The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

• US Grid Strain, Possible Allete Sale

  Allen discusses the strain on America's largest power grid due to data center demand, Taiwan's $3 billion wind farm project, the potential sale of Allete and new data center regulations in Ohio. 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! America's largest power grid is under serious strain. Data centers and AI chatbots are using electricity faster than new power plants can be built. PJM Interconnection covers thirteen states from Illinois to Tennessee and Virginia to New Jersey. The company serves sixty seven million customers. This summer, electricity bills could jump more than twenty percent in some areas. The region has the most data centers in the world. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is threatening to pull his state out of the grid entirely. Recently, PJM's CEO has announced he's leaving and PJM Board members have been voted out. PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields says the problem is simple economics. "Prices will remain high as long as demand growth is outstripping supply. Right now, we need every megawatt we can get." The grid lost more than five point six gigawatts in the last decade. Old power plants shut down faster than new ones come online. Meanwhile, data center demand keeps growing. By twenty thirty, PJM expects thirty two gigawatts of increased demand. Almost all of that will come from data centers. Ørsted has secured three billion dollars in financing for a major wind farm project in Taiwan. The Greater Changhua Two project will supply clean energy to over one million households once it's fully operational. The wind farm sits thirty to thirty seven miles off Taiwan's coast. Taiwan wants twenty percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources by twenty twenty five. This project is a critical step toward that goal. Ørsted plans to sell part of its ownership stake after the project is completed. This strategy lets the company recycle money into new projects while keeping operational control. Allete is one step closer to being sold. The Minnesota Department of Commerce has withdrawn its opposition to the six point two billion dollar deal. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Global Infrastructure Partners want to buy the company. Allete runs Minnesota Power and Superior Water, Light and Power of Wisconsin. The sale still needs approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. That's the last hurdle before the deal can close. The new owners have agreed to several customer protections. They'll freeze rates for one year and reduce the company's allowed profit margin. They've also promised fifty million dollars in additional clean energy investments. AEP Ohio has won approval for new rules that protect customers from data center costs. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved the plan on July ninth. Large data centers will now have to pay for at least eighty five percent of the electricity they sign up for, even if they use less. AEP Ohio President Marc Reitter says the rules align data center demand with infrastructure costs. "This infrastructure will support Ohio's growing tech sector and help secure America's data storage facilities here in the U.S." The requirements will last twelve years, including a four year ramp up period. Data center owners must also prove they're financially able to meet their obligations. RWE has extended CEO Markus Krebber's contract until twenty thirty one. The early extension adds another five years to his current agreement. Krebber has led the German energy company since twenty twenty one.

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• IWTG Consulting Addresses Turbine Failures

  Jon Zalar, founder of IWTG Consulting, discusses the challenges of wind turbine maintenance, emphasizing the rise in turbine failures and the importance of root cause analysis (RCA). Proactive maintenance, proper documentation, and expert consultation will help to mitigate issues and ensure turbine efficiency. 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! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow. Allen Hall 2025: Jon, welcome to the program.  Jonathan Zalar: Thanks for having me,  Allen Hall 2025: Jon. Let's start with the reality facing wind farmer operators today. What's the core problem when it comes to turbine failures?  Jonathan Zalar: There's been a larger number than they probably experienced like five years ago. I think, um, you know, the volume of turbines out there and some of the bigger issues that, you know, people are seeing in the last two to three years has made owning a wind farm a little more challenging than before. Um, you know, between blade issues, bolted joint issues, shoes, and. Overall, like o operations, right? It's been tougher to keep these turbines up and running, you know, manpower's an issue, getting people out there to go fix stuff. It's, [00:01:00] it's been tough for a lot of people I've talked to.  Joel Saxum: Do you think this is a, a partial result of like, um, okay, so what we're, you know, on the podcast in the last few years, we've always been talking about, oh, there's all kinds of models coming out and there's this, this manufacturer can put out this many different variations and all these things, and now. Now we're getting to the age where that family, that group of turbines that, I guess it's kind, I'm looking at it like a class, right? That class of, that, those years of turbines are now getting to the stage where they're out of warranty and they're coming into, some people are taking, you know, ISPs taking, um, maintenance of them or an owner operator taking maintenance over from the OEM. And all of a sudden now there's these issues popping up and different things that we're, we're kind of in this. Um, like a swamp of problems with a lot of different models. So, uh, yeah, like you said, we've we're, we talked a little bit off air here about RCAs and how to fix things and looking at serial defects and stuff, but it's just like, it seems like every other week [00:02:00] someone calls Alan Ryan's like, Hey, have you heard about this thing with this model? And it's like, man,  Jonathan Zalar: another one. I think it's a combination of two things. One. Like I talked about the last time we had podcasts, there was a, you know, a pretty big push to increase rotor size, come out with new models for, for every, for all the os, right? They're competing against each other. Coming out with a new model every 18 months. And you can ask Phil, but I believe mostly the OEMs are sold out. If you go back five, six years, where. A huge expansion in the amount of wind turbines that have been placed. Right. So I think you combine those cheap factors and now, yeah, the owners have a lot on their plate, a lot more than they're  Allen Hall 2025: probably used to. And my question all is this, the complexity of the turbines. So every new model that comes out, what I'm seeing is more instrumentation, more sensors, more stuff, more variability, even in where the components originate from.  Jonathan Zalar: Right? Yeah. [00:03:00] I mean, to increase, to be able to meet that increased demand the OEMs had to get,

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• US Pushes LNG, Denmark Offshore Permits

  This week we discuss the Danish government's permit extensions for two offshore wind farms, the U.S. Senate's new renewable energy bill, the Belgian government's halted wind farm tender, and the complexities of laying seabed cables for wind farms. 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, Alan Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall 2025: Well welcome back to Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I have Rosemary Barnes down in Canberra Australia. Phil's in California, and evidently he lives next door to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and I, I had no idea, Phil, like you're that close to royalty.  Phil Totaro: I'm not. You're  Allen Hall 2025: making that up. Joel's up in Wisconsin somewhere in the northern wilds of Wisconsin. Next to a cheese factory, and here I sit in Charlotte, North Carolina. If we've been paying attention or if you've been paying attention to the news over the last, uh, 48 hours in America has been complete chaos as we are recording this and the US Senate has [00:01:00] passed a bill regarding renewable energy and it's back to the house. Supposedly this is all gonna get signed off by the 4th of July. So we're recording it. Today is July 2nd. Um. So by the time you hear this, something may or may not have happened, and we're trying to keep abreast of the latest, but I think there's some other news going on around the world. And, uh, one of the stories we found interesting was the Danish Offshore, uh, agency Energy Agency has approved permit extensions for two of Denmark's oldest offshore wind farms, which marks a major milestone for. Wind energy longevity. The middle Gruden and Newstead offshore wind farms have received permission to operate for an additional 25 years and 10 years respectively. That is massive extension. Uh, the middle Gruden facility, which is built in 2001, has about 20 turbines and about 40 megawatts of capacity, and it's owned by a community cooperative. [00:02:00] And the Danes being on top of all these things, uh, allowed the extension after doing an engineering analysis showing that the infrastructure has more life. This is unusual. Is this just a artifact of early designs being overly conservative? And these wind farms can practically live forever? I think so. I, uh,  Joel Saxum: I like it. Alright. I wish that all these wind turbines are built this way because it's then you can get more longevity of, I think now of course when everybody has a repower now or tries to extend life, they're trying to really do it. So they're trying to, if we're gonna put money, we'll try to, you know, up the kilowatt, we'll try to up the capacity, well then the foundations don't hold and these kind of things. So it's kind of like if you look at, um. I'm up here in northern Wisconsin, not too far from my house. There's a bridge that was built by the CCC, uh, the civilian Conservation Corps in like the, um, at the Great Depression. So like in the 1930s, late, [00:03:00] late 1920s. And that bridge is fine. Like it's golden. It's still good, right? But it was overbuilt, super built to be heavy duty construction. And there's another bridge just down the road from that same one over the same river that was done in the seventies that needs a complete replacement. Because it was done, it was done with like, you know, di different design functions, not as robust. And,

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• GE 18 MW Turbine, Nordex Revives Iowa Facility

  Nordex USA has reopened its wind turbine plant in Iowa, while Alliant Energy plans to add up to one gigawatt of wind generation in the state. GE Vernova's 18 megawatt turbine has been approved for testing and the UK has greenlit the 1.5 gigawatt Mona Offshore 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 for Iowa's clean energy sector. Nordex USA celebrated the reopening of its wind turbine plant in West Branch, Iowa on Tuesday. The plant now employs more than one hundred workers. They're producing the company's first U.S.-made turbines. Manav Sharma is Nordex's North American C.E.O. He says the company is committed to Iowa for the long term. The plant had been closed since twenty thirteen. Nordex bought the facility in twenty sixteen and spent months retrofitting it. The plant will produce parts for five-megawatt turbines. Production capacity is planned to exceed two point five gigawatts annually. The reopening comes despite federal debates about renewable energy tax credits. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds noted that sixty six percent of Iowa's power comes from renewable energy. That's the highest percentage in the US. Alliant Energy also has big plans for wind power in Iowa. The company filed a plan with the Iowa Utilities Commission to add up to one gigwatt of wind generation. Mayuri Farlinger is president of Alliant's Iowa energy company. She says expanding wind energy will help them deliver reliable and cost-effective power to customers. Alliant plans to own and operate the new wind projects. The company expects the projects to create construction jobs and provide payments to landowners. They'll also generate new tax revenue for counties where the turbines are built. The Iowa Utilities Commission is expected to make a decision in the first quarter of twenty twenty six. Norway is testing the one of world's biggest wind turbine. Norwegian regulator N.V.E. approved GE Vernova subsidiary Georgine Wind plans for an eighteen-megawatt turbine in the municipality of Gulen. NVE says this is the largest wind turbine ever approved in Norway. It's also the first to be licensed inside an existing industrial area. The turbine will have a rotor diameter of up to two hundred fifty meters. The maximum tip height will be two hundred seventy five meters. The turbine will undergo testing for five years before switching to standard commercial operation for another twenty five years. The United Kingdom has approved its largest Irish Sea wind farm. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband granted planning consent for the Mona offshore wind farm. The project is owned by B.P. and EnBW. It will feature ninety six turbines off northwest England. The one point five gigawatt project could power more than one million homes with clean energy. It's expected to begin production between twenty twenty eight and twenty twenty nine. Miliband says this shows the government is backing builders, not blockers. B.P. and EnBW are also waiting for approval of a neighboring wind farm called Morgan. That decision is due by September tenth. The developers have been paying option fees of one hundred fifty four thousand pounds per megawatt per year since January twenty twenty three. Richard Sandford is B.P.'s Vice President of Offshore Wind. He says this approval brings them closer to delivering large-scale, low-carbon energy critical to the U.K.'s net zero goals. That's this week's top news story. Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

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• GreenSpur’s Axial Flux Generator Innovation

  Jason Moody from GreenSpur discusses their innovative axial flux generator technology, which promises to reduce weight and complexity in wind turbines, offering greater efficiency and lower maintenance costs. 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! Today we're excited to have Jason Moody, chairman of GreenSpur, joining us to discuss a generator technology that could fundamentally alter the path of wind energy. While the wind industry has been scaling up turbine sizes, we've hit a critical challenge. Generators are becoming massively heavy, complex, and expensive to maintain. GreenSpur is taking a different approach entirely. They perfected axial flux generator technology that can dramatically reduce weight, eliminate cooling systems. And use any type of magnet from simple faite to rare earth materials. This isn't just another incremental improvement. It's a completely different way of generating power that could solve some of offshore wind's biggest headaches. Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow. Jason, welcome to the program. Thank [00:01:00] you. Thanks a. Hi Joel. Well, let's start off with the elephant in the room for offshore wind turbines manufacturing. Uh, there's some fundamental challenges that are facing them as we approach sort of the 20 megawatt stage and getting further offshore. Weight becomes a big problem. Jason Moody: Yeah, it does. For, for years they've been getting bigger and bigger, and you can see that the industry just wants to push for that next size. But with that, the generators are getting very, very heavy. So the last direct drive generator that we evaluated was in excess of 150 tons. Now, that's not a, not a small machine anymore, but what what we're trying to do is introduce a new technology. That can hopefully address that problem and some others as well.  Allen Hall (2): So when you put a very heavy generator on top of a tower, that increases everything underneath of it, right?  Jason Moody: Yeah. The foundations grow exponentially. The [00:02:00]steelwork and the structure has to grow. Then the cell itself, just based on size, lot more composite parts. Everything's bigger.  Joel Saxum: So we're talking like here, kind of traditional offshore wind fixed bottom right. That's an issue. The foundations have to grow, uh, exponentially to get these, to hold up this weight. But when another thing that's happening globally, right? The big push for floating offshore wind. So if now you're talking about putting more and more and more weight on something that's actually dynamic, right? So that kind of, uh, what does that do to the, the whole system.  Jason Moody: That's a, it's a different, um, engineering challenge, but it's mainly in the steel structure and the ballast in, in those, uh, in those systems. So the street, the steel pylon becomes very thick, becomes very heavy, uh, to hold that weight on top. But most of the time what you found in these newer next gen floating systems is they've gone to geared systems, which is a big move in the whole industry for both onshore, offshore, and, and everything in between. Everyone's moving to hybrid [00:03:00] and geared systems,  Allen Hall (2): and hybrid and geared systems get even more complicated, which is the problem, right? Is that we're, we're trying to lower the cost of energy, but as we go bigger in scale, we sort of lose those efficiencies. It, it doesn't scale up with the efficiencies. It actually,

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