PowerCurve: Upgrade Your Blades with Tip Extensions, VG’s, Serrations, Gurney Flaps, and More!

Joel and Allen meet with Blade Aerodynamics Expert Nicholas Gaudern to discuss the aerodynamic upgrades available from PowerCurve. There are multiple simple improvements that can dramatically improve the AEP. Don't miss this episode! PowerCurve - https://powercurve.dkPardalote Consulting at 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!  PowerCurve Allen Hall: Well, we're here in New Orleans at American Clean Power 2023 with Nicholas Gaudern, CTO of Power Curve. And one of the discussions this week, Nicholas, has been about repowering. Obviously the IRA bill has a lot of money bout repowering discussions revolve around what's involved in repowering, like what can be considered as part of the, the tax credit. Mm-hmm. And one of those items is aerodynamics, fixing the blade structurally, which is what Wind Power Lab does, and giving, you know, understand repair plans there, which everybody's doing right now. Right. But while you're on the blade, you might as well get some AEP back and, and get some aerodynamic performance back. What, what are, what are the people saying here this week?  Nicholas Gaudern: You know, I think that's a really good point, Allen. We've had some great conversations in the last couple of days about what is applicable. Yeah. For the tax credits. Right. You know, and basically everything by all these aerodynamic upgrades that you can put on, it's all worthwhile doing. If you're on the blade doing other  Joel Saxum: work, it's just a dollar value. Right. At the end of the day. Absolutely. You gotta spend so much  Nicholas Gaudern: to qualify. Yes, absolutely. And if you, if you get AEP back in, in beautiful. In the same time. Perfect. Yeah. So something that we've been talking about a lot is vortex generators. We've had a lot of interest in VGs as part of that work because. It is a bit of a no-brainer really. It's easy to do. It's easy to do. Yeah. It's cheap to install, and you can not only recover AP that you'd be losing through, say, contamination and erosion. Right. You can also just improve the baseline aerodynamic performance of the blade, and it's one of those things that is, it's a very low risk, it's a low risk investment. Sure. Mm-hmm. Tried, tested, proven, and I don't think anyone's gonna argue that a, that a VG works or doesn't work. Right. Right. But we've also talked about things that you could maybe consider a little bit more exotic. Things like tip extensions, Okay. For example.  Allen Hall: So just basically making your blade a little bit longer. Yeah, exactly. Especially where the most of the powers generator anywhere anyway. It's on the outer third, so Yes. Making another meter, two, three on  Nicholas Gaudern: the tip. Yep, exactly. So I think with a tip extension, it's all about getting more swept area. Mm-hmm. The bigger swept area, the more power. It's, it's kind of obvious. So it's an easy thing, I think, for customers to understand. There's not any particularly complicated physics around. It's just no bigger array, bigger rotor,  Joel Saxum: more power. Yeah. Those are, those are formulas that we all know and love. Yes. Right. That's not a hard one.  Nicholas Gaudern: We can take, you know, take, take a, an older turbine, let's say, you know, a 60, 70 meter turbine that might be knocking around and, and eligible for some, for some credits. If you just put a meter of blade length on.