『The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast』のカバーアート

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

著者： Allen Hall Rosemary Barnes Joel Saxum & Yolanda Padron
無料で聴く

概要

 Uptime is a renewable energy podcast focused on wind energy and energy storage technologies. Experts Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Yolanda Padron, and Matthew Stead break down the latest research, tech, and policy.Copyright 2024, Weather Guard Lightning Tech 地球科学 生物科学 科学
エピソード
  • Armour Edge Expands Manufacturing and Blade Database

    Armour Edge Expands Manufacturing and Blade Database
    2026/02/12
    Allen and Joel are joined by Will Howell from Armour Edge in Edinburgh, Scotland. They discuss how Armour Edge’s semi-rigid polymer shields protect against leading edge erosion in harsh environments, the simplified installation process designed for rope access technicians, and the company’s expansion into North American manufacturing ahead of the 2026 blade season. 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! Allen Hall: Will welcome back to the program. Will Howell: Thanks so much for having me guys. Nice to see you. Allen Hall: So Edinborough is the home of Armor Edge. Will Howell: Yes, indeed. Allen Hall: Yeah. And we went to visit your facility a couple of days ago. Really impressive. There’s a lot going on there. Will Howell: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So the, we’ve been in the facility for, um, a couple of years now, and it’s really just all part of our expansion as we continue to. To, uh, grow as a business? Allen Hall: Uh, well the thing that struck me first was efficiency. If you’re gonna be in wind, do you need to be efficient? Will Howell: Yeah, Allen Hall: exactly. You have Will Howell: to be, Will Howell: look, we know that we are a, a relatively small team, but we’re, we are, we are very reactive and we are gonna be always responding to the, the requests. The, the market drive for us internationally now is where we are really focusing. And even though we’ve got our small base from there, we’re exporting internationally around the world. And so. Yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m glad you guys came by and kind of saw what we’re up to. Joel Saxum: If we could ask one thing, this is what we would ask. Turn up the heat. Turn down the wind. Turn off the rain. Will Howell: Yeah, I’m [00:01:00] sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah, it’s, uh, there’s not much we can do about that at the moment. Joel Saxum: Well, I’ll tell you what, if, if you’re talking leading Edge protection products, leading edge protection shield. Born from an area that’s rainy, that has heavy rain erosion, that understands, Will Howell: we know, we know rain. We know rain. Yes. Look, we’ve been out in the North Sea now for over, over, over five years. These things are just being abused by Mother Nature out there and, you know, but we’ve, we are, we’re getting really good results consistently. Um, the products lasting really well against that, against that weather. And I think what’s interesting for us as well is it’s, it’s not just the Scottish rain and the ice and the snow. We’re, we’re getting good results out in the. The planes in the Midwest as well now. Yeah. And yeah, so yeah, very uh, universal products, we hope, Joel Saxum: I mean, so this is one of the things we always talk about. When you talk wind turbine blades and you listen to the manufacturers, a lot of them sit in Denmark where the problem is mist in the air, it is rain, it is droplet size. It’s all the conversation you hear. But where we [00:02:00] see wind is dust, bugs, those kind of things. Like, it’s, it’s different stuff, right? So like I’m, I live in Texas. One of the things that’s beautiful about my home in Austin is when I look to the west in the, at, in the evening, it’s bright red skies all the time. Well, that means there’s dust in the air. Will Howell: Yeah. Joel Saxum: Right. And that’s, and when I look west, what am I looking at? 23,000 turbines out in West Texas. Right. So everything out there is getting beat up where we look at, um, inspections of turbines and we see turbines that are 1, 2, 3 years old that look like they’ve been in operation for 15 years. Will Howell: Yeah. Yeah. Joel Saxum: There’s nothing left of them. Will Howell: I know. And. You know, people use analogies like, oh, it looks like it’s been sand sandblasted. But it it has, it has, it is sandblasted, you know, we’ve, we’ve now conducted testing where we have literally taken kind of aerospace level testing and blasted sand at these shields, and they’re super resilient. But it has to be that universal products of resisting the water droplet that the mist, that side [00:03:00] of the, of the erosion problem, but also the particulate matter in the air. And there’ve been some of the. Places that we’ve installed. There was actually one site where they had a local, um, open cast mining nearby, and there was like marble particulate matter in the air. And these machines were getting trash in a couple couple of seasons. And again, we’ve been on there now for, I think ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    18 分
  • Vestas Q4 Profits, EU Probes Goldwind Subsidies

    Vestas Q4 Profits, EU Probes Goldwind Subsidies
    2026/02/10
    Allen, Rosemary, and Yolanda, joined by Matthew Stead, discuss Vestas’ Q4 earnings beating competitors but disappointing investors, and the latest on the Wind Energy O&M Australia 2026 conference in Melbourne. Plus the European Commission opens a subsidy investigation into Goldwind, Texas sues over 3,000 dumped wind turbine blades, and Muehlhan Wind Service acquires Canadian AC883. 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! The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by StrikeTape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strike tape.com. And now your hosts. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host Alan Hall, and I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, Yolanda Padron. Matthew Stead down in Australia. So welcome Matthew. Matthew Stead: Great to be here. Thank you, Alan. Allen Hall: We have a number of articles and interesting topics this week. Top of the list is Vestus. Vestus announced their Q4 numbers, and although the the revenue is great, uh, they, they had a profit of about 580 million euros. It was below what analysts expected, so the shares dropped about 6% on the news. But the CEO of Vestus is saying, uh, full speed ahead. They’re, they’re willing to make some concessions. Vestus, as it sounds like, in terms [00:01:00] of thinning out the company a little bit, which I, that’s been a, a, a complaint from investors for a little while. But in, in terms of, uh, going forward in renewable energy, Vestus is still going to pursue that. The offshore wind business looks like it’s gonna be profitable in 2027. And as we all know, and we, we see wind turbine prices, uh, quite a bit in each of our positions. Vestas is the most expensive one on the block, but they’re still winning a whole bunch of orders. And, and Matthew, uh, Vestas globally. I would say is the leader right now, if you look at Siemens GAA and GE Vestas is really winning a lot of the orders. Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think a very strong reputation for quality. Um, I have to say, I’ve got some Vestas turbines behind me, so, um, all paid for by myself. They’ve always been well regarded for their, um, you know, quality of [00:02:00] product. And when I first got into wind, um, you know, probably 15 years ago, you know, they were, they were the leaders at that point in time. And so, you know, quality. Reduces future o and m cost. I think Rosemary Barnes: it’s not just about like the simple o and m, either it’s the risk that something really bad goes wrong and you’re just stuck with, you know, like a, a whole a hundred turbines that can’t be fixed or, you know, at least a large, a large chunk of them. The more that I work in, in o and m, the more you see, like on occasion when you do have those serial issues that mean, you know, like. Sometimes all the blades in the wind farm have to be replaced or sometimes all the generators or you know, even if it’s not replaced, if you’ve gotta take them all out and do something and put ’em back in, it is just such a massive cost. And, um, reducing the chance that that’s gonna happen is actually really valuable for insurance. And yeah, all sorts of other financial reasons. Yolanda Padron: And even as an FSA customer, I feel like Vestus has a lot more transparency as to what actually is going on, [00:03:00] on site and more able to, to collaborate on, on like a site to site basis, which is very obviously helping them in getting a lot of return customers. Allen Hall: Yeah. One of the key revenues for Vestus has been the FSA, where almost every project I’ve seen over the last couple of years has had a 2030 year FSA attached to it. Rarely do you see. Order without that, and that’s a long-term revenue stream. The, the thing about Vestus and the complaints that are happening, uh, around vestus are odd because if you look at Siemens Cab Mesa, they’re really struggling to be profitable. And then GE Renova, which is really, really struggling to be profitable and they’re losing several hundred millions of dollars a year. Vestas is bringing in a profit, and, and yet the investors are wanting even more. I, I guess, is, is this just a relationship to the. Where you can invest money today. The stock market going up so high, gold and silver prices are at record highs. Rosemary Barnes: Haven’t they just [00:04:00] crushed? Allen Hall: They have a little bit. They’ve, they’ve rescinded some, but they’re still at really high numbers, right? So Gold Cross, what? $5,000 and ounce and then, uh, it was it 2000 a ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    32 分
  • Vestas Sees Auctions Recover, Siemens Gamesa Spinoff Debate

    Vestas Sees Auctions Recover, Siemens Gamesa Spinoff Debate
    2026/02/09
    Allen covers Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen’s optimism on European auction reforms and bilateral CfDs, Australia’s Warradarge wind farm expansion paired with major grid upgrades, New Zealand’s wind-to-hydrogen project, South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean building a new installation vessel, and Siemens Energy’s debate over spinning off Gamesa. 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! Happy Monday everyone Henrik Andersen has seen a lot of failed auctions. The Vestas chief executive watched subsidy-free tenders collapse in Germany… France… the Netherlands… even his home country of Denmark. Developers wouldn’t bid. The risk was too high. But this week… Andersen stood before investors with different news. The UK’s AR7 delivered eight point four gigawatts. A record. Eight projects approved… including two floaters. Denmark and eight North Sea nations committed to one hundred gigawatts. And Germany’s onshore auction pipeline… is finally moving. Andersen sent thanks directly to Ed Miliband… Britain’s Energy Minister. “Now it’s starting to work.” … The difference? Bilateral CfDs. After watching zero-subsidy models fail across Europe… governments returned to revenue stabilization. Strike prices developers can actually finance. Andersen believes the industry should learn from these auction designs… before repeating old mistakes. Steen Brødbæk at Semco Maritime agrees. Projects are maturing. Suppliers… can finally earn a living. … Vestas identified three priority markets in their annual report. Germany for onshore. North America. And Australia. The drivers? Energy security concerns. Data center load growth. And the AI electricity surge that every grid operator is scrambling to model. As for Chinese OEMs entering European tenders? Andersen would be surprised. “You should never be surprised by anything these days,” he said. “But in this case… I would actually be surprised.” … Down in Western Australia… Warradarge is proving his point about mature markets. Four of thirty additional turbines are now vertical. When the expansion completes… eighty-one machines will generate two hundred eighty-three megawatts. The state’s largest wind farm. Owned by Bright Energy Investments… a joint venture between Synergy and Potentia. One hundred twenty workers at peak construction. And critically… the state is building transmission to match. Clean Energy Link North… the largest grid upgrade in Western Australia in more than a decade… will unlock capacity in the South West Interconnected System. Generation AND grid… moving together. That’s how you hit a 2030 coal exit. … Meanwhile in Taranaki… New Zealand… Vestas secured a twenty-six megawatt order with a twenty-year service agreement. Hiringa Energy is integrating wind with green hydrogen production at scale… serving transport… industry… and agriculture. Turbine delivery begins Q1 this year. Commissioning… Q2 twenty-twenty-seven. One of New Zealand’s first large-scale wind-to-hydrogen projects. The electrolyzer economics are finally penciling. … But you can’t install offshore turbines without vessels. And South Korea just solved a bottleneck. Hanwha Ocean won a three hundred eighty-five million pound contract… to build a WTIV capable of fifteen-megawatt class installations. Korea’s first vessel at that scale. Delivery… early twenty-twenty-eight. Korea expects twenty-five gigawatts of offshore capacity by 2035. They’re not waiting for European vessel contractors. They’re building their own supply chain. Hanwha has now delivered four WTIVs globally. … Not everyone is celebrating. At Siemens Energy… activist investor Ananym Capital is pushing to spin off Siemens Gamesa. CEO Christian Bruch calls the idea reasonable. But timing matters. The wind division must stabilize first. Bruch believes offshore wind can follow the same recovery path as the grid business… which went from crisis… to profitability. Turnaround before transaction. … So, last week we had: CfDs reviving European auctions. Australia building generation AND transmission together. New Zealand coupling wind with hydrogen. Korea investing in installation vessel capacity. And Siemens… working to fix its turbine business before any restructuring. Different geographies. Same lesson. The projects that succeed… are the ones where policy… supply chain… and capital… finally align. … And that is the state of the wind industry for the 9th of February 2026. Join us tomorrow for the Uptime wind energy podcast.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    3 分
まだレビューはありません