloth.
You have it covered maybe a couple hundred meters wide, the whole route. Then along that route you’ll pick, um, like every kilometer, this will be the spec. Like every kilometer you’re gonna do a core. So you’re gonna do a gravity core or a drilling core to get a core sample of that sediment and be, be able to pull it out and see, okay, what’s actually here?
And then every half a kilometer, you’ll do like a simple VIO core or something like that, a CPT push test. But that leaves pockets right in this, in this area. Like when that, um. Jack up rig went over, they had done a bunch of, around a, around a site, around an actual, where you put a mono pile in. You’re gonna do a lot of surveys, you’re gonna do a bunch of CPTs in that area to kind of create a network of what that subsurface looks like.
But you can hit gas pockets, you can hit soft soil pockets, compaction, liquification, [00:15:00] different things that you didn’t, because you didn’t test every meter. You can hit these things, right? So there is a possibility that you’re laying this cable or, or in this, in this case, it sounds like this thing may have been a anchor drag or something, but there is a possibility that you’re laying this heavy cable and you’re on sand, sand, sand, and what looks like sand, but it’s actually like a liquified sand.
And all of a sudden the cable dives under the surface because that cable’s heavy and a lot of pressure on it. So that can happen without you knowing, and that’s why you’re doing the touchdown monitoring and all those kind of things.
Allen Hall: So is this similar to when you watch LinkedIn and you’re putting in a monopile and it just keeps going?
Joel Saxum: Yeah. That’s the exact same thing. When you’re like, do 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, they get through a hard sauce, plump. That’s, and it’s just gone. Yeah.
Phil Totaro: Insurance is obviously gonna be a part of this. The bigger conversation on insurance, however. Uh, that’s triggered by stuff like this is at the end of the day, the developer puts, you know, in this case Ted, they put a, a modest amount of margin, uh, [00:16:00] into their budget when.
You know, they, they go and ask for capital. When you get some kind of a delay, whether it’s, you know, induced by a government shutdown, or you know, an incident with a cable, whatever the cause is, the, the reality of that is you’re gonna blow through your management reserve in like a week or maybe a month, and you’ve, you, you know, you’ve got very tight margins already.
And you’re setting yourself up for a money losing project if you can’t make sure that you leverage all these technologies. Joel just explained they’ve already started increasing premiums and decreasing terms for. Insurance policies, whereas they might have signed like a three year or five year term on a policy, now they’re only signing a one year term and they’re increasing premiums by at least 20%.
From what I’ve understood from, from folks in the insurance industry. So. Things like this, [00:17:00] again, whatever the cause of, of the cable cut, you know, having those kind of challenges makes it definitively, um, more expensive for all of us because at the end of the day, you know, we as electricity rate payers have to buy this electricity from whatever the power generation source is, and we’re the ones that pay off that project.
And you know, if a developer’s not able to make money on a project, they’re not gonna build a project.
Joel Saxum: So Rosemary, with that, those kind of things in mind, have you heard of any of the site suitability, subsea, subsurface studies going on in the offshore wind projects in Australia?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, not so much. All I have heard about is, um, just that the water is very deep.
For the most part. It drops, drops off. Quickly across most of Australia. So that’s why they’re already even looking at some floating offshore wind projects in Australia, which is kind of crazy because we’ve got so [00:18:00] many, like amazing, uh, onshore sites left, including some with, with potential capacity factors in the high forties.
So it’s like, that’s as good as an offshore wind site, but it’s cheap, like an onshore wind site. So yeah, so that’s a bit. A bit crazy. Um, and also just, uh, I’ve been following the progress of the, um, sun cable project, you know, so it’s not offshore wind, but it’s a big cable that they’re planning to put in between, um, Darwin and Singapore, via Indonesia.
And, um, I just, just have been looking Yeah. Keep keeping an, an eye on it over the last, I know like. Five more years, probably nearly 10 years by now. And the length of the cable, um, has grown and grown and grown as they understand more and more, um, accurately what the root is actually gonna be. So obviously they have to go around some obstacles and it’s adding, you know, hundreds of kilometers every time that they have to do something like that.
So, [00:19:00] um, yeah, I don’t think it’s super easy. Um, yeah. But there are plenty of, uh, plenty of offshore. Gas exploration in parts of Australia. So I am sure that those parts at least, are
Phil Totaro: well understood. And Joel, I’ll answer part of your question. They have only started doing. Uh, any geotechnical and subsurface stuff on, uh, star of the South in Victoria.
And I think one other project that it was suppo, well, actually no, they, they were gonna move forward and then they pulled the plug on the Nova Castran project. Um, so there’s one, one project so far that’s getting any underwater work done, uh, at this point. So, uh, the, the challenge frankly, in Australia has been that the developers want to be able to build the projects, but they’re still not really the best regulatory framework in place for this.
The approvals have come way too [00:20:00] slow. Um, they. You know, part of, uh, a lot of the projects that were gonna be built in Western Australia was gonna be for powering hydrogen production, but then they’re competing with, you know, the Asian Power Hub or something that was supposed to be like 70 gigawatts of um, you know, onshore renewables, both wind and solar that we’re gonna also.
Be leveraged for, for hydrogen production. So, you know, the, the, the challenge for the Australian market is that they, as Rosie’s saying, you know, they have a lot of. Onshore renewables, you know, wind, yes. But also solar resources left in the tank. So you know, unless they’re actually seeing a huge spike in demand or they find somebody that’s going to do a lot of this hydrogen offtake and they can justify building these mega projects for, for doing it, I think they’re gonna have a hard time [00:21:00] with getting offshore in Australia, kind of off the.
Off the starting blocks.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. I think Phil, I’d have to agree with you there a little bit because, uh, my reasoning being in the last year and a half, we’ve done, of course, we’ve been talking about Australia with Rosemary for years, but we’ve done actual work down there. We’ve, we’ve dealt with, um, not dealt with, we’ve engaged with some of the locals.
We’ve, we’ve worked with some of the operators. We’ve worked with some of the great people down there that are running wind farms. Uh, they’re the engineers, the asset performance people, the developers, all the above, even OEMs. And you can see some of the struggles that they run into, um, just on land. Um.
With permitting and the, uh, local opposition and some things. And so you can hear the, the opposition to a lot of the wind projects there. And I, I gotta think that the permitting they’re gonna have, regardless of technical issues, the just getting through things through the government are gonna be tough.
To get offshore wind built,
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Well as wind progresses in Japan. Offshore is a growing. Concept. Uh, but they’ve had trouble, right? Uh, Mitsubishi pulled out of three projects recently that they had bid on and won. Uh, but Japan is refusing to give up on offshore wind, and they are going to start planning a national floating [00:23:00] wind test center next year, and that is going to help them.
Get floating wind into Japan. So the, the Floating Offshore Wind Technology Resource Association, uh, says that they’re gonna conduct verification tests in Japanese waters because their ocean and weather conditions differ from Europe. Obviously, uh, there’s a lot of knowledge in Europe for floating wind.
Not so much in Japan. Uh, and I guess from my perspective, just reading these articles about Japan taking on this effort, it does make sense because the way the Continental shelf is right there off the coast of Japan, it pretty much gets into deep water very quickly. Floating wind is gonna be a great opportunity, but there are unique challenges in Japan.
Right.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. I, I wanna mirror this one almost in the conversation that we had with the fellows up in, uh, Norway and Denmark there about the Ute Sierra Nord. Right, because we talk to them about, okay, Norway having the capabilities to do this. Do we want to be a net exporter of technology? [00:24:00] Do we wanna bring it, keep it at home, we know how to do stuff offshore, blah blah, blah, blah, blah.
Um, great things up there. This is kind of the same case and put around the world, right? Japan is sitting over there, you know, mostly by itself working on floating wind stuff. So. It’s difficult. I mean, a lot of Japanese companies have tried to get into the offshore merge, you know, the MHI Vestas experiment and some of those other things.
Um, we, we, you know, we did a big strike take project and a bunch of Mitsubishi turbines onshore in the states this year. So like the Japanese technology’s been around the world, but I think that because of the national interest, right, like they won offshore wind, um, they have good offshore wind resource.
We’ve talked with quite a few people over there. Uh, they need. To do something like this. The only other one place that there’s an offshore wind test center, of course we have like high wind Scotland, um, there that did that, did that project. But there is another loading offshore like kind of test center in north, north of France, I think, where they’re doing some, some, some studies and some other things.
But them [00:25:00] building this, because Japan has been a follow on technology-wise, for years, they’ve just been using whatever the western world’s been creating. Um, and some Korean turbines, and we’ve run into some weird ones like that too, right? Some small production units. But I think that this one is, is very smart of them from a national interest standpoint to build this floating offshore technology center because they’re gonna need it.
If they want offshore wind, it’s going to have to be floating in a big way over in.
Phil Totaro: Port Portugal’s also got the wind Float Atlantic. So there, there are, you know, uh, again, a number of, of pilot projects. Japan was actually the pioneer though with this. They had a two megawatt unit, uh, out on a floating platform since I wanna say 2011 or 2012.
Their government needs to get out of their own way. If they really want to move forward with floating offshore in a serious way. The fact that they’re willing to commit some resources to this is good because they’re leveraging expertise as well from, um, you know, commercial [00:26:00] relationships with some of the other, you know, floating research centers around the world, including Norway.
Um, according to this, this press release, uh, announcing this. So, you know, in general that’s a good thing, but. You know, all it takes is somebody saying yes at this point. And you know, there’s, there’s been a lot of people pushing for this for a long time, uh, both in Japan and in the West, who wanna be, you know, in Japan, including turbine OEMs, developers, uh, financiers, you name it.
Uh, the government needs to. You know, get out of its own way and let some of this start, start to flourish.
Joel Saxum: Alright, the Wind Farm of the week. This week we’re taking a, a plane trip across the Atlantic to Moray West, which is an Ocean Winds project. Ocean winds is EDPR and NG. Uh, so on this offshore wind charm is 60 Siemens esis SG 14.
2, 2, 2 direct drive turbines each rated at 14.7 megawatts. Uh, these things have a big [00:27:00] 108 meter power boost blades on them, which are just massive, 108 meters long for each blade. Uh, so the cool thing about this wind farm and they’re doing something a little bit different ’cause we have spoke about a lot of these offshore wind auctions and how the CFDs are working in the UK and, and some of the interest or disinterest in the Danish auctions and German auctions.
You know, support for the actual financing and operators. They did something a little bit different on this one. It’s a hybrid financial structuring model for offtake, which is pretty cool. Um, so unlike most UK offshore wind farms that rely entirely on CFDs, Moray West has 882 megawatts. Uh, it splits it into three buckets, 294 megawatts under a government UK CFD.
573 megawatts are under big tech PPAs with Amazon and Google. And then a and then a little bit of it is, uh, in, in the merchant markets. Um. So that hybrid model had secured them 2 billion pounds in financing. [00:28:00] Uh, so it’s a bit of a different way to do things right when they’re building this up. So they brought a lot of, lot of, uh, support to the local economies there up in, in Scotland, so Port of Nig, uh, the Port of Inver Gordon, uh, the key west there.
So they had some marshaling, uh, areas and pre-assembly areas. Uh. Some local North Sea vessels from cattle for, to help install. Uh, and all of this translated, so the cool hybrid model, um, the financing that was there on, uh, the, all of the support locally had some rapid project delivery. So they were able to first secure the consent to 2019 and they dev, they delivered first power in July of 24 and full power output by 25.
So for an offshore wind project going con from consent. To full power in under six years. Pretty impressive. Um, so this, this project, local economic impact is expected to inject 800 million pounds [00:29:00] into the Scottish economy with over 1500 full-time employee years of construction jobs and 60 plus long-term operational roles based in Bucky.
Uh, so it really demonstrates the offshore wind can support energy transition and regional economic development amid some supply chain and grid infrastructure challenges. So. The Moray West Wind Farm up there in Scotland U are our wind farm of the week.
Allen Hall: Well, that wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind and Jeep Podcast.
Thanks for joining us. Uh, we appreciate all the feedback and support we receive from the wind industry. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out to us on LinkedIn and please don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For Joel, Rosemary and Phil, I’m Alan Hall and we’ll catch you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:30:00] Podcast.
https://weatherguardwind.com/offshore-cable-japan-floating/
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Morten Handberg Answers the Big RCA Questions
Blade specialist Morten Handberg on when an RCA pays off, what SCADA data can and cannot tell you, and why erosion gets written off as wear and tear.
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Allen Hall: Morten, welcome back to the program.
Morten Handberg: Thanks, Allen. It’s so– It’s, it’s so such a great, great pleasure to be back again.
Allen Hall: We have a lot to talk about today because of root cause analysis and the number of operators that are really struggling with RCAs, of when to do them or when not to go down the RCA pathway.
It, it– There’s a, a ton of confusion in the industry about it, and we thought, well, this would be a great time for Morten to come back and explain when is the right time for an RCA. So Morten, when is the right time for an RCA? What should we look for? Or wh- how big of the problem sh-should it be [00:01:00]before I find somebody to help me do this RCA?
Morten Handberg: So the obvious question is typically when something really bad happens, then I think everyone can agree that, you know, we should definitely do an RCA to get to the bottom of this. And that’s also just from a– It’s both from a technical perspective to sort of figure out, you know, why did this happen, and, you know, um, who…
Well, what is the, what is the main cause? Is it, is it something that, you know, it was happening while we were operating the asset, be it turbine or whatever? Uh, was it something that was inert in the bla- in the, in the turbine, the blade, the gearbox that was just waiting to happen? So that’s always very important to know.
Also because it tells you what is the chance of this happening again, you know, and, and can you prevent it in a meaningful way? Um, and there’s also a, a safety aspect to it because it’s– so it also tells, you know, uh, what if, you know, you don’t want blade falling left and right. You don’t want gearbox ex- [00:02:00] gearboxes exploding.
You don’t want towers to collapse. We can all agree on that. Uh, and you don’t want this to happen because you don’t, you don’t want to run the risk that someone gets hurt, uh, hurt by it. So then RCA is a really important tool to investigate and find out, well, what happened here, and how can we prevent it, and what is the chances that it happens another time?
So that, that is sort of the– That we can always agree and we would do it when, when something really terrible happens. Then there is the, you know, not so critical ones where, you know, you are just in time, uh, that, that, that you catch it, and then the question is, what is the– when is then the right time for that?
Allen Hall: There seems to be a couple of phases in the lifespan of a turbine where the RCA, it becomes a little more critical. In that first year or two, particularly if the turbine is under warranty or you’re getting close to the end of the warranty, there– at least from a lot of operators I have spoken with, that, uh, [00:03:00] they would like to do an RCA as more of a documentation of what has happened on the site to then maybe claim serial defect maybe l- at another point.
There’s just like the record-keeping part of RCAs, which I’m not sure is the right level of effort for what you’re trying to accomplish. Is, is the RCA the right approach there if you have a, a gearbox issue or a blade issue early in the life cycle of a turbine?
Morten Handberg: There is definitely before the end of warranty, there is a, there is an, there is an aspect, you know, when should you actually do an RCA?
And it should, it, it should benefit you in a way where you can– where there is an economical benefit, because it might not be a massive critical issue, but something that will lead to a lot of maintenance down the t- down the line. Um, but if you want to make it successful in the warranty claim, then you really need to know what is the, what is the cost behind it.
Is it wear and tear? Is it [00:04:00] a manufacturing defect? Is it, uh, environmental conditions, uh, that are, that are causing it? And these, these becomes really important. That’s also why you can, you, you can, you can do an RCA on erosion, uh, because it, it can be important if you see massive, uh, erosion degradation that you really want to understand, what are my local conditions?
Um, and a good example here is Australia, because Australia doesn’t work like Europe. We– You can take all the experiences we have from Europe, but it does not work in Australia. So you might want to do your, your, uh, root cause on that specific issue localized, uh, to really understand it, and that’s when RCA becomes really strong to sort of find out what are the underlying mechanisms, uh, that enables this.
But you can also pour in a lot of cost and effort into relatively minor defects, uh, or issues, um, where it does not really benefit you in the long run, and that will always be a challenge before end of warranty because you don’t really know what will, [00:05:00] what will hit you down the long run, and that’s where you, you know, then, then it becomes more of a strategic decision.
You know, breaking bolts, if you’ve seen one, maybe you don’t want to do an RCA on it. That does not really seem to matter to you that much. It’s just random occurrence. But if you start to see it, uh, in, in quick succession on multiple turbines, adjacent bolts, then it’s important for several reasons. One, you might– If you’re still within warranty, you really wanna know why is this happening and, and how do you fix it long term so this not– does not become a headache for the next 25 years?
Um, so you want to, you want– you really want to understand that. And two You can, you can live with a few broken bolts on the blade, but there, there will become a critical point where the blade will liberate and then, uh, it will, it will col- it will, it will, yeah, leave the turbine or, or collapse on its own, uh, depending on the turbine model.
And, and that is really critical to, to, uh, to avoid and, and to, uh, to [00:06:00]understand that. Um, and maybe the outcome of the idea of the RCA is monitoring, but that is a really important knowledge to have.
Allen Hall: That’s a good point about the monitoring aspect because I think a lot of times when a operator chooses to go down the RCA path, what they’re expecting is just to get a report of this is the conditions that created the damage or created the unexpected outcome Uh, it, sometimes you may not be able to get to that final answer, and the answer can be, we need to put conditioning monitoring on to have a better understanding of what the fault is.
That’s not a invalid RCA. That’s a really useful tool. But a lot of operators don’t think of an RCA as being that sort of outcome. That, that is actually where a lot of the industry problems can be solved, right, is to get the engineering up in upfront to then maybe have a little longer time or maybe instrument another [00:07:00] turbine to see how big this problem is.
I- is, is that the approach that which you would, uh, aspire to apply to some of these wind sites today?
Morten Handberg: I think that monitoring, uh, understanding the monitoring requirements is a very critical point, uh, outcome of an RCA. Both– And you can use it both during your investigation to sort of find out when you have, you know, uh, to, to find out how do you detect it efficiently, uh, but also what are the right methodologies and what is it actually that you want to achieve, uh, with mitigating this issue, and then what, what kind of, what kind of monitoring do you need.
So for instance, if you have, if you have, if you have cracks starting in your laminate, you know, do you need acoustics? Uh, do you need deflection monitoring? Um, is it es- is it vibration monitoring, or is it, um, or is it some kind of, uh, video monitoring, um, that or, or infrared scan that, that, that you need to, to keep, um, to, to, to ca- And again, the essential [00:08:00] part is then how do you catch it in time that it does not become a critical issue?
Uh, and, and then by using the RCA to find out, well, what is the best methodology to, to detect this and detect it in a cost-effective way, uh, that, that leaves you in, in good shape to, to maintain your turbines. That is a, you know, that is a really strong value proposition for the RCA.
Allen Hall: Morten, when I talk to a lot of operators about doing an RCA, uh, they don’t have access to high-speed scada, scada data.
They, they have access to low speed, depending on what their arrangement is with the OEM. Uh It’s really hard to get the high-resolution data, and they do not have the algorithms that maybe be able to tell them something about the turbine. They’ll just have sort of raw data streams. How important is it to get some of that high-speed data and the understanding of how that turbine is working as a, a fault [00:09:00] happens or s- some sort of failure happens?
Morten Handberg: It kinda depends on what it is that you’re, that you’re looking for. So for a lot of… for, for, so for SCADA data, it will, it will give you, um, a more holistic view of what, how the turbine is performing. It will give you the power production, wind speeds, wind turbine, uh, the blade pitching. Um, so it kinda gives you an understanding about how it is, how, how it is operating, but it st- does not really give you any specifics about the condition of, of the blades, of the gearbox, of the bearing, of the main shaft, of the tower.
So, um, so it does, so you don’t really have any, any detailed sense of that. You do have alarm logs, and they can be quite important. But in order for, uh, to sort of, uh, to tie that in with the failure that you’re seeing, you have, need to have a very, uh, a very strong sense of, you know, have, need to have an accurate sense of when did this actually happen.
So establishing the timeline of when the failure occurred, that, that sorta increases [00:10:00] the value of SCADA data. Um, so you can– The, one of the things you can learn from SCADA data is you can see the performance was, were, versus what, how the power production is. And then you can start to see, you can start to see how the, you know, if there’s any deviation, um, uh, that ties up in environmental conditions that, that sort of, that would affect the, the, uh, any of the turbine components.
And then SCADA data can be a very, uh, very important tool in addition to your other analysis. But you still need… But SCADA data is only a part of it, and it will only give you a s- a sense of, uh, com- with the alarm logs, it will give you, it will give you, it sorta help you build the timeline of what actually happened here.
And I can give you an example. So- If we’re looking at a blade failure, and we sort of know, well, the blade broke in half at a certain point in time. It was, uh, a very rapid occurrence, so it, it was not something that happened over a very long period of time. It was, it was a quick succession. When [00:11:00] did we start to go wrong?
Um, then scatter data can be really good to sort of, you know when it failed because the turbine did restart. But was that when things went wrong? Not necessarily. Uh, there could be times before that when you could have had tower oscillation, so shock effects. It can, it can be, um, it can be, uh, alarms from the pitch system that says, you know, the, that there is something with the blade.
It does not really behave right or that it can’t really turn right. Um, and/or the, the turbine does not really produce as it should. That can then, that can then help you establish, okay, how far back is this actually? When, when does this really start from when it collapsed and then when does the issue started to occur?
Um, so then, then, then scatter data becomes useful, but it’s not something that will tell you it was lightning, it was manufacturing, uh, or otherwise. That scatter data doesn’t really work for that, but it helps you establish the timeline of it.
Allen Hall: All right. That’s very interesting, uh, because I think that plays into some of the questions about [00:12:00] insurance and when you have a damage or some situation where you have had exceeded the deductible, right?
So you’re, you’re, now you’re into a couple hundred thousand dollars of a claim of some sort. There’s two opposing opinions about RCAs that right there is, one is I’m gonna file a claim. The insurer will perform the RCA and come back to me with what actually happened, and then we can figure out the financial details.
The other side is, I wanna have an RCA so when I hear back from the insurer, uh, that they, uh, my RCA aligns with their RCA, that we’re in agreement. And if we’re not in agreement, uh, how do we handle the difference? What is the right approach there? Is there a right approach there?
Morten Handberg: Often where you would start is, uh, you would actually a- if, if there is an issue and you’re, as an operator, is concerned, you would often start with going to your OEM and saying, “Hey- We see [00:13:00] this.
This does not seem right, or this component failed. We need you to provide an, an RCA and if you have a good contract, then the OEM is obliged, uh, to provide that. But that will state, that will be stated in, in your contract if they are required to do so. So I would, I would use my contract for that. Then if, uh, they don’t are required to perform an RCA, they don’t want to, or you’re unsatisfied with it or, and you have filed an insurance claim, then, uh, then there might be an obligation for you to carry out an RCA.
Or there might be a strong desire for you to sort of either find out, well, is the OEM right? Um, or is there something I need to challenge them on here? And then an RCA become– And that, that, that’s when you want to do your own RCA. Uh, and then whether or not you, the insurer, uh, will do an RCA, that, that sort of depends on the, on the process of the claim.
Uh, if there’s any, uh, if there’s a [00:14:00] contes- some, some contention, uh, between the parties. Um, more often than not, there is, there is a, there is collaboration between all parties if all are interested in, in seeing things coming to, to the right end, and that they use– sort of let the RCA be the, be the guiding star and that everyone can agree, okay, whatever the outcome of the RCA is, we’ll stand behind that as long as it’s carried out in a professional manner.
And these different boxes that we want to have checked, that they are all verified and there’s documentation for it. So it can be an, it can be a good tool to, uh, to sort of, uh, have an alignment on the, um, on, on a, on a claims process, really.
Allen Hall: I wanna touch on how the OEMs play into the RCA. So l- let’s use the example which is happening here in the United States quite a bit, and also in Europe offshore, which is leading edge erosion And the question regarding wear and tear versus something that’s a claim, and [00:15:00] if ex- there’s been accelerated leading-edge erosion, trying to put a root cause to that.
Is it a manufacturing issue? Is it a location issue? Is it a maintenance issue? It could be all of them or a combination thereof. Uh, how does that work? And is the RCA the right approach there just to put some markers in the ground as to what the issue really is or the underlying causes are?
Morten Handberg: Yes, but it has to be an independent RCA.
Um, because there, um, if there is invested interest in having one result over the other, then there will always be distrust between the parties. Um, you know as well as me that a lot of leading-edge degradation, I would say, is being marked out, marked out as leading-edge erosion. Uh, but from some of our previous talks then, you know, there is very much difference in leading-edge erosion defects because you can have scratches, you can have voids, you can have, uh, peeling, chipping, and you can have erosion.[00:16:00]
Um, but and, and they look very distinct, but often they get thrown into the same category, and they get thrown into the same cause, being wear and tear, which is ridiculous because, um, a lot of it is, uh, uh, uh, you know, some of the key defects they’re manufacturing with, uh, driven. So peeling and voids, that is manufacturing, and they are driving a lot of the erosion.
But if that gets masked as erosion, then, well, it’s just an environmental de- effect, so we can’t really tell. And I think also, you know, a lot… there’s a lot of, uh, issues regarding leading-edge protection systems peeling off, and then they don’t work as well, which is also somewhat, you know, we, we talked about this before ear- earlier in the podcast, you know, Australia having their own issues.
I think one of the issues that they have is environmental conditions, that’s very obvious, but that leading-edge protection systems are notoriously difficult to install there because of the hot and at times humid conditions, and they don’t work very well with a lot of [00:17:00] leading-edge, uh, products. So that would mean it’s not an environmental effect that caused a leading-edge erosion, uh, systems to fail, to fail.
It’s the application. Um, does that mean that Australia need their own product? Yes, but they need systems that are reliable and applicable in their con- in their conditions that will lead to, uh, stronger durability. And again, that’s what you need the RCA to, to, to figure out. And if you have a, an RCA carried out by someone who wants it to be wear and tear, then regard- then unless you can…
they, they, they come up with something else than wear and tear, you will always have a, a slight distrust in the result. So that’s why I would always argue, if you have concern for leading-edge erosion, then absolutely go to your O&M, figure out if they have a– if they’ve seen it before, they are keen to, to engage and provide a suitable solution and, and, you know, share actual knowledge.
But I would always keep in back of my head that if, if you’re not [00:18:00]100% sure about their– them telling the right– you– they’re, they’re telling you the truth, I would get it sanity checked, and I would carry out my own independent study which is what a lot of O- O&Mers are doing.
Allen Hall: That’s a really important bit of information for sure, Morten.
When going out to look for an RCA provider, what tends to happen, at least in the United States, and I think, uh, Australia can be this way at times and, and Europe definitely is, is that the chosen supplier of the RCA is one of the acronym companies. We all know who we’re talking about here. Just because they’re large in scale and they have a lot of capabilities, they have a lot of engineers, and, uh, they b- some of these things are pretty routine, and it does seem like they can, can do this job.
But I’m seeing more and more independent companies doing RCAs because of the level of detail. Some of the bearing issues that have popped up really require an expert in [00:19:00] bearings. Some of the tower issues require someone, especially foundation, someone who’s knowledgeable about concrete. Uh, same thing for lightning.
Usually you need somebody who knows something about lightning to be involved instead of a, a, a larger organization. What are you seeing in that space today? Are you seeing more, uh, narrow focus, uh, independent groups or engineers working on RCAs, or is it still mostly the big companies that we all know?
Morten Handberg: I would say that, uh, all of the acronym companies, uh, all have very good, talented engineers employed.
I don’t think we need to d- you know, we can all agree on that. But, uh, what I can sometimes be concerned is whether how much politics plays into their, um, their output. Um, so what would be important for me if I was, if I own a wind farm and my expertise is blades. So if I needed someone to look at my tower or my, my gearbox, I would find an expert within that [00:20:00] field.
I would definitely find someone in my network or, uh, uh, or, uh, otherwise that I know can provide an independent and honest opinion without, uh, having any any relationship to any of the OEMs or component suppliers, um, including the, including the coding suppliers. They’re all good. They’re all, uh, very, uh, all, all very skilled, have good products.
But they’re gonna want someone to look at, you know, what is the best solution for me with what is out there, um, and not be blindsided or focused on what is, you know, uh, other in, in interest in that.
Allen Hall: Right. Because it, it’s, it’s sometimes hard to tell where y- everybody’s intentions lie. It’s like hiring an attorney, I think, at some point, and that’s what I tell people is it’s like hiring an attorney.
Do you want an attorney that’s on your side, y- y- or and helping you? Do you want someone who’s more like a judge that’s just an independent person [00:21:00] or, or an advocate? Like, what are you looking for exactly? And it, uh, you need to think that out, uh, before you make your selection. And a lot of times there’s just a couple of defaults, which I have Have done really well, obviously, because the larger firms have a lot of engineering experience and have seen things globally, but not necessarily– That’s, that doesn’t mean they’ve seen your particular, uh, problem, particularly on a, on a new turbine design.
Those are really difficult RCAs, in my opinion. And Morten, you see this all the time on new turbines. Like, those are the
troublemakers in, in– from engineering to try to solve the problems ’cause they’re, they’re new.
Morten Handberg: Yeah, and we’re, we’re, we’re playing catch up, uh, with the, with the technology, and we’ve, we’ve been, been, been like that for for quite a few years now. And, and whenever, uh, a, a new blade that is, uh, ten meters long, well, we think we know what the, what the previous versions, how they worked and, uh, and what, what could go wrong with them, and that’s both in terms of the structure, in terms of the, uh, storage, in terms of, of lightning.[00:22:00]
But it seems like, you know, there’s some-always something new popping up, uh, and also in new environments that we’re installing turbines creates new problems that we haven’t really foreseen. And, and again, if something that you’re not expecting then suddenly starts to appear, that’s also when you, you really want to, to use the RCA tool to, to sort of get to, uh, get a handle on what is going on and get an– and get that deep dive understanding about what it is, because it will help you, uh, uh, understand, well, what are my risks going forward, and what can I do to mitigate?
Uh, and, um, yeah, on, you know, uh, and is there, is there, is– Do I need to, to look at, uh, putting a claim together?
Allen Hall: Morten, this is super helpful. I know a lot of operators around the world, uh, really question when to do an RCA, and if they should be doing RCAs, is it worth the spend? And you’re a great resource on that just because you’ve done a number of RCAs over the years, and you’ve been involved in [00:23:00] other companies that have performed tho-that task, and you have a, a sense of reality there of, uh, probably not an RCA, but probably some engineering time.
Or no, you really, really need to be on an RCA right now. How do people get ahold of you and, and to pick your brain about that an-and to get some, some knowledge, uh, to help them make their decision?
Morten Handberg: Um, yeah, you can always look me up on LinkedIn, and I am always happy to engage. Uh, if anyone has a question on, on blades or on RCAs or on maintenance, um, my door’s always open, and I’m happy to have a chat, uh, and share my knowledge.
That’s how I’ve been operating for my entire career, and that’s how I intend to continue. So please feel free to reach out, and ha-looking forward to, to the, to the discussion.
Allen Hall: Morten, it’s great to have you back on the program. Looking forward to having you again in the future.
Morten Handberg: I, I’m loo-looking forward to many more, more, more, more times on your show, Allen.
Thank you so [00:24:00] much.
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