China Barred Vestas Software, Ørsted Buys Chinese Monopiles

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit StrikeTape.com. And now, your hosts.
Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m Allen Hall, here with Rosemary Barnes, Matthew Stead, and Yolanda Padron, and we’re getting ready for WOMA 2027. WOMA in Australia will be in its third year, and we’re going to be at the Pullman East Melbourne. It’s the same location, but the name of the hotel has changed. We’ll be there March 3rd through the 5th. We’ve heard from a number of OEMs, which is really great, but there’s one in particular that hasn’t registered yet, which is GE Vernova. We thought they’d be first in line. That was my bet, that GE Vernova would have been signed up and ready to go. But there’s a latecomer to this party. Rosemary, how do we get GE Vernova to show up to WOMA?
Rosemary Barnes: I don’t know. I don’t have so many links to the company as I used to, and I don’t always have the best luck getting in touch with my old colleagues. I guess they’re busy, because there’s not so many of them left there now. We have so, so many turbines here, and our asset managers are really engaged on all of the technical issues. They really want to understand what technologies are available, both for new projects that are coming up and for operations. The operations teams are getting involved more and more in purchasing decisions. Their opinions are being asked for. The Australian wind industry is a lot different than it was five years ago. People didn’t know so much, and I think they relied on the OEMs’ word for what we need in Australia and what’s available. Whereas now, asset owners know what we need and what kind of problems we have, and they’re really looking for technical information about solutions. The companies that are at the event to provide that information are the ones people are going to feel positively about. So I would recommend getting there to everybody, not just GE, but all OEMs from any part of the world. Not just Western ones, but Chinese ones too would be really great to see.
Allen Hall: And Matthew, if GE Vernova wanted to register for WOMA 2027, what would they do?
Matthew Stead: They would very easily go to WOMA2027.com and register. It’s that easy. That’s all they have to do.
Allen Hall: And we’ll stop talking about it.
Matthew Stead: On the agenda, there is a specific session that OEMs are attending, and the intention is that the OEMs can have a good, open discussion about what’s going on in OEM land and get familiar with the audience. Then they can get questions answered right there on the floor, which is really, really important for the customers. Most all the operators in Australia and the surrounding areas will be at WOMA 2027, so it’s a good opportunity to talk to your customer base.
Allen Hall: That’s why we’re recommending all the OEMs show up this year. Hopefully GE Vernova does it.
Vestas CEO on China and Europe
Allen Hall: And speaking of OEMs, Vestas is in a bit of a unique spot, because the CEO of Vestas, Henrik Andersen, had an article in Fortune magazine. And I thought, that’s unusual. Why is he in Fortune magazine? Well, it’s a little bit of a life story, growing up as a kid and dreaming of wind turbines. I guess that’s a thing in Denmark. But he says that Europe must shed its naivety. Rosemary, five years ago, Chinese authorities barred Vestas from monitoring or running its own software on turbines in China. And now Andersen is asking why Chinese software and turbines should be welcome on Europe’s grid. That’s a really great question. Well, I have heard it, but I haven’t seen it written down anywhere that Vestas got cut off from its own turbines. This was a couple of years ago, when China passed a number of laws about data security and was not going to let a lot of data out of China. At the same time, they put security measures in place where Chinese companies operating outside of China would have to store the data in China. This obviously creates a unique condition for companies like Vestas or Siemens Gamesa, where they’re trying to sell components into China, but they can’t operate them. And now China wants to come into Europe and do the reverse. Is it hypocrisy? Is it a security threat? What are we thinking, and how should the Europeans really approach this problem?
Rosemary Barnes: I think it’s interesting timing to announce it now. Well, it’s not really interesting, it’s obvious why it would be announced now, because obviously Vestas benefits if Europe decides not to allow any Chinese manufacturer data to leave the country, or to be used in the first place, like they’ve done, I think, with inverters and some other equipment. So that’s kind of obvious. I’m assuming it’s true, and I would imagine that it is, because it’s a bit risky to publish something like that if it’s a lie. But I think the more interesting question is, why haven’t they said it for the last five years, if this has been going on that long? The only likely explanation I can think of is that five years ago, they didn’t want to risk their relationship with China. They were still planning on selling a bunch of turbines within China. And by now, they realize that’s totally hopeless, so they don’t care about the Chinese market anymore. It doesn’t matter if they piss off China. They’re going after the rest of the world. So it makes sense from that point of view. But it is a big secret to have kept for five years, kept out of print, as far as I’m aware. I don’t know if I’d heard that that was the case, but I’ve certainly had conversations with people like, do you really think China allows the reverse of this situation? So I think people assumed it was the case. Maybe there were some people that knew. But it’s not been publicized in print the way that it has now.
Ørsted and Chinese Monopiles
Allen Hall: And Yolanda, Ørsted’s getting caught in the crossfire here, because Ørsted is buying some monopiles and cables from China. The CEO of Ørsted is getting caught between the unions and the groups that are proponents of European employment, saying, hey, if we don’t want Chinese turbines, why are you buying Chinese components? I think the answer has been that it’s less expensive, but the Ørsted CEO is getting a lot of flak about that, at least in the press. Is that just a trade-off, like it’s just cheaper to buy the components and we want to have some relations with China, which Ørsted probably does, and it’s just trying to smooth everything out? Or is this going to turn into something much larger, which it does feel like is happening at the moment?
Yolanda Padron: I think Ørsted’s in a strange position, but it’s important to remember that yes, Ørsted does obviously have Danish roots, but it’s a global company. They have their assets and a lot of customers almost everywhere, and a lot of employees that they need to pay. So they need to make some money. They can’t just have everything be 100% Danish if that’s not going to be the most cost-effective or the most efficient solution for any components they’re buying.
Matthew Stead: I was just going to add that I was looking at the Chinese market in terms of monitoring wind turbines, and it was basically too hard, because our business model is to send data to the cloud, and we were not allowed to send any data out of China back to our system. We would have had to completely re-engineer everything. That was about three years ago. So I can absolutely confirm that it’s very difficult to get data out of China.
Allen Hall: Well, China’s reach extends to a lot of places, including India. Next, a Gurit executive says Indian blade makers lean on Chinese designs, maybe a little bit too much. We’ll be back in a moment.
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India’s Blade Industry
Allen Hall: Longer blades are bringing new problems, and Jesper Sloth of materials supplier Gurit says India is behind on many of the fixes. This is a pretty extensive article with Jesper giving his thoughts on what’s happening in India. He’s saying many Indian blades still use glass spar caps and simple lightning protection systems, and not much in terms of leading edge protection. A lot of those designs are originating from China, and Sloth is saying those designs are typically a few generations behind, which makes local improvements in Indian materials hard to qualify, and makes it hard to get blades designed to European or American standards. It may take a little while for India to stand up a truly scaled, advanced wind turbine industry. This is a little controversial, because I know India is very proud of what they’ve done so far, and honestly, they’re way ahead of a lot of other countries in the wind business. But there are places where I think everybody around the world could use some cross-pollination on what’s happening in another part of the world to advance their wind turbines. I wouldn’t say India is unique in that. Would you, Matthew?
Matthew Stead: Yeah, I was just wondering whether the Indian turbines have actually increased much in size from the older Suzlons. I’m not really up to date with the current lengths of blades they’re talking about. But that’s what improves the whole world, gradual progress and a little bit of sharing here and there. Not breaking any patents, just a bit of sharing.
Allen Hall: Well, the manufacturing that’s going to occur to create Indian wind turbines is going to be done within India, and the technology centers have to be in India. That’s part of the recent changes in the laws in India, basically to make it a home market for Indian manufacturers. You see that now, because a number of companies from Europe are setting up facilities in India. The latest one I saw was Polytech, which is going to set up an Indian branch, and numerous others are doing the same thing. So there’s going to be plenty of technology and know-how in the country. Within about another six months to a year, there will be experts on the ground there. It does seem like India is going to make the most of these rule changes. Not only will they be building blades internally for the Indian market, but the technology that will be hitting the factory floor there will be deliverable almost anywhere globally.
Matthew Stead: I was also going to say PowerCurve just recently announced their new Indian venture as well, and I believe Niels from PowerCurve will be relocating to India for a period of time.
Allen Hall: I heard that today. Yes.
Matthew Stead: It’s a bit of a trend.
Allen Hall: Well, I think like the Europeans are trying to do, they’re trying to keep a lot of things internal. But India has really drawn a line in the sand in this case, where it will be developed within India. You’re going to use Indian employees to make this thing happen.
Matthew Stead: Yeah, although there are quite a few Indian OEMs which have research groups outside India as well.
Allen Hall: They do.
Matthew Stead: They do have European-based technology development arms. So it can’t all be within India.
Yolanda Padron: Based on the limited information I have about India, and Matt and Allen, I think you guys can speak to it a little bit more, do you think India is a little bit more open to sharing data than maybe we are in the US between owner-operators? Because if they are, even if they’re a few generations behind on blade designs, that’d be great. That way they could apply a lot of those learnings to those earlier generations, and maybe not have as many failures as we do now here, where we have the latest series of blades but aren’t really talking to each other.
Matthew Stead: My observation is exactly that. The Indian operators and OEMs know each other. The senior people know each other, they’ve got each other’s phone numbers. I definitely saw that at WindEnergy Hamburg, a few people coming around, all connected. So I think you’ve got that exactly right, Yolanda.
Allen Hall: I think the issue is going to be that as the Indian market grows, you’re putting wind turbines in places where maybe you wouldn’t have had them before. And as we know globally, when we start doing that, things happen. Leading edge erosion is one of those items. Take Texas. Everybody thought leading edge erosion wasn’t that major of a problem until Texas showed up. And it’s a huge problem in Australia, which showed up with the same thing. So you don’t know until you really start installing turbines in new places, which India will have to do if they’re going to reach their renewable energy goals. They’re going to put in a ton of solar and massive amounts of wind to really improve the grid within India. The other thing, when I first started looking at the wind industry, I didn’t really know much about it. But obviously India has a massive population of turbines, and they also have a lot of lightning. That really struck me, that they really need to conquer both of those challenges, especially as the turbines get taller and you get away from the couple-hundred-kilowatt and low-megawatt machines to five-plus megawatts. Things change rapidly in the lightning world, and for a lot of other things. Tip speeds go up, so leading edge erosion becomes a big one, and gearbox issues become more critical. Everything just becomes harder to do, and some of that is learned experience from the other OEMs. It does seem, though, like India is going to find a way to conquer all this.
Matthew Stead: This is all very doable, and they at least have a good starting point, in my opinion. They’re not starting from scratch. I mean, if you look at the Suzlons, they’re sort of largely indestructible.
Allen Hall: Right. Yeah.
Matthew Stead: Reliable on the whole.
Allen Hall: Well, that’s a view of India’s blade factories. Next, out in the field, how weather drives the cost of blade repair.
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Weather and Blade Repair Tents
Allen Hall: Obviously, blade repairs often stop for weather. How many times have we been shut down for some crazy weather event? In this quarter’s PES Wind magazine, BladeTent CEO Conrad Kozma says one lost day rarely stays just one day. And isn’t that the truth? It can delay crews, equipment rentals, and the whole campaign. It slips one day, and then you have a mountain of problems. His company makes inflatable shelters that enclose only the section of the blade that’s being repaired, and an outside HVAC unit keeps the temperature and airflow controlled, which is brilliant, both when it’s cold and when it’s hot outside. Conrad’s point is that you can plan for weather, but you have to do it before you even mobilize. You can’t do it after. If you’ve seen these BladeTent devices, they just inflate and pop up anywhere and get staked into the ground, and they become an environmentally controlled area. It makes total sense. I’ve seen some US operators use these, which I think is brilliant, and then you see some that have never used them, and I can’t figure out what they’re doing. Yolanda, it’s a big risk to be doing blade work out in the open, even on small repairs, isn’t it?
Yolanda Padron: It absolutely is. I think this device is only for when you’ve taken the blade down. I can’t think of a campaign off the top of my head that hasn’t been delayed at least one day. So this would be a really, really efficient solution.
Matthew Stead: I had a site the other day where they were losing half the time to weather. Seriously. I would imagine it would pay for itself in a week or so. So I think it’s a great idea. I reckon I’ve seen up-tower versions around some of the platforms as well, if you’ve got an elevated platform off the hub. I’ve seen those as well. So I think it’s a great idea, just like you said, Allen.
Allen Hall: And with the amount of transportation damage that’s occurring, when the blades are on the ground and you have damage, the first move generally is, oh, we can fix that on the ground, no problem. But if it’s 105 degrees, do you really want to be doing that outside? Or if it’s super cold? Having a tent and being able to control the temperature just makes life so much easier. Your technicians would rather work in an environmentally controlled area than out in the dust, the heat, and the cold. Composite repairs need to be done in controlled conditions, and BladeTent makes a great product. If you haven’t seen this article or picked up the latest PES Wind, you can do it online. Just go to PESWind.com and download this quarter’s edition.
Closing
Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn, or email us at [email protected]. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For Rosie, Yolanda, and Matthew, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.