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Unlocking Wind Turbine Uptime: Pearce Renewables’ Growth, Technician Training, and Service Capabilities
Join hosts Allen Hall and Joel Saxum as they interview Zack Dorfman of Pearce Renewables, the United States’ leading independent wind service provider, about their rapid growth and investments in technicians. With over 1,000 GWO-certified wind techs performing services from maintenance to major component exchange, Pearce is committed to recruiting and career development. Technicians can gain insights into joining Pearce’s team, while the hosts explore their extensive capabilities enabling wind farm uptime. This episode is essential listening for wind techs interested in growth opportunities with Pearce Renewables.
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Allen Hall: Welcome to this special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with Joel Saxum. Pearce Renewables is the nation’s largest independent service provider for wind, solar, EV charging, and energy storage. Pearce Renewables is rapidly growing with a team of over 1, 000 experienced and certified technicians.
They offer a wide range of services, including preventative maintenance, corrective maintenance, and capital improvements. In this podcast, we’ll be speaking with Zack Dorfman, Senior Vice President of Wind at Pearce Renewables. I’m interested to hear all the cool things that are happening at Pearce in wind.
Zack, welcome to the program.
Zack Dorfman: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.
Allen Hall: The 2023 repair season is just wrapping up at the moment. And from what we’re hearing, it’s been extremely busy. Can you just touch on some of the projects that Pearce has been involved with over the last couple of months?
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been an exceptionally busy season for us. I think as many people, the beginning of the year was a little bit slower of a season, which kind of happens, especially on the wind side. We’ve had a tremendous amount of growth, specifically on major component exchange and blades.
We’ve been doing multi platform major component exchange and heavy lift jobs throughout the year. We’ve kept those teams exceptionally busy on the blade side, we’re a tier one blade supplier and we’ve really grown our customer base specifically with blades. And lastly on the maintenance side of the house we’ve really done a lot with some of our customers with localization of hubs and trying to find unique solutions to, to meet their needs.
Allen Hall: Wow. Okay. There’s a lot there. Has some of that work been part of the IRA bill? It seems like that kind of work has been picking up over the last couple of months. Are you getting involved in some of those projects, the repowering projects and those type of events?
Zack Dorfman: We’ve done some repowering projects in the past, none of which are currently under the IRA.
We’ve got a couple projects that is a precursor to a repower project that we’re working with currently now that is an IRA project. We’ve got a couple of projects currently going on right now that are IRA projects. We’ve been actively spending a ton of time around IRA and on behalf of our customers, been working with groups like ACP as well as making sure that we’re at the forefront with working with the government on guidance for what these projects look like.
Joel Saxum: Quick question for you then, Zack. So since you guys are a large ISP and you have… All kinds of capabilities, right?
You said blade repair, major correctives, some service and maintenance. You guys are a great spot to go for someone if they want to do a repower, because it sounds like you’re basically a one stop shop. Does that make sense?
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, no, absolutely. Our goal is to be a holistic approach to servicing our customers, whether that’s servicing, major component exchange or replacing a card or even supplying a part. That’s really what our goal is to be that one stop shop. Specifically the repower side. We are the largest MCE independent service provider in the country. That lends itself very nicely to be able to go ahead and perform repower projects.
We’ve done multiple repower projects now, some of which we’ve done where we are the ISP that shows up and does all of the work. We’ve got other ones where we’re providing labor to work with some EPCs and some of the customers.
Joel Saxum: We hear that quite often from the larger companies in the world, right?
They’ve been through so many, managing five, six, eight, ten different subcontractors on site is a nightmare. It’s a pain in the butt, right? But for someone, especially if you’re a site manager and you have a repower project or some major project going on, it’s much easier if you have, hey, Pearce is on site, I’ve got one guy to talk to, and that person can disseminate all the information and all the things that need to be done within, on this field project, instead of, hey, this morning I got to talk to this person, I got to talk to the…
The gearbox guys, I got to talk to the crane guys, I got to talk to the blade people, I got to talk. So like that, I think that’s a major advantage and the actual asset owners and larger OEMs are asking for this kind of support.
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, we pride ourselves in going ahead and providing a single point of contact and project manager for each project so that you’re not going ahead to multiple people.
I think one of the other things of being one of the largest ISPs with so many offerings, we can go ahead, if you’re talking about a repower project or an MCE job, we can go ahead and provide while you’re there. There might be something else that takes place and you have to go ahead and repair a blade.
We can certainly provide that. And then we can have that single point of contact that’s working behind the scenes so you’re not making six phone calls to find the right person. That’s one of the things we pride ourselves in is communication and single party contact.
Allen Hall: And that involves having a lot of technicians that are trained, obviously, and it’s one of the big pain points in the United States at the moment is having an adequate staff of technicians to do this variety of projects.
Pearce Renewables has been one of the leaders in that in terms of getting technicians trained and being on site and knowing what the task is. You want to explain a little bit of the effort that Pearce Renewables takes to find technicians and to also to train them up?
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, absolutely. This is a problem throughout the industry, right?
Finding net new capacity with regards to technicians. So one of the things that we’ve done, I came on board a little over two years ago. Shortly after I came on board, we went to full GWO certification in wind. We’ve got a training facility that’s GWO certified in California. We’ve got one that’s being built currently in Dallas.
Gives us a unique opportunity to go ahead and train our technicians so they have the capabilities to step on the site, be able to perform what the expectation of the customer is. The other thing is I think that gives us a unique opportunity around things like career path for technicians.
It gives us the ability to show them this is the path from go to tech one to tech two to tech three, keeps folks engaged. I think, going to GWO, I think right now, one of the things we’ve been involved with some of the workforce development stuff at ACP. ACP has done a really amazing job first on the wind side right now.
I know that they have future plans outside that with solar and battery. But in wind they’ve created these guidelines that are very similar to what GWO is sets the standard across the board. So people are showing up to site, they know exactly what they’re going to get. We go ahead and provide our technicians with a QR code that has all of their certifications on it.
So as they show up to sites, site manager can look at it, scan the QR code, sees all the certification that the technician has as they get there.
Allen Hall: Yeah, it does seem like managing technicians is probably one of the bigger tasks and obviously when you’re doing major component exchanges, those are big projects, but making sure the right people on that job all the time is, from an operator standpoint, is key, right?
I think talking to a lot of operators across the United States, and Joel and I talk to operators all over the world. The key complaint is the technicians aren’t trained up, technicians arrive on site not ready. They don’t have the tools, the equipment they need. Everything gets slowed down because they’re not prepared.
And I have not heard that about Pearce. I, what I hear from, about you guys is that you’re ready. You’re on site. Things are happening, which is what, as an operator, you want to see. That involves obviously having the sort of the size that you guys are and the ability to bring people in and train them up.
Now when Pearce goes out a project. I’m a, say I’m a large operator in the United States. What am I, what are they typically looking for when they call you up and say, Hey, we have projects, this is what we want to go do. How does Pearce project manage all that? And what’s the approach inside of Pearce?
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I think, one of the pieces of things that we’ve done that really I think separates us is specifically as an ISP oftentimes people associate ISPs with body shops that are just providing bodies. We’re really keen on making sure that we provide solutions to the customers.
So we listen to what their needs are and what they’re asking for. We try to provide a solution. Shortly after I came on board, we restructured the way we run the organization. So we have technician supervisors and resource managers, and then we have project managers separate, right? So we have the ability to, we have, make sure we have a resource manager or technician supervisor that deals with the personnel issues and deals with people when they have challenges.
If you have a technician that really has to go to a graduation or a recital, we can work directly with them, making sure they have time off. I have the ability to replace them with a like technician so we can make sure that the project keeps going. With regards to the customer side and making sure that you have the all of the parts there.
All of the equipment there. Every individual project has project manager. Prior to the goal was yet a project manager that did both. Quite frankly, you can’t be that’s too much to deal with. So we separated the 2 functions. We now have a single point of contact. So we have a project manager that will kick off every single project.
And we’ll make sure the technicians have everything they need. But more importantly, their single point of contact and communication to get directly to the customer. And I think that’s really what has made us perform and have the ability to execute at a higher level. That, that being said, we’re not perfect every single time.
I’m glad to hear that you haven’t heard of any issues, but we are continuously striving to get better. So there are times when we stumble. I think how you react when you stumble is what’s important. And when I talk to the team and my senior leadership team, we really focus hard on what’s the reaction to the issue.
You’re going to have problems and don’t get defensive. Let’s welcome the feedback and then let’s figure out how to be better next time.
Joel Saxum: So that brings me to a question, Zack. So this is of course, watching Pearce over the last few years, you guys have grown massively. You’ve done a lot of organic growth.
But you’ve also done a lot of mergers and acquisitions and when you’re doing taking on mergers and acquisitions, there’s a there’s an unless you’ve been around a business that’s experienced that there’s a bit of a, an oddity around and you have different people, different cultures, different complete business processes, right?
You may buy a company or acquire a company or merge with a company and they do things a certain way. You do things a certain way. And now you have to change mindsets and ideas . And not only the processes and how they operate, but the culture and the and the, and like the safety culture is one of them, but like the culture about how we report and who we talk to and the way we treat our customers.
Like I said, watching you guys over the last few years, it’s like, Oh, Pearce bought this company. Oh, Pearce grabbed this company. Oh, Pearce is now these guys are a part of Pearce. That’s fantastic for growth. But how are you guys managing all of the. The mergers and acquisitions and melding those cultures together.
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, no, I will tell you this. When I first started into the role and we acquired a few companies, it was exceptionally challenging. I really, it was like. I’ve got a vision for culture. That means we’ll get there. And it’s quite, quite that simple. And it’s actually quite more challenging.
I think the key is you set, a really direct path into what you want to do and you communicate that and over communicate that we’re super fortunate. We’ve got a tremendously talented VP of mergers and acquisitions. He’s stepped in and he’s helped once we go ahead and acquire companies also helped set a path for what the integration looks like. We’ve got tremendous back office staff. That’s gone ahead and jumped in that jumps in regardless of whether it’s wind, whether it’s solar, whether it’s. Telecom that team has been exceptional with regards to integration.
Again, though, I think the thing is that one, it’s tremendously challenging to set culture, right? And so I think what you have to do is communicate the direction of what you want to do. You have to frequently communicate with employees, whether that’s technicians or salary folks. And make sure that the direction is clear and what we want to do and how we want to do it.
We’re also exceptionally lucky to some of the technology that we use. We’ve got a homegrown platform that’s on the force.com platform that was originally built. It’s an insight platform. It gives us the ability to really gather tons of data and gives us a competitive advantage. So I think when you see what a company came from
technology wise and what they’re going to. I think that’s a easy buy in from that standpoint. And then I think there’s some, very basic tenets that I think speak across all types of businesses, right? So we’re very big and double down on our safety culture. I think quality is an easy one to just go ahead and talk about, right?
Because everybody wants to do the right thing. You want to go ahead and satisfy customers. And if you have a way in which to do that, that works people buying quickly. Again, I think communication is the biggest, I think we’re also very lucky with the talented folks that we have internally to help the integration.
That’ll make it a little easier.
Joel Saxum: To piggyback on the communication concept, when you and I were talking off air a little bit, you mentioned basically part of your management KPIs, key performance indicators and metrics that you follow, is how many of the direct reports each member on the team must actually visit with face to face per year.
And that combined with the idea that you have maintenance or basically hubs for Pearce around the country can you touch on that a little bit and the advantage that brings to you, your organization?
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, no, absolutely. And listen, it starts with me, right? So every single year I mandate that I personally go out and see 15 to 20 percent of all technicians.
And 15, 20 percent sounds like it’s not too hard, but when you start to add, add in all the customer travel and that kind of stuff it gets exceptionally challenging. Starts with me. And then, I believe in a leadership style with my directors. All the directors should be on the field.
They should be visiting their teams. All the resource managers should be visiting teams on regular basis. When we see that there’s not enough of that, we’ll actually implement a schedule, right? And we’ll go ahead and say, Hey, I want to schedule. I want to know how often people are going out and how often they’re seeing technicians.
One of the biggest things with regards to technicians and why they want to stay and why they want to leave is their manager. So they either have a positive relationship or a negative relationship based on that manager. So as that manager gets to know that technician, seeing them face to face, taking them out for dinner, taking them for lunch that gives us an opportunity to go ahead and forge those relationships and try and spin it for a positive so that the technician can have the experience that they want and the manager can have the experience they want.
Like I said, it starts with me. It’s something that I learned a long time ago and it’s important to how we operate.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. Listening to getting that feedback directly field to office connection is huge. I think that a lot of companies miss that. And you can see cultures in other ISPs or other companies in the world.
It doesn’t matter who you are, what industry you’re in when you end up having like field level technicians, it sometimes can become an us versus them. And that is not how you build a culture of success within a company. So getting out there and getting in, being able to get face to face, gather feedback and really listen to the people in the field.
Having that connection I think is that’s a separator for you guys and that’s hugely important.
Zack Dorfman: I think it is very important and every single one of the technicians I visit, I give my cell phone number to. And so I’m a senior vice president, but we try to keep it like a small company.
And so you can reach out to me whenever you want. It’s actually pretty rewarding as well. There’s oftentimes there’s small requests that are really easy to fulfill. Someone needs a new headlamp. Someone found this really cool reflective vest that they’d rather have because it’s lighter weight, it’s hot outside.
It’s really quick to go ahead and make those, buy those things and send them out to the technicians. We’re not going out and buying at full scale for everybody every single time, but if there’s one technician that makes a difference with, we try to make make an opportunity to
help them out.
Allen Hall: Right now it’s technician silly season, I call it. It’s what they call it in racing. Silly season where everybody’s moving around and technicians are, unfortunately ISPs, losing their job and then they start looking for the next job. It’s it is a real tumultuous time for a lot of technicians and it seems like with Pearce and a number of other larger companies that there’s job stability in a lot of cases.
And I want, I wanted to touch on technician recruitment and how Pearce goes about that. And you don’t have to disclose anything that’s top secret within Pearce, but what kind of person are you looking for? Are you looking for people that have experience? Are you looking for people that. Are mechanically inclined, or maybe have a community college degree, or is an electrician, mechanic.
Where are you finding those sweet spots on recruiting people to Pearce?
Zack Dorfman: We very much value technicians that have experience. So we definitely are looking for technicians to have experience. That being said though, across the industry, we look at ourselves as industry leaders. And so we need to go help solve part of the problem, and part of the problem is that as technicians jump from job to job, we’re not creating any net new capacity in industry.
So it is important to go ahead and take a chance on somebody who maybe has a mechanical background, or has an interest, or we’re partnering with, certain technical schools that either have a wind program or some type of program similarly. We also heavily recruit with the military. We’ve got a tremendous recruiting team.
One of which has an extensive background in the military. And we utilize that to our advantage.
Allen Hall: Does that military connection is it providing you a good link? Because it seems if an 18 year old joins the military, they, by the time they, they get out at 21, 22, 23. They have a lot of mechanical experience.
A lot of them are working on all kinds of vehicles, all kinds of equipment. The electric, electrical guys are pretty competent in what they’re doing. It just seems like that’s a ready pool of candidates that are used to going place to place yeah it’s not really roughing yet, but it’s something that they’re used to.
Is that a good resource for you?
Zack Dorfman: It’s been a tremendous resource for us. We continue to value that very much. Those folks that are coming out with mechanical background out of the military generally start with us, a couple of bucks more an hour than some of the other folks that we hire in.
And they’re ready and they’re, they have a feel for what they’re doing. Their willingness to travel, they understand the hierarchy of corporate culture. It works tremendously well.
Joel Saxum: Cudos to you guys for doing your part in helping our nation’s armed forces with that transition into the civilian life too, because that’s tough.
Yeah. Should we touch on some of your basically, the MCE heavy lift stuff you guys are a leader in and some of the other services.
Zack Dorfman: As an independent service provider, we’re trying to go ahead and service the, our customers from wing to wing. Our idea, we have basic maintenance services where we’ll do site support and maintenance is oil changes.
Those kinds of things we also go ahead and we’ve got the most diverse, the largest. A major component exchange or heavy lifts operation of all the independent service providers. We think it’s important. We think there’s a true need out there to go ahead and be able to service multi OEM platforms.
So we go ahead, we recruit the highest talented folks in the industry across different platforms, and then we will fill them in with some of the folks that we’ve trained in house. The other thing that I think is a huge advantage to us, we have every single one of our major component exchange teams comes complete with a full context of toolings.
Many of those are specific to the individual OEM that we’re working on. So well over a hundred MCE technicians we’ve been able to keep them busy all year long with a backlog usually upwards of one to two months at a minimum. That’s been great for us that the techs love it cause they’re constantly working.
So that’s been outstanding. In addition to that, we’ve got quite a few folks that are in the advanced electrical troubleshooting side. We really, on that group, we really focused on the tech three and tech fours in the industry, the highly advanced, highly skilled folks. We’ve recruited a bunch of those folks, brought them in.
Those are the folks that can show up and they can literally troubleshoot anything. They can figure out how to get a turbine up and running. That’s been a huge bonus for us to be able to help our customers out when they’re in a bind. In addition to that, we’re a tier one blade repair service provider.
We’ve got two composite engineers that are well known in the industry. We have had upwards of times upwards of over 120 blade technicians. And we can repair anything from the most complex Category 5 all the way down to a cosmetic Category 1 blade. In addition to that we also have a team that is very skilled at demolition.
So no one likes to talk about the fact that we have, unfortunately, broken blades or fires that take place. And so we’ve got a team that could come in and go ahead and remedy that and bring that down. Oftentimes, there may be some negative publicity with that. So it’s important to act quickly. We’ve got a highly skilled group that is able to go ahead and take those down.
And when the customer wants it, we also rebuild it for them right then and there. And then probably lastly, I didn’t talk about we do have a 32, 000 square foot parts facility in the center part of the country in Illinois. And so we’re able to provide cross OEM multiple parts. Pretty much just about anything you want, we can find at times we can find it faster than others that sometimes we can’t, but we do we do have a large facility that kind of helps us out when customers need things.
We also have some engineers within that group as well. We got one talented engineer right now that helps us design tooling, helps us design parts, works on reverse engineering of parts or works, works on 3D manufacturing of parts. Yeah, quite a bit of work that we can do on the wind side.
Allen Hall: Parts are always a problem. It’s supply chain right now is really delayed and if you have parts in a warehouse, that is a piece of gold. Now I’m curious because you’ve, you guys are involved, you guys are involved in pretty much every aspect of repairs and maintenance on wind turbines. What are the, the top three problem areas you’re seeing at the moment?
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, I think top three problem areas at the moment right now, it’s an industry wide thing is recruitment of technicians. We’ve already talked about it a little bit, but recruiting of solid technicians that have a background. You can’t bring everybody in brand new. You have to have some talented folks that are going to help lead the way, be the leaders of the team.
I think that’s probably the largest challenge that we have. I think the second biggest challenge is probably more so around seasonality. Some areas of wind are worse than others, but specifically blades, seasonality and blades. Everybody wants to go ahead and get their blades repaired from July to October.
And the problem is how do you solve going ahead and getting that done? It’s really challenging. And so the folks that are willing to work in those shoulder seasons and willing to get some of their work done, that really helps out the industry. One of the other big challenges that we see is this quality of the products within the industry.
And so we’re seeing serial defects and major quality issues that are taking place. And then it creates a capacity issue with regards to the ability to repair those and get them back up online quick enough. Certainly there’s a couple OEMs out there that we’ve been working with to help them alleviate some of that stuff.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, and that’s a problem that we, as people around the industry, everybody sees it, right? And it’s a black eye to… To the industry as a whole. So I’m glad that you guys are there to support the OEMs and move it forward, get those turbines back up and running and be the capacity that they can rely on to, to call when they need the help.
The last thing I want to touch on is we are, it’s November right now. So it’s tender season in the wind industry. And everybody’s getting their tenders ready. Everybody’s getting their projects ready and doing the back office work to get ready for springtime. Blades, things that get going.
You guys said you had a backlog with some of your MCE stuff, so that’s fantastic. But there will be repowers and other projects that kick off in the spring. So what does the new year and going into the new year look like for Pearce right now?
Zack Dorfman: Yeah. Right now, like you said, a lot of back office stuff going on specifically around things like budgeting and kind of understanding what we’re looking at from a training perspective.
We’re actively trying to identify which technicians we’re going to promote into key roles. Figuring out training plans for some individual people to get them from Tech 2 to Tech 3. Some key Tech 1s that we want to get Tech 2s. I think that’s some of the stuff we’re working on right now. We’ve been exceptionally fortunate.
We’ve done some really unique things around localization with a couple customers. Those folks are going to be continuing to work throughout the year. It’s really a win for everybody. We’re able to give our customers a lower price. And then we’re able to get folks that are going to probably stick around a little bit longer.
They’re going home every single night. They’re home on the weekends. So that’s really been a huge plus for us. So we’ll be a little bit busier probably than we’ve been in the last couple of years with that regard. The only area that I think we’re still trying to solve for right now is some of the blade stuff.
And we’re working with a couple of customers right now to look at locking in capacity for later on in the year if we go ahead and do some of that work and some of the kind of shoulder months, if you will.
Allen Hall: Zack, I really appreciate having you on the program. How do people reach out and connect with Pearce Renewables?
Zack Dorfman: Yeah, absolutely. You guys can reach out directly to pearce-renewables.com. I’d be glad to connect with any of you on LinkedIn, Zachary Dorfman. And then we also have a parts web store that you can get to also from Pearce Renewables as well.
Allen Hall: Zack, great to have you in the program. I learned a tremendous amount and yeah, looking for another exciting 2024 repair season.
You guys are going to be busy.
Zack Dorfman: Absolutely. I appreciate you having me.
Accessing government energy grants in Victoria (VIC) and New South Wales (NSW) can help reduce energy costs and improve energy efficiency in your home or business.
A range of government grant programs are available to assist businesses with funding energy efficiency projects. Eligibility requirements can differ significantly across programs and jurisdictions, so it is necessary to review funding guidelines.
Whatever option you choose, you should conduct an energy audit before considering finance options. So, how do you access government energy grants in VIC and NSW? Let’s get into the details.
2024-25 Energy Bill Relief Fund for Households and Small Businesses
What is the 2024-25 Energy Bill Relief Fund?
The Commonwealth Government, in collaboration with states and territories, is providing up to $3.5 billion in electricity bill relief for eligible households and small businesses.
This substantial financial aid is designed to alleviate the financial pressures related to energy costs, providing relief and security.
Victorian families will receive up to $300, while eligible small companies may receive up to $325 to assist them pay their electricity costs. Households will accept payments in quarterly instalments ($75 per quarter), while small enterprises will get a single payment ($325).
Support for Victorian Households
Victorian households can receive up to $300 in electricity bill rebates, distributed in four quarterly payments of $75.
To qualify for this rebate, households must:
- Have an active electricity account with an energy retailer for their primary residence.
- Use electricity solely for domestic purposes, as commercial properties are not eligible.
The first $75 payment was issued in August 2024, with subsequent credits scheduled for:
- October 1, 2024
- January 13, 2025
- April 1, 2025
Most households will automatically receive the rebate through their electricity provider, with no need for further action. This streamlined process is designed to make it as easy for households to access the financial relief they need.
Households in Embedded Networks
Residents in embedded networks, such as caravan parks, retirement villages, and apartment buildings, can apply for the rebate via Victorian Energy Compare. These customers will receive a one-time payment of $300.
Support for Victorian Small Businesses Eligible small businesses in Victoria will receive a one-time rebate of $325 on their electricity bill. This support is a testament to the value that small businesses bring to the community and recognition of their contribution to the economy.
Eligible small businesses in Victoria will receive a one-time rebate of $325 on their electricity bill.
To qualify, businesses must:
- Have an active ABN registered on the Australian Business Register.
- Be on a separately metered business tariff.
- Have an annual electricity consumption below 40 MWh.
The rebates began in August 2024, and most businesses will receive the credit automatically through their electricity provider.
Small Businesses in Embedded Networks
Australian Government Grants and Financial Assistance| Grants and Funding
Find funding, loans, and support programs for your business across all levels of government at business.gov.au.
Before applying, you can assess your readiness and learn about the grant application process to improve your chances of securing funding. For energy-related financial assistance, contact Cyanergy.
Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC)
The CEFC is a government-backed organisation designed to boost investment in the clean energy sector. It provides financing solutions to help businesses and consumers transition to energy-efficient technologies.
CEFC programs support small businesses, manufacturers, agricultural enterprises, and commercial properties in adopting clean energy solutions. Funding is also available through co-financing partnerships with other organisations.
CSIRO Kick-Start
CSIRO Kick-Start supports innovative Australian start-ups and small businesses in their research and development (R&D) efforts. The program offers:
- Assistance in defining research objectives
- Access to expert CSIRO researchers
- Matched funding to expand or reduce the cost of R&D services
Tax Incentives for Businesses
Research and Development Tax Incentive (R&DTI)
Instant Asset Write-Off
The instant asset write-off allows small businesses to claim tax deductions upfront instead of depreciating assets over time.
From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, small businesses with an annual turnover of less than $10 million could immediately deduct eligible assets costing under $20,000. This threshold is applied per asset, allowing multiple assets to be written off instantly.
On May 14, 2024, as part of the 2024–25 Budget, the government proposed extending the $20,000 instant asset write-off for another 12 months until June 30, 2025. However, this measure is still awaiting parliamentary approval.
Using Tax Incentives to Enhance Energy Efficiency
The Energy Efficiency Council has published a guide on leveraging tax incentives to improve energy efficiency.
The guide explains how businesses can benefit from energy upgrades and outlines tax incentives that make these investments more cost-effective. It also includes real-world examples of how companies can apply these incentives.
State and Territory Government Grants and Support for Businesses
Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
The Sustainable Business Program offers rebates to small and medium businesses in the ACT for energy-saving upgrades, such as better heating, cooling, lighting, and refrigeration.
- Businesses can claim up to $10,000 (including GST).
- Rebates are only available for new upgrades (not ones that have already started).
- Eligibility rules apply.
New South Wales (NSW)
The NSW Government provides various programs, grants, and schemes to help businesses lower their energy use.
A popular option is Building Upgrade Finance, which allows businesses to get private funding for energy upgrades in non-strata commercial buildings. Repayments are made through the local council.
Queensland
The Queensland Government offers several programs to help businesses save energy:
Business Energy Savers Program: This program provides free energy audits for agricultural and large businesses and funding for energy efficiency upgrades.
South Australia
Victoria
Sustainability Victoria provides businesses with tools and expert advice to reduce costs and improve efficiency by saving energy and materials.
Their Energy Upgrades Tool helps businesses find funding options and calculate potential savings.
Tasmania
The Tasmanian Government has multiple grants and programs to help businesses cut energy costs and invest in sustainability.
Business Energy Efficiency Scheme helps businesses that use over 150 MWh of electricity annually by supporting financing costs for energy-saving projects.
Energy Saver Loan Scheme offers interest-free loans for purchasing and installing energy-efficient products. These loans have no setup or account-keeping fees, but late payment fees may apply.
Mandatory Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Schemes
Some businesses, mainly energy retailers, must meet specific energy efficiency or renewable energy targets under mandatory obligation schemes. These programs often allow companies to buy and trade certificates to meet their targets.
The schemes encourage businesses to invest in clean energy by offering financial benefits and long-term savings from reduced energy use and lower emissions.
National Scheme
Businesses that generate renewable energy on-site may qualify for Large-Scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) under the Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) Scheme.
- LGCs can be sold or traded to energy retailers.
- To be eligible, companies must generate electricity from approved renewable sources and feed it into the grid.
Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
The Energy Efficiency Improvement Scheme (EEIS) helps maintain progress on energy-saving goals, ensuring affordable electricity and gas savings. It also aligns the ACT’s energy regulations with those of other states.
New South Wales (NSW)
The Energy Saving Scheme (ESS) provides financial rewards for businesses that reduce electricity use or improve energy efficiency.
Energy retailers must obtain Energy Savings Certificates based on the amount of carbon dioxide emissions reduced.
South Australia (SA)
Victoria (VIC)
The Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) Registry is an online system.
- VEU manages Victorian Energy Efficiency Certificates (VEECs) for businesses.
- It approves new products for energy efficiency programs.
- It tracks the ownership and status of certificates.
Rebates and Assistance
Other Energy Financing Options
Environmental Upgrade Finance (EUF) / Building Upgrade Finance (BUF)
- External financiers cover the cost of energy-efficient building upgrades.
- Businesses repay the loan through a council levy, which can be passed on to tenants.
- If the property is sold, the payments remain tied to the building.
This finance model is available in NSW, South Australia, and Victoria. Details are on the Building Upgrade Finance website.
Energy Performance Contracts (EPCs)
- Energy service companies assess a building’s energy-saving potential, finance the upgrades, and guarantee lower energy bills.
- The cost of upgrades is repaid through the energy savings.
- This model benefits tenants who save on energy bills without the building owner paying upfront costs.
Loan Financing
Leasing
On-Bill Financing
The energy provider covers the cost of new energy-efficient equipment. Once payments are complete, businesses repay through monthly power bills and ownership transfers. Repayments are often equal to or lower than the energy cost savings achieved.
Contact Cyanergy for more details and talk to an expert!
Your Solution Is Just a Click Away
The post How to Access Government Energy Grants in VIC & NSW appeared first on Cyanergy.
US Wind Unionization, Blade Weather Damage Insights
This week, we cover the unionization of Vestas technicians in Michigan, and research revealing significant blade damage occurs in short but intense weather events. At the Atlantic Shores offshore farm, an environmental permit was remanded by a judge. Dermot Wind Farm in Texas, also known as the Amazon Wind Farm, is our wind farm of the week. Register for the start of our webinar series with SkySpecs!
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!
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: Before we start the program this week on March 26th.
At 11:00 AM Uptime sits down with Josh Goryl CRO of SkySpecs, and their newly appointed CEO Dave Roberts for an exclusive conversation in our new joint webinar series. You may have heard about Dave recently stepping into the role. Now’s your chance to hear from him directly and we’ll dive into what’s new at SkySpecs, the latest industry insights, and what their newest announcement means for the future of wind turbine inspections.
Wind o and m. And asset health management, so don’t miss it. Tune in on March 26th, 11:00 AM Eastern, and we’ll include the webinar registration link in the show notes. Up in Michigan, wind turbine technicians who perform operations and maintenance on Vestas turbines have voted to join the Utility Workers Union of America.
Marks the first Vestas wind technicians in North America to unionize. The 11 member group voted nine to one, so someone abstained obviously in favor of organizing and will become members of the UWUA local 2, 2 3, which also represents winex at DTE in Michigan. Now these workers are responsible for operations and maintenance on about 120 odd turbines, including MCE.
So Joel, this one’s a little unique and maybe ’cause it’s Michigan unions are really strong in Michigan, have been for a hundred years. ’cause the auto workers, and this seems like an outgrowth of that, but what is the relationship with Vestus in unions? Is that something that they have done in Europe quite often and this is just carrying over into the United States?
Or is this. An American move.
Joel Saxum: I think it’s an American move. If you look at the state of Michigan, like you said, auto workers are there. They’re heavily unionized. And because they’re heavily unionized and that state has looked at them as, they do well. It’s in good middle class incomes and, that, that’s driven some progress over the last a hundred years in Michigan. My, some of my in-laws are from Michigan and they’re boilermakers and they’re all unionized. And when they say get that union job, they’ve got it. They’ve made it right. So I understand the city or the state of Michigan and some of the ideas around there.
And I think that if you, in wind, if you were to pick a state that would’ve unionized first. Michigan would be at the top of your list probably. So I don’t think it’s a Vesta thing necessarily. I think this is a local Michigan thing, but I don’t also believe, Vesta is being a Danish company and they have, a lot of trade representation there from in all trades in that northern part of Europe.
I think that’s, it’s not abnormal to Vestas either. It’s probably abnormal to Vestas. United States Management, but Vestas as a company, eh, pretty standard thing. I’m curious to see what their package looks like, because now we’re in this era of IRA bill things, right? So we, IRA bills, apprenticeships, and white sheet wages and these kind of things to, to fulfill these needs for all these projects.
So I would. Be interested to see what the package looks like and what they’ve signed with or as a union to Vestas and to the people that you’re working for, to see if it aligns with the IRA bill.
Rosemary Barnes: What can you explain for non-Americans? What does that mean to have unionized in America? Because we have unions in Australia, but my understanding, like it must be incredibly different here than it is there.
’cause like you say, it could be, you can have a union job, like I’m pretty sure in Australia, like you are. There’s no such thing as a union job. They can’t I think they’re explicitly prohibited from discriminating based on whether you are in a union or not. Everyone has a right to join a union, but, what does a union job mean? And Yeah tell those of us who aren’t from America. What does this actually mean?
Joel Saxum: It’s different depending on the organization, the industry, the area, right? So technically same thing. It’s not, it’s, it is illegal to technically discriminate against non-union or union, however, they become such a strong presence that when, if you’re part of the union and you. Say there’s a strike going on, and then you cross that picket line, like you will be ostracized from that group of people, even though it’s technically illegal to do they’re not sanctioned by the government.
It’s all independent organizations, but they have a lot of power, the auto workers unions and stuff, like if they go on strike, they shut down gm, they shut down forward, they can’t do anything. So they have a, an insane amount of power. And it, it rolls over into, when I say good union jobs, they have good packages.
In my opinion, I’ve seen some union packages that are just crazy, right? Like I was working in Chicago and there was guys that were holding shovels clearing, clearing off manholes, and they were making $48 an hour because they were in the union. And the guy next to him that wasn’t in the union, that wasn’t working for the union company was making like 16.
And doing the same work except for after eight hours he was still working. The other guy put a shovel down one home. So there’s a give and take.
Phil Totaro: Yeah. But that’s the flip side of this as well, which is okay, there’s a benefits package that, that they offer as being part of a union, but there’s a price that’s paid for all of that.
It’s the same sort of thing with, like a government that leans a little more socialist. They’re gonna collect a lot more in tax. And then have a lot more programs for everybody that’s based on all that money that they’ve collected. But the reality of it is who do you think pays for that?
At the end of the day, that’s gonna be the asset owner and then all of us as electricity rate payers who end up, the power purchase contract price is necessarily gonna be, more than what it might have been otherwise. There’s. There’s two sides to it. And yeah, you can, you can get unionized labor and their argument with joining the union was, safety training, access to safety training, access to benefits, things they weren’t getting either from vestus or independently.
But somebody’s gotta pay for it and it’s gonna be all of us
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Allen Hall: New research from the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific research in collaboration with offshore wind operators reveals that approximately 30% of annual wind turbine blade damage occurs during just 12 hours of harsh weather conditions.
The PROWESS project conducted. Year long, detailed measurements of precipitation in the North Sea, a pretty rough place finding that damage happens when the tip speeds reach about 325 kilometers an hour as wind speeds exceed about 63 kilometers an hour, which is pretty fast and rainfall surpasses about 7.5 millimeters per hour, which is a lot of rain.
Now, these findings have led to the creation of a erosion atlas in the. That could help wind farm operators proactively reduce turbine speeds to prevent damage. Now, I think that’s the goal everybody, is that if they know there’s certain environmental times when rain erosion is going to occur, then you basically slow the tip speeds down, which will reduce the amount of erosion.
Maybe I’m missing some of this. Rosemary, I know you’ve heard the same story that you can slow the tip speeds down when the rainfall is really high and the wind speeds are really high. And sure you can reduce the amount of erosion, but it’s still a problem.
Rosemary Barnes: And I haven’t seen this this atlas, is it just for the North Sea is is it just Europe?
Europe,
Joel Saxum: TTU was working on one to cover all of Europe.
Allen Hall: Yes, they were. Yeah, I haven’t seen it yet, but it maybe out.
Rosemary Barnes: One of the things that I’ve been working on. Recently with a few different clients is leading edge erosion in Australia. And just noting that we don’t see things behave the same way that they do in Europe.
And one of the reasons is, or that I suspect actually I don’t suspect, I know I’ve back backed up with data, that we have much higher rainfall intensity and a lot of places and. Australia. Like I just know that from living here. When I lived in Denmark when I moved to Denmark I checked the climate data before moving to see, things like, oh, what’s the annual rainfall and how does it compare?
And it wasn’t so different to a lot of parts of Australia. And in fact, it’s less than a lot of parts of Australia. I’m like, oh, okay, it’s not gonna be that bad. But when you actually live there, like in Australia, it rains and it rains. Like it’s not joking around. It is raining. But whereas when you.
In Denmark it’s just always drizzling, just I don’t know, definitely more than 50% of the time. It’s just it’s raining a little bit. And sometimes I would call it static rain. It’s it’s technically not raining, but if you go outside, you will get wet because it’s just there’s, it’s just there’s so much moisture in the air.
So I, and yeah, so I noticed. Then like a lot of the traditional ways to assess how severe your leading edge your site is for leading edge erosion. You have a look at you average wind speed, the tip speed of the blade and the annual rainfall of a site. And I just noticed I don’t know, I.
500 bill of rainfall in a year is not the same in Europe as it is in Australia. And not all Europe is the same. There are some places like in Scotland where they have like big fat, heavy rain droplets. But what was the amount that you said was the threshold? How, what was the rainfall intensity?
Allen Hall: No I think I said three inches in arrow.
That’s not right. I think it’s 0.3 inches an hour or 7.5 millimeters.
Rosemary Barnes: Okay. So I have I, I. I collected data for a bunch of Australian sites with their one minute. One minute rainfall record, or it’s like the average amount that they get every five years that will get in rainfall intensity of one in one minute of four, four millimeters in one minute.
So that’s like half of what you’re saying in an hour. We’re getting in a minute. So it’s 30 times, 30 times more. There are sites in Australia, they’re getting 30 times more than intense rain than that. So yeah, just I guess just look a little, another little bit of. Bit of evidence that Australia has in intense rainfall.
That’s why we have so much flooding. It just, it suddenly the tap turns on and you’ve got it’s the inverted ocean kind of situation where it’s just all of a sudden Yeah. Like above ground is wet now. It’s, yeah, it’s just water.
Joel Saxum: I thinking about that sometimes, like in, in Texas, the way it rains, like in Houston when it rains, like seven and a half millimeters an hour is nothing.
I’ve been in Houston before where they’ve gotten 10 inches of rain in an hour. That would be 250 millimeters in an hour. That’s 80, 80 times that.
Rosemary Barnes: That’s, so that’s what I mean. Maybe the numbers are wrong. We should probably, have all of read the paper and done some calculations before we started talking.
Allen Hall: There’s just two articles that say the same thing.
Rosemary Barnes: I, that’s that kind of like reinforces that Europe is the wrong place to do this study or to get this benefit, right? Like you get the benefit where because it’s only, it’s not. That huge amount of erosion that you’re gonna stop by, having that threshold in Europe, but like in Texas or in Queensland, you would be able to very easily cut out the extremely intense rain events I bet are doing way more.
’cause like I, I often see on Australia and wind farms erosion leading edge protection that is destroyed. A year after it was last replaced or two years after, and I bet that you could stop that by just turning the turbine off for the super intense rain. So I’ve been trying to convince clients to, to start looking at this.
It’s hard when the. My client, the owner of the wind farm, doesn’t actually control the operation of the wind farm. So that’s the biggest challenge isn’t the potential of a, technological capability to do it. It’s it’s a matter of who, who would go to the effort to doing this versus who gets the benefit from it.
Joel Saxum: There’s two interesting things here too just when I was looking at this leading edge erosion problem with rain mapping and stuff at a previous life. One of the things I didn’t think about right away is actually why it’s so bad is because as that turbine spins, you’re actually going this waterfall is measured in a single water column that hits, say, the ground.
Well, 7.5 millimeters an hour, but that turbine blade is experiencing like 15 times that because it’s chasing the rain down and then hitting it, going back up again and hitting. It’s in engaging with the rain constantly and that’s why it causes so much damage.
Phil Totaro: Yeah. Particularly a high tip speed ratio and it’s the almost like what you get on a helicopter rotor in, a brownout condition.
It’s
Joel Saxum: yeah. And we’re talking just rain erosion here, right? Like this whole, I just talked to an operator in West Texas an hour ago, and he said that sandstorm craziness that blew through there on Sunday hasn’t let up. He’s still at 45 mile an hour. Wind with sand blowing so fast, you can’t see across the o and m parking lot.
And this is in like by San Angelo.
Allen Hall: I saw that. Global Blade Group is over at Eros this week and they’re talking leading edge repairs for erosion and looking at the Eros robot and how they do it. And there’s a number of operators that are at Arons with that global. Playgroup and Berg junker. Obviously leading edge erosion is still a problem.
There hasn’t been a universal solution, but it does look like different parts of the world have different kinds of raindrops and maybe it’s a temperature aspect. Also, it’s definitely gonna be colder in Northern Europe and. Typically in Australia.
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Another thing we struggle with in Australia is the UV here is so much more intense and so like a lot of things just don’t stay put or stay intact regardless of erosion.
You, if the adhesive degrades under you. UV of salt, then yeah, things don’t last because of that. So I would really love to see more erosion test facilities doing things like temperature cycling. That’s another thing. You get really hot, really cold temperatures here, much more than in Europe where it’s less diagonal variation.
Yeah, put a UV lamp in your facility and they look after us in Australia.
Allen Hall: GTU has a new rain RO facility in Ross Gilda. That facility, they can change the temperature of the water. It’s one of the variables they added to their rain erosion test facility, which plays into the result. I’m really curious about that because in the rain erosion testing that we have done over a number of years now, 15 plus years, you can tell the difference between cold water and warm water.
It is noticeable.
Rosemary Barnes: Oh, interesting. I think thermal cycling though, is a thing as well. Just even the yeah, the temperature of the blade heating up and cooling down every single day. I think that, that doesn’t help. There’s so much going on. We’ve seen these simple erosion site assessment maps that use like one or two parameters, and even this new study is, similar.
Just a couple of things, but it’s like that. You can find some good correlations, but it’s not like there’s a lot of ways to have a bad, there’s only one way to have a good site for erosion, which is to have, not much rain, small droplets, not high wind speeds. Oh, that’s not great for you.
Your site in general? No, no dust, no salt water. But any one of those things can be really bad. So it’s yeah, like making a map is really hard. You need to have like a series, I think a series of maps for looking at each parameter. And I don’t think that we have remotely figured out what all the parameters are that affect it, and then the next step is actually the testing for leading edge erosion products for leading edge protection products needs to include all of those parameters, which it currently doesn’t. It’s like basically that they’ll change the speed and the rainfall. The, yeah the speed of the rain, the how this volume of the rain and now we became, so there’s a facility that can change the temperature of the rain, but there are so many more things that we need to include before you can it’s one thing to know.
Yeah, like your product will perform under these conditions, but that’s not what in the real world. And nowhere in the world are we seeing leading edge protection perform in the way that the test results suggests that they should, which means it’s just currently wrong. Really need to get more in depth on erosion testing.
Joel Saxum: How much money do you think the wind industry has chased or spent testing LEP and trying to figure out this leading edge erosion problem? From grant funding and all these different things. ’cause I constantly see Alan. We were talking about this the other day about. How mu have, how have we not solved leading edge erosion yet we’ve hit this project and that project and this university and that grant funding and this EUDP thing and ORE catapult this.
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And the OEMs are putting their own money into it too. They’re not just, waiting around for grant funding. It’s people being. Trying hard. I personally think that they’ve been too, it’s been too Eurocentric. The the research and development and, yeah. My company is too small to embark on a research program, but I’m so confident that we could do much, much better for Australian leading edge protection if we would do a proper test program that represented the, conditions that we actually face in Australia.
And that’s that, that’s true, not just for leading edge ion. There’s a whole range of. Things that we would get Australian Wind Farms performing way better if we would, do some of that development here. And I’m sure that Texas or some of the more extreme locations within the US is probably ex exactly the same.
And I know you do have some research organizations doing stuff over there, but yeah, I would really love to have a, give me a couple of million dollars and I will, I’ll solve this problem.
Allen Hall: Just call RD test systems and they will. Send over one of their latest and greatest rain erosion testers.
That’s the way to do it. That test equipment is outstanding. The issue is there’s so many variables that’s the problem, and you have to try to take them one at a time and solve it. And obviously Australia’s different than Northern Europe. It just is and Joel’s pointed out numerous times. It’s not necessarily the water, it’s what’s in the water a lot of times is dirt and debris, which is an abrasive and it changes everything really.
Everything. Plus yet on the UV amount of UV in Australia, and I agree with you, Rosemary Australia has aggressive sunlight. It does a lot more damage there than in Denmark. Don’t let blade damage catch you off guard. OGs. Ping sensors detect issues before they become expensive. Time consuming problems from ice buildup and lightning strikes to pitch misalignment in internal blade cracks.
OGs Ping has you covered The cutting edge sensors are easy to install, giving you the power to stop damage before it’s too late. Visit eLog ping.com and take control of your turbine’s health. Today. There’s big news off the shores of New Jersey Environmental Appeals Court Judge Mary Kay Lynch has ruled to remand a cleaner act permit issued to Atlantic Shores offshore wind.
Back to the US Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA filed a motion in February to review the Wind Energy projects, environmental impacts in response to. President Trump’s January memorandum to withdraw offshore wind leases for further review. Now, this setback follows shell’s withdrawal from the Atlantic Shores Project in January where the company reported a roughly $1 billion loss associated with the plan.
2,800 megawatt array off of Long Beach Island and Entine. Now, Phil, this permit. Poll is actually a result of a lawsuit which opened the door for the EPA to pull the permit. You wanna explain the logistics of this? So
Phil Totaro: effectively the lawsuit triggered a reevaluation of the the. Way in which the permit review was undertaken, the process that they followed.
And what the judge is effectively saying is that there was cause to uh, suggest that the process according to the EPA rules was not. Properly followed. And what that did is it allowed the EPA to pull the permit for a project that, I’m not sure if there was for knowledge of this.
And that’s why, ’cause you mentioned Shell pulled out EDF also pulled out, which was the other partner in the project. So it, the project, I don’t know if the project was already dead and they’re just putting a nail in the coffin or these companies pulled out because they felt like. This this ruling wasn’t gonna go their way.
But it’s. Concerning considering that, this was a process that was, done in a hurry at the end of, president Biden’s term where a lot of things, EPA reviews, Boeing reviews, a lot of permits were being issued for offshore wind to try and get things going.
The assumption being that if they had all those permits in place. They could just get on with business and get to building their projects. But it seems as though that’s not the case. And it, it’s, bad news for Atlantic Shores, which obviously seems dead now.
But there’s 19 gigawatts worth of other projects that are still, theoretically in the pipeline that could be built. And we’ll see if they actually get built.
Allen Hall: So that permit dealt with air pollutant emissions from the project during the pile driving construction phase, and its impact on the Brittin National Wilderness Area, which is just offshore of the coast of New Jersey.
Where they have limitations on air quality degradation. And my comment to Joel before we started the podcast was what kind of air quality pollutants are being emitted during pilot driving besides the ships? Driving the piles. Is there something else that I’m missing here? And would it matter all that much in the big scheme of things?
Joel Saxum: There’s two things, right? You have just the simple noise, pollution, right from boom. And some of times you have a little vibration in there, but that’s the only thing that happens there. And you can hear that a long ways away. But that’s not gonna affect anything. I’m not an EPA specialist, I’m not a noise specialist.
Maybe we should have Matthew Stead talk about this, but that, simple pounding is one thing, and that seems to be so minimal to me because, regular construction onshore is happening. It’s the guy’s putting a new roof on the house next door, pounding away, sounds like that, but it’s miles away.
And the other thing would be just emissions from the vessels that are out there. However, when you’re ve have a vessel out there for construction, it’s gonna be either one jack or one. A steady vessel doing pile driving, one work vessel and maybe a CTV or maybe a work boat. So maybe three vessels out there, max.
And if you’re managing it with a helicopter, maybe a helicopter. But it seems to me here that this is a, just a kind of a grab at some. Process problem and not an actual problem because it doesn’t seem like that’s an actual problem to me and either of these noise emission things.
Allen Hall: I actually looked this up, Joel.
It says the Brier wilderness area. Is a class one air quality area within the refuge, which protects it from manmade air pollution. And that means that they’re monitoring the air at that site all the time. Us Fish and Wildlife Surface is doing the monitoring there. But I assume there’s ships and all kinds of things just rolling right by there for emissions.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, that’s what it says. Okay, so tell ’em. They tell ’em they can’t have the vessel idled up when the wind is blowing east to west.
Allen Hall: That’s the weird part. What would the report have said that would, or what would’ve been in the report that was an error that would say there’s a lot of human made pollution landing on entine.
That, that doesn’t even make a lot of sense to me.
Rosemary Barnes: That’s gotta be shipping emissions. It’s not like it’s bringing up dust that escapes the earth’s, the, sorry, the water’s surface. How far is the wind site
Phil Totaro: from Entine? It’s a couple of miles. Yeah, it’s, no, it’s at least 10. If it’s in the shelf, there are 12 if it’s in the outer continental shelf.
But the look folks the real issue here. Is that this is what is likely to start happening more and more with any of the remaining wind farms, even if they’re under construction. Before, in, in Biden’s term, there were matters that were in the courts and they were getting dismissed because, the judges were, this isn’t supposed to happen, but the judges were being, told what to do.
The judge is theoretically supposed to rule independently, we all know how the system works. So nowadays they are, and the Justice Department used to be providing support to the defendants of all these kind of lawsuits. There have been lawsuits on vineyard, wind, there have been lawsuits on revolution on, pick every project you can name, and there’s been a lawsuit against it from one party or another.
Whether it’s Save the Whales or EPA or whatever. And the bottom line here is that this is what’s gonna be happening now in the new world order that we find ourselves in. They are gonna nitpick any stupid little thing in all of these little lawsuits that we’re getting tossed out before are gonna have legs.
Now
Rosemary Barnes: I’ve I’ve heard. Rumors that it’s potentially even more widespread than that, and not just offshore and things that are still working on permits, maybe projects that are already under construction. Like any kind of government involvement that you need, whether it’s just I don’t know, potentially even something as simple as you need a road closure to get some stuff on site.
That government departments are just simply not looking at those things. And so they just can’t progress. And I have heard that some developers considering maybe already have that, just putting a pause on anything that’s not started, pause it for four years so that, ’cause the worst thing is to get partway through a project and not be able to finish it.
Because then it’s gonna. It cost you more to restart it than it would be to just, pause it at the start. At least you can, start again from a clean slate and get everything done at once. So I think that, yeah, even though, like on the first blush of it, like there weren’t any executive orders or any, legislation that’s been passed that has.
On the face of it affected onshore wind all that much. I think that people are starting to realize that it could really slow that down as well.
Phil Totaro: Yeah, the only, so far, the only one that executive order that was passed for onshore was no renewable energy development on federal lands. That’s only affecting out of 32 or so gigawatts of wind energy in the.
Realistic project pipeline I’ll call it the stuff that’s actually likely to get built, that’s only gonna affect about six or seven gigawatts. It’s not an insubstantial percentage, but, at the end of the day, again it’s delaying things. It’s not totally stopping them.
But it’s concerning. In that offshore is much more expensive to develop, much more, time consuming to develop and whereas it was already a klugy process before, this is making it, a hundred times worse.
Joel Saxum: This week’s wind Farm of the week is the Dermot Wind Farm, which is owned by Osted, also called the Amazon Wind Farm.
So this thing was commissioned back in 2017 and commissioned in a special way. Jeff Bezos actually climbed to the top of a wind turbine and broke a bottle of champagne Oh. On one of the the attachment points up top. So he I’m hoping he was. Climb, safe, trained and everything to be up there as well.
But there was 110 GE 2.31 16 machines out there. It’s a 253 megawatt wind farm, and one of the focuses of this wind farm is a focus that if you pay attention to the energy markets, you’ve heard lately, there hasn’t been a huge spike in demand in energy in the United States. In the last 20, 30 years.
But now just in the last few and looking forward because of data centers and all these different things there, there is this forecasted spike of energy wanted. So thinking a little bit ahead of time, Amazon back in 2017 started investing in a lot of renewable energy projects. So this one is one of their 600 renewable energy projects across the globe right now.
Which is a pretty freaking large number. So this project has provided over $3 million in landowner payments and property taxes. And so it gives back to the local communities enough to power 74,000 homes annually. And it’s out by Abilene, Texas. So a little bit more about what Amazon is doing in the renewable energy space is they’ve invested over $12.6 billion.
Since 2014 in renewable energies. So the Dermot Wind Farm owned by Sted out in the central part of Texas. You are our wind farm of the week. I.
Allen Hall: That’s gonna do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy podcast. And thanks for listening. Please give us a five star rating on your podcast platform and subscribe in the show notes below to Uptime Tech News or substack weekly newsletter and register for that Sky Specs webinar.
You won’t wanna miss it. And we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.
https://weatherguardwind.com/unionization-damage-atlantic-shores/
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
CIP Offshore in Taiwan, RWE Buys GE Vernova for Texas
CIP achieves financial closure for an offshore wind project in Taiwan and the UK may shift towards a domestic offshore wind supply chain. GE Vernova plans to equip two RWE farms in Texas, and Masdar will potentially acquire TotalEnergies’ renewable assets in Portugal. Register for the start of our webinar series with SkySpecs!
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Allen Hall: Starting off the week, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has secured financial close on the 495 megawatt Fengmiao offshore wind project off Taiwan’s Coast. This Marks CIP’s third offshore wind project in Taiwan and is the first of Taiwan’s round three projects to start construction.
The project secured approximately $3.1 billion in financing from 27 banks with debt partially guaranteed by export credit agencies. Now Vestas will supply 33 of its latest 15 megawatt turbines for the projects and construction will finish by late 2027 with six corporate customers already signed for long-term power purchase agreements covering its entire capacity. Dan McGrail Interim, CEO of Britain’s new state owned GB Energy believes the UK should challenge oversee renewable energy companies by exporting its expertise globally. McGrail sees floating offshore wind as a huge opportunity for British technology leveraging existing supply chains from the oil and gas industry.
He aims to shift focus from importing parts to building them domestically, which could create an export industry over time. GE Vernova will equip two RWE farms in Texas with over 100 turbines with deliveries beginning later this year. The projects will help RWE surpass one gigawatt of rebuilt and repowered wind capacity across the US and generate enough electricity to power approximately 85,000 Texas homes and businesses annually. Boosting US content. Then the sales for the project will be manufactured at GE Vernova’s Florida facility, which employs about 20% Veterans.
RWE’s Chief Operating Officer emphasized their commitment to American energy production and strengthening domestic manufacturing and supply chains. GE Vernova’s Entre Wind Division currently has a total installed base of 56,000 turbines worldwide with nearly 120 gigawatts of installed capacity.
Abu Dhabi’s Masdar is considering acquiring a stake and total energy’s Portuguese renewable energy assets. The deal will likely be through SATA yield. The Green Energy Company masar purchased from Brookfield last year. This would add to MAs dollar’s growing European portfolio, which includes recent acquisitions in Spain and Greece as the company works towards its global target of 100 gigawatts by 2030.
Total Energy is currently has about 600 megawatts of installed renewable capacity in Portugal, mostly higher valued wind power assets. Total energy. CEO previously mentioned plans to divest around two gigawatts annually as part of portfolio consolidation. And that wraps up our wind industry headlines from Monday, March 24th. The conversation continues tomorrow on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, where we’ll explore even more insights shaping the future of renewable energy.
And don’t forget to join our exclusive live webinar this Wednesday featuring Sky Specs New CEO Dave Roberts. He’ll be sharing his roadmap for the company’s exciting future. All access details are awaiting for you in the show notes.
https://weatherguardwind.com/cip-taiwan-rwe-ge-vernova/
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