Brazil’s Wind Turbine Market Soars: How Are They Keeping the Blades Turning? A Conversation with Armando Costa Rego

Brazil's wind turbine market is surging! From an installed capacity of 24 GW in 2022, it's set to soar to a massive 45.20 GW by 2028. But with the majority of turbines in the northeast region facing relentless rainfall, ensuring top-notch blade performance is crucial. Join us as Armando Costa Rego, Founder and CEO of Arthwind, shares insights on how they're keeping the wind turbines spinning flawlessly amid the boom. Arthwind - https://arthwind.com.brPardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWind Power Lab - https://windpowerlab.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com 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!  Arthwind Interview Allen Hall: I am Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with the Vice President of North American Sales to Wind Power LAB, Joel Saxum. And today we're talking about the need for wind blade inspections and repair planning with our guest Armando Costa Rego, founder and CEO of Arthwind. And Arthwind are the blade doctors of Brazil. Now, if you've been around wind turbines long enough, you know that wind turbines are a critical part of the renewable energy infrastructure, but they're also complex machines that can be susceptible to damage. And wind blades are particularly vulnerable to damage from ice, wind, and other environmental factors. And that's why it's important to have a comprehensive blade inspection and repair plan in place. This plan should include the schedule for regular inspections and a process for identifying, repairing any damage that is found. And Arthwind is really key part of that. By following a regular inspection and repair plan, you can ensure your, your wind turbine blades are operating safely and efficiently, and you can also definitely extend the lifetime of your wind turbines, which will save money in the long run. So on this podcast, we're gonna discuss all of the importance factors of wind blade inspections and repair planning. We'll also talk about some of the latest technology that Arthwind has used to inspect and repair wind turbine blades. Armando, welcome to the program.  Armando Costa Rego: Hey guys, thank you very much for this introduction. It's really a pleasure to be here the first time after meeting you several times around the world. So now we are here now.  Allen Hall: So Arthwind's based in Brazil. You guys are located just outside of Sao Paulo. And you, you, you formed a company because you had a lot of blade expertise. You may, you may wanna give a brief description of, of where you learned about blades. Armando Costa Rego: Yeah, that's right. We are located in, near to Sao Paulo actually, Sorocaba. Sorocaba is a a city where Texas has built more than 50,000 wind blades since 2007. So we have here a hub of expertise of the all kinds of blades and all that. At, at 37 meters, 40 meters, 48 and any longers blades. My, my expertise started in Europe, actually. I was running wind blade maintenance through a, a company, a local company there since 2009, up to 2015. Then I returned to Brazil to manage the operation in South America and decided in 2007 to create my own project called Arthwind to bring the technology to the way how things are getting done, you know, so I was like a terrific critic of how blades is used, being inspected, inspecting that time, taking pictures from the grounds. So I joined partners around the world to, to bring this new technology to Brazil and so far since 2017, we, we had successfully inspected more than 45,