In February, Weather Guard Lightning Tech, EOLOGIX-PING and Pardalote Consulting, with Media Sponsor PES Wind, organized the second annual Wind Energy O&M Australia (WOMA) conference. Our goal was to create an event wind professionals could enjoy, with knowledge they could implement immediately out in the field. What we didn’t expect was the level of knowledge sharing and collaboration the Australian market has to offer.
Compared to the rest of the wind energy world, Australia is a unique market. It’s a large country with massive amounts of wind resource and a limited infrastructure to manage turbines. Operators must work with lean, multi-talented teams to keep their fleets running efficiently.
The dominant full-service agreement strategy is beginning to crack under the weight of its own assumptions. Wind energy was born in Denmark. It grew up in Europe, China and the United States. But after two days with 200 operators, engineers, and asset managers, it seems Australia may be where this industry fully matures.
The comfortable arrangement
When we asked the WOMA audience to describe the current state of asset management in one word, they chose ‘reactive.’ That single word is at the heart of their industry’s push for change. As the panel noted, you can’t fix a problem you won’t acknowledge. The room acknowledged it, loudly.