China Barred Vestas Software, Ørsted Buys Chinese Monopiles

Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen says China barred Vestas from monitoring its own turbines. Plus Ørsted takes heat for Chinese monopiles, India’s blade design gap, and tents that beat weather delays. The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s "Engineering with Rosie" Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Episode Transcript The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit StrikeTape.com. And now, your hosts.Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm Allen Hall, here with Rosemary Barnes, Matthew Stead, and Yolanda Padron, and we're getting ready for WOMA 2027. WOMA in Australia will be in its third year, and we're going to be at the Pullman East Melbourne. It's the same location, but the name of the hotel has changed. We'll be there March 3rd through the 5th. We've heard from a number of OEMs, which is really great, but there's one in particular that hasn't registered yet, which is GE Vernova. We thought they'd be first in line. That was my bet, that GE Vernova would have been signed up and ready to go. But there's a latecomer to this party. Rosemary, how do we get GE Vernova to show up to WOMA?Rosemary Barnes: I don't know. I don't have so many links to the company as I used to, and I don't always have the best luck getting in touch with my old colleagues. I guess they're busy, because there's not so many of them left there now. We have so, so many turbines here, and our asset managers are really engaged on all of the technical issues. They really want to understand what technologies are available, both for new projects that are coming up and for operations. The operations teams are getting involved more and more in purchasing decisions. Their opinions are being asked for. The Australian wind industry is a lot different than it was five years ago. People didn't know so much, and I think they relied on the OEMs' word for what we need in Australia and what's available. Whereas now, asset owners know what we need and what kind of problems we have, and they're really looking for technical information about solutions. The companies that are at the event to provide that information are the ones people are going to feel positively about. So I would recommend getting there to everybody, not just GE, but all OEMs from any part of the world. Not just Western ones, but Chinese ones too would be really great to see.Allen Hall: And Matthew, if GE Vernova wanted to register for WOMA 2027, what would they do?Matthew Stead: They would very easily go to WOMA2027.com and register. It's that easy. That's all they have to do.Allen Hall: And we'll stop talking about it.Matthew Stead: On the agenda, there is a specific session that OEMs are attending, and the intention is that the OEMs can have a good, open discussion about what's going on in OEM land and get familiar with the audience. Then they can get questions answered right there on the floor, which is really, really important for the customers. Most all the operators in Australia and the surrounding areas will be at WOMA 2027, so it's a good opportunity to talk to your customer base.Allen Hall: That's why we're recommending all the OEMs show up this year. Hopefully GE Vernova does it.Vestas CEO on China and EuropeAllen Hall: And speaking of OEMs, Vestas is in a bit of a unique spot, because the CEO of Vestas, Henrik Andersen, had an article in Fortune magazine. And I thought, that's unusual. Why is he in Fortune magazine? Well, it's a little bit of a life story, growing up as a kid and dreaming of wind turbines. I guess that's a thing in Denmark. But he says that Europe must shed its naivety. Rosemary, five years ago, Chinese authorities barred Vestas from monitoring or running its own software on turbines in Ch