Michael Johansen of Anemo Analytics joined us to talk about his company’s work analyzing and optimizing wind turbine power curves. He shared insight into how data analytics can be used to drastically shorten the time and manpower needed to make major improvements to a wind turbine’s output.
This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
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Transcript: EP41 Michael Johansen of Anemo Analytics
welcome back to the uptime podcast. Uh, we have a really great guest today. Michael Johansen from Anemo Analytics is going to be joining us. And Allen, what were some of your takeaways from our call with Mr. Johansen? Well, Michael has, uh, a series of really great innovations that technology on monitoring of wind turbines, and then using that data to do some predictive analysis and also, uh, Determine where when terms are not operating at their peak efficiency, uh, which is, uh, a very unique set of skills that, uh, in today’s world is really becoming more and more valuable.
As we try to drive the efficiency of wind turbines towards the optimum. It’s going to take the, the knowledge base that, that Michael has in his company has to push everybody forward. So this is a really. Fascinating technical and sort of business-related, uh, discussion. Yeah. To hear him talk about going from a long time, Siemens, uh, employee, uh, and finally, you know, taking that leap of faith and going out on his own and starting his own company.
And now how he works alongside some of these really big companies in a very complimentary way, which is, which is interesting because as you and I have discussed sometimes. The big companies just want to snuff out the small ones. Right. But, uh, he’s found a really interesting way of just working alongside them and helping to sometimes internally train their employees.
And, and it seems like he’s married, uh, what he does really well at his company with a lot of what these bigger companies do, skill set is really unique that, uh, it’s one of those skill sets that are going to be a larger company wouldn’t want to have on hand. Uh, just because he’s. Deep diving into data, a lot of data, and then doing MSI predictive analysis of where, uh, energies leaking from.
Uh, so obviously working at a large wind turbine manufacturer, you get all the play with all the toys and all the cool stuff. Um, but it also kind of ties you into having a nine to five. Kind of job where you have to be there Monday through Friday, and you don’t necessarily have some of the freedom you have of running your own company and sort of doing your own thing.
And, and Michael’s taken that initiative and moved on to his, to his own own business. And there’s as much, it’s very similar to ours from the, from the sounds of it. And the, the really key point I. Pull out of all that is, is for his company to be able to offices resources to the world and to work for a variety of different, a wind turbine manufacturers and wind turbine operators and provide his knowledge set to a lot of different places, because that’s what it’s going to take to really, to make the wind turbine industry at its maximum production.
It’s going to take a lot of good ideas from a lot of different places, working very hard to, to make wind as, uh, profitable as we know it can be. Yeah. So without further ado, we’re going to take you to our interview with Michael Johansen of Anemo Analytics.
I, I want to talk, uh, uh, kind of circle back and talk a little bit about your business and why you started your company. So you have had a ton of experience working for Siemens Gamesa. And at some point you decided that, Hey, I, I think, and I want to do this on my own. Can you tell us about your experience in the wind industry prior to this prior to starting your company and why you decided to go out on your own?
Yeah, I guess I started in the wind industry in Oh six where everything was taking off, uh, particular off shore, uh, and Siemens and not really knowing a lot. Uh, I came out of, uh, physics worlds or doing a telephone education. And optics. Uh, so somehow a world of a, the smaller, the better, it’s an answer to the windshield on industry, where it was the bigger, the better.
So I didn’t know a thing. Right. I could just do my math and my physics. Uh, and, and I, I could spell it rather. Good. Um, I could do the discussions, but kind of getting through all kinds of different, uh, issues. One, two cases, uh, prototype turbines, uh, commissioning, uh, when a few weeks to Scotland to do commissioning of turbines, uh, Spend a few years in Shanghai setting up an engineering department phase specific.
So kind of just knowing the technology from inside out, doing all kinds of weird things. Um, so it’s, uh, it was a, it was a fantastic ride. It’s a great company. I love the technology and I love all the good people working there. But I think just that at a point in time, my, uh, um, I somehow got stopped as an SNL stock as an engineer.
I wanted to go back and do something, you know, somehow as like, as a key engineering, uh, Uh, guy and I kind of left that in now. I left that behind. I didn’t have time for it in corporate. So four and a half, five years back, I teamed up with an old buddy of mine, uh, who has done quantum physics. Uh, and, uh, and you know, he, uh, I can do my math, but you can do it like.
To the perfection. Uh, so I could basically having seen the industry supporting sales jobs and in Siemens product execution, it seems and fantastic projects, a fantastic analogy, but kind of knowing where the issues were. If, if you on the, on the, as an owner side, and then basically we could build up a team where they could do the math, um, supporting asset owners today and, uh, in somehow getting a, uh, independent, uh, Fact-based view into their actual operation of turbines based on the data they already have.
We don’t Mount anything on the turbines. We don’t add anything into the complexity. It’s complex enough already. Um, but just limiting what they, what they already have. And so is that okay, big leap of faith. I mean, it’s, it’s always scary going out on your own, leaving your, you know, your salary and a consistent paycheck and, um, you know, the support and resources of such a big company like Siemens.
I mean, what were some of your, what were some of your trepidations about, Oh man, am I really, are we really gonna do this and, and go out on our own? I’m sure that was a big, a big leap. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was, I I’ve been through a, kind of a similar journey in another industry before that from 2000 to 2005 six.
So when it calls that were younger back then, so the risk was not that high. I guess when I left Siemens, I was with kids and family and house and talking to whatever, uh so-called the camper was a bit different, but I think end of the day, it’s, it’s, it’s mainly a mental game. Uh, just look at the, at the today, right.
With all the COVID stuff, hitting all of us, what is really the safety in a, in a job anyway. So, uh, so if you can get across that mental barrier, right. Uh, and, and you kind of give yourself whatever, three, six, nine months to step out and do something, uh, you know, you can always go back and. Get a job with a nice company again.
So, so I think it was mainly a mental thing. It could be a big barrier, but it’s not really very, yeah, no, that’s a good point. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think there’s just a step in, in time. I, I went through the same process, Michael, and I think you’re, you’re hitting a lot of points that I went through, which is there you work for a large company, you get to see all the neat technology and all the toys, right.
But at some level, you don’t get to play with all the toys, uh, because you can’t, it’s such a large organization. They need to be moving in a certain direction and they don’t necessarily want to move in the direction that you want to move. Or, or maybe that is as mentally challenging as you would like it to be.
And that’s where a lot of. Scientists engineers finally make the break is that they, they see this opportunity, uh, that the larger company can’t address or won’t address because of their size. And it’s it’s, uh, it’s, uh, a challenge. It’s a challenge. Like no other challenge. To, to go out and to prove to the world that there is this missing piece that needs to be addressed and you can actually make a significant impact.
And you have, I mean, you clearly have, you’re making a significant impact on the performance of winter months, which is really changing the world. So it’s very small sets. Uh, your company has changed in the world in ways that maybe you couldn’t have done it at a larger company. And I, I think there’s a lot to be said for that.
And, and you, I think you addressed the COVID thing quite nicely. That in the era of COVID having flexibility is really good. And you can always go back to work for a large company because you have that skillset. But I, it is fascinating to us to watch a lot of the, the, the smaller companies Excel during COVID.
And I ha I’d like to hear you, what your experience has been over the last 10, 12 months. How have, how your company has. Progressive this COVID phase. Yeah, it’s a, of course a Denmark. It was mid botch that, uh, the country was closed down the first time. And then it’s been a bit on and off since then. And so of course, uh, right when it happened, you read, you don’t really know what’s going to happen.
Uh, but I think we should, we should realize that we weren’t being impacted at all. Uh, I think we somehow knock it to be an industry, uh, and especially working with turbines in operation. Well, you can see in accord it or not, the turbines get spinning budgets. At least it has to be maintained. Right. Um, so, so we definitely saw actually, uh, A positive thing.
Um, uh, that, uh, none of our customers having a really busy day keeping the turbine spinning, uh, they had more times because it was sitting at home, uh, maybe not having all the overhead of a corporate meetings. Uh, so we asked them to take the dialogues, um, and we progressed quite a bit on a number of also an upper North American sites.
Uh, so it’s been, uh, it’s been a, it’s been a, a good. 2020. Uh, but, but also basically as planned. Uh, so I think it we’ve done reasonably well, but, uh, that’s, that’s somehow also how we planned on it. Uh, when we started in us two, two and a half year ago. Yeah. That’s a very, that’s a, you raise a very good point that.
When engineers actually have more free time, they start to think about the more complex problems. And when in a corporate environment, it’s very hard to do that. If you have paperwork to fill out and forms to fill out and you have corporate meetings always last an hour, no matter what you do. Um, and then all of a sudden you take those engineers out of that situation is, and they’re able to have one, some quiet time and two, the, the time to think, then they’re reaching back out to you saying, Hey, okay.
I think we have these issues on our, on our site and we need to be addressing them. And now’s a good time. I have some free time to think about it, the reaching out and asking for help. I think that’s brilliant because this is, this is the time that really for, especially for the wind Sherman side we’re investment back into your facility is the right thing to do.
Because you, you have, you have available people you have available time. There’s there’s, there’s like you said, no corporate over structure, uh, slowing you down right now. So you can go as fast as you want to. Have you seen that, that, that sort of influx of, of, of new customers or inquiries coming from particular places in the world?
Is that, is it mostly United States? Is it mostly Europe? Is it South America? Where, where are your customers typically? Yeah. So if we start with the, with the later part, First. So we started off as a, as a company Denmark. Right. Uh, and, and without with all, and none of us has a background in statements and some of also work with, with Austin an off shore.
Uh, so of course, uh, rather dominated by, but even still buying. So that’s dominated particularly, uh, uh, onshore Europe and also Europe. So that’s where we spend our first few years. And then when we started us two and a half years ago, uh, the small more questions coming in on the GE turbines. So, so call business right now is Europe on an off shore, uh, and, and not America and North America is, is rather Moochie, which Brandon.
Um, and then whether it has moved faster or not, uh, for the past, uh, past year or the COVID, um, yeah, you know, you never know, you never really know what you would have received if it wasn’t for COVID. So whether it’s faster, I don’t know. Um, it’s a tough call as a. Smaller company, like how much? Right. Just because customers coming in, they, right.
Well, it was said like a true engineer. You have nothing to compare it to. So, sorry. I know that that’s exactly right. Right. But that’s, that’s a great answer because it does, it puts it, it sets into your mind frame that in your bite set of, Hey, we we’re, we’re in, we’re in the business of comparing data. I don’t have data, so I can’t compare them.
Right. Because that’s what your business is. Really. Your business is really comparing data. Right. Yeah, but if I may spend back, then may I ask you a link to other topics? We discuss them. So real-time real-time balance, right? Uh, and, and COVID so, so one of the discussions that at least has been new for the past year, uh, and you could say one of the value props isn’t that we wouldn’t have, if it wasn’t for corporate, then the whole, the whole thing that we on the remote can sit on a portfolio of whatever five, 10 sites or maybe its size.
The fleet manager is operating. Put up the dates and then assess all turbines, individual blades. What is the pit Smith’s alignment of that blade on that turbine on that side. And that’s how, uh, that has always been a value proposition from our side. But, but, but now of course it’s an additional value from our customers that now they consider remote.
Right. I then wintertime only improve with time sitting from back home and, and kind of, they don’t need to visit the turbines. So also the value added of cutting down visits. Technicians spending time in a different way or on more pressing matters. Has has maybe been accelerated a bit here on the corner?
Yeah. Oh, I, I think I definitely, I definitely, I definitely think so. I think that’s been the case. And ha have you seen much difference in the amount of, uh, I don’t want to say business, but I mean just the, the, the questions coming from onshore turbines or offshore turbines, is it roughly the same since you’re, you’re dealing with both, both styles of turbines is it had, had those markets really change in the, in the.
Type of cause they’re they’re different businesses or the complexities of each one of those is different. Are you seeing more off shore questions now than onshore? How does, how does that break up? Just as well as the onshore market is with different clients. I think I experienced this, that a lot of the offshore clients out of Europe, they also comes in.
Yeah. In various maturity levels within this domain. Um, some, uh, are really up there running a big portfolio and can do a really good job, uh, in, uh, and really leveraging this, this scalability in the business. Uh, it’s, it’s really impressive, uh, where others, uh, on that journey and they have a bits and pieces of it already and, and an hour going in the same direction.
It’s also about knowing, knowing, knowing, knowing those specific customers. Right. Just as I said, on the onshore market, in the us, the diversity you have that between players. Well, there’s a diff there’s a different, there are different types of problems from offshore to onshore. Can you highlight just what those differences, what you typically see like this offshore, these offshore turbines are going to have this type of problem, corrosion, whatever, versus the on-shore ones, which are more about, uh, imbalances, yaw.
It what’s. What are the differences between the two in terms of performance? But you seem to highlight. Yeah. You can say, of course there’s a big difference. Yeah. Between the business running an offshore wind farm and, uh, and onshore, and in particular, the cost structures, uh, offshore, you have the vessels that are driving versus the logistics, driving everything.
Right. So, so value wise on an onshore, you can buy three, five, 10. Uh, so, so of course the impact you could do in an offshore wind farm is significant higher, but if you turn the question around. And did the date and not up the turbine, individual issues, POC control issues. That the same, it’s just a lot more accelerated offshore because wind speeds are higher and belts are higher, particularly are coming in sooner.
But end of the day, the issues are the same because it’s just a turbine. Right. Um, but the cost structure might be different and, and the value proposition might be different. And of course, then also bear in mind this from. And got of the topic we’re dealing with, which is particularly within load and enemies control and software on the turbines and on the pack pilots, you know, the, the, the controllers of the turbines at the scene, whether the turbines launch off shore.
So some of the flaws and opportunities for improvements in a way, a certain OEM turbine on shore is the same. Uh, software piece that is sitting off shore, just configured a little bit different. But fundamentally it leaves room for improvements and then belly slice. You can multiply that by 10. Right? So, so the off shore, you know, the much rougher, harsher environment with the bigger turbines is that XL.
What, what problems does that tend to accelerate have that you’ve seen? Do you see things get out of balance faster, out of alignment, faster? Um, w what’s been your experience there? Yeah. Yeah. So, so from, from physicists in engineering, it’s the same thing. Right. But, but the impact might be, it might be more severe and failure rates accelerating faster.
Uh, but of course, it’s also a bit of a, a difficult comparison if I, maybe the Jeanette again, uh, because I know the work that is done, uh, on, on the, on onshore machines being five, six, seven, 10 years old. Uh isn’t it’s not really comparable to a two or three. Five offshore wind farms. So it’s also comparing a bit the apples and bananas, uh, because end of the day, it’s the mechanical components are the same.
If, if we disregard corrosion, if a disregard all the third party components that need follow ideation of whatever I’ll show, right? If you look at the core fundamentals, it is the same turbine. It is. Yeah. So, so a lot of the onshore experiences within loads at dynamics control. The methodologies, the capabilities, the competencies is the same.
Of course logistics is a completely different game. Uh, but, but the core fundamentals of how does a turbine operate? What are the failure modes? How can I look for failure? Modes, hardware troubleshoot. It’s the same, it’s a hotter environment, but the failure modes have the same. So interesting point we, we talked with, uh, with Bjorn hedges and he talked about how it does take a good amount of time to really understand a given turbine.
So you might have a technician, who’s an expert with Siemens. You might have another technician. Who’s an expert with GE. And for either of them to get up to speed with the other brand of wind turbine, it might take them a good amount of, you know, a handful of years to really understand the inner workings.
Um, and obviously you had tons of experience with, with Siemens turbines. Do you see much of a difference with, you know, Hey, we’ve got a brand new, like we talked about GEs, new Cyprus, uh, on, on shore wind turbine recently. I mean, does it take you any amount of time to get up to speed when there’s a new model, a new brand or a new style?
Yeah. Yeah, it does. It does. Um, it is, uh, it is not the core fundamental. It’s not the same, but with the detail we look into performance optimization, the details are different. Uh, so to just take in all that, a ticket, the example we have from before, right. Uh, signal basements, I may have cemented a few times.
Uh, it’s a concept that’s rather easy to understand whether it’s. Yeah, uh, realtime benefits in general, right? Whether it’s a mass imbalance or it’s a well known issue, but how does that work on a best as turbine or add to your turbine running individual pitch control? You don’t inherently, there shouldn’t be any, right.
So the whole definition of that topic kind of vanish. So, so you need to think of it a bit differently to be a bit different because the control structure of that turbine. It’s different as compared to a turbine running more traditional it’s control. Can we, can we go a little bit deeper into, to blade mass and balances?
So how, how do you diagnose them? And then what’s the actual fix? Cause I know, obviously everyone here is familiar with, with cars, right? You get new wheels or you get new tires and they have to go balance them. Right? You have those little lead weights that you stick on, but I assume they’re not sticking any late lead weights out onto a, you know, a hundred meter Windsor and blade.
So, can you walk us through that process and, and explain, just kind of start to finish? Like how do you diagnose and then actually solve that problem? I think on the, I think I’ve generally experienced this, first of all, it’s a standard model of already always deploy when we have dates just to get the numbers up.
Uh, but, but it’s also based on my experience, not the biggest value out there on the big and the big OEM turbines. I think the main reason is that though the plates are related still with a lot of manual labor. Quality has gone up quite significantly actually, uh, in, in the production, those blades. And then in addition, you typically supplement your commissioning, uh, with a balancing of three blades.
You put on a rotor. So fundamentally you have to commissioning, you have a rather balanced rotor. Uh, so, so, so that’s somehow some of the means that we put in place to mitigate that issue on the, on the longer run. But of course, somehow you will still have issues where. They fade as you repair a blade, right?
Uh, with a different mass and you kind of rotate and balance, you might have extensive repair, uh, putting on whatever and introducing weight differences again. So it could be certain elements in the lifetime of the turbine and pushing new weight and balances. And basically what we do is we pull out the typical, we pull out the plate and then we reverse engineer all the accelerations.
And we kind of interpreted with acceleration. So I called me from bloody mass and parents of how much, and then we provide the numbers on each tower and each speed. And then if you’re within certain branches, we recommend this a standard operating procedure of all dependent spades. And it’s physically that you.
Your technicians carry up a Bella suites and Mount them in a kilo kilo. I think they are allowed to carry something like 15 kilos at a time. So, so we chop out 15 kilos of kilos of pieces and they carry out that balanced weight and mounted in certain basis. Prepare for such in debates. And then you can pull up it’s again and validate that you’ve got dependents.
Wow. That’s fascinating. So, so part of Michael, part of, part of that is driven by obviously if you put a new blade on a tournament, cause they had a blade repair or, or just to remove of a blade, a new blade put on, there’s going to be that automatic imbalance, but also repairing blades can do that. I’ve seen blades that have been.
From the lightening sign, you see a lot of lightening damage. There’s been massive repairs done on site, and I don’t know how they balance those plaids. Obviously they, they, they probably don’t do a lot of analysis or measuring before the blade goes back into service. It is. The the repairs. And I’ll give you a couple more examples, like the leading edge protection devices that are going on turbines.
Now, the dyno tales that are going on in the trailing edges, do those change the dynamics of the blade enough that you can actually measure the G-forces the accelerator? Yeah, it’s actually it, although so well meant and with a really good purpose, retrofits that you deploy on the turbines got the laptop.
It all. Impacts the turbine performance, of course, both good and bad. So some of the repair work induce increased accelerations and looking at the small differences allows us to tell how much, sometimes there’s not really big deals all the time. So it is, um, you don’t really know it before you look. I think that within that domain, the biggest, uh, thing we typically see is actually, uh, um, Yeah, Jean solver at unethical the blades.
So you basically want to do a power cable, upgrade doing all kinds of stuff on the plates. As, as you mentioned, it serves a really nice purpose and you get some additional follow up. But the tendency is, is that you only get half of the value of that you could have had because you, when you start to change the, at an ethical uplift of the, of the mates, you need to adjust your controller curves in the controller.
Otherwise, you don’t, you still don’t run it with the old controller. So you only get half the bedroom. So, uh, so it’s not on the asset integrity side, but, but significantly worth more than the opposite. I mean, correction. Well, that’s, that’s just, that’s brilliant because it’s not obvious. Right? I think that’s one of those places on the engineering side and from the asset owner side, that is not necessarily obvious because, uh, we see a lot of.
Uh, VG installations going on, we see a lot of larger blade repairs that are happening, and I don’t think the owners are looking into what the, the can I therefore increase my performance of my turbines or do I need to, or is it increasing the fatigue or decreasing the fatigue life of my turbine? We don’t know.
It’s just a big unknown. Yeah. Just off as your AP up lift. Right. Because you would get an APRA from the retrofit and the upgrade, but you only get half of it or you’re leaving the other half with the old controller curves. Wow. Okay. So there’s, there’s a huge value in there for a service like yours to really maximize what is happening on the turbine itself.
So if, if you’re going to do a blade upgrade, well, we’ll call it a power curve, upgrade that they just can’t do that by itself. They need to be also looking at the control laws and also looking at, maybe even look watching the turbine for a six month period of time to see if there’s any other issues that that power curve upgrade has done to the turbine itself.
It’s not a one and done. Installation there, there are consequences that you need to be monitoring. That is fascinating. Okay. Which is a part of the industry, how it’s structured, right? That, that every OEM selling off a piece of a pocket, of course, it’s supplemented broke by the physical work with rope guys doing on the pieces, but also a software upgrade.
Otherwise they wouldn’t get the controller adoption adjustment, as I mentioned, but the challenge is if any other third party companies are doing it, then. Then it’s only the physical work that is being done. They may not be updating the controller to accommodate for the power curve, every did they made.
So the VGs that went on may not be incorporate into the actual production of power. Wow. Okay. That’s fascinating. Wrapping back to the initial discussion where a single pitch or written it from, right? Yeah. But some of those English pits cases we see SPTs flying off. Because then you start to have one page pulling different than the two others.
So that’s why the holistical top-down approach, not just solving that single item, but somehow understanding how the bits of pieces are connected. I think that that’s a key part of the, some are getting some value out of that is about from the info for the asset owners responsibility. And my line of work is probably very similar to yours.
It doesn’t make sense to have an analyst like you onsite everywhere. Right? So they’re not going to hire an engineer to do your work at the facility. Full-time but that doesn’t make any sense, but it makes sense to tap into your knowledge base. Frequently. And that’s where your business is. You’re probably touching a lot of different sites simultaneously, uh, that it’s more economical to hire you.
And to, for you to do that analysis being as the subject matter expert versus hiring somebody to be on site full-time, that’s a dedicated employee because most wind turbine asset owners do not have a large enough staff to incorporate someone like you. But you’re a very critical piece in terms of power, production and lifetime you’re talking.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But it was also based on the, on the, on the. And that you would say the feedback and the understanding of that, you know, the technicians to have a KOL insight into this domain and what they can bring to the table, the back office guy or girl, I’d have it coincided to their piece of the puzzle.
And if we start putting all the pieces on the table and stop the 70, that puzzle. Then you wouldn’t know where to get started. So is there a part of your business, a, a training knowledge, um, business where you need to, uh, make the technicians aware of some of these different aspects that maybe not have thought of before or that the asset owner may not have.
I’ve thought of before, is that it’s part of the, part of your business, just an education and bringing people aware of what is actually happening out there, I guess. Yes and no. Uh, if I’m, if I’m every, you phrase it differently. I think as soon as I really love my time at big corporations like Austin achievements, they do fantastic things and they’re super bright people.
Uh, but what they already have is, is really lots large investment on tools. It skills. Great people and all that. Right. And, and as a small company like Alix, we also need to acknowledge that we cannot really conquer the world. It’s an unbalanced scape. So all the stuff we were doing back office with the math and the analysis and stuff that has been spun out into individual IC modules that we plug into the customer infrastructure.
So they can do it all themselves. So there’s not that I guess you can say online training course, we out, we conducted. But, but we noticed that we are not a company that will try to put in yet another it platform with the right color buttons and all that stuff. Uh, it’s more like we, we have some it pieces and if they want to do it themselves, that’s fine.
Because we have noticed that you have an infrastructure already. Which we kind of guess and know, and then we put on our it monitors and then they can do all the math themselves, uh, independently and in in-depth methodology. There’s a certain element of, well, yeah, so you’re, you’re not, you’re not, they’re not going to rely on you forever.
I think that’s what you’re saying is that there there’s, there’s a training element and you need to bring up to speed because obviously they, they do have their own it infrastructure. And the, obviously they do have capability on hand, but they just don’t know where to look. And so that. Part of your businesses too, to get them, uh, off of the training wheels sort of business into doing their own thing.
But that takes, so I can take several years. I know when I help aerospace companies on lightning protection, same thing on wind turbines. There’s, it’s like a three to four year process before they can kind of do it on their own. And in that transition period, People like you are extremely invaluable because you can get them to the answer faster.
And that’s where their, their profitability can increase because you can get them, um, where they couldn’t have done it themselves. It would be much more expensive to do that themselves. And is that sort of where your sort of your sweet spot of your businesses is that you are that subject matter expert you can bring in that knowledge, particularly if they’re a relatively new owner and they’re buying a relatively new term.
And, uh, I think you can bring a lot to the table in terms of just analytics and say, okay, let’s, let’s watch how these new turbines perform, and then we can decide what we need to go do. If anything. Yeah. That that’s, that’s definitely, uh, one of the spots where we tap into, but. But I think the, the learning is also that is also in rather sure, really large us corporations running really large portfolios.
Uh, but what, where they have analysts that, you know, and that’s also my opinion. They do the math and the physics and the terminal thing way better than we’re doing, but we can provide speed and we can provide the solution tomorrow. So, so there’s really no way of, uh, of not buying into that, uh, opportunity.
Um, if they can sustain the independence, I’ve never seen their scalability in the business. Why wouldn’t they buy then dockets instead of developing everything themself? Yeah. You guys are agile. You can just jump in there and get the job done. That makes sense. And on the other hand, we are not at a size of a company that could take over their responsibility, right?
So we, some are playing into each other’s strengths. Rather than trying to do everything ourselves individually, it seems like it was probably really important in, in, in your sales pitch to a big company where it’s like, look, we’re not trying to replace or do your job. We like, we can coexist really well and we can fit your company.
You’re a big company and just compliment you guys,
you know, pretty much. Based on the type of turbine that a site may have, what the list of issues typically are. So when you actually come to a potential client, you have a toolbox of knowledge that says these particular wind turbines have these kind of issues. And this is how we can help you mitigate them.
I think that’s very important if, uh, if I’m an operator or a manager of a site, because a lot of times it’s very hard to get that kind information out of the OEMs that it seems to come from third parties of that, that track what’s happening around the world to provide that information to the local wind turbine operator.
So when, when you come in there, you’re coming prepared in a sense that you have, uh, identified. Based on your knowledge where some key issues are. And at that point, then you’re listening to the wind turbine site owner, explain what problems they’re having and try to match the two together, or are a lot of the wind turbine sites, seeing a lot of difficulty in terms of broken equipment.
And is there a consistency there that you’re seeing right now? Yes and no. Um, of course the differences between brands, between platforms within brands. Yeah. Depending on whether it’s on show off show, we worked quite a lot off shore in Europe. Also, you get it. That’s us also now. Uh, but, but end of the day, what drives the business case on the asset owner side, you know, plates, gearboxes, driving, drive generators and all the big components stuff.
That’s the same. And it’s been for the past 20 years. Um, so-so, it’s not really that big, a surprise, always what we look at, uh, starting top down, um, But, but the ways we have now in front of us with it looking into different data streams and so forth has, has improved significantly throughout the last few years.
Right. So, uh, yeah, so, so I think it’s, it’s, it boils a bit that back to that where we are fundamentally an engineering company, we might, you know, spend our day looking into a screen with the data in it and math and physics, but we in a domain company. Sure, sure. And data is really key to your analysis, right.
That you need. Data, you need data to be able to process, to, to, to point out where those difficulties for that asset owner may be in the sense of if they don’t have any data, it’s very hard to help them. Uh, obviously if they have just broken equipment or they having, uh, bearing failures or blade failures, those are pretty easy to diagnose at times.
Uh, but I think you, you dive in a little bit deeper. You can actually take some of the data off the turbines. It sounds like. And then. Analyze that to say, these are where your key areas are, but I think. Is there a lot of data from some particularly some of the older turbines say they’re 10 years old. Is there a lot of data from those turbines besides just breakage and damage?
Yeah, I tend to, if you, if you asked me 15 years back, uh, then, uh, the data streams are, are not that, uh, consistent and the quality is not that good, but potential, the wind farms actually has a reasonably good data infrastructure. Um, and what is data infrastructure? It was never anticipated to be a data infrastructure.
It it’s like. It’s a PLC that runs a turbine. It’s a, it’s an industrial PC operating a controlled system. It’s like, whatever you have on your laptop, it was never anticipated to generate a data pool, but now it’s there. Why don’t we just pull it up and do use that as a baseline for the assessment? You know, that’s, that’s what the OEM doing.
OEMs are doing to balance the, in a warranted discussions to know the pricing of the service contract and so forth. Right. So, so, uh, yes, correctly that the data is there. And, uh, and, uh, uh, part of the assessments we do is, uh, is based on that data, we pull off, uh, those turbines. Uh, but I must also be honest to say that.
And all of the assessments we do is based on the data that the customers already have in their house. And if they look with, uh,
in certain dimensions that then they would see also what, uh, What that data Persepolis on, on operational performance? Sure. They, they just don’t have the experience to, to put the right perspective on the data. And I think that’s really important because when you start talking about data analysis at this level, you’re looking at very, very relatively small differences, uh, and variations across turbine to turbine that may add up to.
Uh, losses of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars over time. And so you’re able to pick out that little bit of variation. I think that’s really important here. It’s it’s you’re picking out. Uh, based on your knowledge and basing your ability and your engineering ability, you’re able to pick out those where those variations are and what, what they mean, because sometimes the data is not very clear, uh, uh, right.
So it takes a little bit of experience to put that. So even the asset owner may not be able to discern what this variability means. That’s where they’re coming to you. Right. They may see the variability, but they don’t, they can interpret it. And what, and what part of the term do I need it to address? You connect those dots, right?
Isn’t that kind of how your business works at your you’re connecting the data with the, with the real world equipment. Yeah. That’s a good way of seeing it, but I think it’s also too to demystify it a bit. I think actually before we connect the dots we pinpoint, what is the question? We will try to answer.
So, so, so, so it’s, it’s actually, it doesn’t have, I know some of the models we running is it’s not, it’s not rocket science, but somehow sophisticated, uh, engineering models. But, but we also have solutions based on standard 10 minutes, data that, that tells you the, I think you all different to the pressure.
So, so why would you go to a turbine, do hang in the service on a, on a field so that it’s not really contaminated? Uh, all right. It’s subtraction of two numbers. It’s really not finding a standard deviations of, of, uh, of small sizes. It’s just, what is the question? If the question is a pressure drop across the inline filter.
Yeah, but then it’s just subtraction two numbers, right. It starts with a question. Right? Right, exactly. But I think when you add on the engineering part of it, I think that’s where the magic occurs obviously to, to engineers. I’ll phrase it this way. Two engineers sometimes. The black magic. Isn’t so black and it’s not so magic.
It seems relatively straightforward because you’ve been in that, in that industry for such a long time. It seems somewhat obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to a lot of other people. And I think that’s where your value lies is that because you have a very specific skillset. A very specific skillset, which is extremely valuable to a lot of operators and asset owners that you can diagnose.
You’re like a physician. You’re like the doctor, you’re the physician. I have this, I have this pain in my side. How do I get rid of it? Or I may not even know that I have it. Right. I like a growth that I don’t know. I have, I need to get rid of that, but that’s actually a good, a good image. Right. That’s also why, whenever someone asks me about, I mean, yeah, we can find you arms alignment, but, but you know, It’s like the old man going to the doctor, having been running for her entire life.
I’m always a bit of a hurting my feet, but you know, I’ve, I’ve other issues that are more important. Social, why would I stop with it with the small stuff? There’s so much value elsewhere.
Uh, so obviously you’ve been in the wind industry for a long time. You’ve seen a lot of changes in the industry. And as we start to move towards the end of the conversation, I want to get your take on, on jobs on young people who are interested in entering the wind energy industry. So first, how have you seen things change over the course of your career?
And then, um, in a, in a couple of minutes, I’m probably going to ask you, you know, what some general advice would be for young people who are looking to get their feet wet and get started and make a name for themselves in wind energy. It’s a, it’s actually a really difficult question. I think there’s so many things playing into it.
Right. And also the context that, that, uh, the context of the group. Yeah. You want to pursue within the winter wine industry, right? Because there’s so much business to be done. There’s so much new technology coming in. There’s so much excess technology to be maintained. There’s so many different skillsets that hikes they needed.
And so it’s kind of hard to generalizing, um, a targeted question then as a, as a boss of a, of a small company, what are some of the skills that you really value in a new employee? And what should young people and not necessarily just young people, but again, people who are looking to make a splash in the industry, what skills should they be trying to cultivate?
Are there new skills, uh, driven by, by data and new technology that they need to be, um, staying current with? Yeah, I think if we just look at ourselves, uh, and, and somehow to get on board, you, you need to be a reasonably good engineer. Uh, just as you need it to be 20 years ago, you need to know your math and physics.
You need to know, uh, you need to have strong side and mechanics, all the electricals, uh, strong side that is all implemented by also understanding the context, uh, and that’s like core fundamentals. Uh, and, and they haven’t really changed. Of course, what has changed a bit is that whatever your specialized within that field, it is more and more driven by data, right?
So you need to be. I’ve kind of flavorful for doing some kind of analysis. You don’t need to be a quarter to a scientist and you, for sure. Certain does. I need to know anything about new networks. Uh, you need to know your math and that’s it. Uh, and then around the identity piece you’re looking at, um, and then, then you would have, uh, other capabilities on the, on the it side or business it supporting.
After structure, terabytes of data, how’d you get the flow up and running. So you are removing inefficiencies and you’re sit with the Excel sheet doing whatever, but it’s in a, in a pipeline and you can do your analytics in the modern way. Um, so I think the two main skill set is on the coins. You name.
Supplemented by the favor of looking into it and the call it with a frame of looking into where the DB from my engineering colleagues. Um, so it’s not that way. It’s art rather than Derek, but that’s basically how it comes. And then I think we talked about it the other day in preparation for this, uh, in office.
And then you need to have some fun in your spare time. A lot of, a lot of the people that working with us, they play the music and just, we have time. Yeah. And the, I dunno why, but that has turned out to be, uh, a good, uh, a good indicator. I don’t know if that’s in new England, but at least it’s somehow it’s not really rocket science, but you need to do your stuff well, The fundamentals?
Well, it sounds like you value employees who have a, an overall life balance. It sounds like you want employees who have a life outside of their job, and that’s maybe making them more productive when they do come to work. Yeah, definitely off a lot of the time. Uh, my co-founder Tommy and I would take a run during the week, uh, before lunch, some of the best, uh, how to fill the certain element of data to remove noise or whatever.
That’s during the runs. It’s not by sitting in a suite it’s by getting out there. But of course, having, having, having said that you don’t get the ideas by only running, right. Or by only doing other stuff. You need to put in the hard work, right? Otherwise you don’t really create the questions you will solve when you’re bringing it a bit of freedom.
Right? That’s right. That’s exactly. That’s exactly how it works. It’s it’s very hard to hear that, to hear somebody else say it, but it’s exactly how it works. It’s like you have to put in the hard work and sometimes the answers do not appear when you’re doing the hard work. The answers appear when you’re not thinking about it.
Like your brain has a time, a little bit of time to relax and to stretch possibilities that that’s when. The ideas pop out and, uh, it, I think you’re right. It does take a certain subset of people to think that way it’s not, uh, it’s there’s no, there’s nothing you can necessarily pinpoint on a resume to say this, this person can do that.
Maybe besides just experience. But having a little more well-rounded personality. And I think in wind turbines, that’s really true that having a little more well-rounded of a personality and being willing to adapt to some situations is really beneficial and wind. It really is fascinating. One, I imagine with COVID.
You know, there’s a lot more communications skills that people need to have because you’re not gonna have those face-to-face meetings. You’re not going to have those, those business lunches and those dinners where it’s a lot easier to break the ice and get to know people. Eh, has it been a challenge for you trying to get your message across and, and meet with new potential clients?
Um, you know, because of COVID and, you know, As the skill set with as far as communications changed significantly if it’s changed, but it’s, it’s a really good point. And that’s one of the, you can say capabilities that are really difficult to both maintain, but also just building from, from scratch. Right?
Uh, you learn so much by, by talking to different customers throughout us. Comparing that to what are the questions we’re getting from Philippines or whatever, understanding the bigger context and getting all the feedback from the customer. It’s a fantastic, it’s a frustration thing, right. But it’s a fantastic learning curve.
Uh, and of course with the COVID stuff. And, uh, we cannot go to the customers on site and actually, you know, really see stuff and, uh, and, and, and take that learning. And it’s like, Getting that insight. Uh, so of course there’s some limitations in that. Um, but on the other hand, as I said before, uh, I think the number of meetings has gone up quite significantly.
So we still get a lot of very good feedback and guidance from the people who know spit up. I really had problems, uh, which we tried to find data afterwards. And that’s the real training camp, right. Somehow building up that experience base from, for each of the feet of us and also making sure that. Now you mentioned the new GE turbine, right.
Was I haven’t seen it from the outside yet, but, but a lot of the other new brands coming out, of course, the chains and which also stay on the beat of what is the new within the control stuff. Sure we can look for opportunities within that space. So Michael, you bring a lot of capability to the table and your, your knowledge base is really extensive.
What is that value proposition that you’re making to your potential customers? How are you approaching them and how can you help them in the norm in the short term, and then also in the, in the long run, the first value proposition we bring to the table. Whenever we engage with a new customer is be specific.
Start with a site. And then we basically assist in type if I’m at that site and we squeeze everything out of it that is left on the table, whether it’s within park, electricals, single turbine, under performance, uh, whatever we find that, that the, the process, uh, together with, uh, with the internal, uh, key people on, on the domain side.
And that’s always the first step in also somehow building some, some trust and, uh, getting . Uh, the step forward, uh, has taken different paths. Uh, for some clients, we end up doing the entire portfolio. They are having some on a fleet level. Uh, we rolled it up, uh, and for the clients, uh, they in-source some of our solutions and capabilities for the internal organization to, to live at scale.
They have sure. And then, uh, how that plays out over time, because I know you like building long-term relationships. How are those progressed over time? Is it, is it that they’re relying on you as just to bounce off ideas to bounce off concepts or, or is it still a lot of data analytics as you go three, four, five years into a customer’s experience?
No, we have some, a rather long, uh, custom experiences, both, uh, both in Europe, on and off shore. Which was a highly appreciated. That’s also a way we have a lot of feedback. Um, so, uh, so of course everyone within this domain now on a journey and I think us S a. Multi-branded in any company. Uh, we see a lot of things on our way.
So, so there’s continuously, uh, relevant topics from a value point of view to discuss with our long-term relationships. So we haven’t seen that they somehow, uh, die up. Uh, there’s always new. Uh, New analytics, new value pools to be here to implement it all or explore. Yeah, it’s not just brilliant. I agree with you.
I think as the, as turbines age and as, uh, sites age differently and have different types of, of issues that it’s hard to correlate that information and you can be that key resource to bring new information to the table. So that. Then the next site doesn’t have those issues. I think that’s brilliant. Well, Michael, we really appreciate you coming on the show today.
And, uh, this was a really interesting conversation and very wide ranging as well. Uh, and I especially appreciate the glimpse into, you know, how you started your company. Cause I think a lot of people out there who were in your shoes, you know, very experienced, um, as an employee of a big company, um, they do, they struggle to take that first step.
And I think it’s a really, uh, it’s, it’s a exciting time, you know? And it’s a scary thing and it’s, it’s cool to see how your business has evolved since then and how you co-exist with these big companies now. So it seems like you have found your niche and really fit in there. Well, so, uh, for those of you out there, you can follow up with his company, uh, named Mo adult analytics at, uh, named mo-analytics.com.
And you can also follow them on LinkedIn. So definitely be sure to check out his company’s website. And Michael, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Yeah. And thanks a lot for the opportunity and the discussion with both of you. It’s really interesting. All right, cool. We’re going to wrap up today’s episode of uptime.
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