I drive by a single white wind turbine nearly every day. Backdropped by rolling farm fields and the jagged summit of Mount Mansfield to the east, it is a dramatic sight—especially when a storm is approaching and the turbine is bright against heavy, hard metal clouds. I like to gauge the weather by watching its steady blades.
It was a breezy evening on Lake Champlain, and the sun was sinking behind the blue and gunmetal gray Adirondack Mountains. Inside the ECHO Science Center, we gathered at round tables to celebrate the 2013 Terry Ehrich Award for Excellence in Socially Responsible Business. Jan Blomstrann, Renewable NRG Systems' president and CEO, was the honoree.
My colleague, Emeric, and I recently traveled to Colombia, South America, to install an 80m XHD TallTower™. This met tower will be used to collect wind data on a site to determine whether it is viable for a small wind farm in the future. Visiting Colombia for the first time and only speaking a tiny bit of Spanish, I was both excited and wary.
This past week, we rolled out the rebranding of NRG Systems to “Renewable NRG Systems.” Along with a company name change, we also have a new vision and mission, logo, and corporate colors. It’s a lot of change all at one time. Everyone is asking why and what does it all mean?
I work in an industry that’s mostly male. My company has 70% male employees. The wind industry itself is at least that percentage male and I’m often the only female in the room. For the most part, I hardly notice it any longer.
What happens to your NRG Systems tower after its first measurement campaign? If you’re like many of our customers, it goes into storage, but it doesn’t have to stay there. Reusing met towers can be an economical, green practice—as long as safety is taken into account.
Although we ship NRG Systems products around the world, we are continuously amazed by the beautiful and remote places where they are used—many of which are rarely visited by humans.
While most owners and operators consider a condition monitoring system’s initial price tag, many do not realize that the annual analysis costs can also be significant.
I returned home from this year’s WINDPOWER conference in Chicago thinking about the new leadership at AWEA and all the discussions at the board meeting and on the podium about a new vision for the wind industry.
