Uptime’s Takeaways from Hamburg 2026

The crew discusses Hamburg takeaways, including the industry mood, bigger blade risks, and OEM announcements.

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Episode Transcript Matthew Stead: [00:00:00] Every time Rosie walked past a, a, like a, a QR code with a, a prize of Lego, she had to enter.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I'm

Matthew Stead: n- I'm not quite sure, I'm not quite sure whether Rosie was actually entering her real name.

Rosemary Barnes: Oh, just like 100, 100 different fake emails. Um-

Matthew Stead: Yeah.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And I also-

Matthew Stead: Yeah ...

Rosemary Barnes: do think I could grab one and run. I was considering it, 'cause, you know, I've been to a few of these events now.

I would have entered probably 20 competitions, and I never, I never win

Speaker 3: The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now your hosts

Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I'm Allen Hall, and I'm here with Rosemary Barnes, Yolanda Padron, and Matthew Stead. And this has been a busy week because everybody's been, well, Matthew and Rosemary have been in Hamburg for the big Wind Energy Hamburg show. Organizers [00:01:00] there expect 43,000 people from 100 countries to attend.

There's roughly 1,600 companies and booths on the show floor. Uh, this is the big show, right? Everybody knows this is the big show, and this is the one to go to. Matthew, you were with EOLOGIX-PING for the week in the booth there. How, what, how did it go? How was it?

Matthew Stead: Uh, I don't think I've talked for, um, eight hours a day for three days in a row ever.

So it, it, it was, it was crazy. So, um, uh, there were so many people there. I think, um, I, I ... There, there was some mixed feelings. So there was a lot of positive vibe about what's going on and how the industry is progressing and doing better. But at the same time, there were sort of negative comments about, like Germany next year, they were really expecting a, a big drop in the number of installations.

So it was quite a mixed bag. Um, but I mean, personally, I loved seeing old friends.

Allen Hall: And Rosemary, you were not tied to a [00:02:00] booth, so you could wander around a little bit more. What did you see and hear at the show?

Rosemary Barnes: Uh, a lot. I have actually learned what a booth is for now, though, because if you don't have a booth, then you have to, like, just go from

You try and meet people, and you have to navigate your way through the system, and you can't actually make appointments because you chat, you run into somebody, and then you chat to someone. And, like, you think, "Oh, I'll talk to everyone for five minutes," but you end up talking for 15 or 20 minutes. And yeah, so lots of, lots of walking.

But, um, I've seen, I've seen heaps. I love these exhibitions, you know, when they've got the ... lot, a lot of them have displays. So, you know, like, there's a real, a real winch in there. I can't remember what company it was from, but it's, like, a real winch that's been in service for a long time. And you know, you can go get a sense for, uh, that scale.

Real bits of rope. Um, oh, so many robots. So many robots and drones. Um, yeah. All, all kinds [00:03:00] of varieties of robots and drones, which I love. Lots of them doing very useful things. Uh, I don't know what else. About, yeah, every other stand has some, one of my ex-colleagues from LM Wind Power standing in it, in, um, a wide variety of industries.

So that's kind of cool. I actually, I had some really, really great conversations with old colleagues. And, um-

Allen Hall: Mm.

Rosemary Barnes: