Uptime Power-Up: Wind Energy Innovations

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

Welcome to Uptime Power-Up, our new show focused on the latest and greatest wind innovations that push the industry forward! This week, Allen and Phil explore FabricAir's system installation tool, Itrec's offshore wind blade lifting method, Beridi Maritime's floating wind structure, and a new way to enjoy your favorite summer treat. To learn about these technologies or inquire about more new tech, contact IntelStor at 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! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to Power Up, the Uptime podcast focused on the new, hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow along with me, Alan Hall, and Itasaur's Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future. All right, Fabric Air Canada. Phil, our friends up in Canada have been working on some tools for their game. The icing systems. Philip Totaro: Yes. And what's really interesting and novel about this is they developed a system that allows them to punch holes into some of the bulkheads and ribs along the length of the blade so that they can actually install this. If you're not familiar with fabric air, they have this kind of fabric tube that runs the length of the blade and circulates hot air to be able to de ice the blade. But in order to install it and retrofit it on older blades, you have to have a way that you can drill, drill a hole through some of the bulkheads and the ribs in the blade. And so their, their latest patent that came up in our technology trend watch and research this week indicates that they've, developed a new system that could even be remote operated by a little rover drone that they could send down the length of the blade and have this thing drill out the, the bulkheads. Allen Hall: And that tool can be used for other things besides this de icing system, right? If you're putting holes in blades Allows access for a lot of other things to go up in a blade, right? Philip Totaro: Including repairs on a lightning conduction system for example, or just running any other things that you might need to down the length of the blade. You may need to install some arrow updates that would require some, some work in turn on the internal shell or the inside of the shell of the blade and so this would also facilitate facilitate that, so it's it's pretty clever. Allen Hall: The technology they describe in their patent is focused on Senveon blades, but this could be used on almost any wind turbine blade. Philip Totaro: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The, the reason that they did that with Senveon is because they actually are working with up in Quebec, which if you're not familiar, the independent research organization that actually has to send beyond turbines at their facility where fabric air through this partnership with with actually tested this this technology. So. It's pretty great. Allen Hall: Next up is Itrec from the Netherlands and they have a offshore blade installation technique or tool that they developed. And it, well, the way I looked at this, it looks like a praying mantis almost that grabs onto the tower and then you take the blade on the back of the praying mantis up to the hub and plug in. Philip Totaro: What's unique and interesting about this innovation is what they're doing is they've created a system where you can actually have this crane structure on the service and operation ves...