The Global Blade Group Builds Industry Blade Knowledge

Allen and Joel speak with Birgit Junker, co-founder of the Global Blade Group, a forum created to share knowledge and innovation around wind turbine blades. For over ten years, the group has been making blade information more accessible and approachable. For more information on joining the Global Blade Group, email [email protected]. Link to Blade Handbook - https://www.bladena.com/uploads/8/7/3/7/87379536/cortir_handbook_2019.pdf Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug! 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! Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, I'm delighted to welcome Birgit Junker, a true pioneer in wind energy blade technology and the co founder of the Global Blade Group. This organization has become the premier forum for the wind turbine blade experts to collaborate, share knowledge, and drive innovation in areas like structural design, Lightning protection and blade inspection technologies. Welcome to Uptime Spotlight. Shining light on wind energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Birgit, welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. Birgit Junker: Thank you very much and thanks for having me. Allen Hall: I want to start off by looking back a little bit into 2013. What were some of the challenges that when farm owners were facing with Blade technology and maintenance that led you to create the global Blade group? Birgit Junker: To start with Rege from Vattenfall and I, we were relatively new on the owner operator side. And we both found that when we were speaking to our colleagues, they, their eyes just glazed over every single time we said Blade. Cause nobody knew anything about blade. When I was hired at Eon I came from from Siemens. I was hired at Eon. I was told that they didn't have blade issues. So I should expect to work about 80%, 75 percent on blades. And the rest of the time I should be spending on a drivetrain. 10 years later, when I left, there were 10 blade people. And I never ever had to look at a drivetrain. That was the attitude then. Blades were not a problem. We didn't have blade problems. Blades were like that black box that you had.