GE Vernova – Bringing Good Things to Life in Australia

GE Vernova is making bold moves in Australia with their Cypress 6MW workhorse turbine. With a renewed focus on power production and reliability, GE Vernova's Nicholas McVey - ANZ Service Director highlights all the changes with Joel and Allen. GE Vernova Australia is looking for qualified technicians and electricians to join their team. Contact Nicholas on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/nicholas-mcvey-2802bb5b or via email at [email protected]. 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.comJoin us at The Wind Energy O&M Australia Conference - https://www.windaustralia.com Welcome to Uptime Spotlight. Shining light on wind energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.  Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, we're joined by Nicholas McVey, Service Director at GE Vernova, where he leads operations and maintenance for wind farms across Australia and New Zealand. With over 15 years of experience in operations and commercial leadership roles, Nicholas brings valuable insights on maximizing wind farm performance and implementing strategic upgrades. Prior to his current role, he served as Contract Performance Manager at GE Vernova and has extensive experience in project management and commercial operations. Nicholas, welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. We have a global audience that is listening to this episode for sure. And I would like to know, and I think a lot of people would like to know, what are some of the challenges you have in Australia in regards to turbines and O& M? Because it does seem like a relatively harsh environment. Nicholas McVey: Look, of course Australia is a harsh environment. We're very different environments. We've got and we call it down here the tyranny of distance. So we've got a lot of different got wind farms in a place called Broken Hill, which is, almost in the middle of Australia. Extremely hot, extremely dry, lots of dust, sand. A lot of challenges specific to that environment. We've also got a wind farm in in the snowy mountains, we've got, one of the things about Australia is that you've got every environment you can think of in the one place. From an environment perspective, it's harsh.  Joel Saxum: I know when I first heard actually Rosemary on the podcast, talk about going to the snowy mountains. I was like, there's not snow in Australia. What are you talking about? Cause from a American, I didn't think that. And then she's yeah, of course we, she's we have jungles, we have deserts, we have extreme heat, we have snow, we have cold, we have all these things. And of course, like you said, the size. So all of that from an O and M's perspective, because Nicholas, that's what you do every day. You're concentrated on. The operations and maintenance of GE's turbines within Australia. That creates Logistical nightmares. It also creates a lot of different problems, right? So if we're talking about the turbines that are out in the dust there, it doesn't matter what OEM it is. You're going to have leading edge erosion issues, and you're going to have different things that pop up based on that environment.  Allen Hall: So Nicholas, how big is the organization you run in Australia? Because I think the sense of scale would be helpful here. I know you're scattered all around Australia and Australia is a gigantic ...