Roundtable: Advancing Wind Turbine Operations & Digitalisation (with ZF Wind, Pattern Energy & Leeward Energy).

Panelists:

• Joris Peeters – Head of Digitalization – ZF Wind
• Paul Habelrein – VP, Operational Excellence – Pattern Energy
• Dustin Wambeke – VP, Technical Services – Leeward Energy

Moderated by

• Ashley Crowther – Chief Commercial Officer – ONYX Insight

Wind Industry Challenges and Opportunities

This webinar brought together industry leaders to discuss key takeaways from recent reports on the state of the wind industry. They explored solutions to current challenges such as supply chain issues and investments into digitalization.

Key Learnings:

• Supply chain volatility remains an issue, with demand outstripping supply capacity over the next few years. Political support and reasonable industry profits are needed to attract investments in new capacity.
• Labor shortages, especially of skilled technicians, are a major obstacle for operations and maintenance. Solutions like predictive maintenance and digitization can help multiply limited workforces.
• Effective partnerships between turbine owners and OEMs are essential, particularly for complex tasks like grid integration modeling and lifetime turbine support. Information sharing and alignment on incentives enables these partnerships.
• Digitalization delivers major benefits but remains a work in progress for most wind operators so far. Clean data sets and building staff capabilities are critical first steps before advanced analytics like AI can be impactful.
• Ensuring reliability and avoiding failures through robust design testing and monitoring offers the biggest cost savings. Investments like ZF’s 30MW test rig aim to validate quality before new products are deployed.