Bonus Episode – Blade Icing, Trouble for Turbines

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

February is notorious for wintry and icy weather in the Northern Hemisphere. Joel and Allen discuss the recent blast of ice in Texas, the problems for blades damaged by ice, and how technicians battle their cold and wet nemesis. Visit Pardalote Consulting at https://www.pardaloteconsulting.com Wind Power Lab - https://windpowerlab.com Weather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.com Intelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! 151 Bonus Allen Hall: This is a special bonus episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, and I have Joel Saxum here. Joel's down in Texas at the moment, and they're having some pretty massive ice storms. It seems like January, February in Texas is quite the adventure, and there's been some blade damage and ice being thrown, and a lot of RCAs and evals happening on blades. Allen Hall: And that'll just be a good time to discuss since it is winter. What to do about some of these icing conditions and how we're handling in them and what's the, some of the path forward. Allen Hall: Joel, would you like to just give us an idea of what you're seeing right now? Joel Saxum: Yeah, I'll tell you I'll give you the environmental conditions in Texas right now and then kind of talk about some of the things we saw on the field in the last few days. But and this is for people who maybe you're in an area of the world that doesn't see icing or you are, and you may have some great feedback to, to tell us. Joel Saxum: But right now, so I'm in, I'm in between San Antonio and Austin, Texas, and I'm looking out the window, and this is not normal for this corner of. But there's a pin oak tree in the front yard that's probably got, I don't know, 5,000 pounds of ice in the, in the leaves and branches. I mean, there I, there's, there's 14 inch branches that are just boom, bent right down to the ground, right? Joel Saxum: So, All there's power lines failing. There's I mean there's a half inch of ice on the deck everywhere. I drove last night. We had a wind on the wind power lab team. We did an RCA up in Northern Texas. We were up by Up by Wichita Falls. And so we had to do some traveling around the state and the Dallas Fort Worth, metrop just got pounded with snow and ice, something that normally doesn't happen there, right? Joel Saxum: You think Texas, you're thinking, oh, you know, shorts, shorts and long sleeved shirt or something in the, in the wintertime when you're good. But I mean, I, I counted in one stretch of highway yesterday while traveling 19 different accidents because of the icing on the roads. Wow. Right. And so, so when you think about this now, there's some, some general thoughts. Joel Saxum: It rains, it's 32 degrees. If the blades are cold, they're gonna pick that ice up and as they, they travel around, they're gonna get ice and more ice and more ice and more ice. Also that that happens, but it also can happen where you may not even be getting any ice on the ground, any accumulation of rain or sleet or anything like that, but a hundred feet above you, there may be this fog layer and that sometimes is an ice fog. Joel Saxum: And when things spin around in that ice fog, it's almost worse because of the way it builds up on the wind turbine blades, they lose performance. And then once they get kind of jagged and, and spiky with the, the ice build up on the edges, it just tends to build up more and more and more and more. So an ice accumulation that's not shiny and clean tends to build up even more and more ice.