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Years of Blade Erosion but a Cure Remains Elusive
In our over 50 years of combined wind energy work, we have watched leading-edge erosion go from a curiosity to a crisis nobody has fully solved. This is not a product review. It is a field record, written from the blade up. From our first eroded blade, at Altamont Pass in 1999, through years of repair work, to spinning test blades at 96m/s (215mph) to put leading-edge protection products through their paces, the story keeps circling back to one fact: nothing has reliably fixed the problem yet. Modern turbines – with longer blades and higher tip speeds – are eroding faster than older fleets ever did, and even the newest coatings are leaving something to be desired. A few years ago, we decided to find out more for ourselves.
By Jack Wallace and Myron Miller, RPE Services LLC, USA
Jack Wallace (co-author) began in wind energy in 1985, working across nearly every discipline, from turbine O&M to blade work. He did not encounter leading-edge erosion until 14 years later, and it stopped him in his tracks. Myron Miller (co-author) later joined, bringing testing and materials expertise.
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Why Multi-Height Wind Forecasts Matter for Next-Generation Offshore Turbines
The offshore wind industry is moving towards larger and taller turbines. Modern offshore wind turbines can now have rotor diameters exceeding 200 metres. While larger turbines can capture more energy and improve offshore wind economics, they also challenge one of the simplifying assumptions that has guided operational wind energy forecasting for decades: that a single wind speed at hub height represents the wind energy resource available to a wind turbine. To address this emerging challenge, researchers from Rutgers University have developed a new forecasting method that harnesses advancements in artificial intelligence to produce forecasts of the full vertical wind profile swept by large offshore wind turbines.
By Ahmed Aziz Ezzat, Associate Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Rutgers University, USA
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New Material and Design Concepts Supporting Circularity in Wind Turbine Blades
Wind energy plays a key role in the transition towards renewable and low-carbon energy systems. As global wind capacity continues to grow, increasing attention is being paid to the lifetime, repairability and end-of-life treatment of rotor blades, which are mainly made from composites reinforced with glass fibre and, in some cases, carbon fibre materials. Improving the circularity of these structures has therefore become an important challenge for the wind industry. Within the European research project ReCreate, the project partners INVENT, RES-T, Applus+ Rescoll, and the Fraunhofer Institutes WKI and IWU are developing new approaches, combining alternative materials, manufacturing technologies, and design strategies to enable more repairable and recyclable rotor blade structures.
By Justus von Freeden, Research Associate, Fraunhofer IWU, Germany
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How AI Is Transforming Market Stability and Grid Resilience
Globally, the energy industry is undergoing a rapid shift towards renewable energy, with wind emerging as one of its fastest-growing sectors. Carbon-free, cost-effective and inexhaustible, wind has proven to be a popular alternative to fossil fuels for companies looking to meet their climate goals. However, wind is unpredictable. Sudden shifts in wind speed – or wind ramps – disrupt the flow of energy generated by wind turbines, leaving energy professionals scrambling to resolve grid imbalances at a moment’s notice.
By Jeffrey Wetterlin, Energy Lead and Meteorologist, Meteomatics, USA
As climate change exacerbates weather volatility, the energy industry can no longer rely on traditional weather tools to inform planning. Professionals need easy access to accurate climate insights to respond quickly to potential events. Wind ramp technology – artificial intelligence (AI) tools powered by hyperlocal, real-time weather intelligence – provides a new solution. By integrating weather intelligence into AI platforms used by energy professionals, wind ramp technology can detect events earlier, giving energy traders and utilities the lead time they need to prepare and respond to wind ramps with confidence.
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Bird Protection in Evolving Turbine Architectures
As bird protection becomes a more established part of wind farm development and operation, the engineering discussion is changing. Detection performance still matters, but the focus is shifting beyond proof-of-concept capability towards the maturity of solutions that can work within turbine and plant controls, adapt across OEM environments, and align with modern cybersecurity expectations. IdentiFlight was developed in response to that challenge. Built by Boulder Imaging, a company founded in 1995 with expertise in artificial intelligence, machine vision, and high-precision optical systems, IdentiFlight reflects decades of experience developing integrated solutions for complex manufacturing and industrial applications.
By Aaron Coppage, Director of Global Field Operations, Boulder Imaging, USA
Performance Now Includes Integration
For years, discussion around bird protection systems centred on a familiar set of questions: Can the system detect birds reliably, classify species accurately, and reduce collision risk without excessive curtailment? Those questions still matter, but they no longer tell the whole story. In practice, additional questions such as the following have become just as important: Can an environmental solution be securely integrated into plant operations with minimal impact on plant operation efficiency and security risk profile?
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New Offshore Wind Projects Will Strengthen Northeastern Grids
Two offshore wind projects in the Northeastern USA recently achieved important milestones. In mid-March 2026, Ørsted’s 704MW Revolution Wind off the coast of Rhode Island generated its first power, while in April, the 800MW Vineyard Wind completed construction and activated its power purchase agreement with Massachusetts utilities.
By Sam Schacht, Project Director, Clean Energy States Alliance, USA
These enormous projects have been a decade in the making and provide an unprecedented addition of offshore wind power to the USA, delivering a massive injection of electric generation capacity at a time when load growth is generating serious anxiety among grid operators and policymakers.
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Turning Supply Chain Uncertainty into Measurable Threat Information
With wind power growing in the European grid, sophisticated adversaries are paying closer attention, recognising that a coordinated disruption of wind farms can undermine an entire region’s electricity supply. The operational technology systems that keep wind assets spinning are only as secure as the suppliers who build, integrate and maintain them. A cyberthreat assessment methodology, focused on deliberate system compromise by supply chain threats and developed by Accenture in collaboration with WindEurope, provides asset owners with an objective, evidence-based framework for evaluating how much risk each vendor introduces and where mitigation investment will have the greatest impact. Built around formal definitions of geopolitical risk, a structured scoring architecture, and alignment with international standards, it equips procurement and risk teams with a tool that is both analytically rigorous and operationally usable.
By Ignacio Paredes and Pedro Marín Fernandes, Accenture, Spain
