Nicholas Gaudern, CTO of Power Curve, joined the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast to discuss his company's performance upgrades for wind turbines. After analyzing a blade using a laser scan, Power Curve recommends an ideal placement of either vortex generators, gurney flaps, trailing edge serrations (or a combination of all three). Mr. Gaudern shares his view of the performance upgrade market and where he sees the industry going as wind farm operators fight to increase Annual Energy Production (AEP) and prevent performance degradation over time from leading edge erosion, dirt, blade misalignment and more. Check out their YouTube channel for more.



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EP44 - Nicholas Gaudern, CTO of Power Curve, Explains Blade Aerodynamics & Power Curve Upgrades



Welcome back to the uptime podcast. I'm your co-host Dan Blewett on today's episode. We have a great guest. NicholasGaudern,  CTO of Power Curve is here. And we had a really fantastic conversation, all about a wind turbine, power curve, upgrades, blade, aerodynamics, all that good stuff. So, Allen, I'll kick this off to you.



What were some of your takeaways from our conversation with Nick? Well, I was shocked.



Allen Hall: [00:01:08] And how much performance improvement that a power curve can offer to existing blaze that that even have damage to them. So leading edge erosion damage, uh, hail, whatever, they can basically eliminate the, the additional dragon power curve loss by the addition.



Of, uh, vortex generators, gurney flaps, um, and bring back that power and make the blade somewhat insensitive to a lot of the dirt and contamination and issues that happen typically on winter.



Dan: [00:01:41] Yeah, it was a really interesting conversation. I think it, uh, I think it really demystified. A lot of the air dynamics stuff, especially which can get pretty complex, uh, regarding, you know, air flow over wind turbine blades.



And it's not a



Allen Hall: [00:01:52] one stop fix. They are tailoring the aerodynamic improvements and modifications to the sites particular. A wind turbine manufacturer and blade style, and what would be happening on those blades at this particular moment? So it's, it's not, VGs everywhere. It is selective use of the proper solution to improve those particular turbines.



And they go through this comparative phase where they upgrade. One turbine next to another turbine and show that the power curve increase, the AEP has gone up and they can actually monitor that. So they're there, they're proven their technology onsite before they implement it on a, on a larger scale, on a particular site, which is the right way to do it.



Show that it works, demonstrate its durability. And then when we. Cross that threshold. Now we can do the rest of the Germans and bringing our whole site up in terms of AEP. It's still it's the right way to go.



Dan: [00:02:48] So without further ado, let's kick it off to our conversation with Nicholas Gaudern, CTO from Power Curve.



All right, Nick. Uh, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate you coming. Yeah, you're very welcome. Nice to speak to you guys. So obviously today we're gonna talk a ton about power curve and blade aerodynamics and all that stuff. Um, but first I want to talk about, you know, when blades roll off the factory floor.



Um, you know, obviously the air dynamics are as good as they're ever going to be. And then after that, you know, with wear and tear and the accumulation of dust and dirt, and just all those things that, you know, happen over time, you know, the performance will begin to degrade. Um, so one of the lesser known things that we've chatted a little bit about with other guests on the show, um, is dirt buildup.



So. Uh,