Dainis Kruze from Aerones joined us to talk about their unique robotic technology that today is servicing, cleaning, repairing and inspecting wind turbines all over the world. Aerones’ robots originated from their time at Y Combinator, working on drone technology that they later pivoted to working on robotics. In this fascinating talk, Dainis addresses the company’s incubation in Y Combinator and lessons learned there, why they pivoted away from drones, how they tackle wind turbine maintenance problems, and how they’re focused on solving problems in new, more time-efficient ways. Visit their YouTube channel here.
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EP42 – Dainis Kruze from Aerones on the Future of Wind Turbine Maintenance & Cleaning
Welcome back I’m Allen hall. I’m Dan Blewett and this is the up-time podcast where we talk about wind energy engineering, lightning protection, and ways to keep your wind turbines running.
All right, welcome back to the uptime podcast. We’ve got a great guest today. Dainis Kruze is here from Aerones. Allen, what were some of your takeaways from our call with Dainis? Well, Dainis says bringing his robot technology. It’s, it’s not drone technologists, sort of a tethered robot technology, uh, to the world, uh, to do a variety of tasks that were.
Typically done with, uh, people on ropes from, uh, measuring the lightning protection system, uh, resistance measurements to cleaning out drain holes, to, uh, repairing leading edges and detecting structural issue with blades, uh, his robotic platform and own. Robotic platform is doing, uh, astounding things and very quickly and efficiently.
So it’s just like a new frontier of robotic technology that they’re bringing forward. Yeah. So without further ado, let’s jump to our conversation with Dainis crews from Aerones.
Yeah. So a first, first line of business here, and we were just talking about this off cameras. Uh, I really want to hear about your experience with going through Y Combinator. So as a, as a company and as a, I mean, all three of us are entrepreneurs in this conversation. Um, Y Combinator is, uh, is a, is a very wide, widely regarded, um, you know, startup incubator.
So can you tell us a little bit about how your company got started, you know, with you and your co-founder and, um, how you’ve gotten to, uh, we’re going to go all the way through your story in general, but tell us about the origins of Arizonans. Yeah. So me and the honest, we know each other since we were 18.
Uh, so, uh, we were studying together physics and mathematics, computer science, and that’s actually where we met and where we built our first startup. We were. We we built, uh, GPS devices, uh, and the platform, uh, we put the GPS devices on the wheels. So the owners of the wheels could see where the weak links are like for the companies basically business the business.
So this is how we started, uh, and that company has actually grown, uh, to several other projects, IOT projects, uh, it’s called intelligence systems. Uh it’s it’s it’s yeah. Latin company. So, um, yeah, and like five years ago, Uh, is, uh, uh, exited the company and, uh, and, and like a year later came back and said, Hey, I have a new group.
Great idea. Let’s build a heavy lift drones. Uh, there are a lot of helicopters. There are planes, there are lots of small drones, but nothing in between. Let’s let’s build heavy withdrawns, which can do it. Some kind of a job. So it kind of started as a fashion and kind of, uh, we didn’t have, you know, like, like the nice business stories where you see the problem and then you start to build the solution.
We started to build these drones, uh, but. Uh, during the development. And, uh, we did a lot of different kinds of trials, like human rescue, firefighting, drones, um, and, and different kinds of interesting stuff with, uh, with, with a drone, which could lift 440 pounds, actually 200 kilos. So, but we understood that we are kind of a little bit early, uh, in the market and, and that kind of business needs, um, quite a lot of money for development.
Uh, it’s tough. And we thought that yes, that we build this firefighting drone, and, and we understood that it’s not. Time to market is going to be long. So we figure out that, Hey, let’s clean turbines with the drone. Uh, we heard in one, uh, exhibition that that’s a, it’s done by Hill hop. There is sand and et cetera.
So, uh, we trialed it out and, uh, we understood that. Yes. Is that it’s possible. And more of that, that nobody cares what’s happening in the week bark. Right. It’s nothing in the middle of the city or whatsoever. So we started to build this drone for winter by and cleaning or the icing and, and we had the problems that, that the drone, uh, I can actually share the screen, like, uh, how the drone, uh, looked like.
Um, and, and the video. Yeah. So this was the first video of the drone. Which was the icing, the turbine. And, and we got. Quite huge traction of that. Uh, the industry, uh, mainly it was like, yeah, it was something entirely new, something, something crazy. And, um, but when we started to build this drone to do the job here, you can see these three legs, right.
Um, we understood that we, we needed to come to the blades quite close and we wanted to do more of the things, not only the cleaning, but also for example, conductivity tests like infection, system tests, painting, and et cetera. But we understood that the swinging in the air, uh, for the drone, uh, was still happening.
So we created these three winches, which were holding the drone, uh, steady, uh, in the air, in the position. And then we just understood them. We don’t need the drone, we just need another winch over the turbine and it’s much better solution. Um, and yeah, that was kind of a moment when you need to just decide a if, if you are, uh, if you stay focused on your technology or you stay focused on the problem.
So we had found the problem, so, and we had found, uh, the solution. So we had to kind of, uh, go away from the Dutton, from the drone technology and we needed to start to build, uh, the robotic technology. So that’s actually kind of the turning point in our mindsets, in our business, in, in, in, in everything. Uh, and I think that we did the right choice.
Uh, we’ve managed in, in, in these two years when this happened, uh, before two years ago. Um, Oh, I think we’ve done a great job and we’ve, uh, we’ve built a realistic robotic system, which is actually capable of doing job. And we prove that that’s part of the, why commented or thought process, right. Is to identify the problem, not the solution and to work, work the problem first.
So then buy the solution, which is, which is a sellable product. And I think you’ve done a very good job of that. And I did the Y Combinator help focus you on, on that aspect of it. I think Y Combinator. You know, they don’t come, they’re not coming and telling you where, what, how you should do like in your technology, like how to, uh, but what they definitely did, uh, with us was.
They taught us. And, and you know, like every second week you go to your mentors and they’re saying like, stay focused on the where’s the money, where’s the business. Uh, how will you finance this? Uh, you know, like, because any company can’t be just. Um, fun. Can’t be just a, you know, like what you like to build.
Uh, it has to also generate some revenue. So, so you are interested in interesting for the investors and et cetera, and yes, and you need the problem, which you are solving. Uh, you can’t have heavily drawn, which is doing, could do everything. Uh, but, but, but, but yeah, so we didn’t find a proper market fit for our drone, but we found a proper problem.
Uh, which we knew how to solve. And, and, and that’s one of the biggest things which why commonly throw a thought, like, uh, stay focused on the problem. Right. And I think you’ve done a remarkable job of switching gears in some sense, because the technology shift from sort of drone and programming of drones and in such a large, large drone, and then to switch over to essentially a rope based system is that that technology leap is.
Big and you seem to make that transition relatively smoothly. Obviously you must have talented people on your staff to do that, but it was that sort of transition happened in the Y Combinator when he was said, okay, these drones won’t solve that problem. We need to get to a different solution because we know what the problem is.
But our solution right now is really not adaptable to that particular problem is that that occurred a little bit later when it’s a week, we already graduated the Y Combinator. I would say that. Found the solution, how to solve it without the drawing, we basically found that the drone is not the best solution, but, uh, this robotic system is best solution.
We already have the problem. Like during the Y Combinator, they also said like, okay, are you doing firefighting? Are you doing, uh, turbine cleaning? Uh, or what what’s, what’s your drone, uh, going to do like a big one? Not all of them. Pick one, just one, uh, that was done by the Y Combinator. Yes. Uh, and, and, and then yes, after the Y Combinator or like a coffee a year later, we just found when we were desperately building this drone to clean the turbine, there’s trialing that out and we understood that it’s not kind of working well.
Uh, and, and, and then we found out this, uh, this other solution that is one of the most difficult engineering, uh, hurdles to overcome, because you do get in love with your product. Do not want to change it because you know that you know what it can do. And you, you feel like you have, and you do, you have this.
Uh, amount of time and effort and love and, and all these relationships are revolve around this particular product. And you’re S you have to say to yourself, today is a day we stop, and we’re going to let all that go on all that’s in the past. And now we’re going to have to refigure company to go towards a different product.
That is such a hard transition. Had so many companies, relatively few. I bet you it’s less than 5% can actually make that jump. So just to say that you made that jump and I think that you have made that jump brilliantly. I think that you made that jump. It says a lot about your talent stack and the staff that you have to do that because that is really difficult to do it.
Yeah. It was not, not an easy decision. It was tough decision. Like how to, uh, you know, how to explain to your investors, how to explain to the customers. Uh, you know, like you, you were talking about the drones and now you’re talking the broker robotics and you haven’t actually tested it yet. And you need to convince everyone, uh, that yeah.
That’s the way to go. That the previous thing is not working. And so, yeah, so, so that’s, uh, that was the situation and, uh, yeah, tough decisions needed to be made. And we did, we, when we did that, did the investors, did all your investors stay through that transition? Yes. Yes. Oh, they did. Yes, you had a great, great bunch of investors, uh, because that’s a very difficult because the investors treat your company, a company like yours, like one other children on some level, and it’s hard to change that child out and put that one child aside or bringing a new child it’s hard to do.
Um, that’s amazing. That is really, yeah. Really amazing. Wow. Yeah. Thanks God. It’s it’s it’s it’s all actually went through a kind of, uh, Uh, I wouldn’t say hard. Uh, it was hard decisions, but when you start, when we started to explain to investors, when we started to explain to the customers, uh, it actually went through quite smoothly.
It was, there was no big challenge of, of explaining, uh, if they believe in you, they believe in you is that’s also one of the things which was thought by the Y Combinator that actually the company. Uh, is, is the people inside, you know, what can you actually do? What is your team? Can they deliver? And in our case, yes, we had a great staff of, uh, mechanical engineering stuff, electronic engineering of software engineering engineers.
So we were able to do that and we did that. So I want to jump to the, to the beginning of, of Y Combinator. So obviously a lots of companies want to go through that process. How did you guys get that started? And how did you get accepted into the program? Funny, uh, they actually invited us, uh, so we didn’t know anything about Y Combinator when they invited us.
Uh, and, and, uh, because of this big bus on the symbol of draw and then firefighting draw and they actually invited us because of the firefighting drone. Uh, and then also only when we, uh, got to the first interview and we spoke with them. Uh, they also said like, okay, the drone could do the firefighting.
And also the cleaning of the turbines, like actually great idea, like, uh, okay. Let’s, let’s try that. And, and, uh, And yeah, we are, I believe one of the very few which were invited, uh, I honestly believes that, Oh yeah, very few ever invited. And did you have to change your business in any way? Did you have to sort of conform to fit their mold or they’re just like come along as you are?
Yes. Come along as you are. Aye. Uh, I haven’t spoken to them like, uh, like, uh, or they haven’t said to us like how they have done the decision on us, particularly in us, but I believe that, uh, they just believe that we can do that, you know, like, uh, that the ideas are good. And if we’ve managed to get where we.
Where are we, where are we? Where are we aware? They believe that we will do something bigger as well. Yeah. I mean the drone technology, just as a whole, for the winter of an industry, this is like a no brainer, right? I mean, you know, and obviously the robotics is just an extension of that, but sending people up on ropes is terrifying, right.
And it’s time consuming and it’s expensive. And, uh, so like the dry, I could see anyone and obviously those people who are funding startups and these investors are very forward-looking right. They see a drone fighting a fire, like, yup. That makes a lot of sense. Let’s not send people into that burning building, like that’s the future, which so that, that makes sense to me, for sure.
And I’m sure Allen, like you’re, you know, we’re, we’re both trying to look. Yeah. And, and sh and highlight new technology here on the show. And that’s just like one of the most obvious ones, like send drones up. And Sandra robots up, don’t send human beings up. Th there’s one, uh, like thing, which is in all like, uh, health and safety regulations and requirements that don’t work at Haight.
If there is particular alternative, like, uh, um, we, and also like we, we just enabled to do. For the technicians to do the job much faster, like an a, and that’s it. Uh, and you don’t have to hang in the ropes. Um, and, and sometimes the performers as easy to ask us to touch something with something. Uh, so that could be done by the, is now being done by the robot.
Yeah. I mean, even little tasks, like cleaning your gutters on your house, 15 feet off the ground. People get killed over a year doing that. Yeah. Right. I mean, like all these things that, so the applications just seem huge. So, yeah, that seems like a no-brainer. So what were some of the big things that you took away from the Y Combinator program that are still in place and in helping your business today?
For me particularly, uh, I think it’s the mindset of. Of, um, health to think in larger scale, how to think on basically you meet so many people and you, you meet in person with those, all of those great founders, which have graduated the Y Combinator and their story telling their story, which I’m not white and shiny as you know, like, uh, in the end, everybody thinks, ah, okay, just.
Got lucky. Uh, and you know, that, that’s why he’s a billionaire or millionaire or with some of her it’s not actually true. Uh, most of them, uh, I actually didn’t hear any of the stories from, uh, those guys from, uh, which were the electroset. I didn’t hear any easy, you know, Story like how they built our businesses.
So, and when you hear those stories and, uh, when you meet them in a can kind of, you can see them in person. And, um, for me, it’s changed the mindset that I can do that as well. You know, like, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s not actually, they’re not super humans or whatsoever and, and, uh, And that’s, I think most important thing at least, uh, at least for me.
Uh, and, and I think also for all, all of our company that we are building it from the, from moment when we started to work in, when we started the Y Combinator. And when we ended. Uh, we are always thinking just in big scale, like nothing, a small business scale and et cetera. And it actually helps. It sounds stupid, I believe, but it, it helps.
I was just going to relate to, cause Dainis said, you, you basically said what Steve jobs said probably 20 plus years ago now, which essentially there’s this, that when you look at the people who have founded the companies and made fortunes, they’re still real people and they have just. Been they’ve had a skillset and a, and a sort of drive to get them somewhere, but they’re not really any different than you or me.
Is it, the fact of the matter is, is that normal people can do amazing things. And I think your company is one of those, one of those amazing companies that are doing amazing things. And it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s leveraging the skillset that you have to. And, and the minds and the mindset, I think you’re right.
It’s served a mindset to ignore all the, all the, the sort of the bad stuff and focus on the things that are going to move you forward. That is so hard to instill into new corporations and new companies, because you should kind of get fixated on some of the minutia instead of focusing on what needs to be done ahead of, ahead of time.
And you have done that. And I think hopefully the white commenter is part of that, but I also think part of it, maybe just your personality. Type that, Hey, I can let that stuff go. It’s hard to do. It’s really hard to do so I applaud you for being able to do that because it’s really difficult. And one, one, one, one more thing is that when you go through the bike Combinator, you see that all of those guys have build their companies in hard work.
Uh it’s it’s not an easy pass. And, uh, we hear the good stories about big companies and, and so on. Those are one of, uh, I don’t know, thousand four, a million, you know, which I see that there are so many company which doesn’t and, uh, and that, yeah, you need to stay focused. You need to work hard to actually build a company.
Uh, if you want to build a, a global and big and grateful, uh, company and great company. So, so. That’s also one of the things that, uh, yeah, uh, to, to understand, uh, it doesn’t come easy, but it’s possible.
Well, let’s jump forward to today. So tell us about Aerones today. What do you guys offer? Where is your technology gone? And what’s sort of like your prop, your value proposition to a wind farm, um, site owner operator. We basically, how kind of two things, uh, you know, technology like in, in what we offer is one is the delivery system, which is basically, you know, this four winters, which are delivering the platform.
And the second part are those robotic arms. So right now we have developed fully developed these winch systems, which are spanning on the grounds and the middle of that, where you change exchange these arms. So the first service, which is, um, like the most developed and, and basically where we already start to scale in amount of the robots is like in production system, desk.
So, um, but we help trial belts, so many other, uh, robotic arms, like where we just, we are just continuing to develop more and more arms. We should doing particular different kinds of tasks. So the delivery system, like they switched systems, allows us to move very fast and, and, uh, be wherever on the, on the blade we want in, in matter of minutes and touch it, scrub it, uh, sand, the dry and it, uh, poke it or whatsoever.
So. So that’s, that’s like the biggest thing, uh, We, we we’ve kind of developed in the last two years where we are confident that it works, that it’s, it’s, uh, you know, already scalable and the lighting production system test, uh, this robotic arm. And during this season, uh, this is basically the second, like first season where we, where we went out in the market, like, uh, you know, the services, uh, Uh, for money, uh, and we succeeded with these slightly production system tests.
We’ve done more than 50 projects, uh, with players, like less those GE Siemens Gamesa, uh, and I’ll repeat PDA, uh, EDF and et cetera. So, so, and, uh, what we’ve tried out also a lot of other robotic arms, like, uh, sanding, grinding, uh, painting, uh, filler apply profiling, uh, cleaning of the blades and et cetera, where you will see a lot of new arms, which w which are being developed right now, um, which are being prepared for the next season in the basically March, April.
So to think of our technology, then it’s really a two to two separate pieces. Almost. You have the rope system and the, all the controls that they’re involved in that system. And then the robotic the platform, I would call it the platform, the platform where you’re getting interchange pieces on the platform to do, uh, like the lightening LPs measurements and then the leading edge erosion repairs and those kinds of things that those technologies are somewhat.
I think you’re thinking they were somewhat separate because they are interchangeable pieces and that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s a unique thing about your system. I think that makes it so adaptable to the problem that a at an asset owner may have is that it’s just not one thing is trying to do everything they’re interchangeable pieces to, to address the problem they’re having, which is the brilliant part of the way it’s set up.
It’s modular for a reason. Yeah, exactly. That’s that was the goal from the very beginning. And that’s the goal. What we want to achieve is that, uh, uh, we create a platform which is capable of doing, uh, like all of the necessary things for the preventive blade maintenance, uh, in the future. So you’ve measured.
Oh, and in terms of the lightning protection system, this I’m going to veer off into lightening here because that’s our expertise, but you actually do a couple of different aspects involved with lightning protection systems. One, you can actually do the resistance measurements, which are really, really needed in the industry because it gives you a sort of a health.
Health, uh, measure on how well the LPs system is doing the, the second little piece that you can do is you can determine if there’s the little spark gaps that may be in the system. If those are working correctly, uh, with your, your, your little voltage breakdown system, which is. Brilliant by the way, but then you also, you could also, because you are on, on the blade, you can actually do in some inspections on the blade, like around the receptor, where there may be some heat damage or some burning damage, or you can look at leading edge erosion, cause you’re right there.
At that time, you can actually investigate what, what happens on the blade from terms of lightening damage. And then this newest, newest little robot, which I think is just fascinating to me is a robot that goes, she goes inside of the blade. You can actually take pictures inside the plane because the lightening lightening damage you see on the outside, it’s usually minor compared to the light damage you see inside.
So you have this sort of lightning protection robot, suite of, of technologies there that is inclusive of pretty much every aspect of the lightning. Uh, damage or lightening protection world. How did you come about doing all of that? How did, how did you, how did you, how did you find that as something to even investigate?
What, what drove that? So basically, yeah. Uh, stick to the problem. So, uh, uh, so, so we know that the lightning, uh, damages causes, uh, like a lot of problems in the blades. Right. So, and we understood that also like, uh, When you start to ask questions to the customers, and when you start to ask questions to yourself, why you are building this, what’s the value proposition for the customer?
Uh, is it enough just to measure that the lighting protection system is working or not, or if it’s not working then, uh, do you want to troubleshoot actually, would you like to actually troubleshoot to understand why it’s not working? Where’s the problem. Uh, and when you know, you’re. Potentially. No, where’s the problem.
Uh, would you like to investigate even deeper? Like, and understand what’s the problem, what’s the cause of the problem? So, yes. So, so therefore we started to, we understood that. Okay. Uh, there also, like there are lots of companies that are doing visual inspections and we have the differences that we can actually touch the things.
Right. And, uh, which you can’t do that with the, with the drones and et cetera. Uh, and. Which are brilliant solutions. Like the drones can do the visual inspections or from the ground or with the drones here. Right. Then we dive deeper, see the problems like how to investigate also all of our future developments, like ultrasound track inspections, active thermal inspections.
So, uh, internal inspections, uh, from inside of the blade and XX, et cetera. Is like the next step after the visual inspection, like, uh, and of course, uh, in visual inspection, you can see if the lightning protection system is, or is not working. Right. And what also in our best, like we have now worked on basically almost all manufactured turbines, uh, and, and, uh, like a real blend market.
And. Well, we already start to get sense of what kind of problems each of the manufacturers, how in their, in their blades, in their turbines. Uh, so we can start to develop more things for each of the like customer line or manufacturer line of the turbines, like how to actually navigate if there is like efficient systems, for example, networking, how to, how to understand.
Where is the problem? Like, is it in the root of the blade or is it somewhere where you can access from inside? Or is it the summer, uh, in the tip of the blade where you need to access and repair it from, from the basket from outside. Right, right, right. So, so these are the things on which we are. Trying to get as if we do the inspection with the next task for the next guy, sort of coming and repairing that, uh, they know particularly what to do, where what to do and so on.
So, so we want to be the one stop shop, which is actually not only just saying, Hey, it’s not working. And it’s no problem. Yeah. Uh, uh, so, so we want to already give, uh, some suggestions and, and, uh, be experts in the industry where, what, how, why, uh, should be done next. So you you’ve now measured roughly how many.
Blades for L for LPs resistance, I would say a lot more than thousand blades. Uh, and, and more than 5,000 perceptors uh, for sure. Uh, it’s like some, some of the turbines have some of the blades have only two receptor. Some of them have 18 receptors per blade, and this is also how you can calculate like, uh, like, uh, what’s the potential of the problem.
And so on, but, uh, um, but yes, um, and, and we’ve learned a lot, so we’ve learned a lot during the sear, uh, while developing, also getting the information, uh, how the, uh, the Sophia systems are built in different kinds of manufacturers for, uh, manufacturers and so on. So you, you. You’ve now measured a substantial number of blades and LPs systems.
And I saw some data recently from your company that had some rough numbers on the number of blades that have LPs resistance issues. If you want to explain that, cause it’s a substantial, it’s a substantial number. It’s a lot. Yeah. We were actually more than surprised as well because you know, like when we started to work in the.
In the LPs measurements, most of the companies are also customers thoughts that it’s not such a big problem. Actually, the LPs is not the big problem. Like, uh, and when you start to measure, then you’ll see that it’s actually a big problem. And, and, uh, what we saw basically, and we still see is. Many of the inspections of LTS systems are not done correctly.
Right. Because, um, it’s kind of, you know, like they just give some, a Goodman to some rope technician set, as they’re saying, just off just the one end here at one end here, um, read the data and just write it somewhere and that’s it without understanding actually properly. Uh, what is he doing there? Why? And et cetera.
So in our case, we, we, as I said, we’ve dived a lot deeper than just the resistance measurements. And, um, and, and what we’ve seen that in most of the cases is court job it’s, uh, nobody has actually measured, uh, I think production systems properly. Uh, the other thing is somewhat in some of the cases, um, they haven’t tested them at all because they think that, uh, it’s all good.
Because Jay just thinks it’s all good. Right. And when you measure and when you show it to them, uh, the statistics it’s like,
it shouldn’t be like this. Right. And, and yeah, the, so the statistics are quite, uh, so basically like I’m just seeing the like latest, uh, statistics, which we, how. It’s like, um, 14% of the receptor scout open circuit, like one core, uh, and, and only 1% has, for example, this, uh, increased resistance. Like, so the open circuit is actually a big problem.
Uh, so it’s. It means that when the lightning hits those receptors, uh, you will probably how sparks left and right. So either it’s because of broken virus inside either it’s because of oxidation and wires and et cetera, but it’s, it’s a bigger risk to get also been holes, uh, broken, uh, blades, uh, cracks on the blades and extended them.
So. Uh, I, I believe that next year we will have even a better, uh, better information on this because we will try to combine our data of LPs problems, uh, together with visual inspections. So, uh, we will see the statistics, like, uh, if the blade, how. Uh, had for example, open circuit and on some, or all of the blades on, or some of the receptors, uh, do they have more pin holes or cracks in the blades because of brightening and et cetera.
Right. So I kind of have a sense that we will have, uh, like our theory will be right that, uh, Uh, it will be, uh, quite, there’ll be good between that data between the reverse lightening receptor resistance and the damage to the blade. I think those are going to correlate very well. They may not be exactly a hundred percent, but it’s going to be close because what you’re saying is essentially if I look at two wind turbines and there’s a total of six blades, one of those blades has an LPs problem.
Roughly. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So if I have a hundred blades or a hundred turbines, there’s a lot of blades on that site that have an LPs issue. And it tends to be generically broken things internally, which, which are really significant because. If what’s happening internally to that blade, if you hardly have an open circuit, you have a broken connection, there will be a lightening arc inside of your blade, which is really damaging to that blade.
So you’re right. You’re going to see some structural damage to the blade in places that you don’t want it that can later on. Cause more, maybe even a catastrophic failure for that blade because something as simple as a broken wire can lead to that. And I think a lot of operators and owners and asset owners.
Look at the LPs system as essentially a big copper wire and a couple of little metal connections. How complicated could it be? But I think your finding is that it is a lot more complicated than that than we have assumed for a long period of time. And, and until we’ve had that data, we’ve all assumed it’s always been fine.
And so a lot of these lightening issues we’re seeing in the field don’t make any sense. And maybe now the chart to correlate, to making sense. Cause if you’re seeing. Roughly 15% of the LPs system have an open circuit. That’s a significant problem in the industry. Yeah. And, and it comes with age. It’s like a, the older, the turbines, the bigger the problems are.
And. And, uh, and yes, exactly as your side, like everyone thinks, uh, like not everyone, but most of the customers thinks that it’s just the copper wire inside. And even if the lightning will strike, you know, even if there will be some broken virus or occupations there, if you’ll jump through and go to the ground.
It’s actually not the way how it works in the light, because the lightning strike is such a huge amount of energy. Uh, you can actually, you can’t like physically people can not understand the potential. So it actually is. Yeah, that’s true. Uh, and, and, uh, yes, it’s actually the main thing that it’s not that easy.
No, it’s not. It’s hard to correlate. The, the lightening, the potential lightening damage, because it’s so hard to, to, to, to see it because when everything’s working correctly, I think this is where a lot of asset managers have issues. When it works correctly, you, you have a relatively small copper wire, that’s carrying all this energy and it’s, it’s clean.
It’s smooth. You just don’t have any issues. But as soon as you break that connection, now you have. Uh, almost cataclysmic type levels of explosions happening internally to your blades, like setting off a small, a small set of dynamite inside of this blade. And so it goes from essentially no problem to significant problem immediately.
And it’s hard to. And everything else about a wind turbine is gradual bearing, wearing out is gradual fatigue. Damage is gradual. Any sort of electrical failure tends to be somewhat gradual mechanical failures can be gradual. This is going from zero to 100% almost immediately. And I think this is where your data is really, really, really important for the industry to get a handle on is to understand that.
These type of situations need to get addressed quickly and immediately that you’re really putting your, your site at risk, if you don’t. Yeah. And, and, but I think that the industry is growing, uh, you know, like also the visual inspection companies. Uh, which are doing actually a great job. They are educating the customers on how big the problems actually are.
Uh, many of the problems. They actually, how all of the statistics, uh, in the platforms of the, of the cracks and et cetera, show starts to show them the risk, the realistic numbers of what’s actually happening. Uh, and, and I, I believe that. So it’s going to open for us as well, like a lot wider market and, and a bigger understandment of like understanding the customers.
So you, even, you, it, part of the Mo you said roughly 1% of the, the measurements you’re making are just essentially resistance measurements where the resistance is high, because they probably have some sort of corrosion between the connections. And you’ve tried to address that in really two separate ways.
One you’re measuring it. You have a way to identify it. But if left unattended and a lightning strike does happen, what happens in those joints as there’s just a big explosion of sparks and heat and all these bad things start to happen, you have addressed it in a way to correct it onsite. And would you like to explain how that system works?
Yeah, so we basically what we do, we, we just send in a way, again, we create like a full circuit like of, of the system and we send in thousands of volts. And uh, like one hamper, we started with one Amper and then we raised, but basically we, in all of the projects, it was between one and three emperors. So when we actually do, we kind of, the, the, the electricity starts to flow through the point where the occupation has happened and it starts that.
That’s point it’s like, no, it starts to shake and it removes the oxidation. It’s, it’s kind of, uh, shakes against each other and it removes the oxidation. We call it the welding process, but it’s actually not welding. Uh it’s it’s uh, sort of friction process. Friction process, which is removing the oxidation and the good connection is restored.
So, and yeah, so you don’t have to open the blade. You don’t have to do thousands of euros, uh, expensive repair or dollars. Expensive for pier was many days of downtime of the turbine it’s done in three hours. And, and, and, and costs, uh, yeah, a fraction of what you would pay for, for, uh, opening the blade and et cetera.
So that’s, uh, so that’s also one of the new things which we have developed, uh, and we, yeah, we see good results with that. So that’s, that’s sort of, Y Combinator thought processes. Hey, there’s a problem. Let’s try to address it. Well, there’s a marketplace. There’s a problem. We can try to address it because that also fits into the other product, which is really, uh, sort of intuitive.
But it hasn’t been done is to look at some of the turbines like Siemens or COMESA has in particular, these spark apps that are built into the system, uh, to get from the, the blades, to the hub, to the hub, to the NSL. And, and you, you have really no way to determine how well those are working for the most part.
Right? You can take a, you have to get somebody physically up to, to look at it and make sure that it’s clean and make sure that, that the right distances and all those things. So it takes a person a long time to do that, but you’ve come up with a much more intuitive way. To measure those gaps. And would you like to explain that how you, how you’re doing that?
Yeah, we, we create, basically we create artificial spark, uh, like, uh, the spark in the electricity line. It will always jump through the shortest, uh, basically gap. And, uh, so we create for, for the spot to jump one millimeter, uh, of, of, ER, you need three kilovolts. So basically if you want the jump and in most of these cases, these spar gaps are four centimeters.
Like it’s almost something like a three inch, two and a half inch. So the sports sends me through, it means that you need. Hmm, uh, basically, uh, 40 multiplied by three, 120 kilowatts to jump through. So, uh, and this is what we can actually, uh, like exactly give and see if it jumps through the spargel or not, or we need a higher voltage, uh, the jump, uh, through it, actually.
So this is okay. Perfect way. How to actually, uh, test the spar gaps, uh, sliding disks, or brushed connections to actually see what voltage you need. Uh, is it working by the manual or not? That’s right? Cause you could be too low, which an indicate you have a sneak electrical path through some piece of the, some component you don’t want to be involved or it can be too high, which can tell you the spark app is not working correct.
Or the brush isn’t working correctly. So it’s bad on either the high side or the low side. And unless you’re in that right. Greg banned you, you will see damage of some sort on your, on your twin turbine if you’re not in that, in that band. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it’s, it’s, it’s very important. I think that to highlight that, that, so you are addressing so many different problems and you have, uh, the technology right on site to identify them, but also to correct them, which a lot of times they don’t.
So just going out and having. Somebody on a rope, do a resistance measurement. You know, I agree to the technicians. It’s a very difficult measurement to make. Let’s just start there. So not having the, maybe the training or the technology to go, to make those measurements on a rope is one thing. But even if they were to identify that there was an issue, they would have the ability to do nothing about it.
Right. You’ve got to still got to bring a company like yours in to come to do the correction. So it makes a lot of sense to use your robot till you should technology to one, identify the issue, but two to correct it on site. Quickly. And I think that that’s where the, the problem solving aspect comes in is that you just, there’s just no way to beat that system.
It’s just, it’s just brilliant on all that. Yeah. And one more thing is that we have worked that out as you know, like, uh, uh, step after step, uh, Process where we can’t do anything wrong. Everything is recorded with cameras and et cetera. Right. So we can’t do anything wrong. And, uh, it’s it’s it’s uh, and we can’t, you know, like just not do that.
Uh, we, we, the processes, uh, So smooth and so fast that, uh, yeah, we can do much faster. We, uh, and, and the process has worked out that we are definitely doing a proper job. Dan’s Dan was, comes in and says, Hey, what’s the customer’s point of view? What’s the customer is thinking of this. One of the things that I think is interesting in what your technology is that the customer can actually see the video of you doing the measurements and see the video of you doing all the, all the things on site.
So you have a database now, and maybe you can explain to Dan and me how that. Data system works. How do, how do, how does your customers interface with all that data that you collect? What does that look like? We have now a, basically a platform where you can actually see, uh, all of the measurements.
Everything is digitally stored. So every measurement you can actually see the video call, which was. What was, uh, what was seen in the display in this mega, like love arm resistance meter and what was seen on the cat in the cameras. If we will have any dispute with some customer, like he will ask no, this measurement shouldn’t be right.
Or, uh, it can’t be through us and et cetera. He can see the process all through, uh, in the cameras and the like digitally stored data. Uh that’s that’s one of the beautiful things. And also like we, how. High resolution videos, uh, high resolution pictures of all of the receptors where we not only, uh, that’s actually one of the last weeks things which we started to develop and, uh, where we have already trialed out was that you get done on not only the measurement, but also a.
Receptor a picture of the receptor and with description, what we see in this receptor, as you saw, as you said previously about like, if the, uh, paint all around, uh, has bubbles and et cetera, or it’s burned through, even if the residue and measurements are right. Uh, what correct. You can see that some problems, uh, still are there.
So, so yeah. This is one of the things, how we, again, we spec a next step farther now in our reporting to the customer and yes, and from the January, we will, we will publish the, saw our platform where, uh, all of the data will be sent to the customer. It’s not anymore like. To the email. Uh, but basically the customers will be able to come into the, uh, portal.
And, uh, more of that, uh, what we offer is like API, that if the customer is using some other portal, some other, uh, inspection platform, he doesn’t want to use several of them. Uh, it’s such a problem. We can just give the data, uh, to your platform. You can, uh, and you can use your preferred platform. You, you like.
Wow. Okay. That’s, that’s really interesting because that is one of the issues that’s going on. There’s so many pieces of information, so many platforms that they’re, they’re trying to condense them. Right. And that’s one of the issues we’ve seen lately. There’s so much information. Yeah. Companies just want to be at the end of the day, like everyone’s dug in and everyone understands the system that they have, and they’re all trained on it and they don’t want to just jump ship to a new platform every six months or a year.
It’s exhausting. What we saw that we are. The strongest than this, this engineering of building robots and et cetera, there are plenty of players in the platform, uh, with, uh, with the good platforms, uh, where we could just give the data in. And as you said, he, as the customer is already using something, the ship from one platform to another, it’s not the actually Zack easy task as it, as it sounds.
And, and, uh, therefore we are offering this API just, just. To get the data to any platform you want.
I want you to explain how you clean the drain holes, because I’ve watched a video, some of your video on YouTube of how the drain holes are cleaned. And I think that’s just the most fascinating thing. Cause it’s, it’s, it seems relatively simple to do, but it’s very complicated. It’s difficult to do that.
Actually, we have another idea how to build that even better. Uh, so right now we’re actually like, uh, the robot is, is, uh, grabbing the blade and it has like a third hand was which it’s cleaning out the drainage fall. Right. Um, and, uh, but we have the idea. And we will try to talk to in a few, few months, is that it will blow in, uh, or suck the air.
So actually, no, uh, like, uh, what’s how good the drainage call is actually working. Like what sure we are building up. Um, that’s it will be one other. A probable solution for that now, but otherwise, yes, we are cleaning the drench coal under the exact angle. And we are already talking also to OMS about if the drainage call is clocked in, that is the robot could just drill another hole.
Um, but in the particular place and in particular angle and it, you know, like, uh, as. You know, should be, uh, maybe not just the call summer. Right? Right. Yeah. Well, cause cause the other part of this whole, uh, system is where Dan and I like to think two, three years down the line. So your technology is very applicable to doing a number of repairs, modifications to wind tournaments.
Blades. And you also do things to the towers themselves and you can clean the clean, the towers off, which I think is brilliant. Okay. So part of that mixed also now is that you also have the, the drone technology, which is doing scans like a sky specks can do scans of a blades very quickly. Boom, boom, boom, boom.
In a matter of minutes, they can have a winter been inspected they’re off to the next winter had been. So in terms of you fit into that eco structure, in the sense that there’s, there’s there’s inspections being done there, identifying issues, and then you can come in and address that issue specifically.
Quickly where an onsite being relatively onsite relatively quickly and get that repair made or get the receptors measured or whatever they needed to go do. Uh, and so the whole world is getting faster. It’s one of those things. We’ve, we’ve done a lot of technology with people on ropes and you’re right.
If you don’t have to work at height, Don’t. Um, and so have you seen, what do you see is that sort of future now because everything is becoming more automated and better. Uh there’s there’s better data and you’re in the customers have more access to it at their fingertips immediately. Where does this all sort of get connected and where’s it going?
Um, yeah. Uh, I think. The speed will be the, the key issue in the service of the wind industry. The turbines are becoming bigger, more effective. Like, uh, now the downtime of the turbine costs more than a, in some cases in the labor, uh, and, and the job itself. Right. Um, and, uh, it’s, it’s, if we are calculating only the expense or the on generated electricity, uh, but if we start to calculate in also all of the.
Uh, logistics like to organize the S uh, that you need to stop the turbine. Uh, it needs to be stopped and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, it’s actually you, how white you lose quite a lot of money. The customers are losing quite a lot of money on that right now. So I believe that, yes, we, we are talking also with skyspace, for example, that while we are doing conductivity, uh, their drone is doing the visual inspection.
So how we could combine. Uh, our services like the inspection companies, joining special companies in our company, like how we could work together. So, so we could bring together a bigger value to, to the customer, uh, less stoppings, uh, faster job, uh, and, and basically everybody happy, uh, safer, um, and, and, and cheaper, uh, I think win-win situation.
Um, and then you can afford to do that more frequent. Uh, you can do those that more frequent you, you, you can trans I think one of the biggest issues in the industry right now is that, um, all of the industry, like I can’t say all, but most of the industries is working on, correct on corrective maintenance, uh, and, uh, predictive maintenance.
So things that the biggest shift in the industry will be when, uh, the companies like will start to switch from corrective maintenance, stall, preventive, maintenance. Like, for example, like when you go, when we go to the customers and we are saying, Hey, we can repair the leading edge. Everybody’s saying like, ah, with robot, ah, you will not be able to fear, uh, eliminate, you know, the, the structural repair.
And we’re saying, this is because you are doing it too late. You know, you should repeat to the leading edge when the only is a. Uh, leading edge protection material has been, uh, you know, is, is gone because of their ocean or the forest starts to erode. So do the renewal of the lease once in three years in less than five hours and forget about structural repairs, uh, which lasts four days.
And that’s also like for the most of the customers that are, Oh yeah. But we are not used to do that, like, like that, you know, like, uh, and, and, and I think that will be also like one. Uh, quite actually a big jump, uh, in the industry, uh, which will add some on all of the industry. For example, seven additional percent in because of the blades are cleaned.
The blades leading edge is always intact. Uh, lacking depiction is, is working, uh, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, that’s that’s going to raise, uh, all industry, not by more turbines, but just by, by doing that. Uh, maintenance and I, I totally agree with you. I think the industry is going to shift dramatically when there’s a couple of years because of the speeds that are involved and that it opens up doors that we haven’t thought of before, because it is a big ordeal to shut a Terman down, to get people, train people on it properly to get ready on and off safely, and then get everything started up again.
It just takes a, it takes a tremendous amount of effort to do that. But in terms of. Uh, just the, sort of the, the, the way the, the future growth is going. I’ve noticed that your, your robot system is available on different continents. So there’s there’s are you partnering with different companies like in Brazil and, uh, the United States to, to bring your technology across the whole span of the world?
That’s exactly what we do. We basically searched. For a local partner who wants to work with us. And, uh, so we work, uh, we basically are. We, we are opening partnerships, uh, in lots of different countries. And, um, basically we deliver the robot with one technician who is teaching the local technical technicians to work with the robot.
That’s the idea of all of the systems where we want it to be, that it’s as simple as that we can teach you guys like in a week or two to actually operate it. Uh, so, so there that’s a point where it should be, and, and we are closing up on that. Uh, honestly, well, Dan, that sounds like something that’s up your light.
We can train you how to work a robot on top of everything else you’re doing, because it sounds like it’s it’s, it is a technical job. I mean, it’s probably a pretty well pilling paying job to do that, uh, because it takes a certain skill set to do that. And I know we S we’ve seen and gotten a lot of inquiries and sort of sky specs has gotten the same sort of inquiries about, they want to have that technology on offshore.
On each platform. Is that, is that where the future is that you’re going to have a robot system on each of these platforms on each of these turbans because they’re 12 megawatt or 14 million water or 20 megawatt at some point, uh, that it just makes sense to have that onsite. Yeah, that’s, that’s that’s for sure, because, uh, already our robot is actually this remote control and where the technician is controlling the robot.
It’s already built that we could actually control it from, uh, office. Uh, of course you need to go through the stages of development to be, to actually to start to do that remotely, not, not on site. Um, but, but we are, uh, all of our development goes for that. We could actually leave the robot there and, uh, just connect to the robot when there is no wind, for example, and then basically, uh, and, and do the job, uh, when it’s best for the customer, not when, uh, When we are there and, and you need to stop the turbine.
So, so that’s, uh, and for off shore, that’s for sure. Uh, the cost of delivering the robot, uh, to Mount the robot on, then take it off and accept, et cetera is just too expensive. Like, uh, eventually the cost of the robot will be less than delivering it there and exchanging maybe once in a month. Uh, for example, like, like just to bring from months or buy into another.
Uh, so yes. Uh, I think it’s inevitable that, uh, these kinds of robots will do the job, uh, uh, like completely remotely and, and, uh, And, and a lot of things, like also, like for example, for all robots are already working on that the robot is actually doing it itself, the job itself, uh, it knows how to track and understand where the receptor is.
Uh, it understands is what the speed, it needs to move, how to navigate there, how to do the measurement and accepted is that actually, uh, you don’t need anyone to, to, to, to. Control the joysticks, uh, basically their moat. Uh, so that’s, that’s the next step as well. Wow. Okay. That’s fascinating. There’s so much technology and we haven’t even touched upon the, the one issue that Dan has written some articles about.
And we’re talking about internally, which is the blade cleaning that in terms of lightening protection, we’ve seen. Uh, pictures from all across the world of really, really dirty blades. And that definitely affects the lightning protects the system. It just doesn’t, it just defeats the point of lightning protection system because the whole blade is conductive in some level.
Uh, can you just explain how your system actually cleans the blades? We weren’t doing cleaning since Costa Rica. Where the, the blades were actually dirty, like, uh, nuts Europe’s dirty, uh, or United States. It’s it’s, it’s like, uh, we understood what their thing means and the job can be done. Like for the humans, it’s like nine days to clean one.
Uh, uh, we, we, we did in three days, like one blade per day. It’s yeah, it’s, it’s a game changer also like aerodynamics. Uh, the dirt maybe is not affecting like 10 or 15% of aerodynamics of the, of the turbine. Uh, but it’s definitely affecting, there are so many wind tunnel, um, experiments where in the, in the universities where they have seen that, uh, even a slight.
Uh, dirtiness or erosion is affecting the airflow or around the blade. Of course, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s hard to convince on the, the customers because, uh, you can’t see the color data about, uh, how much public Christie has been made in what kind of wind speed is not a hundred percent accurate, right? Because the area where the turbine is receiving the wind.
Is love longer than, uh, where you, how this one meter, which is a, this measurement tool, which is measuring what’s average wind speed in, in, on that turbine. So, so it’s, it’s not completely accurate than the, so you can’t measure that exactly how much you’re losing because of the dirt, uh, or erosion of the blades.
Wow. This is darkness. Yeah. And, and, uh, yeah, basically the scrub that by, by hand, uh, on items, remember it, this was like 50 meter or 60 meter long blade, but basically to scrub that by hand it’s, it’s just like, uh, yeah. It’s a lot, like you need to lots of time. Do you, do you know what that’s from? Is that from, I know some, some places of the world they’d like to burn off the fields before they replant.
And that’s one of the, there’s a lot of smoke in the air and this is here. Yeah, well Kaino and, uh, basically basically the algae, uh, which is, you know, like, uh, this is Deborah says is sitting down on the blade and they all get starts to, to, to, to live there. Yeah. And, uh, so you need to clean them a once in a year.
Of course, this is a, this is the worst case scenario, of course, uh, kind of, uh, but, but, uh, we’ve cleaned, like for example, European blades, uh, if we are cleaning European blades in Europe, it’s like, uh, one turbine a day, uh, like three blades per date, where again, for a rope to consume. Um, uh, three to six days to clean them.
And this is why the industry is not doing that because, uh, because it’s just, yeah, it costs a lot of money. It’s a lot of downtime. It’s a lot of, uh, days though to work on, and this is why it’s not done. Oh, that’s, it’s probably not that big, a deal of nine days of downtime. It’s probably not a big deal.
Yeah, exactly. Well, I know an Allen, you had a talk with, I think it was Nicholas Guadern from power curve. Who said that. There was a blade that had just caked on dirt to the leading edge that caused actually to stall like the stall speed was pretty. It was, there was a very, uh, a very, a very small window in the manufacturer of this one blade and the caked on dirt caused it to hit its stall point and it just stopped operating.
Yeah, we’ll run right crazy. Also, uh, I sing it’s happening more, uh, if there is. You know, for the humidity where to, to, to, to grow like where to stay for the community and therefore the pricing scaffolding lot more if, uh, if the blades are dirty, uh, and, and, and so on. So yes, so now we are working on the improvements of also this system where we could, uh, clean in one.
A day, one blade in Costa Rica like that their tennis blades and next year, the process will be already like, uh, at least two times faster. So one third, one, one and a half days. And, uh, like in one definitely Monday, um, fast, safe process, uh, of cleaning of the, of the blade. There’s there’s your Y Combinator aspect.
See the problem. Fix the problem. Get to the problem, right? And as you, as you get further and further away from, from home, you’re going to see just a wider variety of issues that need to be addressed. So it’s going to the next couple of of years are going to be very interesting for you, for sure that those, those, those problems are going to get very complicated.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then, uh, yeah, and, and the educational process of the customers, uh, that it’s actually necessary that it’s, uh, it’s actually, you know, like, Hey, we are not doing that. Why should we do now? Uh, you know, and, and then you need to convince and find the, uh, find the arguments, why they should do that.
Yeah. I bet the technology changes so fast, six months ago, this didn’t exist and now it does. And it just human nature is. So process, especially engineers, engineers, process things very slowly because they want to be safe. So it takes a while for adaptation. But I think in your particular case, because you’re addressing other issues, safety issues, speed issues, downtime issues that it makes the engineering part of it a little bit easier to swallow, which is, Hey, they can just do it faster and they’re doing it just as well.
Maybe providing me more data than I would have otherwise. So there’s, there’s more pluses and minuses. So the adaptation speed for your particular projects are actually going to go faster than they would for some others. I think it’s, it’s a technology thing. And, uh, it’s it’s I gotta keep saying this word.
It’s brilliant time. I watch a video of yours. Uh, wow. That is, that is amazing. It’s just amazing. So, you know, our hats off. To your technology and your company has just, it’s just amazing to watch. So as we start a wrap up here, uh, you know, how can other companies follow up with you? Where are you guys going in the near future?
Do you have any new advances that you’re really excited about that you’re maybe going to be dripping out or, uh, You know, maybe we can look forward to in the next year. Definitely. I think, uh, one of the killers will be the leading edge of peer that’s. That’s one of the things which we will start to throw out next year.
We’ve done already the first trials, like only with sanding and grinding with our robot, uh, the process of, uh, Average, uh, nine days repair of, of the leading edge and pin calls and et cetera for the rope technicians was accelerated by two to three days, uh, on per turbine, like just sanding and grinding of the surface of the leading edge.
Uh, because we just do that in like 10 minutes per blade, uh, with the robots rather than one day for the rope technician was hand, uh, 3m tape removal, uh, again, big issue in industry that you need to remove the 3m tape and you just lose days to remove that by hand. Yeah, and now it’s going to be possible in, in few hours.
Uh, and, and, uh, and yes, and the, uh, those things which are developing on NDT tests, like, uh, what we see the problem that, yes, there’s a crack. But what’s actually happening. Like, yeah. Just what you see from outside. Is it larger actually or not? Uh, all of the wrinkle, uh, issue on the blades, uh, also needs to be address.
So yes, state, June, we will have lots of new things next year. And also in the middle of next year, we, we, we will trial out, uh, our technology, not in onshore, but in off shore, like we are bringing our technology to the, to the offshore. So that’s also, uh, that’s also, uh, It is going to be, I think, a, a huge jump in the, in the, in our technology and for the wind industry, I guess.
Yeah. I mean, offshore is such a tough problem to solve that you don’t want to be sending people out to these inhospitable ocean environments and you certainly don’t want them up at height. You know, with waves and it’s crazy. It’s such a terror terrifying experience. I’m sure to be a technician out there, hats off to them, but yeah, I’m sure, like you said, that’s a, just a huge growth market for you just trying to simplify that process.
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. This is a really fascinating conversation. I’m sure we could have gone on for another hour. Uh, and may we’ll have to have you back on in another year to see what’s changed. But we really appreciate your time. This is exciting stuff that you guys are doing over at Aerones.
