Podcast: Play in new window | Download
GE Vernova closes a Brazilian blade factory as installations drop 30%, while Australia faces issues with trailing edge serrations falling from turbines. Also, cultural differences between European and American work environments, blade recycling challenges, and the need for decommissioning bonds as the industry matures.
Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug!
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
You’re listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by BuildTurbines. com. Learn, train, and be a part of the clean energy revolution. Visit BuildTurbines. com today. Now here’s your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
Allen Hall: Manufacturing capacity in the wind energy sector continues to contract as GE Vernova’s LM wind power continues to grow.
Plant down in Brazil is being closed and that affects about a thousand workers, Joel. And it’s coming because the demand in Latin America for GE, Vernova wind turbines and all them products is diminishing quite a bit. Now it’s also part of a broader trend down in Brazil where installations have fallen by about 30 percent in 2024 compared to previous years.
So there’s a big slowdown in Brazil. And. GE, Vernova, slash LM are ceasing operations there. I don’t see how this is going to last very long. There’s a number of operators that are coming into Brazil, especially Chinese manufacturers. You think this factory will get gobbled up like some of the other ones that LM has closed recently?
Joel Saxum: Yeah, I think this one, we heard about this whisperings of this. We before it happened, we’ve got some pretty good connections down in Brazil. With some people that are in the factories and it is, it’s just following that trend. I think one of the interesting things about the Brazilian market as well is that, A lot of big turbines down there.
People may not know that, but the majority of turbines, I think, are over like three megawatt machines. They’re big down there. They don’t have a whole lot of legacy old stuff like we do here. So there was this big ramp up to create all these bigger blades down there. Of course, making those big blades locally saves a lot of logistical costs.
But you’re going to see this changeover, right? Like in the States, we don’t really, we don’t allow the Chinese manufacturers to come in. And in Europe, they’re not really allowing the Chinese manufacturers to come in, but in Brazil, they’ve been all over the place. And to be honest with you, some of the big asset owners down there have to, They’re not just Chinese OEMs.
It’s Chinese owned asset owners like CGN and things like that. So there’s a, there is a big tie to China and I believe, like you said, Alan, I think this a blade factory is a kind of a pain to build. And one that’s just sitting there and all you really have to do is, Build some new molds and repurpose a couple of things and you’re ready to roll.
I think this will get scooped up pretty dang quick.
Allen Hall: Yeah, which should be good news for the employees down there because there is still a need for people who know how to build blades that are hard to find right now. Now, Phil, is this a broader move by LM that they’re going to be closing some of the factories because of GE’s demand more recently?
Phil Totaro: Yes, and let’s keep in mind too that, GE stopped selling their turbines down there and that LM factory was largely just producing blades for Vestas V150s. It looks like it might be rough sledding for for some of the folks at LM. The good news is, so going, pivoting back to Brazil for a second, they’re suffering a little bit from some of the in 2024, they terminated the guarantees that the independent power producers got for curtailments.
And that’s also what kind of led a lot more investment in, other forms of power generation solar displaced, some of the wind, hydro displaced, some of the wind And, we just couldn’t get enough wind contracts to make that a worthwhile market. So you’ve seen a massive slowdown across the board.
It is likely that a factory like that will be gobbled up by somebody like Goldwind or, Sonoma has been poking around the market. They’ve already got one factory. But why not Look at a second one in a market that just like China takes advantage of cheap labor and has reasonably good access to raw materials down there.
They can also start using that as an export hub. Should they need to.
Joel Saxum: Phil, what do you do? Okay. So let’s just take the broader context of Brazil. Now I know we’re talking about building blades here and the export markets and all these different kinds of things, but in Brazil.
What has to happen for, basically, 30 new wind farm installations down 30 percent in 2024. What has to happen to get that back up on pace? Is it what we’re sitting here like ERCOT, right? I was just talking about this a little bit ago off air, but batteries, do they have to get batteries in to avoid this curtailment issues?
And does that make sense for you? economically down there?
Phil Totaro: Potentially, yes. And the, I guess the reality of it is that either they need to go back to the old law, which basically gave, a certain amount of payment to the or certainty, at least to the independent power producers that they were going to receive some type of compensation when they were being curtailed.
They’re still, potentially exposed to if they’re not largely on a merchant power market down there, it’s mostly fixed price offtake at least as part of the auctions that they’ve previously had but they just had an auction down in Brazil and there was no wind that was even bid into the auction.
Because nobody wants to build wind farms down there right now. So it’s something has to change. Storage would help. But it’s not a cure all necessarily for a larger fundamental issue down there. I was going to ask
Allen Hall: about that swap over to TPI, because TPI is going to open or is opening their facility in Iowa.
And is that part of the move with Brazil closing? They don’t really even need it if Iowa is opening and TPI is going to be the main source of blaze over the next couple of years. What happened,
Joel Saxum: but it but a blade factory TPI I think if you’re GE you’re looking at it like we it’s a little bit closer to home Of course, we can control QA QC a little bit better.
We can it’s we can take some trips from Schenectady or trips from North Carolina up there, South Carolina. Sorry Greenville a lot easier And then you’re serving your biggest market right your biggest market of course for GE is the US and Canada And so everything’s close to home here. You’re going to be able to knock some things out, buy a factory in Iowa.
It may not be you know, that perfect optimization economically, but the things that you’re going to make up in QAQC and cost support quality and these other kind of logistical issues, I think that’s a winning move in my mind to give more to TPI.
Phil Totaro: Yeah, you also face the logistical cost and time, frankly, of, even though you’re getting cheaper capex on blades that are manufactured in a low cost market like Brazil, You still got to get them up here and if somebody needs a blade fast, they’re going to get it faster from Iowa than they are from anywhere south of the equator.
Joel Saxum: As busy wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial. And let’s face it, difficult. That’s why the Uptime Podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to WIND, PES WIND has the high quality content you need.
Don’t miss out. Visit PESWIND. com today.
Allen Hall: There’s more safety concerns down in Australia as Australia’s largest wind project lost a set of trailing edge serrations from a Vestas wind turbines at the Golden Plains Wind Farm, which is down in Victoria. It’s the second time that trailing edge serrations have fallen off at this facility.
And the site is a little under a year old, right? It’s about six months old, roughly which is creating all kinds of problems. Now, I’ve seen trailing edge serrations come off if you’re driven around the Midwest, where they do occasionally use serrations. You do see them missing from time to time. I guess my top concern wouldn’t be safety on those Joel.
They just don’t seem, they’re not that heavy. I wouldn’t like to get hit in the head with them, that’s for sure. But the panels themselves are not particularly large or heavy. They’re going to Mostly flutter down to the ground, but it does raise concerns like it’s stuff falling off of turbines. What’s going on?
And what are the probable fixes for it?
Joel Saxum: I think to be honest with you a young wind farm like this losing Serrated trailing edge pieces right to me. That is something that happened in construction, right? They put like when these when these things are moved they put those Kind of yeah, transport like socks over some of them to keep them in place.
And then you got to pull that whole thing off. And I think that they probably got the glue, got cracked, messed up, something got peeled up or whatever in that process. So to me, this is a, it’s a construction issue. It’s a quality issue at that level, right? That should be found. Or it’s a lifting problem at that same point in time, a strap or something like that, or, blocks on a crane could have broken these things, but it’s.
Not enough QAQC during that construction process. And it just, it points to that they put in the press release. Storms on February 2nd, wind speeds reach 64. 8 kilometers an hour. That’s only 40 miles, 40 miles an hour. If 40 mile an hour wind, that’s not I would say that’s not a serial issue.
That is a damage issue. So it’s frustrating to see that, right? Because these are, again, more kind of black eyes on the industry that shouldn’t be there. We shouldn’t have this stuff. This is pretty simple. Walk down the blade and make sure they’re all in place before you fly it. I guess that’s my take on it.
Allen Hall: Yeah. There are signs before they come off. Usually they don’t just all of a sudden pop off. They tend to peel slowly over time and then bow is what I’ve seen. Now, if times are different and maybe it’s just different adhesives are being used and it’s all. I could see some design changes happening because of this or logistical changes, right?
The transport is probably the problem. But why
Joel Saxum: don’t we see trailing edges? And maybe this is a more of a rosemary question. Why don’t we see trailing edges like as a part of the mold process? Like in the, in sandwiched in the trailing edge? Is it because of the molds?
Allen Hall: That’s a pain in the butt to do, right?
But, LM, Phil and I have talked this on PowerUp, that LM has designed some more recent blade shapes that basically are quieting. They make that trailing edge longer. So instead of having trailing edge serrations, they’d extend that trailing edge out and change the shape a little bit. To quiet the blades down.
So in reality, you don’t need to have the trailing edge serrations, which I think would be the way to go because less stuff on a blade means less things that are going to fail. That’s a better solution overall.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. Or what about this? Make that trailing edge longer, right? You, so you make like basically a duck tail trailing edge, like you’d have on the back of a suit jacket and then go down and go clip, and clip the trailing edge or cut the trailing serrated edge into that long thing.
afterwards, right?
Phil Totaro: Yeah, no you could absolutely do that, but that’s the manufacturing complexity is really the reason why it doesn’t happen at least at this point. The other issue again, being, if you’re going to do that and do something where these are either factory Fabricated like you’re suggesting or the way it happens right now, which is they’re usually factory installed because they don’t want to spend the time doing a field installation on certain trailing edges once they get them to the site then it’s absolutely a quality issue, but it’s funny enough one of the things that came out two of the things, that came out of the recent Australian, wind energy on M event we did was a, you’ve got a bit of a different market down there in Australia where there’s a lot of, competent people, but they aren’t necessarily the ones, particularly the people doing like a lot of the EPC work.
They aren’t necessarily the ones who were working for the, owner and operator, they may have been contracted. And even if the OEM was contracted, they were likely subcontracted and may not have the requisite experience with, how to transport, how to properly inspect, or even how to properly lift these, the blades.
The second thing that came out of that was we had somebody come in from EnergySafe Victoria and talk about all the fines and penalties that people are having to pay now for having the, even little things, like having a Chunk of serrated trailing edge fall off the blade. That’s a fine for, the wind farm owner.
So everybody’s going to have to start taking it more seriously moving forward because they, now it’s starting to hit them in the wallet. As opposed to, it’s just a PR problem, and they’re gonna pay a lot more attention to it from now on, I guarantee it.
Joel Saxum: It’s a good thing they don’t have very much ice and snow in Austria, because if that, if every time something came off of a turbine, they got fined, you’d have a hell of a problem during ice storms.
Dealing with damaged blades? Don’t let slow repairs keep your turbines down. Blade platforms get you back up and running fast. Blade platform’s truck mounted platforms reach up to 100 meters, allowing for a quick setup, improved safety, and efficient repairs. Book soon to secure your spot and experience a difference in blade access, speed, and efficiency.
Visit bladeplatforms. com and get started today.
Allen Hall: I don’t know if you’ve scanned Reddit once in a while, but there’s some pretty interesting discussions there. But a recent article that actually came from Reddit was about a German professional who was relocating to the United States with his wife, who was an American.
And this German citizen described the transition from the Germany’s pay time off and work. culture to America as being a real huge shift, big culture shock, right? And a lot of it has to do with just basic labor practices between Europe and the United States. Since I do think there’s going to be a number of professionals that will be coming to the States this summer for the wind industry.
At least that’s what it seems to be right now. Either be blade work or engineering work. I think there’s a lot of opportunities in the States. But there are big differences between what happens in Germany, what happens in the United States, right? Obviously Germany’s work week’s a little bit shorter and.
And with has a maximum limit of 48 hours and like pretty much every airplane company I’ve ever worked for, 48 hours tends to be the minimum we would always work, right? That’s the bottom end. Like you have to work 48 hours or it doesn’t count. Okay. And also the pay time off, right? So there’s a good bit of pay time off in Germany.
What is it? Six weeks of paid sick leave policy versus essentially zero in the United States. So it is a huge culture shift and as people come over I always think Better pay attention to those things because the work life in America is not the work life in Europe at the moment. Be prepared and adjust accordingly.
Ask for the right things. And Joel, as we were over in Australia, I thought we saw that some of that different cultures and different the way employment is handled and The pay time off and those sort of things. We ran into a couple that were talking about, yeah there’s leave for having a child in Australia, but there is not in the states at
Joel Saxum: all.
I think that comes with quite a few things is like an American export import too. Like you would think that the common thought is like, oh, an American usually will have a harder time going abroad. Whether it’s for business to business purposes, or P to P, B to B, whatever it is, or going to a different culture, integrating.
But what I’ve found in practice is actually it’s easier for an American to go and assimilate and work within and live within other cultures than it is for other people to assimilate. Wherever you come from to come to the States and integrate in and live and work in our culture. And a lot of it is this, these things, right?
When I went to work for the Danish company, you go over there and it was like certain hours of the day, like you’re done. Like I remember being at the office at seven o’clock. Cause I’m like, all right, let’s get some stuff done. And nobody showed up until nine, two hours they’re sitting like, Oh, drinking coffee downstairs.
Cause nobody was there. So that’s, that’s a small thing, but. We see this in like the sales efforts among companies too, in wind. For people to come say a Danish company, a German company, a French company, trying to come and sell into the United States is very difficult for them because of the way that we do business, the way that our work culture works.
And part of it is that, You come to the field to get stuff done. Like I’ve been a part of these, go out to the field to get things done. We’re doing a demo of a product as an American, like we’re there until we finish, right? We’re going to get that. We’re going to get yeah, if we’re here for 12, 13, 14 hours and we’re fixing code in the truck and charging batteries on the fly, like we’re going to make sure this robotic thing or this drone or whatever this product works.
And I’ve also been a part of that exact same process in the field. Denmark with Spanish companies and stuff where they’re like, Oh, we’ve been out in the field now for six hours. Like we’re done. What? We have a day to do this. It didn’t work. So I guess we’re going to go back to wherever we came from.
Allen Hall: That same difference exists in like the handling of tools, right? How many A lot of times we’ve talked to training schools over in Europe about how many hours you can have a vibrating tool, like a grinder. And we have no requirements about that at all in the States, or I don’t even know if Canada does.
I don’t think they do either. No.
Joel Saxum: It carries on with some of the political conversations that are happening around the world right now with the difference in regulation. Like this, the idea that, I did not know this, I’ve never heard this before, you said a legal maximum of 48 hours of work in Germany.
You’re not going to get anything done in 48 hours. Man, when I was working in the oil and gas world in the field, man, 100 hour weeks happened regularly. Like it was, that was, it’s not crazy. It’s not out of line, like putting in 16 hours a day, like that just happens. That’s, it’s not something crazy.
I guess if you put 16 hours a day and you’d be done with work by Wednesday, like that’s not a bad gig,
Allen Hall: yeah, but that you would see that in States, right? People would love to take those extra hours. You’re going to pay me for a hundred hours. Let’s go.
Joel Saxum: Yeah,
Allen Hall: for sure. Yeah. So as things pick up over the summertime and there will be a number of people coming over from Europe to work in the States.
Thank you for doing that. Just be prepared, plan ahead, and ask the questions about what is PTO and yeah, what’s time off look like and what does a work week look like so you can get yourself prepared for it.
Lightning is an act of God, but lightning damage is not. Actually, it’s very predictable and very preventable.
Strike Tape is a lightning protection system upgrade for wind turbines made by WeatherGuard. It dramatically improves the effectiveness of the factory LPS so you can stop worrying about lightning damage. Visit weatherguardwind. com to learn more, read a case study, and schedule a call today.
Allen Hall: We were talking about recycling over in Australia and Rosemary jumped into the middle of a discussion about that and said, I don’t think recycling of blades is a good idea.
And I, I could hear the, Pindrop in the auditorium. Like what? Rosemary said what? Yeah, recycling of blades is not the most energy efficient thing to do. Bearing of blades tends to be the most efficient thing to do. However there is a big push to recycle blades and Axiona is actively involved in recycling blades over in Australia at the minute.
And they unveiled a program called Turban Made about transforming the decommissioned wind turbine blades into new products. And if we previously remember, Axiona was involved with Elganzo, which is a company that makes sneakers and making wind turbine blade, recycled wind turbine blade pieces or granules, into shoes.
Basically and Phil, I know you and I had looked for them to see if we could actually find a pair of them. I don’t know if they actually produced them or not, because I did go after and looked at them, and there were pictures online in the store, pictures online of those shoes. Never could find a pair.
But in this particular case, they’re looking for off take. That they’re trying to find places where this ground up material from blades can be used. The big one, I think, in Australia is going to be road services, right? That’s probably the easiest place to include it to make the road services better and last longer?
Phil Totaro: In all likelihood, yes. And that’s building on pilot projects that have been done in the U. S. And I want to say one in Spain, but also recently China. Just started doing that as well with some of their recycled blades. So it’s likely that’ll be the the primary use of it. The, but they’ve also ground up blades to use in concrete mix and things like that as well.
So there’s if you don’t mind the energy inefficiency that, that Rosemary is complaining about and you still want to be able to use, the recycled material, then that’s probably going to be the most prominent uses of it. If they ever decide to make those sneakers maybe I’d.
Check them out. But I, I did go online and don’t seem to be in stock. So I don’t know if that ever happened or not. I found out
Joel Saxum: if you’re if you can get a, yeah, if you can get a Euro size between 41 and 45, which I think is like a nine to an 11. Yeah, it’s between an 8 and an 11. 99 Euros, Phil.
There you go.
Allen Hall: So is this going to be an efficient process over in Australia as they define it? Or is it going to get oversight? Australia’s pretty smart. Talked to a number of people over there in the last week or so. They tend to know what the environmental costs are. I’m a little surprised that this is going to move forward.
I, I, Good on Axiona for trying to take care of all these blades that are going to come offline, but are there any other opportunity here besides grinding? I think burning is off the table, I hope.
Phil Totaro: Probably down there, yeah, I would think. But that’s, it’s a good idea, though, to use them in I, why we don’t use it in, Like the roadways for project sites too, like we could, instead of just having dirt, it’s slightly more expensive than just having dirt roads, but, if you actually have something where you need some reinforcement beyond just dirt this would be stronger than dirt, not quite as strong as, a paved roadway, but it’s It’s a decent alternative and something that allows you to take advantage of the recycled material if you have it available.
Again, we’re not Rosie’s not here, so I guess we’re not having the debate about total cost of ownership today, but if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna recycle blades just cause you want people to think you’re, being, environmentally friendly with recycling, then, you got to do something with that,
Allen Hall: ground up material.
Yeah, it gets back to the article I wrote on Substack a week or two or three ago. I forget how long ago I wrote it, but it had to do with decommissioning of blazing towers and all that and not having any real requirements in the United States to deal with it. And there was that situation that happened in Iowa where the two turbines in the being decommissioned and sitting there and getting hit by lightning and then catching fire and then subsequently being knocked over and what a mess that is.
There’s a huge difference between an active recycling program and no program at all and I, at least the Australians in Acciona have a plan because right now in the states it is a little helter skelter, gotta admit.
Joel Saxum: Do we know if there’s any little states that have a bond, a state bond? Decommissioning bond for wind farms.
Allen Hall: I think Iowa is going to have one here very soon. And other locales will soon enough. Because of the problem that happened in Iowa. Yeah,
Joel Saxum: because Texas has a huge bond law for every oil and gas well. Now, it’s a joke, right? It’s a write off for the oil and gas companies. They just pay it and they’re like, This is a cost, this is like a permit to do work.
Because the bond fee is not nearly enough to remediate an old well. And then those wells are changed hands ten times, and then the last person goes bankrupt, and then all of a sudden there’s just a well in the ground, and the remediation fund has got a hundred grand in it or something, right? It’s not enough to do it.
But I think that, That’s if we don’t have any states that have it yet, I would see that coming down the pipeline very shortly.
Allen Hall: Ask yourself this question, Joel. I have this bond, which is basically money set aside to go do the reclamation project. Who is the person that’s going to do that reclamation?
It’s a private contractor. The town would run a project. So they would have the money to go do that, but then they’re in the middle of it now. I’m not sure they want to be in the middle of it.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, but at least if nobody’s going to take care of it. Then someone has to. This is the same problem that’s in oil and gas.
Someone’s got to take care of it. So then it would be like, I’m XYZ County in Oklahoma. We’ve got this wind farm and I have now, I have this bond. So I’ve got 10 million bucks sitting here. Then I’m going to go out to bid. Hey, private companies come and bid on this thing and lowest bid gets the lowest qualifying bid, whatever, gets to work.
And most likely, more than likely, the idea would probably be go energetically fell these things and just clean them up. Get him out of here? I don’t know. Phil, what do you think?
Phil Totaro: To start off, yes, there aren’t any states or counties that as of yet are actually mandating the a bond, a decommission bond.
However, landowners have and, some landowners, especially for actually some of these dilapidated assets because they’re sitting there with a dilapidated asset on their land which they don’t want. They’re mandating that if the site gets taken over by somebody else, that new, um, project owner signs a lease extension with the owner, they put a decommissioned bond in the new lease that gets executed so that’s already happening, but it’s not a legal requirement.
Yeah, but it just comes down to, going and finding yourself Everpoint services or, name your other favorite company to do the actual work. There’s plenty of companies out there that’ll do it. But they obviously get paid and not just Hey, we’ll take this down for you and then sell off the scrap metal and whatever else we can get money for.
They expect to have somebody that’s got a decommissioned bond that they can get paid for their time in, in doing this. And then some of that cost gets offset by, what they sell the scrap for.
Allen Hall: Let’s go one step further because I think Joel. You and I have talked about this a little bit.
Some of these recycling places of old where they’ve have a whole bunch of blades stacked up in a field and that business has gone bust tax entity, which would be the town or the city eventually takes her the facility and goes, I’ve got all these blades and I don’t have any money to deal with this mess.
Do you think you’re going to start seeing bonds on the recycling facilities? I think that’s where the. Bigger problem lies at the minute because we have had a couple of lawsuits between OEM and one of those operators. It’s percolate a little bit. There’s a lot of discussion about that. And and towns don’t wanting, not wanting to have those recycling centers in their proximity because they don’t want to have to deal with it.
If it goes bust, the town and the locale are responsible for dealing with the consequences and they just don’t want it. Would that
Joel Saxum: be able to qualify because of the, okay. So because of, say you grind up blades and it puts dust in the air, whatever. There’s some, there is some health benefits to that.
Things here with grinding blades, of course, right? You can’t you gotta have watering systems, all this stuff. Would that get to the point where it would qualify as
Allen Hall: a
Joel Saxum: Superfund
Allen Hall: site? I think in the big scheme, probably yes. But it’s construction material. Blades are dealt like Two by fours, basically the same thing.
Drywall, they’re all dealt with basically the same way. However, I do think politically it would, there would be a rationale for political influence to call wind turbines hazardous debris. That would, I could see that happen politically. Not that it would be right, but I could see it happening because it would open a box to more federal funding.
Sure, here’s the Fed, here’s, we’ll call it a cleanup site, here you go, here’s your two million dollars, go do it, because right now you can’t do it that way.
Joel Saxum: But if you take anywhere that there’s a heavy oil field presence, let’s take Texas, Oklahoma Golden, North Dakota even, or the front range of Colorado, anywhere in Pennsylvania, like these places where there’s been oil field for a long time, when there’s booms and busts in oil field, when you drive down and you just see lay down yard after lay down yard, of equipment, of old pump jacks, of pipe, of all these different things.
All of that stuff is sitting there, and those companies go bust regularly, right? That’s like oil, that’s a strategy in the oil field, to be honest with you. Go bust, remove this stuff, start up another one. But! Those are sitting there on in lay down yards that are mostly gravel, but those things have hydrocarbons and oil and other things, grease, and it’s raining and it’s getting into the dirt.
So what happens there usually is whoever owns that site, it may change hands. They try to get whatever scrap they can out of the metal, and then they’ll end up having to go in there and scrape out, six feet of dirt and remediate it and that kind of stuff that happens quite regularly in the oil field the difference being if you take to take over a facility that has a bunch of blades or a bunch of root ends or whatever it may be the scrap left over there’s no real value in it right now.
Like nobody’s come up with something that’s Oh, this is value ad where it’s cheap and I can make money on it. There’s all these things that are like recycling initiatives, there’s, which is great. The energy argument that Rosemary has, of course, very valid in the situation, but.
You’re not going to go and take over this facility and be like, Oh, I got all this value in these turbine lights. No, you’re screwed. You’re not going to take over that. Nobody’s going to take that facility. It’s going to be sitting in the hands of the government because, or whoever, the tax liens on it or whatever, because nobody’s going to want it.
There’s no value in it. So yeah, we’re at a weird, like it looks like industrial waste, industrial facility, industrial lay down yard, but it’s not the same as the other things out there in the market because there’s literally no value in it. It has to be bonded. I think it’s gotta be.
Allen Hall: So the problem recycling blades may not be the recycling part of itself.
It may be trying to get a bond to hold them where you can break them down. That may be the bigger problem. So getting bonds on the turbines themselves to take the turbines down. Yes. I think that’s inevitable. But who’s going to hold that bond and who’s going to be the one responsible to do that work?
Taking a couple of turbines down and say it was a hundred turbines. Big deal, but not overwhelming impossible. Taking up a hundred acres of recycled or unrecycled wind turbine blades and trying to do processing on them and get them out of there is monumental. Huge cost. Millions and millions. The wind
Joel Saxum: farm of the week this week is Cooper’s Gap Wind Farm is owned by Tilt Renewables.
And this one is an honor of us being down in Australia last week for the wind energy O and M conference. And also shout out to Tilt for letting us use their office to meet in. But the Cooper’s Gap Wind Farm is a, it’s a big one, 453 megawatt wind farm. It’s in the Western Downs and South Burnett regions of Queensland.
So it’s about 175 kilometers Northwest of that state capital Brisbane. So this is the second Greenfield project developed by Tilt. They did it in a cohort with AGL, which is another big operator down in Australia. So it has enough renewable energy at Cooper’s Gap they’re creating to power almost 280, 000 average Australian homes.
So these are big GE machines at this site. There’s 123 of them. The project cost about 850 million. So it was completed in 2020. 200 construction jobs were a part of the project, and 20 jobs once operational will be full time. AGL, of course, like we were saying, another operator down there, they are purchasing all of the power from Cooper’s Gap.
And an interesting thing here, when I’m looking for Windfarm of the Week, I always like to look at what public data is available about a wind farm and these are things that we learned being down in Australia for the wind O& M conference. There is a ton of public engagement in the wind farms down in Australia.
So they have literal maps of the decibels for the sound emitted and who’s a part of participating. Part of the project is a landowner and who’s not and you can see where they moved the design of the wind farm to eliminate noise For people that are not a part of the wind farm a landowner is not part of the wind farm very cool stuff And when I say information that you can find online You could spend a week reading about the Cooper’s Gap Wind Farm and all of the different reports and consultant reports and government reports about this wind farm before the construction, during the construction, and even after the construction.
So for all of this amazing reporting that’s done in down in Australia, the Cooper’s Gap Wind Farm you are our Wind Farm of the Week.
Allen Hall: And that’s going to do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy podcast. Thanks for listening and please give us a five star rating on your podcast platform and subscribe to our sub stack channel, Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.
