Bjorn Hedges, Chair of ESIG’s Wind, Solar, and Energy Storage Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Users Group, joined us to share his vast experience as Plant Manager of two wind sites in Washington - Harvest Wind Project and White Creek Wind I. In this episode, you'll get Bjorn's insight into hiring, working in wind power, arc flash safety, how wind power tech has changed over the years, COVID-19's impact on the wind industry and much more. Learn more about ESIG here.



Bjorn manages both the Harvest Creek wind site and White Creek I. In addition to his work keeping 132 Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy 2.3MW wind turbines running, he's passionate about his work with ESIG.



Learn more about Weather Guard Lightning Tech’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! 







Transcript | EP38 - Bjorn Hedges, ESIG Chair & Wind Farm Plant Manager, on Site Safety, Wind Power Jobs & More



All right, welcome back to the uptime podcast. This is episode 38. I'm your co-host Dan Blewett. I'm joined here by a lightning protection expert. Allen hall, Allen, how are you, sir?



Allen Hall: [00:00:55] Hey, great, Dan - boy, a really fascinating interview with Bjorn Hedges, uh, who has been in the wind turbine industry for quite a number of years now, and is also involved in the ESIG group, uh, which is really fundamentally changing the way that wind turbine operators.



Do their business. And is that, that sets up a community of operators that can share information about their particular situations and make the industry better. So not only is he very knowledgeable about wind turbines and how they operate and how the intricacies of running a turbine, but he's also involved in a sort of a volunteer basis of spreading the good news.



So it's really great to have him on the show.



Dan Blewett: [00:01:40] Absolutely. So. Like Allen said, our guest today was Bjorn Hedges. He is the plant manager for two wind turbine wind sites in Washington state, the Harvest Wind Project and White Creek Wind I sites. So he's been there for 14 years. which, as we all kind of talk through a little bit on the show is pretty abnormal in today's corporate world, right? People are bouncing from one job to the other, every two to three years; even five years seems long nowadays, but he's been there for a long time and obviously has a ton of experience in the industry.



And, and he's also seen just tons of changes in those 14 years. And as Allen alluded, he's the chair of ESIG, which is the Energy Systems Integration Group, the wind solar and energy storage, operations, and maintenance users group. So he's heavily involved with that. And as you be able to tell, he's clearly passionate about sharing information, helping others in his industry solve their problems.



Um, which is really cool. It's, it's a unique thing. Wouldn't you say, Allen?



Allen Hall: [00:02:42] It is. And the discussions around COVID are very fascinating; that they had plans in place to deal with something like a pandemic, as severe as COVID, but there are certain aspects about it, which they hadn't prepared for, which are kind of funny, but yeah, it's, it's great.



I just love talking to people on the ground, uh, because they're real, they have knowledge. They've been working at this a long time and they have things to provide back to the industry, which is what I like about the wind turbine industry; it is a very sharing group. They want to spread their knowledge and, and all the things that they're doing for the community.



So it's great to have you on, on the, on the podcasts.



Dan Blewett: [00:03:23] Yeah. So again, Bjorn's the plant manager of the Harvest Wind project and White Creek Wind one. Those are, again, both in Washington state and in today's show, we covered, you know, his wind farms, his experienced with ESIG,