Lightning Explodes Insurance Market, Iowa Counties Increase Setbacks

From lightning strikes zapping insurers to swirling debates over turbine setbacks, offshore wind PPAs blowing in the wind, and the path to 100% clean power - this week's news spans the gusty landscape of the wind industry. Rosemary, Joel, Phil and Allen cover incentives to get wind farms permitted faster in Sweden, the pushback on bigger setbacks in Iowa, a $1.5B renewables acquisition, why more expensive offshore wind will still have a role, and more. Plus, our featured Wind Farm of the Week: Luverne Wind Project in North Dakota! 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!  Uptime 179 Allen Hall: Well, Rosemary, we were in San Diego last week and we happened to stop in the Lego store and we were amazed at the number of Lego projects that are made for adults.  Rosemary Barnes: I'm not, I'm not surprised  Joel Saxum: I'm gonna be, I'm gonna tell you right now, I buy the race cars and build them myself, just like after dinner some nights. Phil Totaro: Kids of all ages. Allen Hall: They had a really cool Corvette and the Magic Kingdom castle and the Titanic, which, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of pieces and it would take you probably weeks to do. I don't, I don't Rosemary you seem like a Lego expert though.  Rosemary Barnes: I did live close to Lego in Denmark, so I guess, you know, obviously absorbed. Some sort of expertise, but yeah. During the pandemic, my part, my partner and I discovered that you don't have to have kids to buy Lego. Yeah. You, you can as an adult, buy, buy a kit and not worry about your kid doing it wrong. You can just, just do it yourself and you could, you can give it to them afterwards.  Joel Saxum: There's a connection between Ørsted and Lego, like the ex CEO of Lego was at one point in time, the CEO of Ørsted, like the two, two CEOs ago or something like that. I don't remember exactly what it was.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. Allen Hall: That's gonna be a prime job, right? Like when you're looking for jobs in the newspaper in Denmark, when Lego pops up, that's gotta be one of your top choices, right?  Joel Saxum: Just build Legos all day  Allen Hall: since we're in the Scandinavian countries. Phil, why don't you kick off?  Phil Totaro: So this week we're talking about new incentives that the Swedish government is putting in place to build onshore wind farms. And lightning strikes are responsible for 70% of the catastrophic losses in the first half of this year.  Rosemary Barnes: Then we head over to Woodbury County in Iowa where they're debating the setbacks for wind turbines and them to be increasing and increasing and increasing the distance. And then over to Australia where we're talking about tariffs on products like steel and cement if they have carbon emissions associated with them to support green versions of those industries. Joel Saxum: And in the states here, Invenergy is purchasing aeps unregulated assets about 1.4 gigawatts for about 1.5 billion with a B dollars. And then jumping offshore in the us, go to the East Coast. Commonwealth Wind Is exiting their PPA and there's about a $50 million penalty on the table. And a couple of the Massachusetts state agencies can't quite agree which direction they want to go. And then Ottertail Power Company over on the border there of Minnesota and North Dakota. Luverne Wind Farm is our Wind Farm of the week.  Allen Hall: I'm Allen Hall. I'm here with my good friends, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro and Rosemary Barnes, and this is the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.