Why stop at 15MW when you can make 18MW turbines? That's a good question to ask Vestas. In the 150th Uptime podcast (wow!), Allen, Joel and Rosemary discuss the CEO's surprising announcement and the market demands, risks, and potentially sneaky corporate strategy behind the scenes. Also in this show, we consider how those 115M blades will hold up at RWE's Thor wind farm, which will be Denmark's largest offshore development. And on Mt. Santis, researchers have shown that "massive" lasers can protect wind turbines from lightning. Is it scalable, and if so, does it make sense?



Meanwhile, in Oklahoma and Colorado, two turbines toppled and the internet raced for the best headline - but we want to know how OEMs, insurers, and asset owners will respond. Can they work together to keep wind energy moving forward? Finally, don't miss a special bonus episode highlighting some surprises places to find US Wind Technicians.



Visit Pardalote Consulting at https://www.pardaloteconsulting.com



Wind Power Lab - https://windpowerlab.com



Weather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.com



Intelstor - https://www.intelstor.com



















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! 



Uptime 150



Allen Hall: We have a special double bonus episode this week. So now you're gonna get this great episode, your weekly episode. We have a a, a bonus coming behind this, so it's a super great week for uptime. We're gonna talk about R W B E, selecting Siemens sch MEA for the Thor Wind Farm. Now isn't that the coolest name for a wind farm?



Thor. Now, why does America have some cool offshore wind turbine names? Rosemary 



Rosemary Barnes: and then we're gonna talk about ve who are claiming that they're going to stop at 15 megawatts for their offshore wind turbine, whilst at the same time Ming Yang is already pushing out to 18 megawatts. 



Joel Saxum: So in, in Switzerland we're gonna visit some of later laser-guided lightning.



We've seen this floater on LinkedIn quite a bit where they're firing lasers to, to get lightning to track down the laser. And Alan will kind of give us a brief overview of why he does or does not think, That it's commercially viable for wind turbines. And then jumping into a little bit of a review of GEs finances from the fourth quarter, what we think they mean and then a Bloomberg article about wind turbines taller than the Statue of Liberty falling over.



Wanting to understand what that means for the global market. 



Allen Hall: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with my good friend from Wind Power Lab, Joel Saxum, and soon to be guest host of the fully charged live event in Australia, Rosemary Barnes. And this is the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.



All right. R d B has chosen Siemens ESA 14 dash 2 36 DD offshore Wind turbines. I God, I love that name. And they're sticking with it. Joel? They have not changed the name of their wind turbines, and I can't figure out if someone hasn't like told them, but, all right. 



Joel Saxum: That's the king out there, 



Allen Hall: so yeah. So the the r w has chosen them for the Thor Wind Farm in the Danish North Sea, and the Thor farm will be Denmark's largest.



Offshore wind farm at roughly one gigawatt capacity once it's completed. So those Siemens ga Mesa turbines are using their patented integral blades. So it's all one piece cast as one piece. Rosemary, I don't know if El ever tried that, but Siemens is doing it and they're 115 meters in length now. Back to some earlier Joel points about these service contracts.