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RENEW – Specialty Services

If you can dream it, class 02 can do it.  RENEW’s Specialty Services division, known as “class 02”, is leading the industry in innovation.  They specialize in highly complex, highly technical repair solutions.  

RENEW customers can count on this team for complete turnkey solutions for component replacement, repair, or supply.  Their specialties include: uptower planetary solutions, gearbox repair, large corrective solutions, infield/uptower machining, diagnostics, main bearing flushing, inspections, engineered improvements and more.  

What sets class 02 apart from the competition is their mechanically inclined technicians and experienced project managers.  Their management team has 65 years of combined industry experience, not including their tenured lead technicians.  Every employee is inducted into an in-house technical training and certification program.  It’s because of their unique skillsets and quality workmanship that our customers keep calling.    

There are currently 14 crews (led by four project managers) deployed and performing work across the nation.  These project managers are dedicated to specific customers.  Assigning one point person has proven very successful in managing projects and provides customers with an avenue for consistent communication throughout the entirety of the project.  Dan Creegan, RENEW’s Director of Specialty Services, expects to see their headcount grow to 100 technicians by the end of the year. 

The Specialty Services team are the pioneers of creative ideas for minimizing costs/maximizing efficiency and have seen many of their concepts through from conception to completion.  In partnership with the engineering and quality control teams, they have custom-designed a wide variety of specialty tooling and fixtures in-house.  Three mobile repair shops have also been built and deployed, saving our customers money, and minimizing downtime. Their team was the first to do uptower planet carrier swaps and are the industry’s sole provider of in-field bearing bore machining.  Multiple bearing exchanges have been completed that the manufacturers said were not possible. 

Another effective strategy class 02 has implemented is the addition of a weekly “all hands-on deck” scheduling call. Topics of discussion include where crews are being deployed, job scopes, lessons learned, what’s working, what’s causing problems, and quality/safety concerns.  Tooling needs and ideas are also shared during this meeting.  It creates an open forum to talk about operational efficiencies and what is necessary for each job to be successful. 

“We have turned this service line into a “well-oiled machine,”’ Creegan stated. “I’m very proud of the team and all we have been able to accomplish over the years.” 

RENEW – Enid Remanufacturing Center

Constantly leading the way for wind power maintenance, RENEW Energy is currently building a new Remanufacturing Center in Enid, Oklahoma. 

Strategically located, the facility will be in close proximity to numerous industrial-scale wind farms in the heart of the North American wind corridor. This location will reduce transportation, as well as storage costs. It will also minimize delivery time when customers experience an unscheduled component failure.

“Essentially, the purpose of this facility in Enid is to rebuild two different components [of wind turbines],” said Mike Feltman, the Director of Engineering and R&D for RENEW Energy. “One component will be the main shafts of the wind turbine, and the other component is the gearbox. And a lot of people don’t understand how big these things are. Gear boxes are 36,000 pounds and the main shafts are 26,000 to 30,000 pounds.” 

Speaking of size, this new facility will feature 50,000 sq. ft of temperature and humidity-controlled workspace. It will consist of a 7MW gearbox load test bench, and a 100T bridge crane capacity. 

“The Enid facility is going to do complete teardowns of gear boxes” Feltman said. “They’ll do a full analysis report that will then go to the site’s owner – the parent company or the power company or whomever – and it will explain the damages that were found and what needs to be replaced. Then, along with that, we’ll get a quote to refurbish, repair, and rebuild that gearbox back to OEM specifications, and even make some improvements as well.” 

The goal is to perform these tasks in a way that is efficient, safe and cost effective for turbine owners.

“TP&L already had the complex in Enid,” said Gary Cavigielli, the Vice President of Remanufacturing and R&D for RENEW Energy. “We are installing a seven-megawatt test stand, which would be the largest in the United States to continue being a leader within the industry with all of the larger platforms that are going to become available to us. It’s all about being able to take care of our customers.” 

Feltman stated that the industry is lending itself to using larger and larger wind turbines. Because of this, the Enid facility is being created to handle the construction of current turbines, but it’s also preparing to build larger turbines in the future. 

“Currently, in our Sioux Falls facility, we have a three-megawatt test stand,” Feltman said. “The Enid facility’s test stand is going to be a seven-megawatt stand. RENEW’s Enid facility is targeted towards the future machines. Obviously, we’ll start with machines that we’re already repairing in that facility, but it’s really kind of tailored and targeted more for the future – for five or seven or eight years from now. That’s kind of the core concept of what the facility is supposed to be sized for.” 

Cavigielli said that construction has already started on the new facility. 

“They have the dirt work done today,” he said. “They should be starting to pour the foundations either next week or the week after that which will keep everything on track to have the new facility put up by the time the testing equipment shows up in the first part of August.”

Cavigelli said that the plan is to hopefully be at least semi-operational by the fourth quarter of 2023. 

According to Feltman, a big reason why they decided to build this facility in Enid, Oklahoma is because it is centrally located. It’s in the middle of the ‘Wind Corridor,’ which means that it can work with wind farm owners from Texas, California, Wyoming, North Dakota, and more. 

One of the major factors of this new Enid facility is the number of jobs that it will create. Cavigielli stated that he will be going to Enid to begin interviewing potential new hires. They’ve already hired some technicians, who are now training at the facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

“Once everything is in place and once we get the facility operational, we’ll be hiring a lot more people,” he stated. “I don’t know exact timelines, but we’re probably looking at having at least 40 new hires coming on – maybe even up to 90 if we get to the point where we get a second shift up and running down there.” 

RENEW is partnering with the Autry Technical Center – a tech school in Enid, to begin developing a training program for potential employees. 

“They already have an electromechanical course, and we’re hoping to expand on that and make it somewhat specific to the wind industry; with gear boxes and main shaft work,” Feltman stated. “We’ll use that as a stepping stone for employees to learn the basics and then come into the company on a full-time basis.” 

This new facility will serve a variety of purposes – all in an effort to make the wind industry even bigger, better, and brighter in the future. 

“There is a lot of opportunity in this industry for people that are willing to learn and get engaged in what’s going on,” Feltman said. “There’s a lot of opportunity from a variety of levels.” 

The most important level, of course, is keeping their existing – and new- customers happy. 

“The biggest part of this whole thing is simply to be able to take care of our customers’ needs,” Cavigielli said. “Everything else kind of revolves around that.” 

RENEW Energy Remanufacturing Division

RENEW Energy offers a variety of services to a wide array of clientele. One of the largest divisions of our company is that of Remanufacturing. 

Our Remanufacturing services include gearbox rebuilding, main shaft rebuilding, engineering solutions, logistics management, and more. 

The Remanufacturing division of RENEW Energy wouldn’t be what it is, if it wasn’t for its fearless leader, Gary Cavigielli.

Cavigielli is the VP of Remanufacturing and R&D, and the division has been a labor of love for him for many years. 

He started out his career in automotive repair, working at his own facility for many years. Eventually, he grew tired of that gig and was looking for a new career in a different industry. He found that new career within the wind industry. 

“I’ve been in the wind since 2009,” Cavigielli stated. “I worked a couple years both in the shop and out in the field doing tower repairs. And I came on board with RENEW in 2011, and that’s when we started the remanufacturing facility here in Sioux Falls. So I’ve kind of been here from the start.” 

Once hired, it was Cavigielli’s responsibility to, more or less, help build the Remanufacturing Division from the ground up. 

“When I walked in the shop, there was one gearbox in the entire facility,” he laughed. “So I literally came in on the ground floor. I didn’t have a specific title. I was a shop tech and worked quite a few years hand-in-hand with Curt Eliason one of the founding fathers of Renew, trying to get the ball rolling, if you will. And then once we got to where we grew a little bit in scope and size, I became a Shop Manager and then moved up to the GM of Remanufacturing.”

That happened in 2016 and, in the subsequent 6 years, Cavigielli has grown the division from two people into 30. 

Eventually, RENEW was acquired by TAKKION and that move allowed the Remanufacturing Division to grow even more, both in scale and in inventory. 

“With the TAKKION acquisition, when they bought RENEW, there’s a couple of things that happened,” Cavigielli stated. “It really gave us the capital that we needed for the inventory side of things. You can’t build gearboxes without parts. And being independent, we’re pretty diversified so we don’t just work on one make or model. So it takes quite a bit of inventory and the acquisition has given us the capital to be able to increase our inventory, which allows us to have the parts we need to keep up with the demand of the rebuilds.” 

Cavigielli said that the expansion has allowed RENEW to provide even better service to their customers which, he said, is the whole point of the division. 

“At the end of the day, we’re here to help customers out with what they need,” he said. “We’re here to hopefully save them some money and reduce down times for them. So we’re very customer-driven and, with that extra capital, it’s really helped us mitigate the lack of parts, so we can supply and rebuild components in a timely manner.” 

Throughout the last six years, Cavigielli has built a team of highly-trained professionals that do good work in a timely fashion. 

“My job is to simply do whatever is needed to support the Remanufacturer team; whatever they need to do to allow them to take care of our customers,” he stated. “Over the years, we’ve really developed a very strong core group of people that are very good at their job. So my role is, whether it’s out on the floor, answering a technical question, or whether it’s in the office quoting, or everything in between, I kind of touch it all.”

And that’s what a good manager should be doing. He (or she!) should know everything about everything that his employees are doing. He should be the one that people can go to with questions, and he should be able to answer them. 

That is the kind of manager that RENEW, and TAKKION, expect and it’s exactly the kind of manager that they have gotten with Cavigielli. And his team is all the better because of it. 

“We’ve seen huge growth,” he stated. “Like I said, we’ve got a strong core of people and when you look back at what we’ve accomplished and the amount of growth we’re seeing, and the amount of growth that’s coming – I’m amazed that we’re able to do as much as we can with the people that we have. I really think it points to the strength of our group.” 

That strength came from everybody involved on the team coming together with a common goal, which was providing the absolute best service to their customers. 

“Nothing happens easily,” Cavigielli said. “Nothing happens quickly. Throughout the years, we’ve worked really hard to develop our processes, our procedures, and everything that’s needed to be able to put the tools in front of our people to allow them to be able to do their job efficiently and effectively. And the proof of that is the fact that just last week, we became ISO certified, which was a huge hurdle for us. Over the years, it’s just been living in that state of constant improvement to keep growing, as people and individuals, and with processes and procedures; it’s been constant improvement to get where we are. And the end goal is simply to be able to take care of our customers.”

RENEW Energy ISO Certification

Renew Energy is proud to announce that its Remanufacturing Division has received their ISO 9001 Certification, which they were awarded in October of 2022. 

ISO 9001 Certification is, according to its website, “a set of five quality management systems standards that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service.” 

The certification is done by a third party, and it ensures that customers and stakeholders are getting the absolute best service possible. 

“ISO 9001 is a globally-recognized quality management system,” said Paul Terwee, the Senior QC for RENEW’s Remanufacturing Division. “I’ve always explained it in this way: You do what you say, and you say what you do.”

It’s a series of steps and procedures that ensure quality control and excellence in customer service, and it’s just the latest certification that RENEW has received. 

“It’s creating processes and procedures and following those every time, you’re doing audits and making sure that the technicians are following the processes,” Terwee shared. “We’re doing all the documentation and all the paperwork. And it assures customers that they’re getting what they’re paying for and making sure that they can be confident in the quality at Renew. They always have been, but having this certificate proves that we went through all the steps and had an independent auditor come through to make sure that we’re doing everything we say we’re doing.”

When dealing with the kind of components that Renew Energy works with, it’s imperative to have others check, double check, and triple check the work. That is, in a nutshell, what this ISO 9001 certification does. 

“It helps us stand out,” Terwee said. “I don’t believe many of our competitors have this and it’s something, with us being a very specialized industry, not everybody can do. Not everybody can just work on wind turbine gearboxes and main shafts. It really takes a lot of time and effort to get everything documented and to follow all of those procedures.”

It also stands out to clients. Companies such as Siemens Gamesa, GE, Next Era, and more, specifically ask if the companies working with them are ISO certified. It’s a deciding factor when these companies are looking to offer their business. These customers also see a direct benefit themselves. 

“It holds us to a higher standard,” Terwee offered. “We complete a job, we give them, along with the component, the report of everything that happened. Historically, the ball sort of gets dropped on reports and making sure all the t’s have been crossed and all the I’s have been dotted. But holding us to this higher standard, they can get this documentation, and they can have all the proof in the world that we did what we said, and it gives them a little peace of mind when we’re presenting these components.” 

Right now, it’s just Renew’s Remanufacturing Division that is ISO 9001 certified, but the goal is for the entirety of the company to also get certified. That will happen; it’s just a matter of time. 

When it was first suggested that the Remanufacturing Division do the work to get certified, Terwee knew that the best way to approach it with the employees was not as a dictation. Telling employees that they have to do something is not the best way to manage people, and Terwee knew that.

“With the employees working out on the shop floor, it’s important to actually build a rapport with them,” he stated. “It’s not just, ‘Here’s a change, this is how we’re gonna do it.’ It’s talking with them and saying, ‘Okay, how would you feel about this change? Is there anything that you think would work better?’ It’s getting their opinion as well. I mean, they’re the ones out there doing the work. You can have everything documented that you want, but, at the end of the day, they’re gonna do it the best way they think it needs to be done. So it’s working with them and finding that middle ground. But it went really well. The technicians picked up on the changes that we needed, and the managers helped enforce those changes once I could prove that they would be a benefit.”

The biggest benefit, of course, is continuing to prove that Renew Energy is the premier wind and solar energy maintenance company in the United States. It is well on its way to proving that. 

And they have the documents to prove it. 

RENEW Energy SGRE Repowers Project

Renew Energy recently completed work on the largest wind turbine project that the company has taken on to date. 

Last year, Siemens Gamesa reached out to Renew to inquire whether or not they could help support the company with a repower of a project in central Iowa. The project consisted of 193 Siemens 2.3 megawatt towers which were, on average, close to 13 years old. Needless to say, they were in need of an upgrade. That upgrade was to a Siemens Gamesa 2.9 megawatt tower; a huge increase in efficiency. 

The project began in November of 2021, and major component replacements just recently wrapped up.  

At our peak, nearly 100 Renew, TP&L, and Airways techs worked on this project, putting in over 160,000 working hours. 

One of the most remarkable aspects of this job was the fact that, over the course of the 10-month project, there were zero lost time injuries for Renew.

‘Lost time injuries’ are injuries that take a technician off of the project, either for days, weeks, even hours. With over 100 people working on this project, not one of them missed any time due to injuries sustained at the site. 

“A project this size, just statistically, you’re always going to have minor injuries; little hand injuries and things like that,” said Patrick Glenn the General Manager of Construction and Field Services with Renew Energy. “Of course, we strive for zero but some small things do come up. These lost time injuries are really an important metric, upon which we can rate a lot of our success. And we’re really happy to report that after 160,000 working hours, Renew incurred zero lost time injuries, and certainly no fatalities. We just installed our last component and repowered our final turbine. The final rotor went up yesterday.” 

The actual work that the project consisted of was vast and varied. 

“We were doing offloads of the new components, then we had up-tower teams that were taking down the old rotor and the old nacelle,” Glenn said. “A lot of these towers got a whole new top section. And it varied from tower to tower. Some of them got an adapter, some of them got a whole new top section to accommodate the new nacelle. So we would have our up tower teams and then we would have decommissioning teams that went in ahead of those guys and got the tower ready for crane work; determining cables, maybe draining some oils, disconnecting sensitive components and sensors. Then the crane work would happen with that up tower team, followed up by a recommissioning crew that would come in and clean everything and plug stuff back in and get the tower ready to operate. And then it would get inspected by the asset owner, who made sure that we put everything back together according to their expectations and guidelines.” 

There was a lot of work done by the various teams.

“We did have some competition on site,” Glenn stated. “There was another company providing labor support, but we have a good working relationship with them, even though we’re competitors. We did a really good job; I think everyone got along really well and worked well together. There were times where we had to kind of share resources. We helped them some days, they helped us some days. And in a situation where sometimes people don’t work well together, I think that our team down there did a really great job.” 

Renew wasn’t just working with their competitor, however. They were also assisted by their sister companies, Airway Services and Transportation Partners and Logistics. 

“We did have support from Airway Services and TP&L, in terms of helping us staff this project,” Glenn stated. “We had a couple TP&L guys that came out here and helped out for quite a while. This certainly wasn’t strictly, solely a Renew effort. It really was a collaboration between ourselves and our sister companies that made this project a success. It’s a real testament to the TAKKION brand and just the power that this collaboration and the teamwork amongst our brands brings. It was super cool to have our sister companies on site, just knowing that we’re all working towards the same goal.”

Airways services had also provided some TFA’s to the project, who assisted with oversight, as well as some blade techs.

That goal, Glenn said, was completing the largest technician mobilization project Renew has worked on to date. And the final product was the result of a lot of hard work, from a lot of people. 

“Ruben Waldner was our primary point of contact and our primary communication point with Siemens and a lot of the other companies on site,” Glenn shared. “Ruben was supported by some TFA’s that we have working for us;  technical field advisors. We were there not only to perform the craft labor- which is the crane work and the decommissioning and the recommissioning and the offload – but Siemens Gamesa also utilized us in an oversite role, where we had separate techs experienced with Siemens towers with a lot of experience that served as technical field advisors. So, it was a unique situation because, usually, Siemens would call us in as TFA’s to oversee other contractors’ work, but we were utilized not only in the construction and the craft labor side, but also in the quality assurance side, too.” 

Because of that, Glenn said, there was a lot of teamwork happening on the site. 

“Employees that we have who have different specialties were able to kind of look after each other and help each other learn through this process in a way that you don’t usually get if you’re overseeing a competitor or overseeing someone from a different company,” Glenn stated. 

The project was also able to utilize local labor workers, which benefited the community and put money, and jobs, back into it. 

“Generally, projects of this nature do utilize a lot of local labor,” Glenn revealed. “I know that some of the demolition contractors, as well as the crane company, were reaching out to not only local unions, but also to local laborers, to support the different aspects of the project. In addition to some of the jobs created around here, the revenue that was brought in by these hundreds of technicians across all the different subcontractors and contractors that were on site was, I think, a major boom to their local economy during the last year. I couldn’t begin to estimate the exact amount, but it no doubt came as a huge boost to the local hotels, restaurants, gas stations and local vendors.”

“I know the hardware stores made out pretty good,” Glenn laughed. 

Enormous projects like these always benefit the communities of which they are a part, and this project was no different. That’s just one of the reasons why Renew was chosen to work on this project. There were many other reasons, as well; not the least of which is the vast amount of experience that the Renew team has. 

“It would be hard to quantify the years and years of experience that is shared amongst the team that was there,” Glenn stated. “It has to be a hundred people. We’re talking about, probably, hundreds of years of experience that we can bring to the table. And then, just the capacity to support a mobilization like this, with over a hundred people all needing transportation to and from work, and all of the logistics that go into supporting a workforce of this size in these remote parts of the country. I think Siemens knew that we could provide them with the workforce that was experienced and well-managed, well-mannered, professional and, more than anything, safe and capable.” 

Renew, as well as its sister companies, has proven itself to be more than capable, in any situation, with any project. This project in particular, the largest project Renew has completed, is just further proof of that. 

“It was just a really great effort,” Glenn said. “It was a really large effort. There were a lot of people that put in a lot of really great work. Our commitment to safety was one of the shining points on this project. We brought in our own safety professionals to oversee our team, in addition to about a half dozen onsite safety people that Siemens Gamesa had on site. Our commitment to safety and quality was such that we opted to have our own onsite, full-time safety personnel there, just to make sure that we did everything right.” 

They did. 

RENEW Energy Open House Raises $20,000

RENEW Energy recently partnered with the South Dakota Wind Energy Association (SDWEA) for an open
house event for their facility, featuring a golf tournament and a sporting clay tournament to benefit multiple local organizations.

This industry-wide event that promoted workforce development, wind development, and sustainable
community change, benefitted the Mitchell Technical College (MTC), Lake Area Technical College (LATC),
SDWEA, and South Dakota 4-H.

Altogether, the event raised $20,000 for these local organizations.

“RENEW appreciates our partnership with the South Dakota Wind Energy Association,” said Sarah Kreyer, the Vice President of Human Resources and Marketing for RENEW Energy. “And the reason we partner with them is because we wanted to make this event more of an industry event. In the past, it was called the RENEW Customer Appreciation Event, where we wanted to get people together and ‘thank’ them. It started small; we did an open house and a baseball game. We did some golfing too, but now we’ve evolved to this industry event where hundreds of people come from all over the nation.”

She said that the event brings people from all across the country, and even internationally as well.

The golf tournament took place at the Elmwood Golf Course, while the sporting clay tournament took place at the Hunters Pointe Shooting Complex. Following both tournaments, the awards social and dinner took place on the Elmwood property.

Kreyer said that they had approximately 100 golfers, 50 shooters, and multiple attendees of the baseball game and open house. In total, she said that between 250 and 275 people participated in and/or attended the event.

“The purpose of making it more of an industry event is to get people from the wind sector together to
network,” Kreyer said. “It’s a huge networking opportunity for all attendees. It’s exciting to be told, the
RENEW event is ‘the event’ of the year.”

Expanding the event not only brought more people together, it actually saved on costs as well. Whereas
before, RENEW would cover one hundred percent of the costs associated with this event, now various
companies and organizations could sponsor a hole or a station or a number of golfers or a number of
shooters.

“Through sponsorships from these key customers and vendors, this year we helped raise $20,000 for local
organizations,” Kreyer revealed. “We select the technical colleges from the area to give back to, and we give back to the South Dakota Wind Energy Association as well, so they can continue to promote wind within our state.”

There’s one more beneficiary, however, that RENEW leaves up to a vote. RENEW employees complete a
survey of who they think is the most deserving, and each year that rotates.

“In the past we’ve had Special Olympics, we’ve had ‘Feeding South Dakota,’ we’ve had LifeScape,
she shared. “But this year the organization that was picked was South Dakota 4-H.”

While this was a RENEW event, it also included all of its sister companies as well.

“There was good participation from RENEW, and then we had participation from TP&L, AIRWAY, TAKKION, and some people in the GSS sector as well,” Kreyer stated. “So, all of our sister companies showed great support too and it was really nice to have all of our brands out there. So, from a Takkion company, they’re not only seeing RENEW. RENEW is the host, but all of our sister companies were well recognized, and they helped support the event as well.”

This event was an opportunity to gather, to network, to have some fun, and to raise money for some
incredible organizations. It was a chance for RENEW to really show what they do but, maybe more
importantly, it was a chance for RENEW to really show who they are; as a company, as a brand, and as a
partner.

“The neat thing, what makes this so special is that a lot of the times, the main opportunities that we have to get in front of our customers are at the Clean Power events or at other industry events, but we go there,” she offered. “We meet, we talk conceptual or this, that, and the other, but some of these customers or vendors don’t actually visit our location. So, putting on an event that does have a donation opportunity that goes to a good cause will help prompt people to come to beautiful South Dakota, and they can see our facility. And people are blown away by the magnitude of our remanufacturing facility, our training center, and all the services we offer. It’s a great opportunity for them to see up close and personal what we do day-in and day-out!”

RENEW Announces New Facility in Enid, Oklahoma

RENEW Energy is proud to announce the construction of a new remanufacturing facility in Enid, Oklahoma. This new facility will remanufacture wind turbine drive trains, and it will hold the largest capacity in North America in regards to the size of said turbines.

Services on these turbines will be performed entirely on-site, other than the transportation of the actual turbines to and from the facility. 

“We’re going to try and keep everything in-house,” said Travis Harkins, Chief Operating Officer of RENEW Energy. “The only thing that I would say would be off-site is the transportation to and from, and that will be through Global Specialized Services, our sister company. They will provide the transportation for us and then our other sister site, Transportation Partners and Logistics, will provide the logistics and the material handling for us.”

For years, the city of Enid, Oklahoma has been an important partner with RENEW and all of its sister companies, so when they approached city officials with the idea of the new facility, it was an easy deal to make.

“The number one reason why this is going to benefit our customers is because of the strategic location of Enid, being right in the Southern wind corridor of North America,” Harkins revealed. “It’s right in the heart of wind projects and wind farms, so it really puts us in a great location for servicing multiple asset owners, as well as OEMs at this location.” 

Another huge benefit to customers is the actual size of the facility. The RENEW facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota has a capacity of up to three megawatts. The Enid location will have a capacity of up to seven megawatts. 

Those are the benefits to customers. But the new facility will benefit the city of Enid, as well. For multiple reasons, including the fact that it will provide more than 90 full time jobs to the community. 

“We’re going to have jobs ranging from entry-level labor positions all the way up through engineering and management,” Harkins stated. “Obviously with engineering and management, those are jobs that require some schooling, but then there’s also the technical side. There are going to be several skilled labor positions that are not only experience-based but also trade school-based.”

Harkins said that, at its peak, this new facility will be able to offer more than 90 paid positions to Enid residents. The creation of this new facility benefits all parties involved, and it secures Enid’s involvement in the ever-growing world of wind energy. 

“In regards to this opportunity – obviously we’re creating a lot of new jobs, but it’s a new sector in regards to the energy market right now as well,” Harkins stated. “Instead of being in oil and gas, it’s bringing in renewables. And renewables are going to be around for quite some time; it’s the fastest growing industry in energy right now. So that’s a huge piece. But the other huge piece is that TP&L has been in the community and they’ve had great support. They support local events, the community, and multiple non-profits. Whether that’s giving time or, obviously, donations, or even the fact that last year, GSS and TP&L provided Enid with the world’s tallest Christmas tree – those are all great things and they’ve created a great partnership and a great relationship between the local community and TAKKION as a whole.”

Powell agreed. 

“Enid has always recognized ourselves as being the hub of renewable energy development in the south-central part of the U.S.” she said. “With our proximity to renewable energy projects and our strong transportation network, it makes sense that the manufacturing and maintenance to support the renewable industry is also located in Enid. This announcement by RENEW is a huge first step in realizing this vision and may just be the beginning of a new industry cluster in north-central Oklahoma. We appreciate the investment in facilities and new jobs that RENEW  is bringing to our community and we look forward to supporting their success for years to come.”

RENEW Energy Quality Policy

If you’re going to do something, do it right. That’s something that everybody’s father has told them at least once in their life, and it’s something that RENEW Energy exemplifies in every project they complete. RENEW holds themselves to a certain standard that allows them to lead the way for wind and solar power maintenance.

Because of their commitment to excellence, RENEW has created a quality policy to ensure they are held to the utmost standards in every project they complete.

“Our focus is to deliver only the highest quality service and products to our customers, employees, and shareholders,” the quality policy states. “RENEW is committed to providing quality service and products that meet or exceed our customer’s expectations, on time and at a fair price. Management is committed to continually improve the quality management system.”

And that is what they continue to do, year after year, project after project. They hold themselves accountable – to themselves and to their customers.

“We knew early on, just with the different areas of turbines that we touch, that there was going to be some scrutiny,” said Josh Ackerman, the Business Development Manager for RENEW. “If something goes wrong on a project, someone’s going to expect some answers. And we really needed a department that could take up those investigations and figure out what happened and how to prevent similar things from happening in the future.”

So, a team was assembled to address any issues that may come up during a project. The Quality Control team was created to ensure that if something happened, ideally, it wouldn’t happen again.

This team, and this policy, are a benefit not only to the company, but to RENEW’s customers as well.

“By having some quality standards established, and really driving the quality mindset across the entire technician base and, really, the entire company, that’s ensuring that the customers are getting not only a timely repair or product, but also a quality repair or product,” said Dan Creegan, RENEW’s General Manager of Field Services. “Really what we strive for with the policy is to make sure that the technicians know that the work they’re doing – not only does it need to be quality, but we should be able to leave and be proud of what we did that day and be proud of the product we put out there. I think our policy helps drive that which, in turn, ultimately means that the customers get not only a better service or product, but a crew that is willing to say ‘We did that,’ and we’re comfortable saying that because we know we did it right and we did it well.”

A shining example of that comes from a recent project that RENEW worked on.

RENEW recently partnered with its sister company, Transportation Partners & Logistics to provide a turnkey solution for a wind energy company. Technicians performed a gearbox replacement in two wind turbines and, after the project, site managers received an email from the company, extolling their professionalism and their commitment to excellence.

“Please communicate to all how impressed we were with your tech crew’s performance and attention to detail,” the email read. “They completely blew our socks off with how hard they pushed taking advantage of the scarce and all-too-brief low-wind periods.  We’re extremely happy we finally had Renew on site for some large corrective work.  The quality and work ethic we witnessed during the up-tower repairs was equally evident during these GBX swaps.”

Creegan said that the RENEW team exemplified everything that their quality policy ensures. In short, they made him proud.

“We got an email from the gentleman on site and he essentially said that they were really impressed with the way our team handled themselves,” Creegan revealed. “When we had high winds, they obviously couldn’t do a whole lot of work, but as soon as the winds dropped off – whether it was the evening, late at night, or an overnight shift – they were willing to come in and do the work; just trying to find those periods of time where we could get some work done. He reiterated that some of his other contractors really aren’t so willing to find those opportunities, so they end up just sitting there for days on end without being able to work. So, he said that they were extremely happy with the RENEW team they had on site.” And that is the type of response that RENEW seeks to invoke on every project, big or small. The adage says that we should accept the things that we cannot control, and that’s true. But quality of service is something RENEW Energy can control, and they do. Every single time.

TAKKION Acquires Harvest Energy Services

Acquisition Continues the Expansion of TAKKION’s Renewable Energy Operations and Maintenance Services 

DALLAS, Texas, May 3, 2022  — TAKKION TP&L Holdings LLC (“TAKKION” or the “Company”), a portfolio company of funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, Inc. (NYSE: APO) (together with its consolidated subsidiaries, “Apollo”) today announced that it has acquired Broomfield, CO-based Harvest Energy Services, LLC (“Harvest”). Harvest is an independent services provider of operations and maintenance (“O&M”) solutions to the renewable energy industry.

TAKKION is a premier independent services provider supporting the energy transition. The acquisition of Harvest demonstrates the continued expansion of TAKKION’s capabilities in long-term O&M solutions for renewable energy markets. Harvest is TAKKION’s third significant acquisition in less than 18 months and expands TAKKION’s scale and capabilities in the wind services market.

Harvest acquisition expands TAKKION’s scale and capabilities in the wind services market

The Harvest team will join TAKKION’s leading logistics and O&M services companies: Transportation Partners and Logistics (“TP&L”), Global Specialized Services (“GSS”), RENEW, and AIRWAY SERVICES. The addition of Harvest will grow TAKKION’s wind O&M presence in North America, meaningfully enhancing TAKKION’s ability to provide comprehensive solutions for the evolving needs of the renewable energy supply chain. In particular, the Harvest acquisition expands TAKKION’s technical capabilities in blade repair, and adds a high throughput, state of the art training center in Broomfield, Colorado that will support continued hiring and job creation for the renewable energy industry.

“We are ecstatic to welcome Harvest to TAKKION. Harvest has a long history of performance and we are fortunate to incorporate the expertise of its employees into our businesses. We see compelling opportunities to expand the already market-leading scope of TAKKION’s services, leveraging Harvest’s skills and equipment. The acquisition of Harvest furthers our goal to be the strongest partner to companies across the renewable energy industry.” said Jim Orr, CEO of TAKKION.

Vinson & Elkins LLP acted as legal counsel to TAKKION in this transaction. Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal counsel to Harvest.

ABOUT TAKKION

TAKKION is a premier independent service provider of logistics, O&M, and technical repair and remanufacturing services to the renewable energy industry. With the industry’s largest network of people and assets across North America, TAKKION is uniquely positioned to support and optimize the growth and lifecycle of renewable energy. Our brands TP&L, GSS, RENEW, and AIRWAY SERVICES work together seamlessly to deliver quality, performance, and efficiency for our customers. We live by our core values of safety, integrity, transparency, and putting our people & customers first. To learn more about how TAKKION is Moving Energy Forward, visit www.TAKKION.com/

ABOUT APOLLO

Apollo is a global, high-growth alternative asset manager. In our asset management business, we seek to provide our clients excess return at every point along the risk-reward spectrum from investment grade to private equity with a focus on three business strategies: yield, hybrid, and equity. For more than three decades, our investing expertise across our fully integrated platform has served the financial return needs of our clients and provided businesses with innovative capital solutions for growth. Through Athene, our retirement services business, we specialize in helping clients achieve financial security by providing a suite of retirement savings products and acting as a solutions provider to institutions. Our patient, creative, and knowledgeable approach to investing aligns our clients, businesses we invest in, our employees, and the communities we impact, to expand opportunity and achieve positive outcomes. As of December 31, 2021, Apollo had approximately $498 billion of assets under management. To learn more, please visit www.apollo.com.

RENEW Energy’s R&D Department

It’s been said that if you want something done well, you’ve got to do it yourself and that’s exactly what RENEW Energy’s R&D Department does on a daily basis to provide technicians with safer, more efficient working conditions.

“RENEW’s R&D program has two objectives,” said Curt Eliason, the VP of Remanufacturing/R&D with RENEW. “One is on improving reliability on current wind turbine component designs, and the second is developing very unique and creative ways of performing repair.”

Whether it focuses on in-the-field type situations or problems in the shop, the goal is to find creative ways to fix turbines in a manner that promotes safety, efficiency and, ultimately, lowers the cost of maintenance and the cost of energy produced.

To do this, Eliason said he asks himself and his team a series of questions.

“On the repair side of things, can we eliminate a bunch of costs by reducing the downtime?” he asked. “Can we reduce or eliminate a crane that’s needed to replace these components?”

Eliason said the traditional way to repair a turbine is to remove the entire component from the tower, which requires lowering it down, shipping it to a facility to be repaired, and then putting it back up. This becomes an expensive project when it comes to costs for cranes, labor, and logistics.

“So,” he wondered, “can we repair this up-tower, in place? For component improvement, that’s maybe a little more straightforward, because on the fieldwork side of things, we’re developing tools and processes that do not exist. We’re not only starting from a blank sheet of paper with a new design; the tools don’t exist. You can’t open a catalogue or Google it and find what you need.”

So, the R&D development literally invents the equipment it needs and then develops the processes in which to use it.

“We’ve been awarded several patents for what we’ve been able to develop as far as tooling and procedures,” Eliason stated. “And I think that speaks to our creativity and outside the box thinking. So many times over the course of my 25 year career, I’ve heard people say, when I present a new idea or a colleague presents a new idea, ‘Oh, that can’t be; that’s impossible.’ And it’s like this switch goes off and I say, ‘Okay, game on.’ If we’re given a challenge, I’m just driven to come up with a solution.”

And RENEW’s R&D Department has come up with many solutions.

Such was the case with a Gearbox Model that was becoming problematic for technicians.

“On one specific Gearbox Model that’s a very common model within the industry, they had a problem with a bearing spinning within the housing,” Eliason detailed. “When that happened, the outer part of the bearing needed to stay stationary while the inner part spun. But over time, that outer part would start to spin and it would wear material off the bore where the bearing was mounted. It would cause a lot of destruction and it was a very expensive repair.”

Eliason said that many different people were trying to figure out how to solve this problem; how to fix it and make the problem go away. And none of the ideas were working.

“I said we need to fix this the correct way, so we developed machine tools that we could take up the tower with other supporting equipment that would allow us to disassemble the gear box and perform the repair up tower,” Eliason said. “There’s just a lot of complexity in that process, and it was accepted by the market and the owner of these types of assets. It was a solution; not just a short-term band-aid. It was a long term, permanent fix. And it’s performed well. It’s met all of our expectations but, more importantly, it’s met our customer’s expectations. And it’s done so as a qualified, reliable repair that’s much cheaper than removing the gear box entirely from service and sending it to a workshop. So that’s one method that has really helped us prove our worth; it’s been an accepted repair method that nobody else is doing today.”

Eliason was quick to point out that this is his life’s work; it’s what he loves to do. But, he said, he’s far from the only person who has made RENEW’s R&D Department what it is today.

“I may contribute a little bit, but to make everything come together on the design, on the proof of concept, on the fabrication…to make these tools you have to be a certified welder and really know what you’re doing with some kind of exotic steel blends that are super strong, lightweight, and durable,” Eliason said. “The fabrication process is another good example of the higher-level skill that it takes to make an idea come together, as well as the testing, and training, and application of usage. It really is a team effort and I’m humbled to associate with such a talented group of people.” RENEW Energy’s R&D Department proves that there’s no ‘I’ in team. It also proves that if you want something done well, you should do it yourself…or bring it to R&D.