Published

12 months ago

June 9, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Vattenfall’s New Leader, French Floating Wind Farm

Allen Hall covers the appointment of Catrin Jung as Vattenfall’s new head of wind division, the Netherlands reaching 20% renewable energy in 2024, Quebec’s $1.1 billion funding for a major wind project, and France commissioning its first floating wind farm.

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!

Good news from the offshore wind industry today. Vattenfall has named a new leader for its wind business division. Catrin Jung will take over as Head of Business Area Wind starting July first. Jung currently leads the company’s offshore wind operations. She replaces Helene Bistrom, who is leaving the company. Jung joined Vattenfall in two thousand two. She has managed some of the company’s largest investments in recent years. The wind division handles both offshore and onshore wind projects. It also manages large solar and battery projects. Jung says staying focused on fossil freedom is more important than ever in these uncertain times.

The Netherlands reached a major renewable energy milestone last year. Renewable energy made up nearly twenty percent of the country’s total energy use in twenty twenty four. That’s up from seventeen point four percent in twenty twenty three. Statistics Netherlands released the preliminary data. The increase comes mainly from new offshore wind turbines and more biodiesel use in transportation. The overall renewable energy consumption reached three hundred fifty eight petajoules. That’s a fifteen percent increase from twenty twenty three. Biomass remained the largest renewable source. Wind came second, followed by solar power. Renewables were mostly used for electricity at sixty percent. Heat and cooling accounted for twenty eight percent. Transport fuels made up twelve percent. The share of renewables has more than doubled compared to five years ago.

A major wind energy project in Quebec has secured its funding. Invenergy and a consortium of 209 municipalities and territories in Eastern Quebec announced the closing of one point one billion dollars Canadian in financing. The money will fund the PPAW 1 Wind Energy Centre. The work will create three hundred fifty jobs during construction. Construction will happen throughout twenty twenty five and twenty twentysix. Commercial operation is expected in late twenty twenty six. Once operational, the project will add three hundred fifty megawatts to the local grid.

France has achieved a renewable energy first. EDF Renewables has fully commissioned the country’s first floating wind farm. The Provence Grand Large wind farm has a power capacity of twenty five megawatts. The farm features three floating wind turbines installed seventeen kilometers off the France’s Mediterranean coast This is the first floating wind farm in France and across the entire Mediterranean basin. The project uses unique anchoring technology. Siemens Gamesa built the turbines. They’re installed on floats with tight anchor lines. The technology was inspired by systems used to stabilize oil platforms. SBM Offshore and IFP Energies Nouvelles developed this technology. It’s suitable for deep sea areas and provides excellent float stability. Bernard Fontana, Chairman and CEO of EDF, says the project helps diversify renewable energy sources. He calls it an important project for France’s energy sovereignty. The experience will help with construction of EDF’s second floating wind farm, Mediterranee Grand Large. EDF was awarded that contract in December twenty twenty four.

https://weatherguardwind.com/vattenfall-french-floating/

Renewable Energy

Court Keeps GE on Vineyard Wind, France Plans Huge Wind Farm

Published

13 hours ago

June 8, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Court Keeps GE on Vineyard Wind, France Plans Huge Wind Farm

Allen covers GE Vernova ordered to stay on Vineyard Wind, TotalEnergies filing for France’s largest renewable project, Spain’s repowering grants, and Dajin’s Hong Kong stock debut.

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

Good Monday.

Wind energy made news this week from Boston courtrooms…

to the coast of Normandy …

to the stock exchange floors of Hong Kong.

Let us start in Massachusetts.

A Boston judge has once again told GE VERNOVA it cannot walk away from VINEYARD WIND.

To understand why GE VERNOVA wants out…

you have to look at the money.

VINEYARD WIND owes GE VERNOVA three hundred and sixty million dollars

on a one-point-two-billion-dollar turbine supply contract.

VINEYARD WIND is withholding that payment.

GE VERNOVA says it has the contractual right to walk when it is not paid.

In February, they sent VINEYARD WIND a termination notice.

VINEYARD WIND sued.

In April, Judge PETER KRUPP issued an injunction ordering GE to stay.

GE VERNOVA came back and asked the judge to reconsider.

Vernova pointed to statements from state officials and VINEYARD WIND’s own parent company describing the eight-hundred-and-six-megawatt project as essentially complete.

If the project is done, GE argued, there is no harm in letting us leave.

Judge KRUPP did not buy it.

Here is why this matters so much to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

VINEYARD WIND is the largest offshore wind project in New England.

It is owned jointly by Spain’s IBERDROLA

and Denmark’s COPENHAGEN INFRASTRUCTURE PARTNERS.

It began initial operations just this past February…

after the developer won a separate court fight to keep federal construction permits intact.

Sixty-two turbines.

A four-point-five-billion-dollar investment.

The anchor project for offshore wind in the entire region.

The judge found that GE VERNOVA’s proprietary expertise

is still needed to bring those turbines to full operational capacity.

Pull GE’s more than two hundred employees and subcontractors off the job…

and the project’s financing structure could collapse.

Massachusetts Governor MAURA HEALEY has weighed in publicly.

The state has too much riding on this project to let it unravel in court.

GE VERNOVA still has its appeal of the April injunction pending.

But for now… the turbines keep turning.

Now let us cross the Atlantic.

Off the coast of Normandy, France…

TOTALENERGIES has filed for government authorization

of a massive offshore wind farm called CENTRE MANCHE ENERGIES.

This will be France’s largest renewable energy project… ever.

One-point-five gigawatts of offshore wind.

Located more than forty kilometers off the Normandy coast.

Four-point-five billion euros in investment.

Up to twenty-five hundred construction jobs over three years.

Once running, the wind farm will generate

roughly six terawatt-hours of clean electricity per year…

enough to power more than one million French homes.

TOTALENERGIES was awarded this project by the French government

eight months ago.

Filing for authorization is the next milestone on the path to construction.

Meanwhile… across the Pyrenees in Spain…

The Spanish government has awarded grants for eighty wind repowering projects

totaling two-point-four gigawatts of capacity.

With Nearly four hundred and sixty million euros in subsidies.

The goal: replace older turbines with more efficient technology by twenty-thirty.

The names on the award list read like a who’s who of European wind energy.

IBERDROLA… STATKRAFT… EDP…

ENEL GREEN POWER… NATURGY…

RWE … and others.

IBERDROLA alone picked up four hundred megawatts of new capacity.

And this repowering wave is not just replacing old machines.

Some projects are swapping out turbines that were once the industry standard…

one-point-five and two-megawatt machines…

for the far more powerful equipment available today.

The industry is not just building forward.

It is rebuilding smarter.

And finally… a story from the other side of the world.

A Chinese manufacturer of offshore wind foundations and towers

called DAJIN HEAVY INDUSTRY

made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this past Friday.

The share sale raised up to eight hundred and forty-seven million dollars.

DAJIN claims a notable distinction:

it says it ranked as Europe’s largest offshore wind foundation supplier

by monopile sales value in the first half of twenty twenty-five.

The company plans to use more than half the proceeds

to expand its deep-sea wind power services…

and one-fifth to build an assembly facility in Europe.

As we know wind energy is continues to push forward.

On every front.

And that is the state of the wind industry for the eighth of June, twenty twenty-six.

Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Court Keeps GE on Vineyard Wind, France Plans Huge Wind Farm

Renewable Energy

Is There a Line that Trump Cannot Cross? — “Your Elections Are Rigged!!”

Published

13 hours ago

June 8, 2026

Alice Rush

When Trump comes after a TV journalist with psychotic aggression like this, the world wants to know how far his criminal insanity can go without someone putting a stop to it.

It may be true that his approval ratings have ceased to matter to him personally, but don’t they matter to Republicans in congress? Don’t their constituents, even the complete idiots, have some sort of limit?