Bjorn Hedges, Chair of ESIG’s Wind, Solar, and Energy Storage Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Users Group, joined us to share his vast experience as Plant Manager of two wind sites in Washington – Harvest Wind Project and White Creek Wind I. In this episode, you’ll get Bjorn’s insight into hiring, working in wind power, arc flash safety, how wind power tech has changed over the years, COVID-19’s impact on the wind industry and much more. Learn more about ESIG here.
Bjorn manages both the Harvest Creek wind site and White Creek I. In addition to his work keeping 132 Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy 2.3MW wind turbines running, he’s passionate about his work with ESIG.
Learn more about Weather Guard Lightning Tech’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 | EP38 – Bjorn Hedges, ESIG Chair & Wind Farm Plant Manager, on Site Safety, Wind Power Jobs & More
All right, welcome back to the uptime podcast. This is episode 38. I’m your co-host Dan Blewett. I’m joined here by a lightning protection expert. Allen hall, Allen, how are you, sir?
Allen Hall: [00:00:55] Hey, great, Dan – boy, a really fascinating interview with Bjorn Hedges, uh, who has been in the wind turbine industry for quite a number of years now, and is also involved in the ESIG group, uh, which is really fundamentally changing the way that wind turbine operators.
Do their business. And is that, that sets up a community of operators that can share information about their particular situations and make the industry better. So not only is he very knowledgeable about wind turbines and how they operate and how the intricacies of running a turbine, but he’s also involved in a sort of a volunteer basis of spreading the good news.
So it’s really great to have him on the show.
Dan Blewett: [00:01:40] Absolutely. So. Like Allen said, our guest today was Bjorn Hedges. He is the plant manager for two wind turbine wind sites in Washington state, the Harvest Wind Project and White Creek Wind I sites. So he’s been there for 14 years. which, as we all kind of talk through a little bit on the show is pretty abnormal in today’s corporate world, right? People are bouncing from one job to the other, every two to three years; even five years seems long nowadays, but he’s been there for a long time and obviously has a ton of experience in the industry.
And, and he’s also seen just tons of changes in those 14 years. And as Allen alluded, he’s the chair of ESIG, which is the Energy Systems Integration Group, the wind solar and energy storage, operations, and maintenance users group. So he’s heavily involved with that. And as you be able to tell, he’s clearly passionate about sharing information, helping others in his industry solve their problems.
Um, which is really cool. It’s, it’s a unique thing. Wouldn’t you say, Allen?
Allen Hall: [00:02:42] It is. And the discussions around COVID are very fascinating; that they had plans in place to deal with something like a pandemic, as severe as COVID, but there are certain aspects about it, which they hadn’t prepared for, which are kind of funny, but yeah, it’s, it’s great.
I just love talking to people on the ground, uh, because they’re real, they have knowledge. They’ve been working at this a long time and they have things to provide back to the industry, which is what I like about the wind turbine industry; it is a very sharing group. They want to spread their knowledge and, and all the things that they’re doing for the community.
So it’s great to have you on, on the, on the podcasts.
Dan Blewett: [00:03:23] Yeah. So again, Bjorn’s the plant manager of the Harvest Wind project and White Creek Wind one. Those are, again, both in Washington state and in today’s show, we covered, you know, his wind farms, his experienced with ESIG, and a lot of different aspects of managing a wind site.
And we talked about arc flashes and safety and tons of stuff there. How COVID has changed the industry, uh, and a lot of advice on managing people. And at the end, especially, especially if you’re a young person listening, definitely stick around for the whole episode, when he gives a lot of advice if you’re interested in working in wind industry or in wind energy.
He’s got a lot of really thoughtful advice that probably is a little bit outside the box. If you’re just thinking, oh, this is gonna be exciting, I want to work on these machines or I’m really mechanically inclined, but there’s a lot of personal aspects that he gets into.
And, just about the kind of lifestyle you want to live. You know, do you want to live in a remote area, stuff like that, that he gets into at the end. So really valuable information for people of all ages in this episode. So without further ado, let’s jump into our conversation with Bjorn hedges. All right, Bjorn.
Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Um, obviously Washington and what is the, uh, what’s the weather like out there? I assume your wind farms are probably cruising this time of year. Has it been pretty blustery up there?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:04:49] Yeah. Well, definitely getting close to our winter weather when our preparation is complete.
Um, we’ve had a bad couple of winters the last few years. So I think we know what to expect, but this year, um, with COVID a lot of negatives in a lot of aspects, but the wind is not one of them. This has been a record setting year for wind generation and the Northwest. So that’s, that’s one positive for 2020.
Dan Blewett: [00:05:18] Well, we, we really appreciate you coming on the show with us and we are going to get to COVID later on in the, in the, in the show today. Um, And it really has been a really curious year. And like you said, there’s a lot of industries, obviously remote calls like this one, right? Zoom, all these different types of, uh, online softwares they’ve been unaffected.
It seems like wind power, like you said, wind turbines are still cruising along. So it’s been really interesting seeing how the country has been affected in 2020 by COVID and when that will, um, you know, taper off. And, uh, if it just kinda comes roaring all the way back. But I think the first thing on the docket here is, you know, you’re the Chair of ESIG’s Wind, Solar and Energy Storage Operations and Maintenance Group.
And for those of you who are listening, ESIG is an awesome professional organization. And we’ve been lucky to sit in on some presentations and get a little bit of behind the scenes of it. Bjorn can you tell us, why are you a part of ESIG? What does ESIG do? And you know, how important is it for the wind industry for professionals like yourself to be sharing information, with other site managers and people in the industry?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:06:28] Yeah. So I guess I should first mention that I’ve been in the wind industry for about 14 years. I think that’s a pretty long in this industry as it’s, it’s fairly new, at least the large scale wind farms in the United States, um, being in the Pacific Northwest. Uh, my, I first started reaching out to the peers of the websites that were being developed around me.
Uh, One of our neighbors gave me some word of mouth at this, this group of. Plant managers and asset managers called at that time, it was called a you wig a is explicitly just for wind degeneration. Solar hadn’t really hit, neither had energy storage. And by the way, they have a meeting every six months and it’s about two hours from my site.
So word of mouth brought me to ESIG. I went to the, a more local conference and kind of fell right into it. Uh, the sites that I operate, uh, both of those sites are Siemens turbines. And part of this organization is a breakout of wind turbines by platform. So if you have GE turbines, you’ll have a breakout session where you and your peers get together to discuss what are the issues with GE?
And for me, it was Siemens, and Siemens was relatively new in the United States. And they did not have anyone to chair that round table discussion. So first day at the U wind session, I was around table chair and just kind of jumped into it. I fell in love with it right away. Um, Yeah, nobody has the time to come up with a solution for everything.
And there, there are great organizations are ready to help discuss that. You know, uh, we as been around for a while and there’s a lot of great information there. I think, uh, we had tends to focus on what’s new. What’s coming up next where, and I’ll keep on saying ESIG and you wig because they, their name has changed over the years, but currently ESIG, it’s.
It’s not a here, buy this new tool to fix the problem. It’s Hey, what did you do to fix what you have? And probably more importantly is, Hey, don’t do this. You know, here’s a problem. We tried this way. Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste your money. That didn’t work. Try this instead.
And so it’s just a, a group of peers that share knowledge back and forth, you know, without starting to sell you anything either there’s no skin in the game. There’s Hey, we tried this and it works great. Take it or leave it. Um, this is what we saw from it. And so I’ve really enjoyed the information. I definitely try to provide information from things I’ve learned, but I’ve definitely learned more from it than what I’ve put into it. So I’ve been a part of that, but I think that was 2012 when it started or when I started with it. And so eight years now.
Dan Blewett: [00:09:38] one, it sounded to me in sitting through some of these meetings that it’s just like a bunch of old mechanics, like sitting around. Who really love what they do and trying to do it a little bit better.
Right? I mean, you guys and gals, I mean, cause there’s some, a lot of smart minds, men and women in, in the energy system integration group. Um, but everyone was there just, again with that common goal, really friendly, just like, Hey, what’s working. What’s not like, what problems have you had? Here’s a new problem.
I’ve got. You know, does anyone have a solution for me? A fixed for me?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:10:11] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s no 20 year old turbine of our size to use as an example. And, and so we all have to learn from each other and make each other better. I think there is also an overall goal to get ahead of regulation. And you know, the wind industry really has been a pretty safe industry. I know there are some exceptions, but a pretty safe industry. And I think groups like this have a lot to do with it of, Hey, how are you dealing with confined space, or what are your lotto procedures and getting together to make sure that we’re all safe and getting together to make sure that we would rather create the industry standard then having, uh, a federal regulatory agency create that for us, that, that obviously doesn’t have the experience that this group has inside the turbines.
Allen Hall: [00:11:06] and be worn. How, how has that industry group grown over time? Where did you start out in terms of numbers, and where are you at generally now, in terms of the population of the group?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:11:16] Yeah. So again, it started off with Just the wind industry. Solar was not really mentioned, and Energy storage was not there yet. I guess you could include hydro-power as, as energy storage, which has been around for a long time, but, but, um, you know, there’s, there’s been a push regionally nationally for more renewable energy.
And so I think that’s been a lot of push to get the different utilities and different markets to push more into renewable. And obviously that’s helped increase the numbers. Later on from you wig, you know, adding, uh, adding solar and then energy storage has. Opened up more platforms for discussion. So, so for like me, I’m very interested in the Siemens round table.
I want to hear the issues with, with other Siemens turbines, other Siemens sites and how they fixed it. But now the same applies for solar as well as energy storage and. And it’s kind of neat to see. Uh, I did listen in on the solar round table that we just had, uh, maybe a month ago. And they’re asking the same questions that we were asking, you know, seven, eight years ago, you know, what does it take?
What, what is a solar tech, you know, in your opinion, what kind of training experience, you know, are there different levels? And, um, Know, it’s, it’s fun to see that they’re growing. Like we were growing, you know, just seven or eight years prior. So we do have a push with ESIG. Now, uh, a few years ago we did put a book together and again, a group of peers each basically took a chapter and, and we call it the wind operators guide book.
I think it should be better named, So You Want to Buy a Wind Farm? Right. And it it’s those things that, Hey, we’ve been through this, um, you know, we’ve learned from it, we’ve improved on it. Let’s let’s help out the rest of the industry. So if you’re new to the industry, read this book and here are some thoughts that maybe you didn’t think about, and maybe you did, but there’s, there’s a lot of aspects to it.
So make sure that you have all those things covered. And now we’re looking into adding solar and energy storage, with that same experience that, that those members have gained over the years.
Allen Hall: [00:13:39] Well, I just want to get a little bit more of the landscape here. Where are your members from? Are they North America?
Mainly Europe, where are the members located?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:13:50] Yeah, with the, with the users group AOL. It’s basically the Americas. There’s definitely more membership in the United States. Uh there’s however, a lot of from Canada and South America as well, you know, it’s interesting to remember where those members are when you have a discussion.
I remember a discussion on, uh, on conductor and splices failing due to frost heave. And I asked his members like, you’re, you’re having issues with these sleeves, failing from frost. He’s like, how, how deep is your conductor? It’s like, Oh, it’s four feet. Whoa. Oh, you’re from Canada.
You just need to move your turbines further South. We don’t have that problem.
Allen Hall: [00:14:35] Yeah, very Northern problem for sure.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:14:36] And yeah, definitely. When you, when you have a group that represents this much of the industry, you do need to have those discussions of, Hey man, I say this, but just remember I’m on the coast and there’s salting air, or I’m in the desert here, so I go from five degrees Fahrenheit to a hundred, five degrees Fahrenheit and, and way different issues.
And so I guess I should say that, uh, I’m a short time listener of your podcast, but I’ve been doing a lot of catch-up and lightening is obviously a big focus of yours. And, you know, I think at the Midwest and you know, they talk about lighting and we talked about lighting and we were talking about two different things here.
We hear the issues.
Dan Blewett: [00:15:18] Well, that’s a good point. Um, and before we get into, you know, some of the things that you’ve seen change over the years, how, how careful do people have to be about making blanket generalizations about operations and maintenance and, and repair? I mean, for the exact reasons that you just talked about, I mean, how, how hard is it to get like an apples to apples, comparison of an issue someone’s having and say, you know, North Carolina compared to, you know, your wind farms in Washington?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:15:45] Yeah. I think that’s an important reason why we have those breakout sessions for each platform, um, that does make the discussion a lot more similar and we’re finding that, you know, the turbines are getting bigger and more efficient and, you know, smarter technologies and even within the same platform that we are seeing the discussions are diverging somewhat.
So for GE, for example, we have a. Discussion on G we call one dot X, you know, one to two megawatt, wind turbines, but now we we’ve added a two dot X, right? Just the issues, the issues are different. You know, you get up high, higher or longer blades issues made, you know, the longer lighter blades, you know, maybe there’s more of an issue with leading edge erosion versus, you know, kind of Helfer, stout, thicker, but smaller blades.
Sure. Don’t travel as fast. So yeah, you do have to have those discussions, but there are a lot of things that are in common. Uh, we do have a, what we call balance-of-plant session, where it’s kind of everything else, everything that’s kind of the same, you know, how do you maintain your roads? Uh, what do you do for snow removal?
Well, if you’re in Hawaii, you can kind of skip that session. But, uh, you know, we have the same issues in Washington state is maybe they do in Minnesota. Probably not North Dakota, but yeah. But same, but more well,
Dan Blewett: [00:17:13] is that a major? So you bring, you know, one of the things Alan and I talk about in this podcast, a bunch is new technology, right.
Because that’s a cool, you know, everyone’s curious, like what’s the next biggest wind turbine, you know, rolling off the factory floor, but is that difficult? Because like you said, uh, you know, I’m sure it took you a bunch of years to really get your feet wet where you’re like, man, I really understand this wind turbine and you know, you have your site and those ones are fixed, right.
They’re not upgrading them. Like they are what they are, but is it difficult? Do you see this in the group that it’s man, like there’s a new model already. Now we have all these different models of how long does it take to really understand the model that you have? Is it like a year, a couple of years, five years, and then there’s a new one. Is that just completely starting over from scratch? Like, yeah, I guess we’ll, we’ll understand this new model five years know, five years down the road or is it, or is there a lot of similarity between one the next?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:18:06] Yeah. So I think there’s a couple different aspects with that.
I think what’s your role at that wind site? Are you a technician or are you a lead or are you maybe a plant manager? And so that’ll vary, you know, for me, I’ve been fortunate to maintain the job that I have at the sites that I operate for 14 years. So I have a lot of institutional knowledge with that, I have quite a few technicians that have been around Just about that long. And I enjoy a lot of institutional knowledge with that as well.
I think it’s more of the, the transient or traveling tech, you know, maybe they’re a little more specialized, maybe they’re into major components or new retrofit. And what I’ve found is. We, we have a lot of technicians that will come to us.
And part of the preparation for them to come to our site is all right, you know, what, what are your training certifications? What is your experience? And we found that just, it’s not all created equal. You know, we, we. So your certification for this and that, and whether that’s in a warehouse inside, and that’s your only experience, or whether you’ve really been doing this for 10 years and really know your stuff, and we don’t know you.
And so part of our process is we, we do put somebody new to the site. With an experienced crew. Uh, we, we monitor them and, and it doesn’t mean anything for off our site, but we basically have a competency checklist, you know, can you operate the hand terminal? Can you, uh, manipulate the blades? Can you do this and that?
And it’s, it’s probably about 20, 25 items. And if you’re new to the industry, you know, this may take you 18 months to go through it. If you have experienced on these turbines, um, it could be five minutes. Yes. You, you know what you’re doing? You, you can be part of a smaller crew now or, or even lead a crew.
So I would say. If you’re new to the industry, you know, maybe you’ve had some experience in it or educational experience, like in a community college level or, or trade school, but to get you tuned up specific machines, it’s about an 18 month process.
Allen Hall: [00:20:24] Well, and how unusual is it for someone in your position to be in that role for 14 years, it seems like a lot of other people in your position, it’s like two, three years and they’re off to the next spot
Dan Blewett: [00:20:35] Well, I feel like that’s any job, any industry right now on, I mean, you talk about employee turnover anywhere. It seems like that’s pretty rare these days.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:20:43] Yeah. And I think that really will tie into some of your questions later on for young individuals looking to get into the industry.
And I think it really varies on what you do. Um, you know, you tighten bolts, you add some oil, you change a filter and then you move to the next one. And it’s almost like assembly in line job, but instead of the part moving in front of you, you move to the next part. I do see that turnover at the maintenance technician level that, you know, one and a half, two years.
I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. It’s cold here. It’s high here. Uh, by the way, it’s dusty and, and obviously very windy too. Right. So I think in the, in those positions, the, the turnover is, is an issue in the industry. And we’re always trying to find better ways. You know, we don’t want to lose two years of experience.
And so we’re always looking at ways to keep the interest up, keep the motivation up, keep those guys here. So it’s but it’s an ongoing issue for sure.
Dan Blewett: [00:21:48] And Al and I have talked about this, uh, in, in previous episodes as well, that. Just the American young person is changing a lot. So one of the books that was honestly really concerning to me, that I read earlier this year is called the Coddling of the American Mind. It just talks about how the millennial generation and gen Z, that’s younger than that. I can’t remember, but they have, they’re just a very different workforce than the past. And they want much more purpose out of their job. They want a good work-life balance. They also tend to maybe be a little more sensitive to criticism and it seems like it takes a lot more managerial, Um, some almost like tiptoeing, but you have to really know how to motivate these people. Like they don’t just want to punch the clock, go home. They want to feel like their job was purposeful. And of course, renewable energy is a great. Let me think for that.
I mean, there’s so many young people who are passionate about the planet. So Bjorn, have you seen this sort of change in people do when you get a new, you know, 22 year old or 25 year old, do you see a different personality than a 35 year old technician or someone else in a similar field?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:22:54] So, first of all, I don’t disagree with you, but I also can see, I don’t know, maybe some Romans 2000 years ago complaining about the next generation and how they don’t know…
Dan Blewett: [00:23:06] Fair enough.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:23:08] So that’s true. I, I don’t know how much has really changed there. And I think for this industry, you find the right person pretty quick, or you don’t, um, yeah. These websites. Uh, so the, the turbines aren’t stacked on top of each other. They require quite a bit of land. And if you need quite a bit of land, you’re not going to be next to a large city because the property leases are just going to be too expensive to make that viable.
So do you like outdoor life if you don’t, if your idea of having fun is to be in the city and do some shopping and go to restaurants, which obviously that’s. Different now, too, but I’m sure, um, it’s a certain, uh, lifestyle that, um, That you either like, or you don’t like, and there’s really no middle ground.
Allen Hall: [00:24:05] I think of going to like deadly deadliest catch, but the people at crab fishing, it’s, it’s a very similar lifestyle. You’re isolated a little bit. It’s pretty rugged and just certain people acclimate to that. And some don’t, but the people who do are really competent at it, and enjoy it. And it just takes us, I think at some level it takes a certain kind of person, a personality to go out and do that.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:24:27] Yeah. You know, having family ties or ties to that area are definitely a positive I’ve, I’ve definitely evolved, you know, in the interview process to do see what those ties are you, why are you here? You know, if your family’s halfway across the country, eventually you’re going to want to be closer to that family and closer to those friends.
So, you know, is there a local tie? And if there is, I would look at that individual that maybe doesn’t have the experience over one that does have more experience in industry just because they know they’re going to be happier longer because of those, those local ties.
Allen Hall: [00:25:08] And we haven’t gotten to the point of having generational employees.
So what I mean by that is that. Their mother or father was in the wind turbine industry back in the eighties, and now they’re into it. And we haven’t gotten that far yet where we start to see that next second generation of employees come around where their parents may have worked in wind energy long ago.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:25:28] Very, very close, uh, at least for me. Um, so on a personal level, I have a daughter, my oldest daughter is a freshman at university of Washington State University. And yeah. Uh, some of the technicians coming through, she knew them in high school. So know maybe she was a freshman and they were a senior, but now I’m getting the background information on employees from my daughter.
That’s just makes me feel, it makes me feel old, but, um
Allen Hall: [00:26:01] well, that’s good. Right. But that’s part of getting people to stick, I think, is that generational? My, my parents did it. I’m gonna do it. And, and they have also, they have that knowledge base they have, and it’s just part of the family, whereas they have that knowledge.
Dan Blewett: [00:26:15] Well, it strikes me as like a cowboy kind of job and not to be like gender specific, but, uh, you know, it’s like one of those cool things. If you’re a young kid and your mom or dad goes up, those wind turbines, that’s an intense, cool job. And you could see a little warrior girl being like one day, I want to be up on top of those big machines, looking at the mountain range, like mom or dad did.
That’s a cool thing.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:26:37] It is. And you know, as far as generation technology that’s out there, you probably are more in tune with, you know, the latest tech, um, you know, it level of interest in it and whatnot that the wind industry and solar industry definitely have that higher level of technology. Compared to maybe a hydro facility that was built in the forties or fifties.
And sure. And so it’s a little bit of both it’s it’s high-tech and, and you’re up there at 300, 350 feet.
Dan Blewett: [00:27:11] Yeah. How do you feel about Heights? Bjorn? Do you go up there or have you, have you gone up to them in the past? Like, how much time have you spent on top of a wind turbine?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:27:20] Yeah, so I’m not sure about the turbines every day. Um, but I’ve definitely been up there hundreds of times. Um, it really is not an issue and you’re climbing inside the tower. You can kind of see down the ladder for, you know, for us, it’s one long ladder from top to bottom and the lighting there’s lighting’s in terms, I have often wondered if, if the lighting was part of the design, because it’s not overly bright, meaning that you can’t really see all the way down, it just gets a little dim and maybe that was done on purpose.
Um, but yeah, getting up top, being able to open up the hatches. Uh, I definitely enjoy that. Um, I know a lot of people don’t. But, uh, for me, that’s, that’s not an issue.
Allen Hall: [00:28:03] Definitely. Good workout that’s for sure.
Dan Blewett: [00:28:05] Can you tote coffee supplies? Like have you had coffee, a tapa and watched the sunrise, from the top of a wind turbine before?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:28:11] there, there is definitely a goal to show off just how good of a lunch you’ve had.
Up-tower and I’ve seen photos from different technicians of. That was some pretty unique ways of getting a warm meal up tower, especially now that we’re getting into the colder season and some of the meals that these guys come up with, uh, Man. It, it puts some restaurants to shame. So,
Dan Blewett: [00:28:37] well, you got to find a way to get that, that super cool photo from what was it from when they were building Rockefeller tower or something back in the, was in the twenties, you know, where everyone’s sitting there eating their lunch pail on the beam, on the I-beam.
You got to get that same pose on a, on a one, a wind turbine blade, but probably just stage it indoors. So it’s safe. I don’t know how you pull that off, but. That’d be a cool photo. Could Photoshop it.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:28:59] I might take you up on that. We do have spare blades on the ground, so you’re only up maybe five, six feet. But if you get the angle just right, it might look like you’re really brave and a little down.
Yeah,
Dan Blewett: [00:29:12] right? Yeah. The surface by not as good to sit on is that, that in which got up, that’s an amazing just classic American photo.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:29:19] Yeah, I know the one that you’re talking about. That’s, that’s pretty amazing.
Dan Blewett: [00:29:27] so speaking of, of changes over the years, what have you seen that’s changed the most? Is it like the mechanical technology? Is that the, like the cloud based data storage, the software, take us through some of the changes you’ve seen in your career in wind energy.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:29:44] There definitely have a lot of aspects that have changed over my 14 years of experience.
So again, I’ve managed two sites for almost 14 years. So the turbines themselves, uh, that’s the technology that was there when we installed them. And, and for the most part, with the exception of some retrofits, it’s, it’s pretty much the same. Um, but one of the aspects I think has really changed is the digitalization for the technicians.
When we started this 14 years ago, a lot of companies were doing paper time sheets and they had their paper manual, their service manual, which is well over a hundred pages of color photos. Um, their, their work orders were handwritten fax to the office. Somebody on the other end of that fax machine was trying to read a technician’s handwriting and maybe it was turbine 19 that they’re in, but it looked like 49.
And so the data was not the best and it didn’t happen overnight. This is something that just. Constant improvement. But you know, looking or jumping forward to today, the technicians are not packing up a half a dozen manuals that are several hundred to 800 pages long. Those are all in their iPad and they get their work assignment.
It’s a electronic work order with a work order or the applicable work instructions, a lot of procedures. Um, No, they have every, everything that they need right there on their iPad. And that was one of the things that just. Paid for herself almost instantly, you know, a 800 page service manual with color photos.
You know, double-sided just, just the cost to produce that. And that’s updated every six months that, that paid for the iPads. Right. You know, within was in the first revision of that one manual. And I forget what the count is, but w we’re pretty close to a thousand either work instructions or manuals or procedures.
So it’s, it adds up and that’s, that’s. Something that just takes a lot of time to write those work instructions and to have a peer review and say, yes, this is, this is the correct method for doing this work. That’s definitely a big one is, is just access to all the information. Um, and we talked about ESIG and, and sharing of knowledge, and that’s great on a national or, you know, the continent level, but you also want that on your site.
You want that technician with a dozen years of experience, to be able to provide that level of experience to the guy that’s been there for six months. And they have that, you know, if they take the time to read that work instruction and maybe ask some questions. So the site as a whole is, is equally experienced and that’s so much easier with the electronics and, and the ability to access that data, you know, keep in mind too.
A lot of these websites are in areas that, that don’t have great cell phone service. So how are you going to get that information out to them? And it’s really. Been made easy with, with the upgrades for, you know, again, those iPads cloud-based servers, things like that, where, where that information is just available for a quick download.
Um, so that’s a big part, keeping them with the technicians, um, a lot of the procedures for keeping them safe. You know, I mentioned that we wanted to, as an industry to talk about things that we’ve learned and, and that’s so much more important for safety-related issues. And when I started, nobody knew what an arc flash analysis was and, and, you know, category four, um, PPE, you know, I, I remember guys with t-shirts and no masks doing, uh, voltage checks on what later was the category for cabinet and they should not have been in there.
I think we were very fortunate that we didn’t have those issues. Um, Um, but we’ve learned that as an industry, we’ve, we’ve upgraded, you know, those, those types of, uh, analysis and implemented either the appropriate lotto procedure or the program. For your PPE, if we could not eliminate the issue of the appropriate PPE, which boy that’s that’s improved.
I remember when that first came out, it was very thick, very stiff, one color. Um, then not a very pleasant looking design and boy, the PPE, you know, specific to arc flashes has really improved over the years as well. Um, I think. When the wind industry was, was first getting started, uh, there was a lot of influence from maybe fossil fuel technology or, you know, other similar technologies, but quite a bit of different issues.
As far as the environment, you know, you go to a natural gas plant and, and for the most part, it’s, it’s one concentrated area. You know, where here again, we’re, we’re separated over 40,000 acres with. 80 meter towers that have snow and ice that built up on him over the night, you know? And when we first, when we first started, it’s like, ah, they honest, a little bit of snow and ice and didn’t think much of it.
And then when you started seeing what it looks like a bombing range, uh, coming to your turbine, like, yeah, maybe it’s not a good idea to go see this turbine today. And that’s one of the things that changed pretty quick. And again, fortunately not because of any personnel issues just. Keeping near your employees and keeping yourselves safe.
Um, and that’s, that’s one that we had a surprising struggle to, um, to get those changes. And you kind of think about, you know, who’s overseeing these sites. They’re, they’re going to be people that are experienced in the industry and in the power generation industry there, they’re probably older and this technology didn’t exist.
So when you talked about snow and ice fall there, we’ll put some, uh, some, uh, ice barriers up on your roof and you’ll be fine. It’s like, well, I have 132 rooms and, uh,
So, not that easy. Yeah. And no, it’s not. Yeah. And there was definitely a wall there and I, and that’s what I attributed to is. A lot of experience, but in a different application. And so it’s something that we did have to push from the site level on.
Allen Hall: [00:36:28] Well, the work construction aspect is I think the work construction aspect is really fascinating because that’s when you know that engineering and somewhat engineering has kind of stepped into the process a little bit to try to even out and safety as stepped in because you’re right in West Texas, 15 years ago, Most of the technicians I would run across, had come clearly out of the oil industry and the oil industry, at least at that point was a lot looser about safety equipment and a lot looser about a work construction.
They just didn’t really exist. And so when they got to the turbines, it was. Just sort of tribal knowledge and that has shifted dramatically in the last several years, I think. And it’s good to hear that coming up out because if we do want to make this industry grow, we can, we can’t put technicians at risk all the time like we were doing.
And you’re right. It’s it’s about time. Uh, but, and I think the ESIG group is probably really important in that, because if you’re, if you have a new site, um, Do you have all those procedures set up in place? Probably not. You need to learn from somebody else has done it for a while to get those procedures up in place.
And that’s, that’s really helpful.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:37:38] Yeah. And probably what’s, what’s similar with any industry too, is you really have to have those people that step up to air their dirty laundry, especially related to safety issues of, Hey, we had a crew that did this and it did not go well for them. You know, you don’t really like talking about that, that stuff.
Um, I remember one of your previous podcasts, you talked about blade failures and. You know how willing is a company to air their dirty laundry of, Hey, we had this failure because of this, but for safety, you know, it’s just one of the things that you just have to repeat over and over and over again is, is we want those near miss reports.
We want those lessons learned. And if we see a trend there that let’s fix that trend and it’s difficult, you know, it’s easy to say and it’s difficult to, to do that and do that consistently, but we have to, and, and we do see the improvements to issues like snow and ice fall or to the arc flash. Uh, so it’s, that’s great for the industry.
Dan Blewett: [00:38:40] Yeah, that reminds me of an anecdote. I don’t remember what book it came from, but. Uh, basically the story was that there was a, like an American, um, car executive or, or a high up kind of manager ended up going overseas to whether it was Toyota or, but it was one of the Japanese car manufacturers as a, as a high up, you know, recruit a way to work in Japan.
And it like w maybe one of his first reviews where all the major, you know, the high up, uh, executives were reporting on how other segment of the market did you know, he kind of did the typical American thing, which was, yeah. You know, we crushed our goals. We did this, we did that. We did that. And all the Toyota execs I got, I think it was Toyota.
They looked at him like, you know, that’s wonderful. We’re glad, but. We’re here today to share each other’s problems. What problems have you had so that we can all work through them together. And obviously the point in this, this is, again, I don’t remember what book this was, but they were just talking about how a lot of the Japanese manufacturing techniques were just really, um, They were really good at catching and improving on errors in their process.
And that’s why, you know, the, the quality of Japanese made cars has always seemingly been superb because of their focus on solving each other’s problems, not just touting their successes.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:39:58] And I do think that’s something, you know, you asked about changes over time. Um, so. A little more detail. I mentioned that I operate two sites.
One of them is two years newer than the other one. And that is something I do see, even though we look on the outside of these turbines, they look exactly the same. You look at the specs on these turbines. They look exactly the same, but issues that we saw with the older site, the OEMs really do a good job in my opinion of looking at those issues and how we can make those better.
And. You know, just the difference in two years, which, which to retool, you know, assembly type process, that’s, that’s a pretty short duration, but they are making significant improvements issues that I have on the older site. They’re just non-existent on the site that’s 10 years newer. And, and I assume, you know, I’ve been focused on these two sites, but I assume what I saw in those two years is, is still ongoing.
And, you know, they’re just getting better and better.
Dan Blewett: [00:41:03] And you hear about some of these new wind turbines, like obviously Siemens Gamesa has the 14 megawatt and GE as the Halle eight X, which has now been upgraded to 13 megawatts. I mean, do people in the industry sort of view these as like. The beta, you know, like, Hey, this is a wonderful new thing, but we kind of realized that if we buy them now as like first out of the gate, we might kind of be beta testers.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:41:24] Yeah, sure. I,definitely think so. You see some sites that maybe, uh, step in slowly, you know, they may be buying 90 turbines, but 80 of them are this older technology and, and 10 of them are the newer technology kind of safety in numbers. Sure. How that issue. And, you know, I think the direct drives when they first came into the industry, you know, they had a huge issue with their main bearings and, and so, you know, again, the industry needs to talk and, and say, yeah, let’s, let’s make sure that that main bearing issue is resolved before we really jump into this.
But yeah, that’s at the site or, or the, um, Fleet manager level, right? The technicians, I think, look at it differently. It’s like, Oh, look at this hub. I can stand up in this hub, have all my tools out. I don’t have to crawl around these hoses or pitch cylinders. Like we need these. So of course they’re going to pick, pick and choose where for what they want.
And, uh, Yeah, why can’t we get those here? It’s like, well, that’s, that’s a little expensive. Yeah. They put a new hubs. But
Dan Blewett: [00:42:31] how about,
Bjorn Hedges: [00:42:31] how about the knee pads instead?
Dan Blewett: [00:42:33] Yeah. Maybe Santa will bring you some
Bjorn Hedges: [00:42:35] for Christmas.
Allen Hall: [00:42:35] His, her technician envy for the newer tournaments. I mean, obviously some of those technicians do get around quite a bit.
Is it service? Is there a little bit of tribal knowledge? Like, Hey, these turbines have this. Great feature. And, and these terms don’t is, is that, does that influence the purchasing of turbines a little bit to what the technicians was it the technicians think about the turbines
Bjorn Hedges: [00:42:59] at the purchasing level? I don’t think so.
Um, you know, the, the people that are making those decisions most likely will never be in those turbines. Um, and I, I just don’t think that that is really well known enough. Or, or maybe different enough between platforms, um, uh, at the purchasers level. I think they’re more looking at, you know, power curves and availability guarantees, maybe more of a, um, How much of this, can you do through the OEM versus having a higher, you know, balance of plant or third-party contracts?
You know, there’s sure there’s some, some products out there that it’s, here’s your entire site and there’s others like, okay, well, we’ll take care of the, uh, turbine installation, you know, supply and installation. The rest is on you. And so I think that’s more where their focus is on whether they’re choosing vendor, Vendor A or Vendor B for their turbines. But I do say that there is more attention being focused on how is the technician going to maintain this turbine? You look at some of the older turbines and then the cell was built for the equipment housed. And then that NSL can even get to turn to the other side of the gear box, or how are you going to get, you know, silly things like.
You just can’t get this bolt out. There’s a cabinet in the way so that your do I move the cabinet to get to this bolt. And, you know, with the older, with the older platforms, you’re kind of stuck with that. And so tooling has really evolved to address things like that. But. With the turbine manufacturer, you know, you definitely see more room around the equipment.
And then what you do, maybe in the older platforms, you also see a lot more attention to the safety aspect of it for the technician. You know, whether it’s machine garden or, you know, we talked about our flash and you know, here is a main component in this cabinet that has a, that requires a whole cabinet to be a high arc flash writing. Let’s put that one component in its own cabinet and everything else, you know, maybe it drops it to a category zero. Um, why didn’t we have that in the middle of everything and, you know, compartmentalizing our engineering, those safety concerns or those, you know, maintenance concerns out.
And that’s just a perpetually improving goal for everybody. For us, our goal personally was to, again, isolate those out. If we could move that breaker, we put a cover around it so that ranch could not fall on that. Uh, again, the OEMs that that can start from scratch they’ll, they’ll put those in individual cabinets.
Um, and then the main thing then is to educate the technician. Of what they could be exposed to just by opening the door and breaking that plane, you know, maybe they have not even applied their lotto yet. Uh, you know, they need to do that in that cabinet. And so by breaking that plane, where are they exposed to?
Is this a low voltage communication cabinets? All right. So there’s nothing over here. Twenty-five volts here. We don’t, I’m sorry, 50 volts. We, we don’t need to worry about that. Um, or there’s, there’s a high voltage or high current in here. So before you even open up the cabinet, you’re, you’re dying the arc flash suit, you know, your category four, um, just to get into there.
And so, you know, communicating that to the technicians, we talked about turnover. So that’s definitely an issue. You know, if you have a new technician, do you have the time to show them every potential, uh, in each of the turbines. Um, obviously you don’t, so it’s matter of, of labeling each cabinet and that doesn’t sound like a lot, but, uh, for our 132 towers and 18 cabinets, that’s a lot of stickers,
Allen Hall: [00:46:55] but it’s, it’s super important in terms of overall safety because arc flash and arc flash, a lot of testing is done. Not very far from me to Emory. They have labs and. Arc flash is deadly. It’s like a bomb going off in your face. If something were to happen like that. And as a technician, electricity is just a danger because you can’t see it, right.
You can’t, you can kind of feel it sometimes, but you can’t really see it. So having indications on equipment, identifying what’s likely to get you is really critical to overall technician safety.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:47:27] It is a little. Scary too. Maybe complacency is the right word of, well, Hey, I’ve worked on this turbine platform, uh, down in Texas or North Dakota, but each arc flash analysis is.
Is specific to that site, you know, there’s different break breaker settings. There’s different, you know, the, the grid could be stronger or weaker, and that definitely influences, um, the arc flash potential on that term platform. And you. Turbines could be absolutely identical what they’re connected to isn’t.
And so maybe you’re at a say where this is only a category two, and I didn’t have to really worry about it. But at this site, even though it’s the same turbine, it’s maybe a four,
Allen Hall: [00:48:21] so COVID-19 has put a big, uh, stop until a lot of industries. Uh, you can name it. Restaurants. Small businesses have been really hurt by it. Uh, but one of the industries that really can’t stop is the power industry and the renewable industry can’t really stop because we’re relying upon it so much, but I’m not working in that industry day to day.
And I only hear the things sort of remotely, but how has COVID been for you? How, how has it affected the way you do work right now?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:48:50] Well, it’s definitely effected our, what I call our normal operations. But I think naturally the wind industry was pretty well set up to work in a remote or virtual environment, you know, think about where these wind sites are and where the owners, maybe the asset managers, the off-takers are located with respect to that wind farm.
We’ve been doing virtual meetings for since, uh, we, we commissioned these sites. That’s definitely nothing new to us. Um, being able to communicate with the off-takers with, with the balancing authority, for grid reliability, uh, we’ve been set up for some time to do that and do that. Uh, Mostly automated with respect to, uh, dispatching from the grid, but the, the meetings that, the flow of communication, uh, like I said, that’s been virtual since, since day one.
Allen Hall: [00:49:49] Well, I just wonder about the PPEs. Like how do you handle the PPEs now, or does everybody, you have to wear a mask when you’re in the presence of another?
Bjorn Hedges: [00:49:56] Or
Allen Hall: [00:49:57] is there a hand sanitizer everywhere when you’re, when you’re walking to the open, the turbine sort of climate is, is have those things changed. Just to try to satisfy the local health officials.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:50:08] Really the, the onsite operation has changed with respect to COVID-19. I’m part of a larger corporation that operates. Different technologies of generation and have had formal procedures for dealing with pandemics for some time. So we based our, our changes, uh, or adjustments on our flu pandemic policy.
And that was a great tool to make you think about what you’re going to do differently. And know was fortunate that we had already had that in place. But again, you know, the different technologies that are gonna be different. We talked about, uh, maybe a fossil fuel site and how they deal with snow and ice compared to walking up to an 80 mile 80 meter, tall tower with snow and ice falling down on you.
So things were different, um, for. Our existing pandemic plan versus how we had to deal with it. Um, think about the PPE. You mentioned PPE and how to do that. So how do you climb a turbine? You know, a long ladder with a mask on. Uh, we, we talked about, we talked about arc flash and we’ve spent a lot of money on I’m making sure that technicians had their appropriate PPE, you know, balaclavas and hoods and jackets.
Oh. And by the way, stick this, uh, artificial, uh, Mask, you know, synthetic material mask with a metal strip right over the nose, stick that on your, on your face and stick your head in that cabinet. So obviously there’s some issues there with the PPE that maybe other industries don’t have an issue with.
We’ve adjusted maybe a little differently, you know? Again, a lot of sites, a lot of industry can do a lot of their work remotely. We have not yet figured out how to change a girl pump remotely. So maybe it maybe that’s the robots
Dan Blewett: [00:52:07] are coming, the robots are coming
Bjorn Hedges: [00:52:10] well, they’re not here. And, and so how do we keep those turbines operating?
How do we. Keep going on, on preventative maintenance. And so how will, we’ve done that and maybe lacking some abilities on the PPE side, we focused more on the segregation side. So letting those crews basically not even see each other anymore. So how we handle it personally is crews are staggered on 20 minute intervals.
They come in, they have an area assigned to them where. Their tools, the parts that they need for that assignment today are, are out there for them. They pick those up. And we talked about having the iPads and the work instruction, the work order, and a lot of procedures. I don’t know where it would be if we didn’t have that technology, because we can, we can drop that right on the technician.
They know what they need to do. They. They know what they need for tooling and for parts. And they’ve got 20 minutes to make those preparations and they’re out to their turbine before the next crew comes in. So that’s been a big focus of ours. You know, the, the admins may be a little bit easier to do remote work and I’ve been able to do quite a bit of work remotely.
Uh it’s again, something that the wind industry being. So remote naturally, we’ve had to. Be able to VPN into the site and get access to that when we’re not at site. And so we’re already set out for that part of that really hasn’t changed, you know, that, that pandemic plan that we relied on, nowhere in there, they mentioned that there’s going to be hoarding of toilet paper and.
Bottled water. So we definitely weren’t perfect. Um, there, the amount of time was spent on Amazon waiting for some bleach to be available that we can order for the site. So those are the things that we weren’t prepared for, uh, that we’ve really had to focus on. And we’re definitely. Better prepared. You know, the second wave that came through and, and the hoarding did continue or repeat up here, that was not an issue for us the second time around.
Allen Hall: [00:54:20] Well, th that’s amazing. I think that’s amazing that you prepared as much as you were, because you think about all the other industries that were not prepared, that probably should have been prepared like the airline industry. Got crushed, totally crushed. They were talking about being unprepared for any sort of large outbreak.
They just didn’t have the resources and it took them weeks and weeks and weeks to, you know, to get to the point where people remotely felt safe to fly on aircraft and, and you guys are out
Bjorn Hedges: [00:54:48] there working,
Allen Hall: [00:54:49] right? So it’s, that’s huge. That preparation is such a big
Bjorn Hedges: [00:54:54] key to success. I think the industry naturally is more.
Prepared for things like this. Just, just the environment that, that when its history is in is you, you have to be pretty independent. We have 60 miles a road for our wind turbine access, but. Plenty of public road in between, and in between those roads, we are not priority. Number one for the County snowplow to come out.
So how are we going to get the guys safely to the turbines? You know, what, if the fuel delivery can’t come because of snow and ice or, or maybe the roads washed out because we’re so far out on, on. Primitive roads. So, you know, fuel storage was, was already in place. You know, there’s a lot of things just because of the nature of where we’re located.
We have to be pretty independent and have to have an inventory to prepare for delivery that doesn’t show up. And so I think the industry overall was that a, a headstart compared to maybe some, but yeah, you mentioned the airline industry, you know, they have to cater to, you know, a pain. Public that that wants to use their facility.
And we don’t. So that’s something that we didn’t even have to address. You know, first thing we did was, was closed access to, um, tours to, to draw by visitors. Uh, one of the definite positives of COVID is the cold call salesman, which is. Not one of my favorite aspects of the job is no more cold call salesman.
Yeah. Buy it right when you’re in the middle of a busy, a busy workload.
Dan Blewett: [00:56:36] See, those are going to be, those are going to be jokes on you, though. Those are going to be drones too. In the future. One will just fly right through your upper window and just, just, just cover. And we’ll just shoot a, uh, Like a projector onto your wall and just give you a full sales pitch right there.
And you also have a show and blast it, get back, get at it.
Allen Hall: [00:56:53] Well, it definitely it’s, it’s changed everything. The last one, I mean, in terms of, do you think, think of all the things that have changed right. Do we go back or is it just because it’s now because we’ve been in this for almost nine months, nine, 10 months, or so some people say it’s probably been a year, but does that,
Bjorn Hedges: [00:57:15] what parts don’t go back
Allen Hall: [00:57:18] to the salesmen don’t come anymore because they just don’t, you know, because they, they can’t.
And, and what, what things have we changed? We’re just going to be locked in place you see going forward here.
Bjorn Hedges: [00:57:28] So I think there’s some definite. Issues that I do want to return to when things get back to normal, you know, we’ve talked a lot about information sharing, um, everyone learning from each other.
During normal operation. The first thing that we did was everyone get together and we’re going to discuss who’s doing what. And so everybody knew where everybody was at. It also provided an opportunity for the technicians to provide their lessons learned. Like, Hey, I saw this in my turbine. Be aware of this issue in your turbine.
You know, especially when you’re dealing with something new, like a retrofit. Hmm. Yeah. I learned a better, safer way of doing this. Yeah. That’s much more difficult to do now that we have staggered crews that don’t see each other. If we have crews that haven’t seen each other for yeah. Eight months, um, you know, that’s a good point.
That’s something I, I definitely want to return to do we need to do that on a daily basis. Did we really have that many lessons learned that we had to do that every day? And I don’t think so. So maybe. One day a week. We can all share that information and, and be better for it because one of the things that, um, I am liking with this staggered schedule with dealing with our COVID response is.
All right. We have that morning meeting. Now I’m going to go to the bathroom and then I’m going to warm up my breakfast. I may eat that and make a phone call and talk about the football game with the other guys. And I have to go to the bathroom again. And you started looking at your watch. He’s like, do I need to deal with this today?
Or are you just going to let this slide? So that morning, that morning kind of BS session is, is Don and. I think our expectation with the cruise is it’s more. Completion based or project based scheduling then than it is time-based Hey, you’re going to put your 10 hours in regardless. And then when your 10 hours is up, you go home or is it here’s your task for today?
Get that done and get it done safely. And then you’re done. And crews really like that. You know, they’re not just putting in time. They have a goal, it’s a daily goal. And when I get that done, I can. Yep. Be away from this, be away from this potential concentration of, of other people and do my own stuff. And that’s, that’s worked very well.
It, um, the efficiencies that we’ve seen and, uh, and our service completions and our preventative maintenance, this has been a very efficient year for us. Our, our availability is wow. Better than average, not, not significantly improved, but it’s better than average. And we, we talked about the monotony, you know, for those maintenance techs of doing the same thing day in, day out and resulting turnover just when, when they’re just tired of doing the same thing.
If, if they have a more project-based goal, that’s going to get their motivations up of, Hey, if I, if I work hard, do a good job. I, I can be done where before I’m just putting in my time. Right.
Allen Hall: [01:00:36] Right. I’m trying to spread it out. Yeah. Well, and that’s, Hey, that’s part of it, right? We all, we’ve all been in that mode before, where it just gets to be a little tiring.
You’re doing the same thing every day. And anything that can change the pace does make work easier. It makes it makes your day go faster and it does make the day shorter. To it. It’s, it’s funny that way. I mean, that’s one of the things that people just don’t do very well at. It’s the same repetitive task going over again.
And that’s it. And it’s one of those things you don’t think about with COVID that it’s so much, it’s going to change that. I bet a lot of technicians will never want to go back to that. Right. It just because they’re in control a little bit. That’s nice. So there are some positive out of COVID
Bjorn Hedges: [01:01:14] little slivers, some
Allen Hall: [01:01:16] positives coming out of it.
Bjorn Hedges: [01:01:17] Yeah. I think, you know, speaking for my sites, I’m assuming. Generically speaking for the industry. I think that this has done a lot of good for wind, you know, not everybody likes wind turbines. Some people think that they’re nice or some people don’t like the additional traffic, you know, maybe they live out in these remote areas just because they like being in remote areas.
Now there’s all these technicians driving around and full-size pickups and this is not what they signed up for. And so. Definitely a lot of people like the industry, others, maybe not so much, but I think this has proven that we were able to continue operations. When a lot of industry weren’t able to continue operations, we were able to.
Move forward with a lot of our capital projects that supported local contractors. So not only did we maintain pretty high paying jobs for the area and help support the local economy with that, but we also were able to move forward with our capital projects that supported those local vendors and maybe regional vendors.
And so I think looking back on this. They’re going to say, Hey, the wind industry did pretty good for this. They kept us going by doing this, this and this, you know, the traveling tech still need a hotel to stay in and, and food to buy. And right. I think that we’ve been able to really support the local industry.
That will be a positive for many years to come.
Dan Blewett: [01:02:50] So Bjorn, we, we talked about personnel earlier. And I wanted to double back, uh, here as we get closer to the end here. Uh, so what advice would you give to a young person looking to make his or her name in the wind energy industry?
Bjorn Hedges: [01:03:04] I think the first thing that if somebody wants to get into the industry that they need to decide is is what kind of lifestyle do they prefer at this point in their life?
There are definitely different paths that you can go down personally. I like to be able to come home, uh, to the same place each night. Maybe that’s, you know, if you don’t have a family, if you, if you don’t have that desire to show up at the same home every night, you know, maybe your motivation is going to be more financial, and that’s definitely going to lead you down the path of being a traveling technician. So. Whether that’s a traveling maintenance technician or, or maybe you specialize, maybe you specialize in gearbox component replacements. I don’t need to keep one of those guys or two of those guys at the site at all time, that’s going to be a transient technician and they get paid very well to do that. And they live out of hotels and airplanes. And I don’t like any of that. Uh, I definitely like to travel, but not, not every day.
So know what kind of lifestyle do you want to pursue? Um, So answer that question and that’s gonna put you, you know, are you going to be a traveler or are you going to be more focused on a site?
And then let’s say that you want to be more focused on a site. Um, what kind of, what kind of work do you want to do if, if you really want to specialize in really understanding the component? I think you need to look at working with the OEMs. Um, you know, the, the OEMs are going to have the ability to.
Have those very specialized positions because they can spread that out over more turbines or more sites. And that’s great. Uh, if you want to be a maintenance technician, if you just want to be able to clock out at the end of the day and be done with your work and not think about it, that at two in the morning, you know, a maintenance technician is, is a great job.
It’s. It’s a good wage. It’s an exciting environment. Like, like we said, being Up-tower. Um, but it, but it is repetitive. So some people aren’t wired for that repetitive work. Some people are, um, if you’re not, I would say look more at the owner side of the fence, uh, whether it’s balance a plant or maybe they do work in the turbines.
The job is going to vary quite a bit. I think you also get a little bit more ownership. If, if you’re representing the owners on that site, you feel more like this is my site, not just another turbine to do maintenance on. And the scope of work is going to vary so much. You know, we mentioned about snow removal, so maybe you’re plowing snow, which by the way, is one of the most fun jobs out here when.
When you see the spun out a murder saying 35 40, and you’re only doing five and here you have a rooster tail of snow going off, whatever stress you have that day is gone. It’s, it’s, it’s pretty enjoyable, but you know, maybe you’re, you’re working with it on an upgrade to make. Communication with the balancing authority, more efficient.
You do that one day and the next day you’re helping the local rancher push cows back in because somebody left a gate open it,
I, for the ownership, you know, feeling like you’re, you’re more part of the site and the, the variable, um, workload. You know, it just doesn’t have that monotony. But on the other hand, I don’t have that specialty that, that gearbox technician really has. I rely on those guys because they know that stuff way better than I do, and that affords them to be very valuable in what they do.
And it affords them to travel across the country, which, uh, you know, if that’s what you want to do, Do that’s that’s great. That opportunity is definitely there. And then the last thing I would say is, you know, this kind of falls under what’s changed over the 14 years is don’t just look at the website, look at the third-party vendors.
Really weren’t in place 14 years ago, but now are in place that support the industry. Originally, if we had a generator failure, we ordered a generator out of Texas. And if it wasn’t during the winter and going over the Rockies and the winter, wasn’t an issue, it still took four days to get that generator.
You know, we now have a gen January rebuild shop, two hours away from us that really. Didn’t exist, you know, until just a few years ago, it’s, it’s made our reliability or response, um, much, much quicker, which means our reliability’s much better, but, you know, that’s, that’s, it’s an opportunity for you to maybe specialize on a piece of equipment mint and stay home.
So don’t just look at the wind site. Look at the, uh, look at the supporting vendors that are out there that, that are probably more local than what they used to be.
Allen Hall: [01:08:15] That’s that’s a really good thought because most people don’t consider that, that there’s local industry around the wind turbines, uh, farms themselves.
And cause you just don’t, it doesn’t really come to mind, but you’re right. Generate a repair is a big one and, uh, machine shops and things of that sort that do some of the heavier bits of rework are really important to keep in the turbines up and running. And it’s good paint. They’re all good paying jobs.
And they’re local,
Bjorn Hedges: [01:08:40] you know, at the technician level, if you’re new to the industry, One of the things that’s difficult is just how big a wind site is. You know, you have hundreds of turbines and you’re just a service crew that’s out there. Does your manager really know how well you’re doing? Yeah. You’re getting your work orders completed and saying, this is done.
And you’re part of those morning meetings again under normal times. But just with the environment that’s here, that your manager is not. Really good to know that you didn’t cut this corner, that you did an extra effort to make this better. You found this and improve that. So. I just maybe urge the technicians to talk, you know, those morning meetings that we have with those lessons learned for those technicians to maybe sell themselves a little bit and maybe not salesy, just be part of the communication.
And that really helps the managers know like, Hey, this guy is really interested. I’m going to feed him this additional training or make them the lead on this project. That’s going to be maybe less monotonous, but if you just sit in those morning meetings, maybe listen to what’s being said and, and go on and do your date that manager’s not really gonna know the quality worker that you are.
So, so speak up because they can’t look over your shoulder. When you’re 30 turbines, over 80 meters up in the air.
Dan Blewett: [01:10:09] Yeah, that’s good advice. So Bjorn as, we wrap up here. How can people find out more about ESIG and where would you direct them? If they’re curious about your own wind sites or any of your right?
Bjorn Hedges: [01:10:20] I
think, uh, ESIG is a great platform for learning more. Again, the operator’s guide book is available on the ESIG website, which is E S I g.energy. You do need to have a membership to be part of that. But if your company is an owner or operator of a wind or solar or energy storage, they can definitely be part of that.
So, uh, maybe your company already is a member and you just don’t know about it. And you already do have access through your, your company’s membership. If not that, talk to them, uh, and reach out to ESIG dot energy. And we’d be glad to give you more information on being part of that knowledge sharing for the entire industry.
Dan Blewett: [01:11:06] Your sites are. Uh, as we mentioned in the intro and throughout the show white Creek Wind number one, And Harvest Wind project. Uh, is there anything you’d like people to know about them? Obviously, you guys have a Facebook page and websites for both. And of course we’ll link to ESIGs website below we’ll link to the different projects as well.
So you can check them out if you’re listening. Um, but is there anything else, uh, beyond you’d like to turn people towards,
Bjorn Hedges: [01:11:30] I guess this would be a more of a local, uh, reach out and again, during normal normal periods of, uh, non pandemic time that we definitely want to. Help you with your interest in the industry.
If you want to see where these wind turbines are about back again, back when we were in normal operations, we do have tours for the public. So you can reach out to us. You can Google White Creek Wind or Harvest Wind Project, and our websites will pop up and we’d be happy to bring you up tower. Uh, you’re going to be escorted by some very experienced technicians and, and see what it’s like to be able to an 80 mayor tower and, you know, hit up those technicians and, uh, See what they think life has a wind technician is like we have a outreach to several of the community colleges that have renewable technician programs, the Dallas community college in Walla Walla community college.
We’re part of the STEM council to help with what focus. Those classes need to have to make better technicians for on the field. And so we provide our input there. And so you can reach out to those community colleges and. Look at what their programs look like and, and their, um, reach to the industry, like what they do with us.
I have a new one that I. I haven’t had the opportunity to speak to yet, but Washington state university has a renewable generation program that I believe is fairly new and I’ll be talking with them later in this week. So check out WSU.
Dan Blewett: [01:13:03] Well, you are thanks so much for coming on the show we really appreciate is a great.
Great conversation. And I’m sure our listeners will really appreciate your, just your, your depth of knowledge, uh, being in the windows industry all these years.
Bjorn Hedges: [01:13:15] Dan Allen, thank you for having me on, I hope this is useful for your listeners. I was directed to your podcast from a colleague of mine and short-term listener, but have really done a lot to catch up.
I appreciate the information that you guys share. I’ve learned a lot from your podcast, so I appreciate the time to hopefully help out as well.
Dan Blewett: [01:13:33] All right. And for you all out there, thanks so much for listening. Be sure to subscribe, share the show we’re on. Obviously iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, anywhere you listen to podcasts.
So thank you for being here and thanks again so much today to our guest today, Bjorn Hedges.
