# The Business of Breathing Life Into Old Wind Turbines

An episode of [Switched On](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469286286), 16 Oct 2025, 37 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/01a10738-3608-4dec-883c-ae3c00026b36/cd2b5d3e-0f04-4ac1-8967-b378007a16cc/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d114f63-833d-4b78-bbf5-ae3c00026b44

The first generation of wind turbines is now approaching retirement. Developers across Europe, the US and China thus find themselves at a crossroads: should they refurbish and extend the life of existing wind fleets, or dismantle them and build new projects from scratch? Wind technology has evolved considerably over the last 20 years, maintenance costs can be steep, and new projects generally boast bigger turbines with far greater capacity. However, the dismantling of older projects incurs significant costs, the regulatory approval process for new projects can be intricate, and the disposal of turbine components often presents an environmental and logistical challenge. On today’s show, Dana Perkins is joined by co-host Kobad Bhavnagri, BloombergNEF’s global head of strategy. Together, they speak to Oliver Metcalfe, BNEF’s head of wind research, about the research note “Wind End of Life 2025: Global Repowering Surges by 2035.” Complementary BNEF research on the trends driving the transition to a lower-carbon economy can be found at BNEF<GO> on the Bloomberg Terminal or on bnef.com Links to research notes from this episode: Wind End of Life 2025: Global Repowering Surges by 2035 - https://www.bnef.com/insights/37547 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is Cobald Barblergrie and you're listening to Switched on
[0:03] Speaker 1: the podcast brought to you by bloomberg ENIF. Wind energy
[0:07] Speaker 1: has been a key driver of the global clean energy
[0:09] Speaker 1: transition for more than two decades, but as the first
[0:12] Speaker 1: generation of wind turbines reach the end of their design lives,
[0:15] Speaker 1: the industry now faces a critical question what happens next.
[0:19] Speaker 1: Around the world, wind assets are aging. Developers in countries
[0:23] Speaker 1: like Germany and Spain were already managing fleets that are
[0:27] Speaker 1: more than twenty years old, while China and the United
[0:29] Speaker 1: States host the largest number of turbines approaching fifteen to
[0:33] Speaker 1: twenty years in operation. Wind asset owners have to decide
[0:37] Speaker 1: whether to extend repower or decommission their projects, and those
[0:41] Speaker 1: choices are becoming increasingly complex with rising costs, new turbine technologies,
[0:46] Speaker 1: and shifting policy incentives all reshaping what it means to
[0:50] Speaker 1: keep wind power spinning. So just how are these factors
[0:53] Speaker 1: influencing the economic decision making of developers and how could
[0:57] Speaker 1: these end of life choices shape the next generation of
[0:59] Speaker 1: wind power. On today's show, I'm joined by my co
[1:02] Speaker 1: host Dana Perkins, and together we review findings from the
[1:06] Speaker 1: research note wind End of Life twenty twenty five Global
[1:10] Speaker 1: repowering surges by twenty thirty five, along with BNF's head
[1:14] Speaker 1: of Wind Research, Oliver Metcalf. BNF clients can find this note,
[1:18] Speaker 1: along with our other wind research by heading to BNF
[1:21] Speaker 1: go on the Bloomberg terminal ORBNF dot com. If you'd
[1:26] Speaker 1: like to learn more about how BNF approaches strategic research
[1:29] Speaker 1: on the energy transition, including developments in commodity markets, trends
[1:33] Speaker 1: across different sectors, and the cross cutting technologies shaping the future,
[1:37] Speaker 1: you can find more information on BNF dot com. If
[1:40] Speaker 1: you'd like to speak with a member of our team
[1:42] Speaker 1: about becoming a client, email US at Sales dot BNF
[1:46] Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. So let's dive in to the
[1:49] Speaker 1: future of aging turbines and what happens when the world's
[1:53] Speaker 1: first waive of windfarms reaches the end of the line.
[2:06] Speaker 2: So we have a guest and a co host here today.
[2:09] Speaker 2: I'm used to hosting by myself. I haven't done co
[2:12] Speaker 2: hosting in a long time, but super excited to have
[2:14] Speaker 2: you here today.
[2:14] Speaker 1: Cobad, thank you, Dana, very good to be here.
[2:17] Speaker 2: And then Ali, welcome back. As a guest.
[2:19] Speaker 3: Hi, Dana, good to be here.
[2:21] Speaker 2: So you represent the wind team today and we have
[2:24] Speaker 2: a lot to talk about, but it's less about what's
[2:27] Speaker 2: new in wind and more about what's old in wind
[2:30] Speaker 2: and then how we bring it up to the next decade.
[2:33] Speaker 1: So Ollie, your research note is about end of life
[2:37] Speaker 1: for turbines.
[2:38] Speaker 3: We're talking retirement.
[2:39] Speaker 1: What is What does end of life for a wind
[2:41] Speaker 1: turbine mean?
[2:42] Speaker 3: Well, most early turbines were designed with a twenty year
[2:46] Speaker 3: lifetime in mind, and we actually track the first grid
[2:50] Speaker 3: connected utility scale wind projects in the early nineteen eighties.
[2:53] Speaker 3: So end of life for wind has been a thing
[2:56] Speaker 3: for a long time. Now we're seeing this wave of
[2:58] Speaker 3: aging assets started to come off line all around the
[3:00] Speaker 3: same time, and that poses a difficult problem for developers. Ideally,
[3:05] Speaker 3: they don't want just a decommission that's quite an expensive process.
[3:08] Speaker 3: They want to eke out some additional value from these
[3:10] Speaker 3: turbines or these sites, and so developers typically have to
[3:13] Speaker 3: choose between life extension working out how long they can
[3:16] Speaker 3: run these aging machines, or what we call a repower
[3:19] Speaker 3: and that is effectively a complete project replacement. So taking
[3:23] Speaker 3: out all of the old turbines, older technology and installing new,
[3:27] Speaker 3: usually much larger turbines in its place.
[3:30] Speaker 1: Can you give us the sense of the scale of this,
[3:32] Speaker 1: How many turbines, how much capacity are we talking about?
[3:36] Speaker 3: So a huge amount. So there's over one hundred gig
[3:39] Speaker 3: watts that is reaching the end of life over the
[3:42] Speaker 3: next five years or so. And it's those markets that
[3:45] Speaker 3: were the earliest wind markets globally where we're seeing most
[3:48] Speaker 3: of these turbines coming offline, So places like Spain, Germany,
[3:52] Speaker 3: and in certain parts of the US like California, we're
[3:54] Speaker 3: beginning to see some of the oldest wind farms globally
[3:57] Speaker 3: start to reach that point where developers have to make
[3:59] Speaker 3: that difficult decision. And a lot of the earliest companies
[4:03] Speaker 3: that supported win that are the ones making these choices.
[4:06] Speaker 3: So that's European utilities that have gone on to build
[4:09] Speaker 3: projects around the world, companies like Eberdrola NL, which is
[4:12] Speaker 3: an Italian utility. But we're also beginning to see some
[4:15] Speaker 3: Chinese companies having to make these choices as well. As
[4:19] Speaker 3: the Chinese wind industry picked up a little later, but
[4:22] Speaker 3: it picked up at a scale that we didn't see
[4:24] Speaker 3: anywhere else, and so we're beginning to see the first
[4:26] Speaker 3: wave of these Chinese assets reached that end of life point.
[4:29] Speaker 1: Right, and so that's really what is driving this big
[4:32] Speaker 1: wave of end of life retirements is the rival of
[4:35] Speaker 1: Chinese assets.
[4:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. So it's been a European and
[4:39] Speaker 3: to a certain extent, us story until now we're beginning
[4:42] Speaker 3: to see that center of power shifting from the sector
[4:45] Speaker 3: from Europe to China as we see these early Chinese
[4:48] Speaker 3: turbines start to reach that end of life point.
[4:50] Speaker 2: I mean this is only going to become a more
[4:52] Speaker 2: important issue as we go forward, because as you pointed out,
[4:56] Speaker 2: these are some of the first turbines that were installed
[4:58] Speaker 2: when the offshore industry was very nascent, and as we
[5:02] Speaker 2: go along in time, all of the you know, more
[5:05] Speaker 2: installed capacity is going to be an up for this
[5:08] Speaker 2: renewal phase I guess, this regeneration phase in its life cycle.
[5:12] Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about the extending option,
[5:16] Speaker 2: so the option to keep something going beyond its initial
[5:20] Speaker 2: twenty year time horizon. What goes into that you'll be
[5:23] Speaker 2: essentially really replacing all of the pieces or is it
[5:27] Speaker 2: just kind of turning, you know, closing your eyes and
[5:29] Speaker 2: pretending like it's still working for a win.
[5:32] Speaker 3: That's that you do replace a lot of the key
[5:34] Speaker 3: components twice, sometimes even three times throughout the lifetime of
[5:37] Speaker 3: the project, so it's likely that you're using different or
[5:41] Speaker 3: very updated set of blades, gearbox, that kind of thing.
[5:45] Speaker 3: Some of the more structural components, it's much more rare
[5:48] Speaker 3: to change, so you're not changing your steel tower or
[5:51] Speaker 3: your concrete foundation throughout the lifetime of the project. But
[5:54] Speaker 3: the business case for a repower one of these complete
[5:58] Speaker 3: project replacements is little different to greenfield project, So it
[6:01] Speaker 3: depends on the subsidies that are available in the market,
[6:04] Speaker 3: the how high power prices are projected out into the future.
[6:08] Speaker 3: If there's not a really convincing business case for a
[6:10] Speaker 3: new project, that's when we start to see owners go
[6:13] Speaker 3: towards this life extension route. But it's a very project
[6:16] Speaker 3: by project, even turbine by turbine question, because you have
[6:20] Speaker 3: to look at each individual turbine, usually each individual component,
[6:24] Speaker 3: trying to model the conditions they've experienced over the lifetime
[6:28] Speaker 3: in order to estimate the wear on certain components that
[6:31] Speaker 3: have been operating for a long time. And then it's
[6:33] Speaker 3: a very physical thing. So then technicians have to go
[6:35] Speaker 3: and inspect a gearbox and see how much what they
[6:38] Speaker 3: call remaining useful life they predict that this component has,
[6:42] Speaker 3: and you basically have to go turbine by turbine across
[6:44] Speaker 3: your wind farm to estimate, Okay, how long do we
[6:46] Speaker 3: think we can run this thing? If we invest a
[6:49] Speaker 3: little bit upfront into replacing a couple of components or
[6:52] Speaker 3: making some repairs, then can we eke out an extra
[6:55] Speaker 3: few years? And you're basically running another mini financial mode.
[7:00] Speaker 3: You've got very low upfront costs because you've already got
[7:02] Speaker 3: the kit there, but as you can imagine, the ongoing
[7:06] Speaker 3: expenditures of these really old machines are a little bit higher,
[7:09] Speaker 3: and so you're basically working out for how long can
[7:12] Speaker 3: I profitably run this a set? So say your gearbox breaks,
[7:16] Speaker 3: then an owner has to make that decision again, so
[7:18] Speaker 3: how much for a replacement cost will that make sense?
[7:21] Speaker 3: How many more useful years can I get out of
[7:23] Speaker 3: this asset? It becomes a very hands on process where
[7:25] Speaker 3: you're making business decisions year by year, failure by failure.
[7:29] Speaker 1: So it's pretty similar to owning a car. That comes
[7:32] Speaker 1: a time in a car's life where the gearbox starts
[7:35] Speaker 1: to give up or the engine is croaking, and you're like,
[7:37] Speaker 1: is it time to just scrap this thing and go new?
[7:40] Speaker 1: Is it sounds kind of like that.
[7:41] Speaker 3: Well, I've definitely bought a used car before, and it
[7:44] Speaker 3: definitely feels like that sometimes where the thing is complete
[7:47] Speaker 3: is breaking down all the time and you're working out
[7:49] Speaker 3: whether it's time to finally make that jump and purchase
[7:52] Speaker 3: a new new asset.
[7:54] Speaker 1: At the same stroke. Is it kind of like those
[7:56] Speaker 1: taxes you see on the road that have you know,
[7:58] Speaker 1: driven a million kilometers? Because is that just everything gets
[8:01] Speaker 1: replaced if something breaks and then they just drop in
[8:03] Speaker 1: a new one. Could these turbines just keep going or
[8:06] Speaker 1: is there a critical moment where you're like, that's it
[8:09] Speaker 1: can't come anymore.
[8:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, because you are identifying how like the gearbox and
[8:12] Speaker 2: the blades, those things get replaced, which is in many
[8:15] Speaker 2: respects like the meat of the turbine. But then it's
[8:18] Speaker 2: the tower and perhaps the tower heights have changed for
[8:20] Speaker 2: that particular model over time. So what point is it
[8:23] Speaker 2: a full tear down versus a renovation.
[8:26] Speaker 3: It really depends on the project. Often things like towers
[8:29] Speaker 3: foundations are overdesigned, those kind of structural things that are
[8:32] Speaker 3: critical for safety, so you don't really want to be
[8:34] Speaker 3: working on the margins there. But yeah, it's a project
[8:37] Speaker 3: by project decision that developers have to make on whether
[8:40] Speaker 3: they're going to completely rip out the old project and
[8:43] Speaker 3: install something new or try and operate these things for
[8:46] Speaker 3: a bit longer.
[8:47] Speaker 2: Okay, So what decisions are they starting to make now
[8:49] Speaker 2: that we've all been in this industry long enough that
[8:51] Speaker 2: we're seeing these retirements those first blades that went on
[8:55] Speaker 2: when we were just newbies in the energy transition. What's
[8:59] Speaker 2: happened now? Are the decisions mostly to extend? Are you
[9:03] Speaker 2: seeing really a strong wave of these full complete overhauls.
[9:08] Speaker 3: It really depends by market, and as I hinted that before,
[9:11] Speaker 3: it depends on the business case as available for new projects.
[9:15] Speaker 3: So ideally, if you're an owner of one of these
[9:17] Speaker 3: sites and there's an attractive subsidy available for new onshore
[9:21] Speaker 3: wind farms in a market, so that that is a
[9:23] Speaker 3: case in a country like Germany, which has subsidies available
[9:27] Speaker 3: for onsore wind farms, it's holding subsidy auctions regularly, then
[9:31] Speaker 3: the attractive business proposition is to build a completely new project.
[9:34] Speaker 3: Many of these projects were installed on the best wind
[9:37] Speaker 3: sites available in the market. You can imagine you build
[9:40] Speaker 3: your first wind farm where it's absolutely windiest, and so
[9:43] Speaker 3: the opportunity to reuse some of these sites with brand
[9:46] Speaker 3: new technology is a really compelling one. And so where
[9:49] Speaker 3: there is that business case, we're seeing developers take that route.
[9:53] Speaker 3: And so that's why we're seeing a boom in repowering
[9:56] Speaker 3: in Germany at the moment.
[9:58] Speaker 1: It's that a bit of a perverse incentive though if
[10:01] Speaker 1: without that subsidy would they have done a refurbishment rather
[10:04] Speaker 1: than a tear down and a new build. So it
[10:06] Speaker 1: was the taxpayer putting money into this for you know,
[10:10] Speaker 1: a not significantly better outcome for.
[10:12] Speaker 2: Maybe five years earlier. That's you know, then maybe necessarily
[10:15] Speaker 2: require Yeah.
[10:16] Speaker 3: So you're talking about an extension of five years versus
[10:18] Speaker 3: a new project that will last thirty. Right, So yes,
[10:21] Speaker 3: there's probably a point where you may be repowering something
[10:25] Speaker 3: that could have operated a few years longer. But usually
[10:27] Speaker 3: with one of these repowers you're getting a greatly increased
[10:30] Speaker 3: project capacity. Often projects increase in size by double in
[10:34] Speaker 3: terms of generating capacity.
[10:36] Speaker 1: Wow.
[10:36] Speaker 3: And then also you're drastically reducing the number of turbines
[10:40] Speaker 3: so often you read stories about projects going from two
[10:43] Speaker 3: hundred tiny turbines as they were when they're installed back
[10:46] Speaker 3: in the early two thousands being replaced by seven or
[10:48] Speaker 3: eight turbines, and the project that has a higher generating
[10:51] Speaker 3: capacity despite that drastic reduction in the number of turbines.
[10:55] Speaker 3: So there are technical benefits that come with these. The
[10:58] Speaker 3: overall power of a project tends to write well. And
[11:00] Speaker 3: then also modern turbines are more efficient, so they generate
[11:04] Speaker 3: more energy for each unit of power that's installed, and
[11:07] Speaker 3: so you get this big increase in the generation from
[11:10] Speaker 3: these projects. So all in all, it tends to be
[11:13] Speaker 3: a benefit despite the fact that you may be giving
[11:16] Speaker 3: up on three, four, five, and maybe slightly longer years
[11:20] Speaker 3: of generation from these older wind assets.
[11:23] Speaker 2: Presumably from the government standpoint when they're thinking about the
[11:26] Speaker 2: subsidies as well, it's about security of supply and you'll
[11:29] Speaker 2: have some sort of depreciating reliability with aging farms. Is
[11:34] Speaker 2: that the case.
[11:35] Speaker 3: Yes, So operational costs tend to rise as as a
[11:38] Speaker 3: project gets older, even during it's planned lifetime. And then
[11:43] Speaker 3: like I say, these older assets, you're effectively running older
[11:46] Speaker 3: and older machines, and so yes, they're more likely to
[11:48] Speaker 3: break down. The costs of running them are a little
[11:50] Speaker 3: bit higher, and so these things are slightly less reliable,
[11:53] Speaker 3: and they're operating for less of the time. They're just
[11:56] Speaker 3: older machines, older technology, and so you do get more
[11:59] Speaker 3: consistent output with a modern turbine. So there are a
[12:02] Speaker 3: lot of benefits to doing one of these wee powers.
[12:05] Speaker 2: So the new flashy turbines that are now being put
[12:07] Speaker 2: in on these sites where we have got great wind
[12:09] Speaker 2: speed data, now that you've had them operational for a
[12:12] Speaker 2: couple of decades, how quickly is the technology in the
[12:15] Speaker 2: wind industry actively changing now? Because between twenty years ago
[12:19] Speaker 2: and now, this fully makes sense that the newer turbines
[12:22] Speaker 2: are going to be just dramatically more efficient, can generate
[12:25] Speaker 2: quite a bit more. But as we look ahead for
[12:27] Speaker 2: the next twenty to twenty five years, do you think
[12:29] Speaker 2: that that decision to make those replacements will be as easy.
[12:32] Speaker 1: It's a million dollar question.
[12:34] Speaker 3: And as turbines get larger and larger, it becomes more
[12:36] Speaker 3: and more difficult to ship these new huge components to sites,
[12:40] Speaker 3: so blades have got much longer. If you're thinking about
[12:43] Speaker 3: densely populated markets like Germany, like France. Getting a blade
[12:48] Speaker 3: that's almost one hundred meters through a tiny French town
[12:51] Speaker 3: is an incredibly difficult problem. So at the moment, we
[12:53] Speaker 3: have seen technology continue to increase in size and turbines
[12:58] Speaker 3: increase in capacity, and we haven't actually seen that slow,
[13:01] Speaker 3: if anything, we've seen that accelerate. But many people assume
[13:05] Speaker 3: that at some point there will be a limit to
[13:07] Speaker 3: these things, particularly for onshore turbines that you do have
[13:10] Speaker 3: to ship across land to have some of these logistics constraints.
[13:13] Speaker 3: But at the moment, we've seen technology continue to evolve
[13:17] Speaker 3: pretty rapidly in the wind industry.
[13:18] Speaker 2: For those who are only academically engaged in this industry
[13:22] Speaker 2: and haven't actually seen these be installed, go online and
[13:25] Speaker 2: look at these blades on semis or lorries or whatever
[13:28] Speaker 2: you call them in the country you're listening from, because
[13:30] Speaker 2: it is a site to behold to see these really
[13:33] Speaker 2: huge blades on these trucks moving their way through sometimes
[13:37] Speaker 2: very rural areas, sometimes kind of what windy roads.
[13:40] Speaker 1: So I mean there can be as big as an
[13:42] Speaker 1: a three eighty or a jumbo gener or even bigger
[13:44] Speaker 1: run Yeah, exactly, particularly some of the offsho wind turbines
[13:47] Speaker 1: today are taller than the Statute of Liberty.
[13:49] Speaker 3: The latest models are getting towards the height of the
[13:53] Speaker 3: shard if you're thinking about the very tip of.
[13:55] Speaker 1: The blade the tallest building in London exactly.
[13:58] Speaker 3: Yes, so those are offshore turbines, So on shore turbines
[14:01] Speaker 3: tend to be a little bit shorter. But yeah, these
[14:04] Speaker 3: are really really big pieces of kit these days.
[14:06] Speaker 1: So does that mean as we're going through this repowering
[14:09] Speaker 1: that we're going to see a large increase at doubling
[14:12] Speaker 1: in the amount of generation or capacity that we're getting
[14:16] Speaker 1: out of these existing sites.
[14:18] Speaker 3: Yeah, we often see a very big increase in the
[14:22] Speaker 3: capacity at these sites. So in a market like Germany,
[14:25] Speaker 3: we tend to see projects more than double in generating capacity.
[14:28] Speaker 3: In other markets, the benefit of doing one of these
[14:30] Speaker 3: repowers can be to reuse a grid connection that you
[14:34] Speaker 3: already had for the previous project. Many markets across Europe
[14:37] Speaker 3: are really struggling with long interconnection cues, so you have
[14:40] Speaker 3: to wait years before the grid operator will allow you
[14:42] Speaker 3: to connect to a project. And so the benefit of
[14:44] Speaker 3: doing one of these repowers is that you've already got
[14:47] Speaker 3: one of these sites with a grid connection that you
[14:49] Speaker 3: can reuse. The problem there for a developer is that
[14:52] Speaker 3: you can't drastically increase the project capacity because the grid
[14:55] Speaker 3: operator knows this site, knows this site at its current
[14:58] Speaker 3: generating capacity. So some time time you can boost the
[15:01] Speaker 3: project capacity by around five percent that's the case in Spain,
[15:04] Speaker 3: while still reusing that grid connection. But it's such a
[15:06] Speaker 3: big part of a value proposition that developers limit the
[15:09] Speaker 3: increase in size. So again there's a bit of a
[15:11] Speaker 3: market specific angle that we see for the amount of
[15:15] Speaker 3: technology increase or project generating capacity increased that we see.
[15:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, so the capacity of that grid connection is a
[15:22] Speaker 1: constraint to how much more you can get out of
[15:24] Speaker 1: a repowering So that's kind of like the size of
[15:27] Speaker 1: the pipe, the diameter of the pipe. But because these
[15:29] Speaker 1: turbines are new where they're also generating more, so you're
[15:32] Speaker 1: pushing water for more hours of the day through that pipe, right,
[15:36] Speaker 1: so we're still getting much more energy out.
[15:38] Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, So the what we call capacity factor, or
[15:42] Speaker 3: the amount that these turbines generate for a given unit
[15:45] Speaker 3: of installed capacity, is higher, and so you're still getting
[15:49] Speaker 3: more generation out of each of those turbines that you install.
[15:54] Speaker 2: One would think that this is a factor that would
[15:56] Speaker 2: be in favor of extending the life of a farm
[15:59] Speaker 2: because you would then sit there and try and get
[16:01] Speaker 2: into that interconnection queue to increase the amount they could
[16:04] Speaker 2: actually go through. If you could then at the end
[16:06] Speaker 2: of it, whether it's three years down the line, increase
[16:08] Speaker 2: the number of wind turbines and total generation on a
[16:12] Speaker 2: really good site, if you could manage to line up
[16:15] Speaker 2: all of these different things. And I know the grid
[16:17] Speaker 2: is actually one of the most complicated parts of the
[16:19] Speaker 2: whole energy transition and is you know, not just when
[16:22] Speaker 2: it comes to the wind industry, but one would think
[16:24] Speaker 2: that if you could line that all up, that might
[16:27] Speaker 2: be the perfect situation.
[16:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, so when we spoke to developers, a developer that's
[16:31] Speaker 3: planning very well, we'll start thinking about that end of
[16:33] Speaker 3: life strategy from around year ten to twelve of operation.
[16:36] Speaker 3: So that's a good kind of eight to fifteen years
[16:39] Speaker 3: longer than we typically see a wind farm retire. But
[16:43] Speaker 3: in reality, often we see wind farms change hands multiple
[16:46] Speaker 3: times across their lifetime, and so it may have moved
[16:50] Speaker 3: from the original developer and it may have been bought
[16:53] Speaker 3: by infrastructure fund sold to another one. Half of the
[16:56] Speaker 3: project might have been sold to another buyer, and so
[16:59] Speaker 3: you're looking at this situation where you may not have
[17:01] Speaker 3: perfect records on the operation of this wind farm, or
[17:05] Speaker 3: the previous owner may not have been thinking about that
[17:07] Speaker 3: next twenty five year project. And so yes, ideally started
[17:10] Speaker 3: thinking about these things very early, but sometimes that's not
[17:14] Speaker 3: the case.
[17:14] Speaker 1: Okay, So Ollie, let's unpack the economics a bit here,
[17:17] Speaker 1: because we're sort of established that the at the end
[17:20] Speaker 1: of the day, repowering is or what you do it
[17:23] Speaker 1: at the end of life, is an economic decision. So
[17:25] Speaker 1: what are the key factors here? What does a cost?
[17:28] Speaker 1: What are the things a developer needs to weigh up?
[17:30] Speaker 3: Well, actually doing a repower often is slightly more expensive
[17:33] Speaker 3: than building a green field as set. That's because you
[17:36] Speaker 3: can usually use very little from the previous project to
[17:39] Speaker 3: the new one. These turbines are so much bigger that
[17:42] Speaker 3: you need new foundations, you need new cabling. Usually you
[17:46] Speaker 3: even need new access roads because the trucks that are
[17:49] Speaker 3: bringing in these larger components is so much bigger than
[17:52] Speaker 3: what you had before.
[17:53] Speaker 2: Again, Google it, it's so amazing exactly.
[17:56] Speaker 3: So sometimes you can reuse some of the substation the
[17:59] Speaker 3: electrical equipment that collects the generation from all of the turbines.
[18:04] Speaker 3: But a project substation represents usually less than five percent
[18:07] Speaker 3: of total capex, So you're basically spending the money that
[18:11] Speaker 3: you would need to for a completely new project. But
[18:13] Speaker 3: you've also got decommissioning costs, which can be pretty expensive.
[18:17] Speaker 3: So we collected some data on decommissioning costs and found
[18:21] Speaker 3: that for a project retiring today, decommissioning costs range between
[18:25] Speaker 3: forty thousand and around one hundred and fifty thousand per turbine.
[18:28] Speaker 3: So this isn't a small amount of money, and yeah,
[18:32] Speaker 3: it can drive up the cost of repower. You've got
[18:34] Speaker 3: to remember that. Then you're getting this increased capacity factor,
[18:36] Speaker 3: a higher generation, and there are some things that balance
[18:39] Speaker 3: that out. But yeah, it's not a massive cost saving
[18:41] Speaker 3: by doing one of these projects.
[18:42] Speaker 1: So it is much more like a knockdown and rebuild.
[18:45] Speaker 1: You're flattening the old farm and you're starting.
[18:48] Speaker 3: Fresh, taking out all the old stuff and putting in
[18:51] Speaker 3: completely new kit.
[18:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, which then brings us to what do you do
[18:54] Speaker 2: with all of the old stuff Because the carbon fiber,
[18:57] Speaker 2: the fiberglass or in some of these blades aren't currently
[19:00] Speaker 2: not really recycle the ball, right, where do they go?
[19:03] Speaker 2: Are they recyclable? Is there some sort of use case
[19:05] Speaker 2: that I'm not aware of?
[19:07] Speaker 3: Well, the vast majority of stuff is recyclable, so steel towers,
[19:11] Speaker 3: a lot of the kit that comes from inside the
[19:13] Speaker 3: turbine you can recycle to a certain extent. So actually,
[19:16] Speaker 3: when we ran the numbers, we found that you can
[19:18] Speaker 3: usually recover around twenty to sometimes up to eighty percent
[19:22] Speaker 3: of the decommissioning costs through recycling. So the vast majority
[19:25] Speaker 3: of a turbine is recyclable, but that is some of
[19:28] Speaker 3: the kit that still poses a problem in terms of
[19:30] Speaker 3: end of life for the industry, and the blades are
[19:33] Speaker 3: the components that are really the hardest to recycle. So
[19:37] Speaker 3: until recently, many retiring wind turbine blades were sent to landfill. Effectively,
[19:43] Speaker 3: this was a bit of a reputational risk for the
[19:45] Speaker 3: industry and countries beginning to cotton on. It's not a
[19:48] Speaker 3: good look to see what looks like fishbones when you
[19:51] Speaker 3: see these aerial shots of landfills, and it's hundreds of
[19:53] Speaker 3: wind turbine blades, so.
[19:55] Speaker 1: Itig it's fishbones. You'll ever see.
[19:57] Speaker 3: The biggest fishbones you'll ever see. But lots of companies
[19:59] Speaker 3: are now beginning to look into how they can recycle
[20:03] Speaker 3: these things coming off, or at least use them for
[20:05] Speaker 3: something that has They call it downcycling, So it's not
[20:08] Speaker 3: reusing it to make a new wind turbine blade, but
[20:10] Speaker 3: it's using it for some kind of valuable purpose rather
[20:13] Speaker 3: than just sending it to landfill. So the one that's
[20:15] Speaker 3: in operation at scale today is cement coprocessing. So you
[20:20] Speaker 3: grind down these old blades and then use it as
[20:22] Speaker 3: a partial feedstock for the cement making process. That means
[20:26] Speaker 3: you need less of the traditional feedstocks and it cuts
[20:29] Speaker 3: the carbon dioxide output from cement processing. But there's kind
[20:34] Speaker 3: of newer technologies that companies are looking into today, So
[20:37] Speaker 3: how to kind of truly recycle these old turbines. And
[20:41] Speaker 3: it's kind of a two pronged problem. So people are
[20:44] Speaker 3: thinking about how you recycle the oldest wind turbine blades,
[20:47] Speaker 3: which are really hard to separate it through its constituent parts.
[20:51] Speaker 3: These are components that were designed to survive in the
[20:54] Speaker 3: harshest windiest conditions out there, and so when you come
[20:57] Speaker 3: to try and split these components back apart, it require
[21:00] Speaker 3: a lot of energy, and it's very difficult, but there
[21:02] Speaker 3: are companies looking at chemical processes or thermal processes in
[21:05] Speaker 3: order to split out these composite materials to be able
[21:09] Speaker 3: to re use them to make new wind turbine blades.
[21:11] Speaker 3: And in the other end of the picture, you're seeing
[21:14] Speaker 3: turbine makers trying to design these blades to be recyclable
[21:17] Speaker 3: from the beginning. So often now when you're installing a
[21:20] Speaker 3: new onsore and off your wind farm, then you can
[21:23] Speaker 3: pare a little bit more for so called recyclable blades.
[21:26] Speaker 3: So in twenty five years time, it'll be easier to
[21:29] Speaker 3: recycle these things and kind of complete that circularity for
[21:32] Speaker 3: the incenter.
[21:33] Speaker 1: And so the recycling is it mostly a recovery and
[21:38] Speaker 1: reuse of the material or is there an aftermarket for
[21:42] Speaker 1: wind turbine components or do they get sent to another
[21:46] Speaker 1: country where the standards are a lot as stringent, you know,
[21:50] Speaker 1: and installed over there. What's the spectrum of things that
[21:53] Speaker 1: can happen.
[21:53] Speaker 3: So the aftermarket for complete turbines is fairly small. You
[21:57] Speaker 3: do see some countries that import old turbines from very
[22:01] Speaker 3: established wind markets, some countries in Africa, for example, where
[22:04] Speaker 3: we see small wind farms spring up using turbines that
[22:08] Speaker 3: had a previous life somewhere else, but there is an
[22:11] Speaker 3: aftermarket for components. One of the things that limit how
[22:15] Speaker 3: long you can extend the life of existing wind turbines
[22:18] Speaker 3: is the availability of spare parts. Wind turbine makers aren't
[22:21] Speaker 3: manufacturing those tiny turbines that populate the earliest wind farms
[22:25] Speaker 3: out there, and so often if you're looking to do
[22:27] Speaker 3: a life extension in your turbine, one of the key
[22:29] Speaker 3: considerations is what does a spare part market look like?
[22:32] Speaker 3: How am I going to sort a new gearbox if
[22:34] Speaker 3: that fails? So, if you've got a gearbox in very
[22:36] Speaker 3: good condition, then there is a limited market for kind
[22:40] Speaker 3: of aftermarket sales for some of these things as well.
[22:42] Speaker 3: So it's not just recycling of the material itself, but
[22:45] Speaker 3: in some cases you may find a second life some of.
[22:47] Speaker 1: These Again, so it's really much like a car, where
[22:51] Speaker 1: certain cars are great for aftermarket support and there are
[22:54] Speaker 1: lots of vendors where you can buy non original parts.
[22:58] Speaker 1: Does the same thing exist for twoes? Are there certain
[23:01] Speaker 1: manufacturers who have a deeper pool of spare parts so
[23:04] Speaker 1: that the project can run longer and be refurbished easily
[23:08] Speaker 1: and others that don't have that. After project support and
[23:11] Speaker 1: spare part.
[23:13] Speaker 3: You speak to some developers and they speak to you
[23:15] Speaker 3: about specific models which are great candidates for lifetime extension
[23:18] Speaker 3: just for that reason. And then because the wind industry
[23:21] Speaker 3: is quite a young industry, you've also got all of
[23:23] Speaker 3: these technology providers that existed twenty years ago maybe and
[23:26] Speaker 3: are no longer in operation, and so it's very difficult
[23:29] Speaker 3: to find any company that will service your asset if
[23:33] Speaker 3: it's using those turbines, let alone provide you with brand
[23:36] Speaker 3: new parts if you have a gearbox failure or a
[23:38] Speaker 3: blade failure or something like that. So there's a big
[23:41] Speaker 3: difference between different projects and different technology types in terms
[23:45] Speaker 3: of how suitable they are for a lifetime extension. And
[23:48] Speaker 3: so one of the end of life options is a
[23:50] Speaker 3: complete decommissioning and site remediation back to the original condition
[23:55] Speaker 3: of that land. Why would that ever be something that's
[23:58] Speaker 3: chosen if that land has got valuable wind resource, why
[24:02] Speaker 3: we do ever do a complete decommissioning. Sometimes the productivity
[24:06] Speaker 3: of the site might not be what you initially were hoping,
[24:09] Speaker 3: and so if the capacity factors you can achieve on
[24:13] Speaker 3: a site are lower than expected, then you may not
[24:15] Speaker 3: be interested in installing a new project in its place.
[24:18] Speaker 3: I would say more often it's a regulatory thing, and
[24:20] Speaker 3: so these larger turbines are much taller. Often a repower
[24:25] Speaker 3: gets less local pushback than a greenfield project because locals
[24:29] Speaker 3: are already used to living around these turbines. But you're
[24:32] Speaker 3: often more than doubling the height of turbines, so that
[24:36] Speaker 3: has a different kind of visual impact. It can also
[24:38] Speaker 3: impact on things like radars for aviation or military. So
[24:43] Speaker 3: in some cases, just from a regulatory perspective, you're not
[24:46] Speaker 3: able to replace these projects. And as I said at
[24:49] Speaker 3: the beginning, complete decommission is usually the last resort for
[24:54] Speaker 3: a owner of one of these assets because you're not
[24:56] Speaker 3: getting any more value out of that site. But sometimes
[24:59] Speaker 3: it is necessary from those perspectives.
[25:01] Speaker 2: From a policy standpoint, we're almost seeing a three track
[25:04] Speaker 2: transition across the world, so we're seeing those parts of
[25:06] Speaker 2: the world that are opponents to the energy transition. And
[25:10] Speaker 2: as you had mentioned, there are subsidies for wind farms
[25:13] Speaker 2: in certain areas. There are those areas where you see
[25:15] Speaker 2: the levelized cost of electricity being the guiding light and
[25:20] Speaker 2: largely hands off and so these technologies stand on their own.
[25:23] Speaker 2: And then there are parts of the world that are
[25:25] Speaker 2: really actively pulling back from renewables. And I think in
[25:29] Speaker 2: this case, the US stands out. They're the only market
[25:32] Speaker 2: to see a drop in future repowering versus their historical data.
[25:36] Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about the state of
[25:38] Speaker 2: the energy transition and I guess wind on the whole,
[25:41] Speaker 2: But in this context the repowering conversation, you know, it's
[25:46] Speaker 2: one thing not to build new wind farms, it's another
[25:49] Speaker 2: thing entirely to not maintain or at least use the
[25:52] Speaker 2: sites that already exist and think about the long term
[25:55] Speaker 2: life cycle of those those particular sites.
[25:58] Speaker 3: Well, the business case for a repower is a little
[26:02] Speaker 3: different to a new project. So if that business case
[26:05] Speaker 3: is becoming less attractive in a market like we're seeing
[26:07] Speaker 3: in the US, which is cutting back tax credits that
[26:10] Speaker 3: are available for renewable energy projects, then we're going to
[26:13] Speaker 3: see fewer repowers. So in other markets where we are
[26:16] Speaker 3: seeing the support for a new project start to drop
[26:19] Speaker 3: or seeing a hiatus, So Spain is one of those
[26:21] Speaker 3: markets we tend to see asset towners try and extend
[26:24] Speaker 3: the life of their assets for as long as possible
[26:27] Speaker 3: to try and earn money from their aging assets if
[26:30] Speaker 3: the business case for a new project isn't there. But
[26:32] Speaker 3: the worrying thing is when you look Spain as an example,
[26:36] Speaker 3: you actually then start to see the cumulative operating capacity
[26:39] Speaker 3: of wind potentially decreasing as more assets start to retire
[26:43] Speaker 3: than are getting replaced. We're not quite at that point
[26:45] Speaker 3: in the US, but that is a risk if we
[26:48] Speaker 3: don't see the industry recover significantly, and there's kind of
[26:51] Speaker 3: a continuation of a really difficult policy environment for the
[26:55] Speaker 3: wind sector in the US.
[26:56] Speaker 2: There's the pulsy environment that impacts the economics of a project,
[27:00] Speaker 2: but then there are also the permits and just the
[27:01] Speaker 2: ability to operate on that site. At this point in time,
[27:04] Speaker 2: are we seeing any changes to permits for existing firms
[27:08] Speaker 2: that would then impact you know, you get to the
[27:10] Speaker 2: end of that life cycle and maybe you can't repower
[27:13] Speaker 2: because you don't have the ability to continue on.
[27:15] Speaker 3: It's very rare to see a permit revoked for an
[27:18] Speaker 3: already operational project. That would be terrible for the business
[27:22] Speaker 3: confidence in a market, whichever industry you're looking at. But
[27:25] Speaker 3: in some markets it is very difficult to get a
[27:27] Speaker 3: new permit, and if you think about the US, sometimes
[27:30] Speaker 3: that's in red states. Sometimes that can be in blue
[27:32] Speaker 3: states as well. There's a big pushback to new onshore
[27:35] Speaker 3: wind permits in California, for example, and so there's not
[27:38] Speaker 3: a rush of projects that are able to kind of
[27:40] Speaker 3: secure that new permit for turbines that are much taller,
[27:44] Speaker 3: because some people still have this kind of nimbia attitude
[27:48] Speaker 3: to new wind projects. So it's always a bit of
[27:50] Speaker 3: a lottery in terms of whether you can secure a
[27:53] Speaker 3: new permit for your wind farm. And so we are
[27:56] Speaker 3: seeing repowering activity in California and in other parts of
[27:59] Speaker 3: the US. But yeah, if you can't get your permit,
[28:02] Speaker 3: you can't build your project.
[28:03] Speaker 2: Well, so I actually love that you pointed it out
[28:05] Speaker 2: that it is not necessarily a red state, blue state
[28:08] Speaker 2: thing because what we talk about a lot on this
[28:10] Speaker 2: show is URKAT, which is for those well I think
[28:13] Speaker 2: everyone knows at this point that ur cut is a
[28:15] Speaker 2: part of the Texas grid, but you know, it's one
[28:17] Speaker 2: of those places where you end depth seeing a lot
[28:19] Speaker 2: of technologies installed, with economics really being that driving force
[28:23] Speaker 2: and a place or you see a lot of innovation
[28:25] Speaker 2: in the energy transition. So not a red state blue
[28:27] Speaker 2: state thing, but to your point, region by region and
[28:31] Speaker 2: local laws are going to impact local sites.
[28:34] Speaker 3: Yeah, but permitting in the US is an incredibly local thing.
[28:37] Speaker 3: So in some cases states have statewide permitting policies for
[28:41] Speaker 3: onshore wind, but in many parts of the country it's
[28:44] Speaker 3: a county by county issue. So you go a few
[28:47] Speaker 3: fields over and you have to go to a different
[28:49] Speaker 3: board to get your permit and go through a different process.
[28:51] Speaker 3: And so it's incredibly localized how many barriers there are
[28:55] Speaker 3: to developers and how difficult it is to get that
[28:57] Speaker 3: permit for both a greenfield project but also so in
[29:00] Speaker 3: the future for a repower and so the cost.
[29:02] Speaker 1: Of generation for a repowered site is it typically lower
[29:06] Speaker 1: than the original site that it's replacing.
[29:08] Speaker 3: We tend to think about costs roughly similar to a
[29:12] Speaker 3: greenfield project, So you have often slightly higher capital costs
[29:17] Speaker 3: given that you also have to think about the decommissioning
[29:20] Speaker 3: of the old turbines. But yeah, you get a boost
[29:23] Speaker 3: in generation for the new project as well. Sometimes and
[29:26] Speaker 3: usually when you're installing a new wind project today, you
[29:29] Speaker 3: have to lock away money in a decommissioning bond, so
[29:32] Speaker 3: you're basically locking away that money in order to cover
[29:35] Speaker 3: those decommissioning costs in the future. That wasn't the case
[29:38] Speaker 3: on every early wind site, and so sometimes that there
[29:41] Speaker 3: is an additional cost. Usually there's a there are stipulations
[29:45] Speaker 3: in your permit, either with the governing bodies or with
[29:48] Speaker 3: the landowner for the site that means you have to
[29:51] Speaker 3: remove a certain amount of the kit at the end
[29:53] Speaker 3: of the project life. Again, in some limited cases, there
[29:57] Speaker 3: weren't those stipulations for the earliest projec and so in
[30:01] Speaker 3: some places around the world you see abandoned wind projects
[30:04] Speaker 3: where no one's willing to pay those decomissioning costs. They're
[30:06] Speaker 3: not on the hook to do that legally. That's a
[30:09] Speaker 3: really bad look for the industry. And that's completely changed
[30:11] Speaker 3: over the years, and now every permit or every landowner
[30:14] Speaker 3: will will stipulate that there has to be some kind
[30:17] Speaker 3: of decommissioning activity and money put away to do that
[30:20] Speaker 3: at the beginning of a project.
[30:21] Speaker 2: You know, ironically enough, I can see one of those
[30:23] Speaker 2: from my window. It's not a wind farm, but they
[30:25] Speaker 2: are wind turbines that are built into an office building
[30:28] Speaker 2: in London, and I can see it from my desk,
[30:30] Speaker 2: and they don't move anymore.
[30:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a repressing site. But twenty years ago, when
[30:35] Speaker 1: these projects were first built, their levelized cost would have
[30:38] Speaker 1: been something like one hundred dollars to make it what
[30:40] Speaker 1: our are today. A new wind project is, of course,
[30:43] Speaker 1: sort of fifty dollars a maga what.
[30:44] Speaker 3: Hour, Yes, that's something like that. So the energy generated
[30:47] Speaker 3: by that new project is vastly cheaper than it would
[30:50] Speaker 3: have been twenty five years ago. Comparing a greenfield asset
[30:53] Speaker 3: to a repowered asset, there's not too much of a
[30:56] Speaker 3: difference in terms of the cost of energy. But wind
[30:58] Speaker 3: has wind takes technology has drastically improved over the last
[31:02] Speaker 3: twenty twenty five years, and that's brought the costs down
[31:05] Speaker 3: in a big way. So one of the reasons that
[31:07] Speaker 3: the industry is using these really large turbines is because
[31:11] Speaker 3: using a larger turbine with a higher generating capacity is
[31:14] Speaker 3: usually cheaper on a permegwat basis for the turbine itself,
[31:17] Speaker 3: but you also need fewer foundations, fewer cables, fewer days
[31:21] Speaker 3: hiring a crane for a project of the same capacity.
[31:24] Speaker 3: If you're just using fewer machines, and so we've seen
[31:27] Speaker 3: a massive scale up of wind tibine technology and that's
[31:30] Speaker 3: led to a massive decrease in wind technology costs over
[31:33] Speaker 3: the years.
[31:34] Speaker 1: And so contractually, what does this sort of mean for
[31:36] Speaker 1: the off taker of that power? So somebody twenty years
[31:39] Speaker 1: ago it signed a contract for twenty years of powered
[31:42] Speaker 1: one hundred dollars a mag what hour is that off taker?
[31:45] Speaker 1: Usually the same person then that is going to be
[31:47] Speaker 1: purchasing their power from the repowered site and they is
[31:51] Speaker 1: this a big win for them because now their generation
[31:53] Speaker 1: cost is down to fifty.
[31:55] Speaker 3: Often the off taker is different, partly because some of
[31:57] Speaker 3: these earliest assets required a lot of government funding. Wind
[32:02] Speaker 3: farms weren't competitive on a cost basis with other technologies,
[32:05] Speaker 3: and so we had subsidy regimes like feed and taris
[32:08] Speaker 3: to wind assets, and to a certain extent, the government
[32:11] Speaker 3: of these countries was the off taker or at least
[32:13] Speaker 3: providing that kind of revenue stability for assets. These days,
[32:17] Speaker 3: in some cases it's government subsidies. Often it will be
[32:19] Speaker 3: a corporate off taker or utility off taker buying that power. Yes,
[32:23] Speaker 3: probably for its environmental credentials, but also because it's the
[32:27] Speaker 3: same price or cheaper than buying power from the grid
[32:30] Speaker 3: or from a fossil generator.
[32:32] Speaker 1: So it's policy supportive and required then to incentivize repowering
[32:36] Speaker 1: or do the economics alone just make it worthwhile.
[32:39] Speaker 3: It really depends on the market. The thing where policy
[32:43] Speaker 3: really makes a difference is revenue certainty. So it's really
[32:46] Speaker 3: important when you're going to a bank trying to finance
[32:49] Speaker 3: a wind as set that you can present a business
[32:51] Speaker 3: case that's compelling enough for a bank to give you
[32:53] Speaker 3: a twenty year loan for example. So if you can
[32:56] Speaker 3: say I've got a power purchase agreement of fifteen years
[32:59] Speaker 3: or twenty years, lenders are much more comfortable giving you
[33:01] Speaker 3: a large sum of money than if you say, oh, well,
[33:04] Speaker 3: I predict that the power prices in fifteen years are
[33:06] Speaker 3: going to be however much so, sometimes you can get
[33:10] Speaker 3: revenue stability from a company or a utility, but often
[33:14] Speaker 3: if countries want to build wind and solar assets at
[33:18] Speaker 3: great scale, then governments can also provide that revenue stability,
[33:21] Speaker 3: and so yeah, often for markets really aiming for scale,
[33:24] Speaker 3: we still see some role for government revenue stabilizing mechanisms.
[33:29] Speaker 2: So this wave is largely onshore. Are there any special
[33:31] Speaker 2: considerations for the offshore wind sectors, those start to retire
[33:35] Speaker 2: in the next few years coming up ahead, because that
[33:38] Speaker 2: was that second amount of installed capacity that came a
[33:40] Speaker 2: little bit later and maybe isn't all coming up on
[33:42] Speaker 2: its twenty years just yet, but it will come before
[33:45] Speaker 2: we know it.
[33:46] Speaker 3: So we're just starting to see the first offshore wind
[33:48] Speaker 3: farms start to retire. So there's a couple of demo
[33:51] Speaker 3: projects in markets like Denmark, in earliest offshore wind markets
[33:55] Speaker 3: like the UK, where we're starting to see these early
[33:58] Speaker 3: test cases on what a deco missioning of an offshore
[34:01] Speaker 3: wind farm really looks like. We've seen very little repairing
[34:05] Speaker 3: so far for offshore wind, but some developers, particularly more recently,
[34:09] Speaker 3: have paid an incredibly high amount of money for development
[34:12] Speaker 3: rights for some of these offshore sites, and often these
[34:16] Speaker 3: leases for the developers are around sixty years, so that's
[34:19] Speaker 3: not one project lifetime, that's two project lifetimes. So the
[34:22] Speaker 3: assumption bates in there is that we could see some
[34:24] Speaker 3: kind of repairing for offshore wind assets. It's likely to
[34:27] Speaker 3: be similar. So if you want to use the latest
[34:30] Speaker 3: and greatest technology, you're probably not going to be able
[34:32] Speaker 3: to use those same offshore foundations or cabling, and so
[34:36] Speaker 3: it's likely to be a complete project replacement as well,
[34:39] Speaker 3: with all the costs that come with that. But it
[34:40] Speaker 3: is an issue that is going to grow for the
[34:43] Speaker 3: offshore wind industry pretty fast as we see more and
[34:45] Speaker 3: more assets reach that end of life point.
[34:47] Speaker 1: So how would you sum up this dynamic of now
[34:51] Speaker 1: a large amount of wind farms reaching end of life?
[34:54] Speaker 1: Is this an opportunity for renewal and for cost reductions
[34:58] Speaker 1: and for more renewable power during the system or is
[35:01] Speaker 1: it a challenge that the industry is really just trying
[35:03] Speaker 1: to figure out how to get through.
[35:04] Speaker 3: I would say there's great opportunity. The opportunity to use
[35:08] Speaker 3: brand new technology on some of the windiest sites around
[35:11] Speaker 3: the world is a great one for developers and governments alike.
[35:15] Speaker 3: It also represents a big risk if you look at
[35:17] Speaker 3: some markets where the business case isn't there for wind assets,
[35:21] Speaker 3: then you are actually seeing that the cumulative operating capacity
[35:24] Speaker 3: of wind farms start to decrease as we see more
[35:26] Speaker 3: and more assets come offline. And so if markets are
[35:30] Speaker 3: hoping that wind forms a big part of their overall
[35:33] Speaker 3: decarbonization story, then supporting repowers both from a regulatory and
[35:38] Speaker 3: sometimes a financial perspective is going to be really important.
[35:41] Speaker 3: You know.
[35:41] Speaker 2: The big takeaway for me from the conversation today was
[35:43] Speaker 2: that this is also a very very hyper local conversation.
[35:47] Speaker 2: It's country by country, site by site, and turbine by
[35:51] Speaker 2: turbine being assessed. So it's hard to make huge generalizations
[35:54] Speaker 2: about this wave that's coming, but we certainly are going
[35:57] Speaker 2: to see it and there is a lot to consider
[36:00] Speaker 2: for this industry, both now and going forward as we
[36:04] Speaker 2: install more replace more. Thank you very much for joining
[36:07] Speaker 2: today and explaining where we are now, where we're headed,
[36:10] Speaker 2: and as the industry matures. Nice having you here, Allie
[36:13] Speaker 2: and Cobed really nice spending some time on the mic
[36:15] Speaker 2: with you. O.
[36:16] Speaker 1: Pleasure to be here and thank you. Thank you for
[36:18] Speaker 1: talking to us.
[36:18] Speaker 3: Really thanks for having me guys.
[36:28] Speaker 2: Today's episode of Switched On was produced by Cam Gray
[36:32] Speaker 2: with production assistance from Kamala Shelling. Bloomberg NEIF is a
[36:35] Speaker 2: service provided by Bloomberg Finance LP and its affiliates. This
[36:39] Speaker 2: recording does not constitute, nor should it be construed, as
[36:41] Speaker 2: investment advice, investment recommendations, or a recommendation as to an
[36:45] Speaker 2: investment or other strategy. Bloomberg ANIF should not be considered
[36:48] Speaker 2: as information sufficient upon which to base an investment decision.
[36:52] Speaker 2: Neither Bloomberg Finance LP nor any of its affiliates makes
[36:55] Speaker 2: any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness
[36:59] Speaker 2: of the information cantained in this recording, and any liability
[37:02] Speaker 2: as a result of this recording is expressly disclaimed

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