Uptime’s Takeaways from Hamburg 2026

The crew discusses Hamburg takeaways, including the industry mood, bigger blade risks, and OEM announcements. The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s "Engineering with Rosie" Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Episode Transcript Matthew Stead: [00:00:00] Every time Rosie walked past a, a, like a, a QR code with a, a prize of Lego, she had to enter.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I'm  Matthew Stead: n- I'm not quite sure, I'm not quite sure whether Rosie was actually entering her real name.  Rosemary Barnes: Oh, just like 100, 100 different fake emails. Um-  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And I also-  Matthew Stead: Yeah ...  Rosemary Barnes: do think I could grab one and run. I was considering it, 'cause, you know, I've been to a few of these events now. I would have entered probably 20 competitions, and I never, I never win  Speaker 3: The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now your hosts Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I'm Allen Hall, and I'm here with Rosemary Barnes, Yolanda Padron, and Matthew Stead. And this has been a busy week because everybody's been, well, Matthew and Rosemary have been in Hamburg for the big Wind Energy Hamburg show. Organizers [00:01:00] there expect 43,000 people from 100 countries to attend. There's roughly 1,600 companies and booths on the show floor. Uh, this is the big show, right? Everybody knows this is the big show, and this is the one to go to. Matthew, you were with EOLOGIX-PING for the week in the booth there. How, what, how did it go? How was it?  Matthew Stead: Uh, I don't think I've talked for, um, eight hours a day for three days in a row ever. So it, it, it was, it was crazy. So, um, uh, there were so many people there. I think, um, I, I ... There, there was some mixed feelings. So there was a lot of positive vibe about what's going on and how the industry is progressing and doing better. But at the same time, there were sort of negative comments about, like Germany next year, they were really expecting a, a big drop in the number of installations. So it was quite a mixed bag. Um, but I mean, personally, I loved seeing old friends.  Allen Hall: And Rosemary, you were not tied to a [00:02:00] booth, so you could wander around a little bit more. What did you see and hear at the show?  Rosemary Barnes: Uh, a lot. I have actually learned what a booth is for now, though, because if you don't have a booth, then you have to, like, just go from You try and meet people, and you have to navigate your way through the system, and you can't actually make appointments because you chat, you run into somebody, and then you chat to someone. And, like, you think, "Oh, I'll talk to everyone for five minutes," but you end up talking for 15 or 20 minutes. And yeah, so lots of, lots of walking. But, um, I've seen, I've seen heaps. I love these exhibitions, you know, when they've got the ... lot, a lot of them have displays. So, you know, like, there's a real, a real winch in there. I can't remember what company it was from, but it's, like, a real winch that's been in service for a long time. And you know, you can go get a sense for, uh, that scale. Real bits of rope. Um, oh, so many robots. So many robots and drones. Um, yeah. All, all kinds [00:03:00] of varieties of robots and drones, which I love. Lots of them doing very useful things. Uh, I don't know what else. About, yeah, every other stand has some, one of my ex-colleagues from LM Wind Power standing in it, in, um, a wide variety of industries. So that's kind of cool. I actually, I had some really, really great conversations with old colleagues. And, um-  Allen Hall: Mm.  Rosemary Barnes: Mm ... yeah, l- learn, yeah, always learn a lot from that. Um, yeah. I don't know. It's been good. Lots of free ice cream as well. Uh, yeah. Free ice cream, free coffees, good coffees.  Allen Hall: What were the good handouts this year? What, what were the free giveaways that everybody was distributing?  Rosemary Barnes: There's a lot of chocolates, and it's quite easy to, yeah, just grab handfuls of chocolate.  Matthew Stead: A weather dice. Is there light- is there lightning today, or is it windy?  Allen Hall: Who was offering that, Matthew?  Matthew Stead: Uh, this is, uh, GWU.  Allen Hall: All right. That's, that's a neat handout, giveaway, [00:04:00] right? Matthew Stead: Great company.  Allen Hall: Were they, were they auctioning off any cars or anything that was, like, super impressive? A million dollars?  Matthew Stead: Oh, I gotta tell a story. Like, every time Rosie walked past, uh, uh, like a, a QR code with a, a prize of Lego- She had to enter.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I'm  Matthew Stead: not, I'm not quite sure, I'm not quite sure whether Rosie was actually entering her real name or like a, a, a fake name. Rosemary Barnes: Or just like 100, 100 different fake emails. Um-  Matthew Stead: Yeah.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And I also-  Matthew Stead: Yeah ...  Rosemary Barnes: every time try and convince them to just give it to me. Um, but all the LEGO is like Danish companies, and Danes are, I think, like literally the most honest people, um, most honest country on Earth. So-  Matthew Stead: Yeah ...  Rosemary Barnes: they never really, um, allow that. But I- ... do think I could grab one and run. I was considering it, 'cause, you know, I've been to a few of these events now. I would have entered probably 20 competitions, and I never, I never win, so. I  Yolanda Padron: mean, you're fast enough. You could have beat them.  Rosemary Barnes: They're limited edition sets that are not, no longer available [00:05:00] for sale or were never available for sale, so it's not like you could just say, "Oh, just go buy one, Rosie." But these sets are not, not available. There's, yeah, like lots of like little, um, offshore wind turbine and then a, like a substation. Yeah. Had like a little drone as well involved in that set. There's another, there's a Maersk has a ship with like, full of shipping containers. Um- Yeah. I, I don't know. Like, just lots of cool, cool Lego  Matthew Stead: I even, even entered on Rosie's behalf  Allen Hall: What was the vibe offshore, uh, versus onshore? 'Cause last time I attended, which was about four years ago now, there was a, a significant amount of offshore, uh, discussion and booths and vendors. Is the ratio growing more offshore versus onshore? Or what, what did that look like?  Matthew Stead: I felt the opposite. I felt it was all onshore, but- Really?  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, yeah. I think so, and it's a real contrast. 'Cause when you go to the big wind, um, conferences in Australia now, it, it's always, like, 90%-plus offshore wind, which [00:06:00] we don't have in Australia, and I've always found it so weird.  Matthew Stead: Hmm.  Rosemary Barnes: And, uh, here in Europe where they do have a whole lot of offshore wind, and that's where, you know, like, most of their growth is, uh, coming in the industry for new installations-  Matthew Stead: Hmm Rosemary Barnes: um, yeah, it's, it's a lot more, it's a lot more balanced. Um, it's just, like, a lot of small companies doing s- small things. I mean, it's not, like, really small. It's, you know, one small task in every single wind farm in the world. There's obviously still a huge market. But, you know, like, lots of just, like, really precision solutions to very specific problems, I guess. Yeah, there's just so much, uh, wind energy here, so many people that just, yeah, learned about a problem and came up with a, a way to solve it. Um, yeah, so it, it's, it's a really good balance.  Allen Hall: Uh, while we're here, what were the new products on the show floor that you said, "Wow, that's something innovative"?  Rosemary Barnes: Like, there's stuff... I learned stuff that I didn't know before, but I don't think that it's brand-new. Um, for example, I learned that you're not supposed to call a drone a robot. Um- [00:07:00] Allen Hall: Why?  Rosemary Barnes: I think a drone is a class of robot. In my, in my opinion, a drone is a robot that flies. But I was told off for, um... I'm like, "Oh, do you have any other robots?" "No, we don't have any other robots. We've got drones." That's what they said.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. Hmm. I learned, I learned two things, and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say this, but anyway, I'll, I'll, I'll do it. Um, SkySpecs have a MC- MCP connector to their data For their customers. So for those AI nerds out there, that's a massive thing, I think. Rosemary Barnes: Can you explain what that is, Matt?  Allen Hall: For us non-geeks.  Matthew Stead: My understanding, and I'll, I'll be corrected by the audience, is that a MCP, whatever it stands for, um, is basically, uh, like an AI connector where you can query all your data that is h- hosted within- Oh ... SkySpecs. So-  Rosemary Barnes: Ah ...  Matthew Stead: Hey, Mr. SkySpecs- Okay ... um, which turbines have been struck by lightning, you know, have lightning damage, and how bad is it? And, [00:08:00] and then the next thing that SkySpecs has... Uh, I don't work for SkySpecs. Um, the next, the next thing that SkySpecs have is they have a more of a growth of damage over time and a predictor as to what the damage might look like next year. Um, strangely, Rosie, um, I also heard quite a few people talking about blade temperature. Um, and I know that's a sort of deep- Oh, really? ... rabbit hole. Yeah.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, that's my obsession....