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The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

Written by: Allen Hall Rosemary Barnes Joel Saxum & Phil Totaro
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  • Summary

  • Uptime is a renewable energy podcast focused on wind energy and energy storage technologies. Experts Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Joel Saxum and Phil Totaro break down the latest research, tech, and policy.
    Copyright 2024, Weather Guard Lightning Tech
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Episodes
  • R&D Test Systems: Digital Twins for Wind Turbine Testing

    R&D Test Systems: Digital Twins for Wind Turbine Testing
    Jun 27 2024
    Allen Hall and Joel Saxum interview Dr. Elif Ecem Bas, a PhD project engineer at R&D Test Systems in Denmark. Dr. Bas discusses how R&D Test Systems is leveraging digital twin technologies and hybrid testing to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of testing wind turbine components, particularly pitch bearings. 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! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. As wind turbines grow in size and complexity, testing these components has become increasingly expensive and time consuming. To address these challenges, R&D Test Systems is leveraging digital twin technologies to improve the efficiency of their test bed. Benches, ultimately reducing testing time and costs. And if you don't already know, R&D Test Systems is a leading company in the wind energy industry, providing testing solutions for wind turbine components on a massive scale. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Ecem Bas, a PhD project engineer. At R&D Test Systems in Denmark, Dr. Bas earned her PhD in structural engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno, and is currently focusing on digital twin technologies at R&D Test Systems. In this interview, we will delve into the applications of digital twin technology and wind turbine component testing and learn more about Dr. Bas's work in this cutting edge field. Ecem, Welcome to the program. Elif Ecem Bas: Thank you. And thanks a lot for the introduction. Allen Hall: So there's a lot to learn here because Joel and I have been following the digital twin saga over the last several years because you see a lot of of news articles and information about digital twins and OEMs or have been looking at it and a lot of smaller companies have been trying to prove out digital twins. But we haven't seen a lot of it being applied in a place where I think it's important, which is in the testing phase. And R&D Test Systems if you haven't worked with R&D Test Systems, build some of the largest pieces of test equipment in the world to test generators up to 25 megawatts and all kind of blades, just insanely big things. So what is the benefit of using Digital Twin on such large test equipment? Elif Ecem Bas: Let's come one step back. As you mentioned in your introduction. Testing is necessity for all the wind turbine components and their subcomponents as well. This is required by the standards and this is required by the design and also the manufacturing. So we will not get rid of testing. Testing is very important. But as the wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger, this time to test these components takes also a lot of time. And for as an example for a blade to test the Fatigue test to make a fatigue test for a blade. It takes one year or more than a year to do the saw Joel Saxum: Constant movement. Elif Ecem Bas: Yeah, exactly to see all the damages through the blade. You have to do that and also for a highly accelerated lifetime testing of an assault. This also takes six and eight months and also testing this. These are large facilities, right? And testing this will also cost money. tens of million euros bought to establish and run this. And this leads, of course, longer time to market. For new and more powerful wind turbines. In detail systems, we are trying to develop digital tools to overcome these challenges and to have these turbines to rol...
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    26 mins
  • Sinonus Blade Batteries, G+ Safety Report, ATT’s Immersive Safety Training

    Sinonus Blade Batteries, G+ Safety Report, ATT’s Immersive Safety Training
    Jun 25 2024
    This week we discuss Sinonus' innovative approach to using wind turbine blades for energy storage and the G+ Global Offshore Wind Health and Safety Organization's report on safety incidents. Allen and Joel discuss Active Training Team's (ATT) immersive safety training methods, featured in PES Wind Magazine. We also highlight Mississippi's first utility-scale wind farm, Delta Wind, featuring 41 Vestas 4.5 MW turbines. 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! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: A UK plane passenger awoke from a long nap thinking he'd arrived at the destination, only to realize the aircraft was still stuck at the gate. And if you haven't seen this little clip, this guy was sleeping for a couple of hours. Over in the UK, wakes up, asks his neighbor, Hey, are we there yet? And she turns and says, no, we haven't left. We recently had that happen to us coming back from San Diego, where I took a nap, and I swear, it must have been an hour and a half later, we hadn't moved. And I don't, I think Rosemary, you've been on some really long flights too. Are you getting stuck on the ground for some of these flights? Rosemary Barnes: It is so annoying when you're stuck on the ground, like before you've got a, I don't know, an 18 hour flight or whatever to get stuck on the ground for hours. And you're like, we're not even, we're not even progressing. It's really hard to deal with mentally. But they do often make it up because obviously they can, they don't fly as fast as they can around the world all the time. They fly in the way that's most fuel, more fuel efficient. So sometimes they can burn a bit more fuel to get you there faster. If they, yeah, if there's an economic reason for them to they're going to have to, pay some penalties or hold a, of the next flight for people who are, yeah, need to transfer. Joel Saxum: You could have been on a flight like Allen and I were. Where, we were supposed to board at 4pm, we didn't end up boarding until 9pm, and then once we boarded, and everybody got settled down and we were ready to push back from the gate, then they informed us that the pilots had timed out on their daily time limit, so they Did we all off boarded and then had to get moved to flights the next day. Philip Totaro: I once fell asleep on a train in Switzerland that eventually led me to being escorted out of the country. It can happen. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm Allen Hall and here's this week's headlines. Vestas has received a massive 577 megawatt order from Tag Energy to supply wind turbines for the second stage of the landmark 1. gigawatt Golden Plains onshore wind project in Australia. Vestas will deliver 93 of their megawatt turbines during the first quarter of 2025 with commissioning expected in 2026. Vestas is currently working on the first stage of the project that will utilize 122 of the V162 6. 2 megawatt machines. When completed, the Golden Plains site will be Vestas largest onshore wind farm to date. Vestas has also secured a 660 megawatt order from RWE for the Nord Sea Cluster A offshore wind project in Germany. A delivery of the 44 15 megawatt turbines is expected in 2026. Vestas will also service the turbines under a five year agreement followed by an operational support agreement. Meanwhile in the U. S., Dominion Energy is installing its first model pile foundations for the 6. 2 gigawatt coastal Virginia offshore wind project,
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Denmark Supports Vestas’ Australian Project, TPI Sells Auto Business, Nabrawind and LiftWerx Receive Investment

    Denmark Supports Vestas’ Australian Project, TPI Sells Auto Business, Nabrawind and LiftWerx Receive Investment
    Jun 24 2024
    TPI Composites sells its automotive business, Fortescue invests in Nabrawind's innovative wind turbine technology, LiftWerx receives a majority equity investment from TowerBrook Capital Partners, and Denmark's Export and Investment Fund supports Vestas' involvement in Australia's Golden Plains 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! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with the founder and CEO of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum, and this is your NewsFlash. Newsflash is brought to you by our friends at IntelStor. If you want market intelligence that generates revenue, then book a demonstration of IntelStor at intelstor.com. TPI Composites has decided to sell its automotive business unit to investment firm, Clear Creek Investments. This divestiture aligns with TPI's strategy to focus on its core wind energy business. The sale is expected to improve TPI's monthly cash flow by about 1. 7 million over the remainder of 2024. TPI composites accounted for around 33 percent of all onshore wind blades on a megawatt basis globally, excluding China. Now, Phil, it does seem like wind energy companies that have been dabbling in associated industries are trying to get back out of them. Philip Totaro: To a certain extent, yes. It's, it's interesting because we go through these periods where companies like to be able to vertically integrate in any one industry vertical or, or potentially dabble in, in others. But the timing of this is interesting in the context of. TPI wants to be able to strengthen their position and their relationship with GE, who obviously is going through, some tumult with LM wind power as they kind of right size that, that company. TPI doesn't want to lose GE's business because they're, quite highly dependent on it. And with the rise of kind of Chinese wind turbine manufacture, blade manufacturers, they have increased competition. In the world for blade manufacturing that they didn't have, even going back a few years, so divesting the automotive business segment is fascinating that it's going to leave them to focus on the core wind energy segment. It hasn't been, the best of times for them recently, but hopefully this allows them to continue. Growing their, their footprint in within the industry and throughout the rest of the world. Joel Saxum: I see this as a gamble, right? Because a lot of times if you are very dependent on one revenue stream, i. e. TPI, building blades, If you have another, and that building with that being tumultuous, right? There's contracts come up, they come down, there's TPI, there's blade issues, you gotta have warranty claims, all these different things. So that's a pretty, kind of a risky business model. If you have another thing it's just like diversifying your portfolio, right? If you have another entity or another silo that makes money, Or is, is doing decent and supporting, I think, I would think you'd keep it at this point in time to be able to kind of like flatten out your revenues. Now, if you're a company that's a a large entity where you're like a, and I'm, I know they're connected business wise, but I'm saying just GE as example where aerospace and health and all these different things. Yeah, at that point in time, it makes sense to silo off some things and focus in. But if it's TPI and you're just doing blades a...
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    14 mins
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