Ex-Ørsted Employees in Demand, CIP Orders Goldwind Turbines

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

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And now, your hosts.

Allen Hall (0:17)

Welcome to The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, and I'm here with Rosemary Barnes and Yolanda Padron. And top of the week is Rosemary's been out and about looking at wind turbines, in Australia. And I would like to hear some of the details about that, Rosemary. What did you see out in the wilderness?

Rosemary Barnes (0:38)

You might have to settle for generalities rather than details. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with Australian wind turbines at the moment, but there have been a lot of problems. A lot of lightning damage and a lot of serial defects. That's the categories that I've been looking at recently. It's a wide variety, looking at a lot of Australia-specific, or not even Australia-specific, but just local-specific. There's certain wind farms are getting the same kind of problem over and over again that some of them I've never seen anywhere else before. Check in with people like you and other international friends who do similar kinds of work. Some of these damages are just like everyone's like, what is that? I wouldn't have even believed that was possible. That always keeps it really, really interesting. But the last couple of days, I've spent crawling around inside some blades, getting covered in fiberglass. Very reminiscent of my time in the factory where it used to just be itchy for weeks or months in a row.

My hot tip for that is you got to get in a Zen mindset.

You feel the sensation, but it doesn't bother you. It's not itching. It's just, yeah, it's just Zen out and you can handle being itchy for days in a row.

Allen Hall (2:03)

It's sort of the hot sauce analogy. Hot sauce is really not burning you, but it just feels like it is. So if you can think it away, it's just fine. Yeah, I guess so.

Rosemary Barnes (2:12)

I don't think that I have that capability with hot sauce though, but I do have it with fiberglass.

Allen Hall (2:18)

You're headed to Denmark and then to Germany pretty soon, right?

Rosemary Barnes (2:23)

Yeah. I'm so sad that you're not going to be able to come because I've got some really cool tours lined up and cool meetings.

Allen Hall (2:30)

Me too.

Rosemary Barnes (2:31)

So yeah, I'll have more to report back, but definitely anybody who's going to be at Hamburg or if you're in Denmark and have something you want to show, then feel free to get in touch. I don't know what that might be. I've got some plans currently. It's a pretty jam-packed itinerary so far, but looking forward. I always love going over.

Allen Hall (2:52)

Well, when you're in Denmark, you should go by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Rosie, because they have an Australian project and the turbines are coming from China.

The Gawarra Bayah is a 408-megawatt site, and CIP has confirmed to FINUS that Goldwind will supply the machines. That land smack dab of the European fight between a lot of countries that would like to use Chinese suppliers and the EU Commission, which is really prohibiting it at the minute.

So, in a sense, we have CIP, which is obviously a Danish company, that has been pretty much avoiding any sort of Chinese wind turbines in the EU. But once they come out of the EU or AOK on using Chinese wind turbines in Australia, it does seem like a real contradiction there. And my first thought was, well, hey, Scotland has raised their hands and is saying, what the heck? Why is it okay for this Danish company to buy Chinese wind turbines and put them in Australia, if they're so afraid of all the technology that's inside of them, maybe the spying or whatever else the concern is there? Is this gonna play out okay, you think, Rosemary? And especially Yolanda, you've worked for a Danish operator. This just doesn't feel right.

Rosemary Barnes (4:24)

I didn't personally see the contradiction because Europe is worried about China taking over Europe's electricity grid. They don't care what happens to Australia's electricity grid. So yeah, there's that contradiction. And Australia doesn't manufacture any of our own wind turbines, so we don't care that much. And we have so many Chinese solar panels and Chinese cars, and China is our biggest trading partner. So I think we have a lot more comfort with China and Chinese technology in Australia than Europe does. If I'm honest, I think the main reason for Europe's discomfort is probably primarily to protect their own manufacturing industry. And I don't disagree with that.