Episode Details

This week on Uptime Power-Up, a method from Vestas for modifying control of a wind turbine using load probability, a blade tip swap-out for Cypress turbines from GE, and a wind turbine tower with solar panels installed.

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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 idasaur’s Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future.

Well, our first idea is from Vestas, and it is an idea where they’re monitoring the Turbine tower loads for natural vibration frequency, and you say, well, why would you want to do that? Well, of course, as things change on a wind turbine, maybe something goes wrong. Those frequencies of vibration are going to change, and the system will detect those and say, hey, something is wrong.

Here’s probably what it is, which is a smart way of detecting failure modes in the turbine fill. But the other thing it could do, is push the turbine harder if it’s not being driven hard enough and creating enough power.

Philip Totaro: Yeah, and this is actually really fascinating because, again, this might not sound like the world’s most revolutionary, innovation, but it’s a practical solution to a challenge that is faced out there in the field