Episode Details

Allen and Joel are joined by Jeremy Heinks of CICNDT to discuss the critical need for pre-installation blade inspections, especially as safe-harbored blades from years past are rushed into service. They cover advanced NDT technologies including robotic CT scanning, blade bolt inspection for cracking issues, and how operators can extend turbine life beyond the typical 10-year repower cycle.

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Allen Hall: Jeremy, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. Well, the recent changes in the IRA bill are. Pushing a lot of projects forward very quickly at the moment, and as we’re learning, there’s a number of safe harbor blades sitting in yards and a rush to manufacture blades to get them up and meet the, uh, treasury department’s criteria for, for being started, whatever that means.

At the moment, I think we’re gonna see a big question about the quality of the blades, and it seems to me. The cheapest time to quickly [00:01:00] look at your blaze before you start to hang them is while they’re still on the ground. And to get some n DT experience out there to make sure that what you’re hanging is appropriate.

Are you starting to see that push quite yet? No, not not at 

Jeremy Heinks: the level we’d like to see it. Um, as far as getting the inspections in, yeah, we have been seeing the push to get the, get these blades out. Uh, but, uh, the, the, the few that we have been able to get our eyes on aren’t looking good. The quality definitely down.

And we’ve just had a customer site come back with some, some findings that were surprising for a brand new blade that hasn’t been the up tower yet and in use. So, um, it is much easier for us to get the, uh, technology and the personnel to a blade that’s on the ground. It’s cheaper, it’s quicker. We can go through many, many more blades, uh, with inspections.

Uh, it’s just access is just easier. Always comes down to access. 

Joel Saxum: That customer that you had there, like what was their [00:02:00]driver? Right? Did they feel the pain at some point in time? Did they, did they have suspicions of something not right? New factory? Like, I don’t know. Why would some, why is someone picking that over someone?

Not because like you said, overwhelmingly. The industry doesn’t really do this. You know, even just getting visual inspections of blades on the ground before they get hung is tough