PES caught up with Ryan Lauridsen, CEO at Bladena to find out about the latest developments in blade technology. An important issue in our industry..
PES: Welcome to PES Wind magazine. Thanks for talking with us. Would you like to begin by explaining a little about the background of your organisation and how you currently serve the wind industry?
Ryan Lauridsen: Bladena was founded 5 years ago as a spin off from the Technical University of Denmark and since then has been focusing on further development of the patented technologies and their commercialisation. Our focus is on the structural design of blades and all our work is centred on reducing the failures seen on blades in operation; hence reducing the cost for Operation and Maintenance on blades and so extending their operational life time. We have expert knowledge in blade failures and how to avoid them.
Our main office is in Denmark, but so far also we are represented in France and North America. We are looking to expand this to other areas in the near future. We serve the industry, in all locations, with our blade knowledge, starting from root cause analysis of failures to our products and solutions. These can be installed both in manufacturing and as retrofits up-tower on blades in operation.
PES: Your business focuses on blades, is this a growing business? How are you capitalising on this growth?
RL: The wind turbine industry moves towards ever longer blades and expectations of driving down cost (LCOE). During recent years, as the awareness of challenges increases, the focus within operation and maintenance has to some extend shifted from “only” looking at the drive train. Blade failures/damages on MW turbines are part of the daily concerns for the turbine owners and operators; hence they are spending more and more resources on reducing the O&M cost and long term operation of the blades.
