Wind industry seeks ‘new balance’ as result of growth

Industry, academic and governmental stakeholders converged in Albuquerque for the 2024 Sandia Blade Workshop. The biennial event, established in 2004, marked its 20th year addressing major topics related to wind turbine blades and promoting interaction and networking.

“There is continual pressure to increase the reliability of wind turbine blades while also innovating to drive down costs. These competing pressures offer a prime role for continuing rapid innovation of wind turbine blade technology,” Sandia wind researcher David Maniaci and this year’s workshop chair, said. “We’re no longer just designing turbines for initial cost, but environmental, social and life-cycle drivers as well. The industry has rapidly grown, and there is a tension between growth, cost and reliability that is finding a new balance.”

Keynote speaker Eric Lantz, director of the DOE Wind Energy Technologies Office, kicked off the September workshop by providing conferencegoers with an overview of the government’s wind research program and strategy. WETO targets foundational science, enabling industry to advance, test and demonstrate technological solutions. These investments have led to advancements that have lowered the cost of offshore and onshore wind energy; however, Lantz underscored the need for more wind turbines, with processes that address wildlife and community needs, as well as the grid services benefit that wind provides, such as voltage and frequency support.

Over the course of the week, more than 180 attendees engaged in 12 panel and technical discussions sharing input on common challenges and opportunities related to wind turbine blade technology. World-renowned wind energy experts offered technical deep dives on state-of-the-art wind turbine blade design, manufacturing, operations and maintenance. Workshop side meetings — smaller, interactive meetings covering topics like blade modeling tools, community interaction, blade reliability, operations, maintenance and leading-edge erosion — offered attendees with similar interests the chance to meet in more informal settings.

This year’s Growth vs. Reliability and Owner Operator panel sessions were the most attended, highlighting the major challenges the wind industry faces today to scale up wind turbine blades while responding to calls to further reduce costs. Lightning mitigation and sensing systems for blades were also hot topics, generating considerable stakeholder discussion. “There is still a lot of room for innovation as our understanding of the physics of lightning grows,” David said.

Plans are already underway for the 2026 Sandia Blade Workshop. Looking ahead, popular topics for further consideration include advances in leading-edge blade-protection technology, deployment of robotic blade-repair systems, scaling blade designs and manufacturing while responding to cost and reliability pressures and innovative methods for inspecting blades during their life-cycle stages.

“We look forward to gathering again in 2026 as wind turbine blade technology continues to evolve as fast as the industry that drives it,” David said.

Read more about the blade reliability experts and view their workshop presentations.

Learn more about Sandia’s Wind Energy Technologies program’s capabilities and research.