GE Vernova’s CEO, Scott Straszak, announced at a conference that the company is on schedule to lose about $300 million in Q3. It seems the blade failures at Dogger Bank and Vineyard Wind are resulting in a big chunk of these losses. And many European companies have decided to leave Vietnam due to the country’s relationship to China.

Register to attend AMI’s Wind Turbine Blades Boston, October 2nd and 3rd. Enter to win 2 VIP NASCAR pit passes at the Kansas Motor Speedway!

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.com
Weather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.com
Intelstor – https://www.intelstor.com

Philip Totaro: Phil, you were just at RE+ in Anaheim, sunny Anaheim. How’d it go? I was extremely sunny and face meltingly hot on the first couple of days from the heat wave we’ve had in California. It was like a hundred and three degrees on Monday and then it started cooling off thankfully more recently, but there were, I don’t know the official number but they were telling me it was close to 40, 000 attendees.

So I’ve done a few of these events before in at the Anaheim Convention Center, if you’re familiar with it. It can hold that capacity, but it was absolutely bursting at the seams. And people absolutely everywhere. I’ve never seen that so jam packed. The interesting thing about it is there were many different exhibitors there.

But the overwhelming majority of them seemed like they were supply chain companies. Which was a little disappointing on my part. I was, I was there to try to talk to project developers and financiers anyway. But the supply chain companies that were there covering the spectrum of both residential and utility scale solar, as well as battery storage technology, really interesting stuff.

There’s some, they’re making great strides in some of the solar module manufacturing and sell. Technology and even some of the packaging and integration is getting pretty slick. Keep in mind, too, that, CAPEX for solar compared to wind is still You know what about 15 to 20 percent lower at this point?

Especially in the U. S. market anyway so you’re seeing, it’s rather substantial amount of interest at this point in solar and hybrid battery storage projects. And everybody that was there, the energy of the event was good. We didn’t sadly do an uptime wind energy podcast there.

So they’re a little light on the the wind energy content that, that the, rebranded solar Power International re, which is now repl, but we hope to be able to address that in the future.

Allen Hall: It’s a sunny conference for our solar and battery festival, which is really what it is.

Makes sense. I just wish when we get to some of our wind conferences, we’re in places that are windy. We don’t tend to go to places that are windy, like Kansas or Oklahoma.

Philip Totaro: I got news for you. It seems like next year we’re gonna be in Phoenix Arizona, right? So that, that’s gonna be hot and maybe a little miserable, cause I think it’s happening in May.

Allen Hall: Yeah, we’re in a solar hotbed. We should be at a wind site. I know, irony.

I’m Alan Hall, and I’ll be joined by the rest of the Uptime hosts after these news headlines. The United States is seeing significant growth in offshore wind development. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are moving forward with three offshore wind projects totaling 2. 9 gigawatts. The projects, named South Coast Wind, New England Wind 1, and Vineyard Wind 2, are expected to power approximately 1.

6 million homes. This development brings both states closer to their renewable energy goals, with Massachusetts aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. power sector carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050, while Rhode Island targets 100 percent renewable energy use by 2033. In a related milestone, the Revolution Wind Project has installed its first offshore wind turbine, marking Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first utility scale offshore wind farm.

Developed by Orsted and Eversource, the project will feature 65 Siemens Gamesa turbines and generate 704 megawatts when fully operational. The installation is supported by efforts at three New England ports and is expected to create 1, 200 jobs. while advancing workforce development and infrastructure investments across both states.

Further south, Festus has secured its first U. S. offshore wind order for Empire Wind 1 off the coast of New York. The 810 megawatt order includes 54 V236 15 megawatt turbines and a five year service agreement. The project will transform the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal into a major offshore wind hub, supporting the staging and pre assembly of wind turbine components.

Moving onshore, Colorado is leading the nation in wind energy jobs, ranking third in wind energy related jobs per capita. For The state is part of a broader trend with wind turbine service technicians projected to be the fastest growing job in the United States over the next decade. Colorado’s renewable energy sector continues to gain momentum.

With the state ranking seventh per capita nationwide for wind and solar generation projects last year. In support of this growing workforce, the National Fire Protection Association has launched the industry’s first Wind Turbine Technician I certification program. This initiative aims to provide the emerging wind workforce with the necessary skills to excel and work safely in the rapidly developing wind energy sector.

The certification is designed for newcomers to the industry and those who have completed foundational courses in wind turbines and electrical safety. Turning to Europe, GE Vernova has announced a milestone agreement for onshore wind, signing a deal with Public Power Corporation Renewables. to supply 23 of GE Vernova’s 6.

1158 turbines for a wind farm in Romania. This 140 megawatt project expands GE Vernova’s presence in Romania, adding to their existing installed base of more than 700 megawatts in the country. The project is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2025 and will support Romania’s goal of adding 5 gigawatts of wind capacity By 2030.

However, the European wind industry is facing challenges. German trade union IG Metall and employee representatives from Siemens Energy are calling for protection against unfair Chinese competition in the wind turbine manufacturing sector. Their concerns were sparked by a preliminary agreement between German renewable energy asset manager Luxgara and Chinese manufacturer Mingyang for 16 offshore wind turbines.

The Union warns that heavily subsidized Chinese companies could distort competition and potentially endanger jobs and energy supply in Europe. In Asia, Eurus Energy Holdings Corporation has launched the reconstruction of the Adano Sawa wind farms in Japan. The project will replace 10 turbines with 7 new 4.

3 megawatt turbines supplied by Siemens Gamesa. Increasing the total capacity from 13 megawatts to 43 megawatts. This upgrade aims to maximize the use of local wind resources and is scheduled for completion by March, 2027. Lastly, in a development that could reshape the wind energy landscape, the H two mirror off grid wind project in Denmark has successfully integrated two electrolyzers with a megawatt scale wind turbine.

This system could soon be replicated on onshore wind turbines, potentially reducing green hydrogen production costs. That’s this week’s top news stories. After the break, I’ll be joined by my co host, CEO, and founder of Intel Store, Phil Totaro.

Joel Saxum: As busy wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial.

And let’s face it, that’s why the Uptime Podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need.

Don’t miss out. Visit PESWind. com today.

Allen Hall: All right, Phil, we got a couple of items we need to kick off the show with and first is the AMI Wind Turbine Blades Boston event on October 2nd and 3rd. And if you haven’t registered for that event, you need to do that now and get your tickets to Boston, which will be beautiful.

In early October, that conference is focused around materials, design, manufacturing, performance of wind turbine blades and along with all the testing and maintenance and life cycle management of blades. So anything to do with blades is going to be in Boston and you better be there. So just Google AMI wind turbine blades, Boston, and it’ll pop up, go ahead and register and get yourself to Boston.

At Weathergard, we are having a contest, a VIP contest with NASCAR. And NASCAR driver, Kyle Weatherman, and that event is on September 28th at the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas. So if you’re around that area and want to go. Do something really cool with NASCAR that allows you to get on track, get into the pits, get into the garage.

You can watch the race from pit lane and you are right in the middle of the action. Then if you like that kind of stuff, now’s the time. This is free. If you can win these two tickets, the way to do it is to visit weatherguardwin. com slash contest. And do it quick, and hopefully you win. All right, Phil, a lot of news this week coming from GE Vernova, where Scott Straszak was at a conference and said GE Vernova, the wind business, is on schedule to lose about 300 million.

Yes,

Philip Totaro: and to be clear, this wasn’t their official Q3 release, but we understand because it’s also been widely reported in multiple news outlets that he said this at sounds a financial industry conference. It’s obviously a little concerning considering the fact that, uh, they were expecting to be a little more profitable than this at this point but it also sounds and again, going back to the comments he made at this thing that these blade failures that they’ve had two at Dogger Bank and one at Vineyard Wind in the past, I think it’s five or six months now are resulting in a pretty big chunk of these losses.

It’s fascinating because when these issues started popping up, you had one and it was a coincidence and potentially concerning. You had another one at Vineyard. Okay, that was due to a manufacturing defect. So they said But now you’ve had three of these incidents, and it’s resulting in, just three incidents, and they’re having a 300 million loss.

This is starting to be real money, as they say in, in the industry. At this point it’s getting to the point where they’re gonna have to do something to reassure people. Because as I’ve talked about on the show in the past as well, If these blade failures keep happening, and it sounds like regardless of whatever the, the issue was that maybe introduced a weakness in the blade, whether it was a manufacturing defect or some transportation damage or installation damage, their procedures when installing is what still seems to be instigating these blade buckling issues.

And as a, whatever their scope of responsibility is during the EPC contract to get these turbines up and installed, they’re gonna have to re evaluate these procedures, whether GE’s doing it or it’s their procedure that an EPC contractor’s following. Something’s gonna have to be done about this to ensure that they don’t have any more of these failures, because.

If it’s, just taking it on the average Ellen, it’s if, it’s three issues for three hundred million dollars guess what they can’t afford to have, a hundred million of a blade failure. The insurance companies aren’t gonna like it, nobody’s gonna like it.

Allen Hall: That’s what I was trying to figure out. So in Q2 Renova the wind part lost about a hundred million dollars from what I can remember off the top of my head. So 300 million in QQ three is a big number. So the delta is a couple hundred million. How much do you really think is driven by the three blade failures?

Philip Totaro: Keep in mind, too, yeah, it’s a good point, because keep in mind, though, that they’re seeing a bit of a soft revenue recognition potentially in Q3. Again, they haven’t released official numbers yet, but, Based on what the CEO of Vernova is saying, it sounds like, that’s the direction things are headed in, but the reality of it is the, because of the way that these contracts for the turbine supply and the EPC, again, Vernova’s responsibility during the installation and commissioning of turbines until the thing is actually fully commissioned and there’s been an official, switch.

Flipped on this and the commissioning is taking place. There’s no handover to the asset owner or operator So it’s GE’s financial responsibility and keep in mind that you know It’s not just the losses aren’t just from the physical damage to a blade which can be replaced Although that’s you know, you’re talking about somewhere between 800, 000 and 1.

2 million per blade for those blades so that’s one part of it. The bigger part of it is trying to get the vessels necessary to do A, the cleanup, and B, the take the tear down and replacement of the blades that have failed. That’s extra vessel time, and, we all know that these vessels, particularly ones that are needed for a 12 to 13 plus megawatt turbine, those are 000 a day.

That’s where it starts adding up. It doesn’t take into account the full 300 million dollar loss, but it’s gonna start adding up to be a sizable chunk of it.

Allen Hall: This is also coupled with the projections of a really soft 2025 for GE. GE’s thinking about, in the single digits of onshore. Single digit gigawatts, gigawatts this year in 2024 and next year is not really looking much different for them based on their projections today.

The onshore softness is a little unusual with all the ongoing IRA bill. Efforts more recent discussions on other news sources, the, I think the consensus around the industry is that the IRA bill, while exciting and maybe driving some new technology that’s years in the future, is not really making a substantial change in the onshore installations this year or next year, and it’s not really changing too much on the offshore side at the moment.

Is GE then planning reorganizing around that

Philip Totaro: softness? That’s a good question. But let me also underscore what the real issues are with the IRA bill. It’s we still have permitting and interconnection queue issues that are resulting in, these delays that are resulting in this quote unquote softness that may, in fact, as you suggested, require them to potentially restructure and reorganize a few things.

But it’s the fact that we, you can pass an IRA bill that’s going to give people a PTC, but if they can’t build a project and get it in the ground, they can’t claim the PTC. So that’s part of what the issue is here, is we still have, Permitting reform to get through. If we’re going to get it through Congress, we got to do that.

In the meantime, at state level and county level, you’re still seeing tons of jurisdictions that have moratoriums on wind and solar development, which is problematic. Coupled with these enormous interconnection queues, where a lot of solar projects that are never going to get built are taking up a lot of space, and both FERC and the regional ISOs are trying to figure out how do we even accommodate, these annual tranches of interconnection review studies and requests that we have.

When we know like a lot of this stuff isn’t actually gonna get built because it’s never gonna get financed, they’re submitting proposals in the interconnection queue. A lot of these solar project developers in particular for on kind of a wish and a prayer that they’re gonna, get somebody to interested enough because they’re in the queue.

They’re going to get somebody interested enough to provide them with finance, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening. So it’s having all these ancillary effects, including on GE specifically, where, you know I can assume that they’re seeing some softness in 2025. But again, this is, that is a bit problematic considering where they have previously stated they wanted and needed to be in terms of their, for Nova and particularly the wind business units profitability.

By now,

Allen Hall: there’s only so many turbines you’re going to repower at the moment, which is the vast majority of what is happening right now, existing farms that are just repowering to retrigger the tax credits, everything that’s new has been slowly developing and there are, have been some new sites developed, but not at the pace you would think they would be developed.

Interconnection queue, I think being one of those big stopping points, the second one, which is being discussed all the time right now is interest rates. Interest rates still haven’t dropped to levels that they probably should be at right now, and the Fed is still Holding out and we haven’t seen any real direction from him in the last week or so.

There’s a lot of discussion online in the Wall Street Journal and those news kind of sources are all anticipating a drop, but yet it hasn’t happened. That does make 2025 for GE and everybody else, soft,

Philip Totaro: right? Exactly. And it’s like you say, it’s not just going to be a GE for Nova problem. It will also impact Vestas, who recently, overtook GE in kind of quarterly installations in the U.

S. But it’s, if you also start looking at order book for everybody. You’ve got Siemens trying to come back into the market with selling the 4 megawatt 145, 155 platform. But I haven’t heard any, confirmed deals in order for that yet. You’ve got Nordax trying to, take a lot of those deals that should’ve been Siemens away but they’re, they’re making progress, but they aren’t announcing as many deals as one might hope yet.

Although, again, the performance on the N 149 and N 163 has been fairly robust, certainly even globally, but they could be doing more in the U. S. market, but it’s just, it’s not even their fault, it’s just the market’s moving a little slow. And then, with Renova, they’re still largely selling the two point X platform.

They’ve got, the one big deal with pattern to, to do the 3.6 1 54, but I haven’t seen ’em announced anything else on, on that turbine yet. And then what’s even happening with the six megawatt in the us for Renova and then as again, as far as Vestus goes. Yes they’re getting some orders sold with the, their V 163 and the V 150.

And some, repowerings with the V 110 two megawatt platform and such, but it’s we’re lacking order book substantial order book to, to convince me that 2025 is going to be significantly robust, certainly in the first and second quarter. Now, things can be done to unlock more potential, but at this point, if you’re taking an order today, it’s for delivery and probably around 12 months minimum.

So if they don’t start plumping up the numbers in terms of order book for the third and fourth quarter deal announcements this year, any of the OEMs. They’re going to have a problem. They’re all going to have a problem in 2025, Alan. The real problem is, I

Allen Hall: think, the softness and the projections for GE and Vestas, which are the two big players at the minute, if they can’t change the direction.

in terms of orders. I’m sure they’re beating all the bushes all around the world at the moment trying to make sales. If they can’t change that over the next couple of weeks, and from what I see, I think they got to really slow down on all the, any sort of advanced development is going to slow down.

They’re not going to be hiring new people. That’s going to slow down. All the IRB, a bill benefits are going to slowly. Go away. And the part that is most troubling to me is you don’t see the Department of Energy discussing this or trying to react to it or provide any guidance on how we’re going to change it.

It has been silenced for the last couple of months, most likely because of the election. However, that doesn’t help GE or Vestas and all the employees that they have. It is a self fulfilling prophecy at the minute. If you’re not going to say anything or try to do anything about it, then with interest rates remaining high, The outcome is pre baked, right?

2025 is going to be pretty well cooked here at the, in December of 24. It’s over, which is a shame, which is a real shame.

Philip Totaro: Yeah. And keep in mind too, so the predominant benefit provided by the IRA bill is in and around the production tax credit, but it’s not the only one. There are these manufacturing tax credits that are also available through, the 48 C.

But that’s only going to apply to GE for the 3. 6154 and the 6 megawatt 158 platforms. Which they haven’t really started, they’re just starting ramping up the production on the 3. 6154 at this point. Everything else is either 48c manufacturing tax credits that they may have previously been receiving or, TPI is getting the benefit of it for blades or et cetera, et cetera.

So the point is that They, you’re right, if they don’t have order booked and they’re not able to take advantage of any of these new tax credits, that’s going to also mean that their, like you say, their R& D budget is going to be probably frozen and hiring is going to likely be frozen. It’s going to have a, Potentially big impact on what they’re able to do.

And they’re still, look, despite the fact that Vestas had a good quarter last quarter and may have, overtook GE in their little, head to head competition now in the U. S. market. GE still controls the vast majority of the U. S. In terms of cumulative installed capacity and at the end of the day, if they’re not building new or they’re not able to repower, their entire fleet that’s going to have a dramatic financial impact.

Allen Hall: When we come back, I want to talk about the bigger picture about where GE and Vestas are going to go if the United States. It doesn’t have a lot of activity, obviously Europe, but one of those places was Vietnam, but I think that’s changing rapidly over the last week. Let’s discuss that when we come back.

Lightning is an act of God, but lightning damage is not. Actually, it’s very predictable and very preventable. Strike tape is a lightning protection system upgrade for wind turbines made by Weatherguard. It dramatically improves the effectiveness of the factory LPS, so you can stop worrying about lightning damage.

Visit weatherguardwind. com to learn more, read a case study, and schedule a call today.

Allen Hall: Phil, if everybody’s been watching the news There’s a number of European companies, wind related companies, that are leaving Vietnam and quickly. And you did a little research into why that is, because the public announcements just say, Hey, we’re refocusing in a different place, we’re pulling out, we’re pulling all the staff out.

And leaving that marketplace in, in entirety, not even really keeping anybody there from what the announcements say, which is, I think, really odd, because even if you want to reduce your headcount in a particular country, you still want to have a presence there. And I think the same thing’s kind of happened in Brazil, by the way with GE and Siemens there.

They evacuated the country. What is happening in Vietnam? What’s driving this? I

Philip Totaro: don’t know. About three months ago, there was actually a meeting between top government officials between Vietnam and China. And as a result of that meeting they wanted to institute further closer ties and collaboration, particularly in industries around energy and renewable energy in particular.

That was going to include manufacturing, that was going to include project development, investment et cetera. And subsequent to that again, we’re not here to speculate, but we’ll present the facts. The Vietnamese government has recently instigated a corruption probe, and I’ll maybe put that in air quotes here, saying corruption probe.

These companies that are pulling out are mostly western companies. You had Econor, just today you had Skatex selling a a project in Vietnam to Susie Partners. And on top of that, Anel Greenpower, earlier this week, announced that they were also pulling out of the Vi the Vietnamese market.

Vietnam’s a growing market but it sounds like if I can use a joke or a phrase from a Seinfeld episode, it was little communista simpatico. Between, the Vietnamese government and the Chinese government, where they want to be able to work together in a collaborative fashion, and they want the Western companies, largely speaking, to be out.

How does that

Allen Hall: play out, though, Phil? If China is going to declare areas off limits, then Why wouldn’t Europe do something similar?

Philip Totaro: The European Union is going to be able to exclude Chinese companies from more markets than the Chinese would be able to in collaboration with, sympathetic governments like Vietnam.

That’s not something that they’d be able to successfully do in, let’s say, Australia, or even Pakistan, or other, major markets outside of China where the Chinese have a big presence already. Thailand is another one for instance. So, there’s still, it doesn’t mean that they’re gonna start blocking off all of Southeast Asia for Western companies.

What it does mean is that in this one particular market it, it feels like it’s a retaliatory action.

Allen Hall: So what effect does that have on the bottom line of a GE or a Vestas at the moment where they see those countries being removed from the available marketplace rapidly? All this is happening in the last 12 months.

Vietnam lost, a lot of Africa has disappeared, Brazil’s gone. Not in play at the moment for GE, at least it’s not. What does that mean in terms of numbers? What percent of the revenue was driven from those countries? And is it going to be a bigger problem as they go forward? If the U S and Europe do not ramp up their installations.

Philip Totaro: Starting with the first part. The amount of revenue that a lot of these companies derive from different foreign markets varies for GE. The bulk of their revenue was always and probably will be always derived from the U. S. But for companies like Vestas, they are highly dependent on, international export markets outside of Europe where they want to be able to grow the footprint.

But even, let’s take Brazil as an example. The challenge that they’ve had there is been based on we’ll call it PPA prices, coupled with this dynamic with the, between the independent power producers and the power offtakers, where And they’re not really amenable to given them, as favorable of a price given some of the currency devaluation and the fact that there’s a lot of hydro and solar that’s still available, that’s also cheap and they can take advantage of that.

So that’s going to change some of the market dynamics, but it means also that, companies like GE and Siemens have had to pull out of a market like Brazil, for example, because. They just don’t have sufficient order book to justify waiting around for that market to pick back up.

Allen Hall: Have the financial numbers and the basically the ticker price, stock price for GE Investus, because the market’s always about six months ahead, have they built that into their models, into their forecast for the valuation of these companies, because it feels like right now, It, it has, it, things are happening so fast that the stock values are increasing and rightly there would be future value there. However, it’s not being tempered enough by the loss of the marketplace combined with the interest rates. So I think they see a lot of news about renewable power, which pumps them up for sure. And rightly they should be pumped up because of that. However, they’re not.

The European market and the United States market are not going to install as much as we had anticipated. Where does that come in into the stock price? And when does it affect the stock price?

Philip Totaro: Yeah okay, so there’s a couple of things at play there, and this is a great question, actually.

When a company like GE will pull out of a market like Brazil, or these other companies pull out of Vietnam or, other markets become inaccessible, It’s actually potentially a benefit to their stock price. The reason being is that they’re not spending capital pursuing what would otherwise be an unprofitable market.

And so Wall Street looks at that and says, Oh, that’s actually a good thing. You’re consolidating and you’re, saving cash, which they expect is going to be paid out to them, and other investors in the form of dividends. So they, they look at that type of consolidation sometimes favorably if it’s being done in the right way that again it’s consolidating the portfolio of available markets down into those which are going to actually turn a profit albeit maybe thinner margins, but it’s at least not chewing up so much upfront capital costs to be able to go and chase a market that They’re not going to be successful in so that’s the first aspect of it.

However, longer term, the fact that they don’t have access to growth markets and growth potential limits what they can ultimately achieve in terms of their, top line and their ultimate bottom line profitability when they are going to lack access to. Additional markets that would maybe make up for, like if sales drop in the U S and Europe, they could go into markets like Columbia or, again, Vietnam, Thailand, wherever in Southeast Asia and make up for those sales that are dropping in a market like the U S.

Allen Hall: I think this is the real problem. I think the stock market is rewarding renewable energy companies for becoming leaner. You start to see that, obviously the news reports indicate that you’re becoming leaner. That generally makes everybody happy because it would make the profits higher. However, unless the U S and Europe step up installations, it is a problem area.

It’s going to be a longer term problem area, not in 24, maybe at the end of 25, but definitely 26, 26 will be the year to watch. And as we get moving forward, that’s the outlook and where, what does the stock price look like in a year and a half or so? And where do they go? How big can they eventually grow to without major UK, eu, US government involvement to step

Philip Totaro: up projects?

This becomes a universal question where we’ve got things like the IRA bill in the us there are some, political maneuverings in the EU to get this, new deal done as they call it. But at the end of the day, they’re. They’re not really moving fast enough and they’re not moving in a way that’s actually helping to sustain the industry because you we’ve seen and we’ve talked about on the show.

Over the past few months, companies that are pulling up stakes out of Europe and going up and setting up factories in China or India to take advantage of, lower cost access to raw materials or labor because they just can’t compete with or sustain what they’re trying to do with a limited amount of order book in Europe.

Even if your order book goes down, if your overheads high. Which it would be in Europe, or even the U. S., where you’ve got, pension costs and all these other things, the overhead’s just higher. That’s less sustainable than if you go over to India, you set up a factory, and the order book is still similarly limited.

You might at least be able to survive it better because your cash flow isn’t as, as heavily impacted. Gotta be able to do something.

Allen Hall: That, for a manufacturer, is a very careful walk. You can’t deviate. That bridge is narrow to get to success there. As soon as you move your operation out of Europe to China or India, much less in India, I think, China and specifically, when the EU starts to retaliate and the UK and the U.

S. is pretty much heading there right now, you’re stuck because you have lowered your overhead by probably 30, 40 percent, maybe more. However, now you’re generating product from this country, which may have tariffs. And when it comes into the U. S. So you may have lost all that advantage and you made the switch.

It’s hard to go back. That I think is perilous for a lot of manufacturers. And that’s got to be the decision that’s happening in boardrooms right now. Do I make this move to China or do I just eat it? No, I’m going to have narrow profits, marginal profits for the next six months to a year in the hopes that EU and UK, US decide to be restrictive and then create its own marketplace.

Philip Totaro: And to your point, are those governments, it’s like renouncing your citizenship in the U. S. or something. They deliberately make it a pain in the butt to do it, and they deliberately make you feel horrible about leaving, and are they really gonna be, welcome you back with open arms, like the prodigal son returning?

I doubt it. And that’s the reality of that situation. So it is a a decision that needs to be measured in the boardroom.

Allen Hall: It’s not a simple financial calculation at the moment. Five years ago, total simple calculation, absolutely gonna move it to the lowest cost country, which have been China or even Brazil in some instances.

Now you’re, you may not do that because the political atmosphere has changed. Really interesting dynamics. Thanks. After the break here, Phil, I want to touch upon the latest PES Win Magazine that has just come out. And if you haven’t received it, we’re going to talk about one of the articles I’ve already read, which is from Bergalin, and all the cool things that they’re building right now.

Dealing with damaged blades? Don’t let slower pairs keep your turbines down. Blade platforms get you back up and running fast. Blade Platform’s truck mounted platforms reach up to 100 meters, allowing for quick setup, improved safety, and efficient repairs. Book soon to secure your spot and experience a difference in blade access, speed, and efficiency.

Visit BladePlatforms. com and get started today. Phil, in the latest PES Win Magazine, which you can download at PESWin. com or have it mailed to you. Mine is still in the mail from the Royal Mail. I’m not expecting any moment, but I had a little insight into the magazine. And the article that I first saw and was most intriguing at the beginning was this article from Bergalin.

And if you haven’t looked at their products lately, you need to go do that. The one that is the hot seller at the minute is this one component top coat paint, basically. So if you’re doing repair out in the field. And you got a big area you just fixed with fiberglass and resin and all these great things and it looks all great.

You want to coat that, right? So to prevent UV degradation and weathering of that. New composite structure you just built. Most of the kits you buy, the top coat kits are two parts. You have to mix them together and they cure. So you have this limited window in which you use it. And then you end up wasting a lot of material in my opinion, having done it.

So the one component top coat is really interesting. And in fact, I’ve ordered that material and I’ve used that material and we’re playing with it now and evaluating it at WeatherGuard. It looks pretty good. It is a lot easier to use for sure. I don’t think it gives you as smooth a finish as maybe a two part system, which has a lot of other additives to it, I’ll call it, that may not be the best smelling additives but the one component system.

It’s pretty simple to use. You just, it is literally a squirt bottle and you just take a roller and spread it around and it dries relatively quickly. And so far it has worked well on our tests. So thumbs up on that one. And, but Brooklyn has a couple of other things, Phil. One is they got this, um, UV cured system for composite.

So you can actually cure, uh, pre preg using UV, which I think is the slickest thing ever. And I think a lot of operators in repair companies, ISPs are starting to use because of the speed of it. But they’re also working on some leading edge protection and some high temperature fillers, an erosion resistant top coat is in play at the minute.

So the people at Bergland, you figure we’ve been, and Phil, you’ve been around us a long time. There’s been so much to do with the materials that are applied to wind turbine blades that extend a lifetime and we still haven’t reached that pinnacle. There’s still a lot of great ideas coming into that mix to make better materials and Bergalin, it clearly is working really hard on it.

Good stuff. So if you’re interested in seeing the Bergelin information, just visit PESWin. com. That’s going to do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy podcast. Thanks for listening. Please give us a five star rating on your podcast platform and subscribe in the show notes below to Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter.

And check out Rosie’s YouTube channel, Engineering with Rosie. And we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.

GE Vernova to Lose $300M, EU Companies Leave Vietnam

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast