Transmission Line Congestion Stops Wind Power

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

In Massachusetts, Vineyard Wind crews discovered an unexploded WWII-era ordinance on the ocean floor. (History buffs rejoice: more finds are sure to follow.) MISO (Mid-continent Independent System Operator) plans to establish $10B worth of much-needed new transmission lines in the middle of North America. And with the Nord Stream 1 pipeline currently shut down for maintenance, Germany is on edge about its reopening. At the same time, the country is cutting Enercon a check for $500M EU. And why is GE walking away from Teesworks, where it planned to manufacture 107m blades? 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! Uptime 122 [00:00:00] Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Podcast. We have a packed show this week, top of the list. Vineyard Wind finds a bomb on the ocean floor. [00:00:08] Rosemary Barnes: And GE have shelved plans that they had to make a new factory to supply the Dogger Bank wind farm in the UK while Enercon in Germany have received 500 million euros in state liquidity assistance. [00:00:22] Joel Saxum: After that, we'll speak about some wind energy shutdowns here in the Midwest, over in Minnesota, and then how they tie together with the mid continent independent system operator, otherwise known as meso to expand the power lines and to try to alleviate that bottleneck. [00:00:37] Allen Hall: It's gonna be a busy week. So stay tuned back after the music. [00:01:01] Allen Hall: All right. So the first story for the week Vineyard Wind, which is off the coast of Martha's vineyard. In Massachusetts they're evidently exploring the bottom of the sea floor, looking for places to put wind turbines. And they happened to stumble across an unexplode ordinance. It says here that the horn Hornbeck offshore services support vessel mystique, and covered a potential unexposed ordinance at about 130 feet of water. [00:01:31] Allen Hall: Why this is important is evidently back in world war II, that whole area was uses training ground. So there's all kinds of ordinances down, down off the coast of Martha's vineyard. In fact, I started digging around a little bit and I guess some of that ordinance just washes up on shore once in a while. [00:01:48] Allen Hall: So you could just be walking your dog on the beach and there there's a, an unexplode piece of organ on the beach, right? Yeah. So it sounds like it's a pretty significant issue. So this is the first warning I've seen. And Vineyard Wind actually puts out these alerts, like, Hey everybody, there's a you know, black hole or an exploit ordinance or some sort of great white shark or something out, you know, in the water. [00:02:12] Allen Hall: I don't know why the coast of Massachusetts is so treacherous, but it is right now. It's crazy. The some, we have some of the biggest great white sharks. I mean, we would, we. Hold our own up to Australia, for sure. These things are massive and they they've been attacking people lately. It, it is like a real life jaws out here right now. [00:02:30] Allen Hall: You can honestly say that but now you got jaws and you have this unex exploited ordinance. It's like this Godzilla movie thing that's happening. I dunno if you saw the last Godzilla, but that's how they woke up Godzilla was that they set off a nuclear weapon. Shark. Yeah. So sharks, shark, NATO, shark, NATO. [00:02:46] Allen Hall: Exactly. We can have a shark NATO. In, in her own backyard. So I, I guys, I'm, I'm expecting to see more of this. And especially if we start going up and down the coastline around long island, New York city, New Jersey,