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
  • Windar Photonics LiDAR Optimizes Wind Farms

    Windar Photonics LiDAR Optimizes Wind Farms
    Jun 26 2025
    Antoine Larvol, CTO of Windar Photonics, discusses how their continuous wave LiDAR technology enhances wind turbine performance through optimization and monitoring, increasing AEP and reducing loads, particularly for legacy 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! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Alright, we're here in Phoenix, a CP, clean power, uh, 2025. So I'm, uh. Sitting with Antoine Larvol from, he's a CTO from Windar. Yep. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Uh, we've been, uh, happy enough to get actually to sit inside your booth where it's nice and qui. Quiet and isn't it nice? Yeah. We got glass behind the camera here and people are walking by, walking by, walking by. Um, so this morning, uh, we, we talked yesterday a little bit about what wind photonics does. Yep. Of course, from our, uh, some of our other friends around the world. We've heard about some, some campaigns you've done in the United States, which have been. Really successful. So yeah, congrat good. Congratulations there. Yeah, thank you. Um, and, and as, as a lot of things in the wind industry, Windar, photonics based in Denmark. Antoine Larvol: Yeah. Joel Saxum: So you guys, uh, bring it, bring in that Danish [00:01:00]technology. We're here, of course, bringing it to the US market at a CP, the American Clean Power Show. So welcome to the States. Thank you. Um, it's a short one, but a Antoine Larvol: good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Joel Saxum: exactly. So, so I want to talk a little bit about what Windar photonics and, and it is a LIDAR based sensor, correct? Antoine Larvol: Yes. Right. So. We do continuous wave base, uh, lidar. Yep. Uh, main product is a two beam version mm-hmm. Where you shoot, uh, at 80 meters in front of the turbine. Mm-hmm. And you basically alternate from one beam to the other. And measure wind speed and direction upfront, the, the turbine among others. Joel Saxum: Right. So we're talking about, uh, if you, if you're in the wind industry, you've ever seen these lidar units that are put actually, you're the cell mounted, correct? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, and, and, uh, we're looking more on the optimization, retrofit monitoring side of things. Yeah, Antoine Larvol: exactly. So we've never been a resource assessment company. Yeah. Or we don't look at power curve verification and stuff like that. We really [00:02:00] focus on. Retrofitting those, existing turbines. And then add value to In terms of information to, the customer, Yeah. With the mon monitoring side of things. Yeah. And, from day one, that's been the goal of Windar Making something cheap, robust. That can just stay there and measure with good availability, wind speed, and direction coming to your turbine. Joel Saxum: I love it. so we wanna squeeze as much as we can outta these turbines. And you guys are increasing AEP that's, the name of the game. Yeah. Right. Increasing AEP below rated. and then above rated you decrease loads. Increase uptime. and we basically do that by going on the line of the wind direction. that you then feed to the turbine controller and then we can actually adjust the, yaw position of the turbine according to our information. So I want to talk a little bit, we, we chatted a little bit offline about the, technology behind it, right? Yep. And people in the wind industry, if you're around the wind industry around resourcing or you're around optimization, you've heard [00:03:00] lidar. Yep. You know what I mean? And,
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    19 mins
  • Overcoming Drone Threats, UK Crown Estate Offshore

    Overcoming Drone Threats, UK Crown Estate Offshore
    Jun 24 2025
    This episode covers the UK's Crown Estate's offshore wind investments, drone threats to wind turbines, and Nordex's 40th anniversary. It also highlights TotalEnergies winning a German offshore wind auction and Pemamek's advanced welding capabilities. 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. Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes. Allen Hall: Well, we're back with another edition of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I got Rosemary Barnes in Australia, Phil Totaro in Warm and sunny California, and Joel Saxon in practically hell in temperature in Austin, Texas. I was just down in Dallas, Texas a day ago, and man, is that hot. There's just like a, a certain kind of heat, you know, you need to get indoors pretty quick. Texas heat is really bad right now. Joel Saxum: You know, one thing I didn't know about this area out here west of Austin, like in the Hill country, it's actually really windy out here. Like there's a steady wind all the time that, and you don't hit [00:01:00] wind farms for another like three hours when you had West, like the first ones. But it's like, I lived in Houston and Texas and it was pretty dormant most of the time, but it, there's constant wind here as the temperatures change throughout the day. All the time explains all the wind turbines. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, you sound like me when I moved to Denmark and I'm like, why do I have to live in this windy place? Allen Hall: So we have a birthday to celebrate and no, it's not Rosie's birthday. It's Nord Deck's birthday and it's celebrating their 40th anniversary and they've been around since 1985. And some facts about Nordex that they published really interesting. They have developed 46 different onshore turbine types. Across the two companies, which was Nordex, SE, and Acciona. And That's amazing. So in 40 years, did those two companies now merge together A couple of years ago? Uh, is they have 46 different onshore term designs from 250 kilowatts up to seven megawatt machines. Now Rosemary, I think this kind of high, [00:02:00] and congratulations to Nordex by the way. That's quite an achievement. It does highlight the rate of pace. For wind turbines from the mid eighties up till now. One new turbine a year is a lot. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And it's not the hugest company, right. It's not like they've got a hundred thousand employees developing those, uh, that one new turbine every year. So, yeah. Um. Nobody's been sitting around on their hands at that company. Joel Saxum: They made it past the, is it, isn't it the rule of thumb, Alan? We talk about businesses like in the states, like if you make it past five years, you're, you're good Allen Hall: al almost right? So most companies fail within the first year to three years. It's, it's hard to make it to three, then five, then 10. If you can make it across 10, you have something worthwhile. It's gonna stick around for a little bit. And, and Nordics has. Rosemary Barnes: What's weather guard at? Allen Hall: Uh, we're at. Almost 2020. Rosemary Barnes: Whew. An institution. Allen Hall: An institution. Yeah. We need to beat an institution at this point. And over in the uk, uh, the [00:03:00] UK's Crown Estate. Now this is an important story everyone. The UK's Crown Estate is making major investment commitments, uh,
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    37 mins
  • Ming Yang UK Investment, Turkey’s Wind Ambitions

    Ming Yang UK Investment, Turkey’s Wind Ambitions
    Jun 23 2025
    Allen discusses US-UK tension over Chinese company Ming Yang's wind energy investment in Scotland, key offshore wind projects from HSM Offshore Energy and Great British Energy, Turkey's ambitious wind energy goals, and new leadership at the Global Wind Energy Council. 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! There's tension between the US and UK over Chinese wind energy investment. The US government has raised security concerns about plans by Chinese company Mingyang to build a wind turbine factory in Scotland. Trump administration officials warned the UK about what they call national security risks. The factory would supply wind farms in the North Sea. UK ministers are now reviewing whether to block the project. They're worried about cybersecurity and being too dependent on Chinese technology. Security officials say Chinese wind turbines could contain electronic surveillance equipment. Mingyang is not state-owned, but critics worry the Chinese government could interfere. Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes had said Scotland was open to the factory. But the Scottish Government is waiting for security guidance from Westminster. A UK Government spokesperson said they would never let anything threaten national security. All energy investments face the highest security checks. Construction has officially started on Belgium's major offshore energy project. Workers cut the first steel this week at a factory in the Netherlands. They're building parts for the Princess Elisabeth hub. The artificial island will sit twenty-eight miles off the Belgian coast. The project will transport at least two point one gigawatts of wind energy to the mainland. That's enough power for millions of homes. HSM Offshore Energy is making high-voltage equipment at their Schiedam yard. Commercial director Hans Leerdam says this marks a key moment for European energy security. The island will also connect Belgium to other European countries, including the UK. Final assembly will happen in Schiedam and Vlissingen. Leerdam calls it one of Europe's most strategic energy projects moving from plan to reality. The UK government has announced a massive boost for offshore wind energy. Great British Energy is leading a one billion pound investment package. The money will fund wind turbine manufacturing, floating platforms, and port upgrades. Three hundred million pounds comes from Great British Energy. The Crown Estate and private companies are adding another seven hundred million pounds. The investment targets key regions including Teesside, South Wales, East Anglia, and Scotland. Officials say it will create thousands of skilled jobs. The government is also offering up to five hundred forty-four million pounds through its Clean Industry Bonus. This encourages developers to invest in deprived areas. The North East of England could receive up to two hundred million pounds. That might unlock four billion pounds in private investment. Scotland gets up to one hundred eighty-five million pounds for ports and high-tech components. The offshore wind expansion should support fourteen thousand new jobs over four years. Industry leaders believe this could boost the UK economy by twenty-five billion pounds by twenty thirty-five. Turkey is planning a major expansion of its wind energy capacity. The country aims to reach forty-eight gigawatts of wind power by twenty thirty-five. Turkey currently has nearly fourteen gigawatts installed. That makes it the sixth largest wind power producer in Europe and twelfth in the world.
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    2 mins
  • Green Eagle’s ARSOS Automates Wind Farm Operations

    Green Eagle’s ARSOS Automates Wind Farm Operations
    Jun 19 2025
    Alejandro Cabrera Muñoz, CEO and founder of Green Eagle Solutions, discusses their ARSOS platform and how it helps wind farm operators manage technical complexities, market volatility, and regulatory changes by automating turbine issue responses for increased productivity and revenue. 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! Wind Farm operators face mounting challenges from managing thousands of diverse turbines to navigating the energy markets and constant regulatory changes. This week we speak with Alejandro Cabrera Munoz, CEO, and founder of Green Eagle Solutions. Green Eagle's ARSOS platform gives control rooms immediate responses to turbine issues, which dramatically increases productivity and captures more revenue from their turbines. Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Alejandro, welcome to the show. Speaker 3: Thank you, Allen. Thank you for having me here today. Allen Hall: so Green Eagle Solutions is in a unique space of the renewable energy marketplace, and you saw a problem several years ago, particularly in the control rooms of [00:01:00] wind operators. What is that problem that you identified? Speaker 3: Yeah, Allen, I think it, it's, It's a challenge that, most of our customers, which are generally large operators, are facing today. But it's a challenge that have been, growing, in the past years. So first of all, it's, it goes along with the penetration of renewables in the industry, right? So we have, due to all these many years of aggregating new wind farms and solar plants, We are seeing how the complexity, the technical complexity of operating and supervising these assets is growing exponentially, right? So we now have customers with thousands of wind turbines that have, different models, different versions of, controllers, And also different healthcare issues that they have to take care of. So the technical complexity is a fair, the first [00:02:00] factor that, it's has to be tackled from a control room, And, makes, operations quite, challenging. Along with this, we have market volatility. So in the recent years especially, we are seeing how, Negative pricing and optional markets are now affecting operations in a daily, basis. Basically in every 15 minutes you dunno if you're gonna produce or not. Up until recently it was as simple as if you had wind resource, you would produce energy from wind farms. If you had solar, you produce energy from solar plants. It's not like that anymore. So the market is quite, volatile. that adds a lot of complexity from the commercial point of view of, Of the assets. And the last, factor that is actually becoming, an increasing challenge for everyone is the regulatory changes. So basically due to the penetration of renewable energies, what we see is that all governments, all grid operators and our market operators are constantly issuing [00:03:00] new adapt, new regulatory changes, that everyone has to adapt to no matter what. it doesn't matter if you have an all wind farm or a newer wind farm. Or you prepared or not, like everyone has to be adapted to, to the new regulatory, changes. the three things are actually affecting, our customers and we are trying to solve all these issues, the way, the, best way that we can, right? So most of our customers, we just have a control room full of people. they will do their best effort to accommodate these challenges. The reality is that we have to. Deal with, people, procedures, and, systems, and we,
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    25 mins
  • Why Two-Piece Blades Create Massive Engineering Problems

    Why Two-Piece Blades Create Massive Engineering Problems
    Jun 17 2025
    Register for the next SkySpecs Webinar! We discuss China's new 20MW floating turbine by CRRC, and Nordex's patent application for modular blade assembly. Plus HeliService USA's offshore ambulance service and the recent construction delays at Atlantic Shores and Vineyard Wind. 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! Allen Hall: Our next SkySpecs webinar, if you missed the last one, about lightning protection and how to use SkySpecs, drone imaging and data, and the EOLOGIX-PING Lightning sensor to help yourself on the lightning side. You can actually watch that on the SkySpecs. Just go to SkySpecs and you can see that webinar. It's free. All this stuff is free. It's all great stuff. All you need to do is register. You can get all this information. The next one is coming up on June 25th, 11:00 AM Eastern Time. And this next, webinar is gonna have Liam McGrath from RWE, who's a blade engineer there, and Tom Brady from SkySpecs, who handles all the cool drone technologies. So if you haven't met Tom, you need to go to this webinar and find out what's going on. And Michael McQueenie from SkySpecs. It's the rule. Subject is when should you be scheduling your drone inspections and you shouldn't be doing it in the spring. That's really important. If you wanna save some money on your operational aspects, your [00:01:00] o and m budget, you need to be thinking about how to get your inspections done, when to get your inspections done, and what tools are available to you at different times a year. So there's optimal times to get your drones inspected and there's suboptimal times. Suboptimal times is like March. Don't do it, then do it the previous fall. and so Joel will be there. I will be there. Don't miss it. It is June 25th. 11:00 AM and you can sign up in the show notes below. Speaker 2: You're 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: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I have Joel Saxo along and Rosemary Barnes from Australia and I've. Just been digging through all the news over the last several days. Really disappointing news to the United States, but over [00:02:00] in China. TRRC has unveiled a 20 megawatt floating wind turbine, and it's, has a rotor diameter of 260 meters, which is not really outrageous. The CRRC press release, which is a little outrageous, let, me read you some of this, and it's called The Key Hung. wind turbine, the key Hung, integrates multiple innovative control technologies offering four core advantages. High intelligence system, modularization, full chain collaboration. And Joel, don't we all want that? And exceptional stability. It incorporates various intelligent controls, sensing and detection technologies that design further enhances the unit's flexibility and efficiency by modularizing key system interfaces and structural components. So there are a lot of words in this press release, but they don't say, actually say anything at all. So that's why we have Rosemary here to suss Joel Saxum: out. Allen Hall: What is happening with CRRC and a [00:03:00] 20 megawatt floating turbine? Is it really needed, Rosemary? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I think I've made my thoughts clear about the, like bigger, kind of pursuit of, offshore wind turbines. And I think that a lot of it is about prestige to be the, first with the biggest. and so I guess that this is the,
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    31 mins