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  • Tilt Renewables’ Dr. Liz Beavis on Wind O&M in Australia

    Tilt Renewables’ Dr. Liz Beavis on Wind O&M in Australia
    2026/04/09
    Dr. Liz Beavis, Asset Manager at Tilt Renewables, joins to discuss O&M contracts, balance of plant, and lessons from Australia’s biggest and oldest wind farms. Contact Liz on LinkedIn or by email. 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! Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Liz, welcome to the program. Thanks, Liz Beavis: Alan. I feel I’m a long time listener. First time caller, so it’s exciting. Allen Hall: You are a long time listener and thanks for doing that. Uh, and Liz, I just find you to be a wealth of knowledge and, uh, we met on a couple occasions since I’ve been in Australia and it’s just, uh, a fun to connect here because I think a lot of the things that are happening in Australia need to be spread around the world. A lot of, uh, good o and m practices happening in Australia, uh, from hard lessons learned. So that’s what I want to dive into today. And then the first one is, I don’t think many people realize this, that you went. From commissioning, Australia’s largest wind farm, Cooper’s gap to managing seven [00:01:00] of the 10 oldest operational wind farms in the country. So you got some of the biggest, newest to some of the oldest assets. Uh. Uh, my question is like, when you started that, did you just kind of assume like wind, wind farms or wind farms or wind turbines or wind turbines and you could just basically own and end them the same, or do, or did it just occur to you immediately like, I need to take a different plan of attack here? Liz Beavis: I think I, I knew nothing about wind farms when I turned up at Cooper’s Gap, so, so yeah, I got my, well, okay, we’ll go right back to the start. So I was working at a thermal power station and I was just thinking. There’s no future in coal. How do I get into renewables? And then a wind farm got built like 50 kilometers from my house. I can, I can see it in the horizon. Um, and I thought, oh, they’re not gonna need a chemical engineer there, but I wonder if they need a site manager or something. And then the site manager role came up, I applied for it. So the services site manager. So, [00:02:00] um. That was July, 2020. That’s when I first started listening to the podcast. ’cause I thought I better find out something about this industry before I do my job interview. And so I’ve been listening ever since. But, um, yeah, so I don’t know. I was just lucky to get that role. And I turned up and, um, I think it was the end of September, 2020 first time I’d ever set foot on a wind farm ’cause of COVID and everything. I didn’t, I didn’t go there for the interview. My manager was in Thailand. I just turned up. And, um, so they, they’d finished construc, they’d built all the towers where they hadn’t finished commissioning. And so we’re still working out of construction, dongas, you know, temporary buildings and um, and there was hundreds of people on site and it was just the absolute chaos of. Constructing a two hundred, a hundred and twenty three turbines. You know, like there’s just people everywhere. And I thought, wow, I’ve just gotta figure out what I’m supposed to be doing here. There were a few technicians. I found out how many technicians I supposed to have. Just started recruiting, started figuring out what I was supposed to be doing there, and I just [00:03:00] learned so much. In the two years we took over the new r and m building. We had failed gear, boxes, generators, transformers, overhead line, underground line, pretty much. Anything that could fail failed, and I got to see what we needed to do. Um, but through all of that, I was also thinking, oh, how do I manage this wind farm better? I don’t know anything about wind farms, and I’m reaching out to the other GE sites, but the, the next biggest site was 75 turbines, and all of the rest of them are 30 and 40. So they’re saying to me, oh, you just get a team to go around. And I’m thinking. Well, that’s six weeks of work. You know, like, like everything is so much bigger on a bigger wind farm. And then I’d reach out to the, the American sites. That had big wind farms, but their contracts were so different, and I didn’t understand at first, I started to realize, well, their contracts are completely different and their focus is different, and so they’re not facing the same issues that I’m facing. Um, and then, you know, even speaking to a wind farm in [00:04:00] Sweden that was a similar size, but...
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    32 分
  • Quebec Wind Boom, Aikido’s Floating AI Platform

    Quebec Wind Boom, Aikido’s Floating AI Platform
    2026/04/06

    Allen covers Quebec’s record wind project, Madawaska’s financial close, Nova Scotia’s first direct-to-consumer wind sales, PEI’s retiring wind farm, and Aikido’s floating offshore AI data center.

    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 everyone.

    Canada is building.

    On the last day of March… the province of Quebec broke ground on the largest wind energy project in Canadian history.

    It is called Des Neiges… French for “of the snows.”

    One hundred and fourteen turbines. Two hundred meters tall each. Seven megawatts apiece.

    When the first two phases are complete… those turbines will power one hundred and forty thousand homes.

    The partners are Boralex, Énergir, and Hydro-Quebec. The investment: three billion dollars.

    Quebec Premier Francois Legault said it plainly at a recent ceremony: “There is a global race right now to dramatically increase electricity production.”

    He is not wrong.

    Also in Quebec… the Madawaska Wind Energy Project just reached financial close. EDF Renewables and Hydro-Quebec are behind that one. Two hundred and seventy-four megawatts. Forty-five turbines. Financed under Green Loan Principles. Expected to power more than forty-four thousand homes.

    Now… across the Gulf of Saint Lawrence… Nova Scotia is launching the Mersey River Wind project. One hundred and forty-eight-point-five megawatts. Thirty-three turbines.

    And here is where it gets interesting. For the first time… consumers in the province will be able to buy electricity directly from a wind farm. Not from the utility. From the source. A company called Renewall Energy is already signing contracts with homeowners… businesses… even the city of Halifax.

    And then there is Prince Edward Island. That province is saying goodbye to its very first wind farm.

    North Cape began in two thousand and one. Sixteen turbines. Each rated at just point-six-six megawatts. The province’s newest turbines? Four-point-two megawatts each. The P.E.I. Energy Corporation is seeking bids for an environmental impact assessment… the first step toward replacement.

    Twenty-five years ago… North Cape was a pioneer. Today… it is showing its age. That is how progress works.

    But let us end on this.

    Out in California… a company called Aikido Technologies has unveiled a floating wind platform… that also serves as an AI data center. The platform pairs an eighteen-megawatt turbine with onboard computing power… cooled by the surrounding ocean. A prototype is being built in Norway. Commercial launch: the United Kingdom… twenty twenty-eight.

    The CEO put it simply: “Before we go off-world… we should go offshore.”

    So… from Quebec to Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Island… Canada is building its energy future at full speed. And somewhere out on the open ocean… someone is building the next chapter altogether.

    And that is the state of the wind industry for the 6th of April 2026.

    Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.
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    4 分
  • Vestas Withholds Collapse Data, Nordex Iowa and Tariffs

    Vestas Withholds Collapse Data, Nordex Iowa and Tariffs
    2026/04/07
    Vestas hasn’t shared SCADA data after a South Korea turbine collapse, citing an expired warranty. Plus workers at Nordex in Iowa are concerned about tariffs. 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! Transcript The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by StrikeTape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strikeTape.com. And now your hosts. Allen Hall Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m Allen Hall and I’m here with Rosemary Barnes. And Fergus is here. Hi. Welcome to our top story. This week is a wind turbine collapse that happened in South Korea at the Changpo Wind Power Complex in Yeongdeok, and the turbine lost a blade. There’s some video here that was recorded when the turbine collapsed, so it happened a couple of months ago, and investigators have been trying to determine the cause of that failure. They’re having a little bit of difficulty because they would like to access the SCADA system of that turbine because that would have a lot of more information about [00:01:00] how the tower was operating at that particular moment. And they’re having trouble in that it is a Vestas turbine and Vestas has not released the SCADA data and it’s citing an expired warranty. Now, Rosemary, this leads to a lot of problems because obviously there’s a ton of sensors in wind turbines today, and they can help determine causes of failures pretty rapidly. But without it, you’re just really looking at video in this particular collapse. Rosemary Barnes It’s amazing that you can look at video. The video is far more useful than the SCADA data is, probably. Um, yeah, it’s, well, I’ve never actually, like, I’ve worked on a lot of RCAs and I’ve never actually got to see video footage of the incident, so that’s actually really cool that they’ve got this dash cam footage. Looking at it now, you can, um, see the lower, probably two thirds of the turbine tower, so you can see the blades coming past. I wish the video would start just like 10 seconds earlier. [00:02:00] Um, because maybe you can see a bit of wobble in the tower. You can see that one of the blades is already missing a tip, or the tip kind of flies off anyway, so maybe it was bent. So definitely looks to me like the root cause was that there was a blade failure. The, um, part of the blade broke off, caused a rotor imbalance, which then meant that one of the blades hit the tower and then it’s really easy for a tower to buckle once it’s got some damage in it. So that, that in itself, like, that’s not an uncommon scenario. Um, and yeah, for sure, like you would ask for the SCADA data, but, uh, I don’t think it’s accurate that they’re saying. There must have been a faulty sensor or something because when there’s a rotor imbalance, it should stop, um, stop the turbine. But I do know from experience, it does not always stop the turbine quickly enough to stop this happening. So, um, I’m not, I’m not sure that the SCADA data would tell you anything [00:03:00] groundbreaking. However, I think it is very interesting Vestas are very publicly not sharing because it’s out of warranty because to me, access to the SCADA data is a key part of being able to operate your turbine safely. And you don’t sell a turbine — like you might sell a turbine with a two year warranty, sure, but that doesn’t mean that you are selling a turbine that can only be operated safely for two years. That’s just like absolutely insane and contrary to — at least a lot of the world’s laws, there’s laws around, you know, how safely you can operate equipment, and especially energy generation assets have specific laws about that. You have to be able to operate them safely and yeah, from what we can see here, like you can’t get access to the SCADA data. So in, in this case, I don’t know if there was a problem with the turbine controller that contributed to this problem. I, I mean, I’m, I’m always a bit surprised that a turbine can shake itself apart and it’s not, you know, there isn’t a sensor in there that can stop it in time to stop the collapse because if you take just the population of turbines that have collapsed, which is, you know, [00:04:00] very, very few from considering the whole global population, but looking at those ones that have collapsed, it’s pretty common way that it happens is from, um, part of a blade falling off and then a rotor imbalance causing the tower to, um, start wobbling and the blades to hit the tower. Allen Hall So would it be in the control laws, Rosemary, where the ...
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    27 分
  • Wavepiston Brings Wave Energy to Island Communities

    Wavepiston Brings Wave Energy to Island Communities
    2026/04/02
    Michael Henriksen, CEO at Wavepiston, joins to discuss wave energy’s advantages for island communities, the company’s hydraulic piston system, offshore wind co-location, and the Barbados pilot project. 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! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Michael, welcome to the program. Thanks, Allen. A pleasure. Allen Hall: Well, this is gonna be a, a really interesting discussion today because, uh, I don’t know a lot about wave power, but. Obviously the world has made some substantial progress in wind and solar, but the ocean energy is still relatively unknown and. I want you to, just to paint the picture of the problem, what gap exists in renewable energy today that wave energy can fill? Michael Henriksen: Thanks. Thanks. A yes. Uh, that’s right. So ocean energy as such. And we have, um, we are working with the wave energy side of the other things here in Wave Piston has a very large potential because there’s a lot of waves around us. We all feel it when we are out in the sea, when we’re out swimming or whatever.[00:01:00] So what can it fill out that is that, that the, the interesting thing about wave energy is that is, um, timewise shift compared to wind. You know, it’s the wind that builds up the waves. The waves come, uh, the wind comes and goes, but the waves that keep rolling also afterwards. Yeah. So this timewise shift that gives some extra value. Of the energy that you can actually produce at the same time, it’s actually also, it’s a more of stable resource. So you, you don’t have these large fluctuation, it, it, it comes slowly and then dies away slowly depending on where you are in the world, of course. And then the last for the least is it’s very predictable. So stable days advantage, you can actually very precise predict what sort of your energy production profile. So by adding an extra renewable energy source, you can actually sort of, it gives extra value to both have sort as much solar PV as possible, as much wind as possible, but also have wave energy there to have sort of a better, uh, in the end, uh, [00:02:00] uh, energy production. Allen Hall: Yeah. And that, and the technology is really applicable to, uh, a lot of regions, uh, around just like island communities and places of a little more remote. Uh, because the cost of electricity on islands is incredibly high. They’re buying diesel usually, and they have a kind of a, a double problem in that they have to buy diesel to run electricity plants, and then at the same time they’re, they’re having to make fresh water all the time ’cause fresh water’s a problem. Wave Piston solves both of these problems together. But why are we in this? Space right now. I, I just wanna back up a minute. I mean, there, there does seem like for the last 30, 40 years that I can remember, the island communities have been really stuck. Solar hasn’t really filled the void. Wind has been intermittent option at times. Why waves? Michael Henriksen: Yeah. But that’s actually, uh, where we see our, like our step to, uh, [00:03:00] you know, uh, go to market strategy, so to speak. See, that is the first step because as you mentioned, all the island communities, I would also say remote coastal communities still have this, this challenge of being dependent on fossil fuels. And as you know, it’s, it’s mainly because of course you have limited, uh, uh, uh, land space. Uh, of course they should have as much solar PB as wind as possible, but you still have this, you know, you don’t wanna have it in your backyard. It’s difficult to have, you know, spatial beautiful islands where you have, uh, tourism, et cetera. And then you have, uh, solar PB and winter turbines all over the place. It’s not gonna happen. So they’re looking at to go to, of course, offshore. What they have a lot of us is they have ocean. Yeah. And the challenge there again, is. Most places when you go just a few kilometers from shore get very, very deep. Yeah. So you need to find something that is sustainable, something that it will not spoil the view. Something that is actually, uh, uh, an [00:04:00]environmental friendly way, you know, of harnessing the energy that that is where wave energy come into the picture because. It’s happening below the sea. So the, the surface and, and, and the, it can sort of coexist with other things happening there. Of course, you need to have an area where just say this is for wave minute. Yeah. ...
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    25 分
  • UK Bans Ming Yang, Vestas Plans Scotland Factory

    UK Bans Ming Yang, Vestas Plans Scotland Factory
    2026/03/31
    The UK bars Ming Yang on security grounds while Vestas announces a €250M nacelle factory in Scotland. Also, Nordex reaches a 199-meter hub height milestone and male bats use turbines as courtship song perches. 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! [00:00:00] The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by Strike Tape, 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 Allen Hall, and I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, Matthew Stead, and Yolanda Padron. And. The hot news this week is Scotland, and Scotland is gonna be a major hub for manufacturing for all the offshore wind that is happening in the UK and around Europe. Well, the UK government ruled that Chinese turbine maker Ming Yang poses a national security threat and blocked its products from UK offshore wind projects, which in turn killed a plan for a one and a half billion pound Scottish factory. And then a couple of hours later, Dana Danish Giant Vestus announced plans to build its own cell [00:01:00] and hub factory in Scotland with an investment of about 250 million euros and up to about 500 jobs. Uh, but there is still a catch. Vestus is only going to move forward if it wins enough orders from the UK’s offshore wind. Auction program and allocation round eight was announced recently, so that’s gonna happen. So obviously Vestus would like to win a number of turbine orders from that, but that’s a pretty major announcement by the UK and by Vestus. It does seem like Vestus will be the leader in offshore winds in the uk. Is that the long term play now? Is that there’ll be a primary. Wind turbine source for the uk and that would be Vestas. Rosemary Barnes: Weren’t we just covering, didn’t we just cover last week about another Danish manufacturer who just closed in a cell, uh, manufacturing facility in Denmark? Allen Hall: Siemens did. Rosemary Barnes: So yeah, one week [00:02:00] Siemens is closing a factory in Denmark and the next week. As Bestus is opening similar factory in the uk. So that’s a interesting little geographic, uh, bit of information, Matthew Stead: isn’t it? Thanks to our friends, the royal family in the uk, that they’re really promoting offshore wind. Matthew Stead: Uh, my understanding is they own the rights to the offshore water. Uh, well, obviously the offshore, offshore area, and they, they have promoted, um, the use of leases. And I, I understand, I might be cor incorrect, that the royal family is the one that may gain the, the benefit from the leases. Allen Hall: It’s the crown of state in the UK that. Manages the royal family’s holdings. [00:03:00] Some part of the awarded amount or the, the leases are going to go to the royal family. I forget what that number is. Maybe 10% of ’em. And the rest basically are the treasury of the uk. Matthew Stead: Oh, not all of it. Allen Hall: Yeah, not all of it. But yeah, I mean it definitely benefits the royal family. Matthew Stead: Yeah. So kiosk to the royal family for promoting it. Allen Hall: Well, the price of petroleum in oil products recently has skyrocketed, of course. And, uh. The push to get renewables as the leading source of electricity generation in the UK is a massive move, which will. Promulgate all through Europe, everybody’s gonna be on that same pathway, I would think. Right now, the, the, the unique part about the UK and these, these Scottish efforts is that the speed at which the UK and Scotland in particular are going after it, you see some commitment by the Scandinavians in Germany to get to some of these numbers. But, uh, the UK is putting in an action. And they have a in, uh, industrial growth plan, which [00:04:00] is a little bit unique that this is part of the growth strategy of the UK is they’re trying to grow jobs, they’re trying to get higher paying jobs into the uk and this is the, the one way they’re trying to accomplish it. I was listening to a podcast today talking about this. It was someone representing, I think it was great British energy, but they are at least the, as the discussion points, they were trying to show comparisons. To what will happen and when to What has happened in the past with aerospace that the UK realized it’s good at composites, manufacturing wings, doing power plants, rolls Royce is there, right? So there’s a number of parallel. Tracks that the UK is going to to try to do through, um, their knowledge of aerospace into the wind turbine ...
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    25 分
  • Aerones Robots Scale LEP Repairs Across the US

    Aerones Robots Scale LEP Repairs Across the US
    2026/03/26
    Dainis Kruze and Janis Putrams, co-founders of Aerones, welcome Allen to their new Denton, Texas facility to discuss robotic spray-coat LEP repairs, third-generation internal blade crawlers, and their US-made inspection drone that eliminates Chinese components. 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! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Dainis and Janis, welcome back to the program. Dainis Kruze: Thank you, Alan, for visiting us, uh, in, in our new facility. Allen Hall: Yeah. Is a great new facility. We’re in Denton, Texas, which is just north of Dallas. Uh, and you move from. Lake Dallas area. Mm-hmm. And we had visited that facility a year or so ago. This new facility is amazing. It’s what, probably four times the size. Yeah. Maybe a little bit bigger. And it is, uh, indicative of the growing business that Aeros has in the United States. And that’s wonderful. Uh, and I’m glad I could catch you in Texas ’cause I know you, you guys are running around the world all the time. Uh, I think the last time I was at. A facility with both of you was over in Riga? Dainis Kruze: Yes. Allen Hall: Uh, probably two years ago now. Oh, Dainis Kruze: yeah. Allen Hall: So I saw the Riga operation and, and now we’re seeing [00:01:00]the, the Denton US operation. You have facilities in other places too, right? Dainis Kruze: A small one in Australia, but, but yeah, the main facilities in Riga and the second biggest one here in, in Dallas. Allen Hall: A lot of technology changes since Rose Riga. Uh. Leading edge being the big one, leading edge protection materials. And when I talk to US operators, even operators in Australia, we’re just there. They love the idea and the application of a robot for leading edge repairs. Dainis Kruze: Oh yeah, Allen Hall: it makes total sense. It’s one of those areas that, uh, Rons has shown you can do this with a robot much more consistently. Has that business grown quite a bit since you first started it? Dainis Kruze: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We did more than 500 turbines last year, so we. The plan for this season is about one and a half thousand turbines, so it is growing quite a lot. Allen Hall: So the, the speed and the quantity of robots here in the United States is must have grown considerably. Dainis Kruze: Oh, yeah. Uh, one team now gets [00:02:00] up to 15 turbines a month. So if it’s category one or two turbine, uh, leading edge, uh, erosion, it’s about one day to do one turbine category three. Uh, one turbine is being done in two days, and we are talking about like 12 meter repair. It’s not a spot repair, it’s a full repair, like Allen Hall: full repair. Okay. Dainis Kruze: Yeah. Allen Hall: And the robot technology and the, the amount of technology on the robot is behind us has grown quite a bit. Uh oh. Yeah. You’re learning as you’re going. Obviously. I looked at a number of robots in at the Denton facility. Smarter robots. More data, more consistency. Particularly because the leading edge protection materials require a lot more care than rope technicians can generally create on site. Right. Walk us through what this robot is doing, why it’s doing what it’s doing, and, and like the, the quality you get coming out of it. ’cause what I see behind me is really nice. Better than, than [00:03:00] what I’ve seen typically coming out of a factory. Janis Putrams: Yeah. So multiple things actually we’ve been. Kind of what we’ve been hearing sometimes is that, um, that material’s good, the application seems good, but then it comes off after some time and you don’t understand what’s what happened, right? Yeah. So we understood to, to make it right. We need to make sure that both the kind of, we take the full ownership for the, for the whole process, for the application. And so we’ve been investing quite a lot in our lab to, to actually understand what the material needs, how the surface needs to be, be prepared. How do we measure it? How do we make sure the process is right? So actually what we saw is that, yeah, making sure adhesion, uh, is, is right, is is very important part. Also, when you go out there, there’s a quite a spectrum of the weather forecast, like information. You have humidity, you have temperatures, and you need to be able to guarantee the, the, yeah, the output in all of that spectrum. So yeah, we’ve done quite a lot on, [00:04:00] uh, on those. And Allen Hall: so from a technology ...
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    32 分
  • Britain Breaks Wind Record, Ørsted Exits Floating Project

    Britain Breaks Wind Record, Ørsted Exits Floating Project
    2026/03/30

    Allen covers the UK’s all-time wind record, the Crown Estate’s new 6 GW leasing round, Port Talbot’s floating wind assembly port, and Ørsted and BlueFloat’s exit from the Stromar project.

    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 everyone!

    Last Wednesday, the British Isles did something remarkable. Wind turbines across the United Kingdom generated twenty-three thousand eight hundred and eighty megawatts of electricity — an all-time national record. That is enough to power twenty-three million homes at the same moment. And while wind was hitting its record high, natural gas fell to just two-point-three percent of total British supply. A two-year low for gas. In a single day.

    Britain is not stopping there. The Crown Estate has announced a new offshore wind leasing round, targeting six gigawatts of new capacity off the northeast coast of England — enough to power six million more homes. And now the United Kingdom is building the physical infrastructure to match that ambition. Ministers have committed up to sixty-four million pounds in support for Port Talbot in South Wales. The plan: the UK’s first dedicated assembly port for floating offshore wind. Associated British Ports says total investment could exceed five hundred million pounds once fully built out. The goal is the Celtic Sea, where developers are targeting four gigawatts of floating wind. Four gigawatts. Floating. In open ocean.

    Floating offshore wind is the industry’s next frontier. But it is also the industry’s most expensive and complicated technology. Consider what happened quietly this last week off the coast of Caithness, Scotland. Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, and BlueFloat Energy have both walked away from the Stromar floating wind project. Stromar is a one-point-five gigawatt floating wind farm — sixty to one hundred meters of water depth, fifty kilometers offshore, enough power for one-point-five million homes. Construction was not expected to begin until twenty twenty-eight. Now Nadara, the project’s remaining partner, holds one hundred percent of Stromar alone. For Ørsted, the exit signals tighter capital discipline. For floating wind, it signals just how difficult the economics remain.

    And yet, across the North Sea, a solution is taking shape. The University of Strathclyde and Japan Marine United signed a Memorandum of Understanding last week. Their mission: standardise and mass-produce floating offshore wind turbines. Japan Marine United has been developing floating wind technology since 1999. Their Jade Wind floater is headed for large-scale government-led deployment in Japan. Standardisation — the same answer that made fixed-bottom offshore wind competitive.

    So here is where we are. Britain just broke its wind generation record. The Crown Estate is opening new ocean for development. Port Talbot is becoming a floating wind assembly hub. And Strathclyde and Japan Marine United are building the engineering knowledge to make it all affordable. Two companies stepped back from Stromar. But the Celtic Sea is still waiting.

    And that’s the state of the wind industry on the 30th of March 2026. Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.
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    2 分
  • Danish Renewables Push in Australia, Nearthlab Does Defense

    Danish Renewables Push in Australia, Nearthlab Does Defense
    2026/03/24
    Denmark’s royal trade mission brings 54 companies to Australia’s renewables market. Plus the UK opens CFD allocation round eight for up to 18 offshore wind farms, and wind tech startups weigh focus against diversification into defense. 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 Strike Tape, 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 here with Yolanda Padron, Rosemary Barnes at Matthews Stead, and we start off. On the Danish trip to Australia, 54 Danish companies traveled to Australia alongside King Frederick II and Queen Mary. Uh, over the past week, most work in the renewable energy and green construction businesses that traveled along several signed agreements during the trip. Denmark sees Australia as a growth market, and Rosemary is tied to royalty here. Loosely that Queen Mary is actually from Tasmania, much like Rosemary. [00:01:00] So there is possibly a line to the throne, the Danish throne for Rosemary. Rosemary Barnes: My dad’s from Tasmania. I, I live in Canberra, but I was, the whole five years I was living in Denmark, I kept waiting for Princess. She was Princess Mary at that point, but Princess Mary to get in touch with her phone number, catch up. You know, Australians have moved to Denmark. Never happened. And now I see that they’ve come to Australia. And do you think that Mary reached out and got in touch with me? No, she didn’t. So I continue, continue to be disappointed in, in Queen Mary. Matthew Stead: Maybe she’s waiting for you, Rosie. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, she could be waiting for me to reach out. That’s true. Allen Hall: But I clearly, Australia is a growth market. Denmark sees it. I know there’s been a number of Danish companies in Australia over the last two, three years, or con companies from all over the world have been down to Australia, realizing that the growth of renewables is gonna be big because Australia is targeting 82% renewables by 2030. Uh, and right now it’s about 50% renewables, which is [00:02:00] remarkable by the way, that connection to Denmark. Is only going to grow, especially with the relationship with Queen Mary to the area. What are some of the growth areas that Denmark can walk into in Australia right now, Matthew? Matthew Stead: I mean, obviously the proposed offshore wind is a, is a big thing. So, um, once that gets up and running, obviously the Danish technology will come in there. Um, but, but also, you know, through vest have been here forever. Uh, Siemens, gaa, you know, there’s a strong Danish connection there. Um, so. Yeah, I, I think it’s already, already, already really strong. And, um, obviously having the, the queen, the Danish queen, um, yeah. Ties in with all of that. Allen Hall: Is it a reciprocal agreement that Australians can do work in Denmark? Rosemary Barnes: I don’t think, it’s not any sort of like free trade agreement, is it? It’s just some individual, I dunno how much we’ve, we’ve got to [00:03:00]teach Denmark, although there are some good Australian technologies, like maybe not building wind turbines themselves, but there are some good technologies like here, logic’s Ping, uh, Australian developed the ping part of it anyway. And then also, you know, I think some, some future manufacturing methods, uh, doing some exciting things here in Australia. Also, it’s not that hard to move to Denmark if you, um, like when I moved there, all I needed to get a Visa was a, a job offer. That was a certain, I, I don’t think it, I don’t, I don’t remember exactly if it was the type of job or if it was the salary, but you know, like you’re not gonna get a job offer. Like working part-time at a bar isn’t gonna be enough to get you a, a working visa in Denmark. But certainly. Any engineers, um, you can, if you get a good engineering position offered to you in Denmark, it’s not hard for the company to make that happen. So I don’t know that we need, we don’t, we don’t really need it made that much easier for us [00:04:00] to get over there. Allen Hall: Is it difficult to get a work permit in Australia if you’re from Denmark? Rosemary Barnes: Yes and no. It’s not like I would so love to be hiring my XLM colleagues to come. I know that I’d moved to Australia too. Some of them, it’s, it’s not super duper easy. Um. It’s not impossible. And uh, if people are young enough, it’s a bit easier. But, ...
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