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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why traditional approaches to wind farm operations are failing

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

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

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

Seeing problems before they happeny, and potential risks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turning information into action

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

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

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

The Integration Imperative for Wind Farm Operations

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

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

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

Assessing the Current State of your Wind Energy Operations

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

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

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

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

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

The competitive advantage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

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Weather Guard Lightning Tech

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

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

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTubeLinkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

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

Allen Hall: Chris, welcome back to the show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Cieslak: Absolutely.

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

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

Allen Hall: This is true.

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

Allen Hall: Yeah,

Joel Saxum: that’s the robotic processes.

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

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

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

Speaker: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joel Saxum: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Cieslak: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allen Hall: that’s the lightning,

Joel Saxum: right?

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

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

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

Joel Saxum: mean, we’re seeing no

Allen Hall: way you can do it

Joel Saxum: otherwise.

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

Allen Hall: Sure.

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

Chris Cieslak: blades.

Joel Saxum: Right, right.

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

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

Allen Hall: Oh yeah.

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

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

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

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

Chris Cieslak: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And the speed up it.

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

How does it work?

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

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

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

Allen Hall: Wow.

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

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

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

Chris Cieslak: there?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’d love to see you there.

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

BladeBUG Tackles Serial Blade Defects with Robotics

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Understanding the U.S. Constitution

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Hillsdale College is a rightwing Christian extremist organization that ostensibly honors the United States Constitution.

Here’s their quiz, which should be called the “Constitutional Trivia Quiz.”, whose purpose is obviously to convince Americans of their ignorance.

When I teach, I’m going for understanding of the topic, not the memorization of useless information.

Understanding the U.S. Constitution

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