Blade Platforms: Revolutionizing Blade Repair Access

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

In this episode, Petr Bartusek from Blade Platforms discusses how their truck-mounted platforms, capable of safely reaching over 100 meters, are transforming wind turbine blade repair access. With increased speed, skill utilization, and 24-hour shift capabilities, using Blade Platforms minimizes turbine downtime and maximizes efficiency in blade repair campaigns. 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! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum, today, we're tackling a critical issue in the wind industry. Accessing wind turbine blades for repairs. And our guest is Petr Bartusek, commercial VP of Blade Platforms. And Blade Platforms is a truck mounted platform company based in Abilene, Texas. And with wind turbines hubs reaching new heights, traditional repair access methods can be slow and inefficient. Blade Platforms solves this problem with a fleet of machines that can safely reach over 100 meters, allowing technicians to quickly and efficiently repair blades while minimizing turbine downtime. Today, Petr will share how Blade Platforms is transforming blade repair access and discuss the future of this innovative company in the wind industry. Petr, welcome to the show. Petr Bartusek: All right. Thanks for having me. Allen Hall: So Joel and I happened to visit your facility in Abilene. And the reason we did was because of speed. It comes down to quickness and our strike click take application where we're touching a lot of blades, we have to get up and down very quickly because we touched so many blades simultaneously, which is a common industry problem. If you're going to fix one blade pretty easy, you can use whatever method. But when we're. At some farms that have a hundred, 200, 300 plus turbines, it becomes so slow and efficient that there has to be a new way to do it, a faster way to get on blade and to make repairs. And this is where we stopped. And Abilene met with your folks down there at Blade Platforms. It is impressive the speed at which you guys move and it has really changed the industry. And we, Joel and I have been around a lot of parts of Texas and Oklahoma and we see Blade Platforms. And now we understand why, because you're really changing the industry. Petr Bartusek: I'll add, it's not just speed, I think. There's a couple of things. You get speed, you get skill, and you get time utilization, right? So the speed kind of speaks for itself, right? I tell everyone on a 12 hour day, We'll do 11 hours worth of work, right? So you got some truck set up time and, some idle time that just, you cannot monetize that, that, that's one aspect. The other thing is utilization of time and that, these sites are, on windy projects, right? So you're, you don't put turbines where the wind doesn't blow. So you have to be able to operate in increments of time. When that happens. I use a traditional means of access or ropes or suspended platforms. It's the rigging time and everything else that goes into it changes the dynamics of what you're doing because, let's say you got a rig for two hours, then you go up and you get a three hour weather window. Then you got to go down and maybe or maybe not, you have to pull it a day. If at two o'clock a storm roll in or something will happen. So for us, we get, six hours worth of work. There's three hours storm going through.