Husum WindEnergy day 1 - Blades, lubrication, AMSC and Jimi Hendrix

My first day of Husum WindEnergy started by missing a Vestas press conference due to a late bus from the airport, but never mind. I’m going to pester their PR lady later today to see if I can get a briefing nonetheless.

The day could only get better from such a starting point, and indeed it did!

A very exclusive press conference with Gurit revealed they have found a way of repairing wind turbine blades onsite with the actual process taking about 3 minutes, as opposed to a curing time of up to 24 hours. Needless to say this could save wind farm operators plenty of money!

I will go through the full material when I’m back in the office with a bit more time to write something intelligent.

Later on, I met up with Mobil to discuss lubrication of wind turbine gears. It may sound a bit geeky, but I quite enjoyed it. I certainly learnt a lot more (especially as my oil experience is from cars and bikes only). Kevin and Mike gave me a good overview over what properties are important for wind turbine gearbox lubrication, and why they believe their product is the best on the market.

Again, further details will follow later.

Finally, I met up with Tim and Kerry at AMSC to discuss their plans for the future, their giant SeaTitan 10 MW wind turbine project, and why out-licensing their design makes perfect sense for the company. We touched upon the fate of Clipper and the growing wind markets in Asia, and especially China. I look forward to going through my notes from that one!

In the evening, us tired press folks enjoyed a presentation by the CEO of E.ON Climate & Renewables, Frank Mastiaux.

He went through some of E.ON’s experiences with going offshore. Unfortunately my notes are a bit sketchy as I was enjoying a sandwich at the time, but quotes that stuck in my mind are:

“We need to learn to walk before we can run” – explaining why E.ON has started off in shallow waters, gradually going further out.

Another classic sending us all into fits of laughter is the way they avoid bird-casualties at alpha ventus – they have a continuous music stream at the offshore wind farm playing Jimi Hendrix! I know he would scare off my grandmother, so what works for my grandma, seems to work equally well on birds!

That’s it for the first day!

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