The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Podcast By Allen Hall Rosemary Barnes Joel Saxum & Phil Totaro cover art

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

By: Allen Hall Rosemary Barnes Joel Saxum & Phil Totaro
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 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 Biological Sciences Earth Sciences Science
Episodes
  • GreenSpur’s Axial Flux Generator Innovation

    GreenSpur’s Axial Flux Generator Innovation
    Jul 3 2025
    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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    28 mins
  • New Wind CEOs, Interconnect Acquisition

    New Wind CEOs, Interconnect Acquisition
    Jun 30 2025
    Allen discusses the appointment of Pedro Azagra as the new CEO of Iberdrola, Pete Bierden as the new President of TAKKION, and Nicolaj Mensberg as the new CEO of PEAK Wind, along with the acquisition of the Northconnect Interconnector project by Flotation Energy and Vargronn. 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! Takkion, a renewable energy services company, has appointed Pete Bierden as President. Bierden will be based at Takkion's headquarters in Centennial, Colorado. He will work closely with CEO Jim Orr to lead the company's growth strategy. Bierden brings more than twenty years of experience. He previously served as a submarine officer and Certified Naval Nuclear Engineer. He spent twenty years at General Electric, where he helped build the company's wind energy business from the ground up. Most recently, Bierden was CEO of Driver Industrial Safety. He also held senior positions at Amteck and Keystone Tower Systems. CEO Jim Orr says Bierden's leadership style and operational expertise make him an outstanding fit for the company. Bierden says he's honored to join a team that's making a real impact on the energy transition. Spanish energy giant Iberdrola has named Pedro Azagra as its new group CEO. Azagra replaces Armando Martinez. He has been with Iberdrola for twenty-five years. Azagra started as executive director of development, leading the company's international expansion. For the past three years, he served as CEO of Iberdrola's United States subsidiary. He earned degrees in law and business administration from Icade in Madrid. He also has a master's degree from the University of Chicago. Before joining Iberdrola, Azagra worked in the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley. Jose Antonio Miranda will take over as CEO of Iberdrola's US operations. He previously served as CEO of Gamesa in China and the United States. Peak Wind has appointed Nicolaj Mensberg as its new CEO, effective August first. Mensberg succeeds current CEO and co-founder Michael Rask Andersen, who will remain as Chair of the Board of Directors. Mensberg brings deep industry experience across the renewable energy value chain. His background aligns with Peak Wind's core services in operations and asset management. Andersen led Peak Wind as CEO since co-founding the company in twenty seventeen. Under his leadership, the company evolved from a startup into a global market leader. Andersen says he believes now is the right time to welcome fresh perspectives and leadership for the company's next growth phase. Mensberg says he's honored to join Peak Wind during this pivotal time in the renewable energy transition. Flotation Energy and Vargronn have completed their acquisition of the Northconnect interconnector project between Scotland and Norway. The deal followed close collaboration on shared transmission infrastructure for the interconnector and the proposed one point four gigawatt Cenos floating wind farm off east Scotland. Northconnect already has consent for offshore and onshore cable routes to a substation near Boddam, Aberdeenshire. Flotation Energy and Vargronn are targeting twenty thirty-one to twenty thirty-two for first power from the ninety-five turbine Cenos project. Project director Christopher Pearson says when operational, Cenos will be one of the largest floating wind farms in the world. It will supply clean electricity to the grid and offer a multi-point interconnector for future offshore developments.
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    2 mins
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