THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Becoming better: tackling the major challenges facing the Australian wind sector

The Wind Operations and Maintenance Australia 2026 conference, held recently in Melbourne, reflected a confident industry. The Australian wind sector has matured. Technology has improved. Knowledge is deeper. Projects are bigger. There is a strong belief that engineering problems are solvable. Yet confidence, while important, is not the same as resilience.

In his 2023 song Never Been Better, Australian singer/songwriter Ben Abraham explores the uneasy space between resilience and denial – the quiet insistence that everything is fine, even as complexity and vulnerability simmer beneath the surface. The Australian wind sector often sounds like it has never been better. And in many respects, that confidence is justified.

But beneath it lies a more nuanced truth. Operational risk is rising in complexity, contractual frameworks are under strain, and the economics of wind are not improving as visibly as they need to. The question for owners is not whether the industry is ‘better’ – but whether it is stronger.

Active ownership: the end of passive wind

One of the clearest themes at the conference was this: owners must actively manage their wind assets.

The era of ‘set and forget’ – handing long-term O&M to OEMs and stepping back – is over. Modern wind farms are too complex, too data-rich and too commercially exposed.

Active ownership means:

• demanding structured access to operational data
• ensuring documentation is complete, portable and contractually enforceable
• retaining strategic decision-making capability.

Data and documentation are not administrative details; they are strategic assets. If an owner needs to change O&M providers, incomplete data can become an existential risk.

Contracts must explicitly define data ownership, format and accessibility, handover requirements, and ongoing documentation standards.

Insurers, too, are increasingly data-hungry. Risk pricing now depends on transparency – condition monitoring trends, blade histories, lightning strike records, gearbox temperatures. Owners who control and understand their data are likely to access more tailored and potentially cheaper coverage.

In the song, there’s tension between image and reality. In wind O&M, the equivalent tension is between contracted performance and actual asset health. Owners must look beneath the surface.

Contracts: precision without paralysis

There was extensive discussion about getting contracts right – particularly at the handovers from development to construction to operations.

Key themes included:

• clear, rigorous defect definitions
• step-in rights for owners (e.g. procuring a gearbox faster than the O&M provider)
• termination rights
• careful allocation of scope to whoever is best placed to deliver it.

OEMs are increasingly focusing their scope on maintaining wind turbine generators, which is where their expertise lies. That is sensible. Contracts should allocate responsibility to the party best positioned to manage the risk.

But this raises a deeper tension:

Can contracts be both rigorous and concise, perhaps as the lyrics of the song posit – ‘two different things can both be true at the same time’?

Legalese frustrates engineers and operators. Yet ambiguity in defect language or scope boundaries can create expensive disputes. The answer may not be shorter contracts, but clearer ones.

If the industry has matured, then our contractual frameworks should mature too.

Fleet size and the limits of self-perform

Only owners with very large fleets can realistically internalise full O&M capability. In the United States, this is achievable. The economics are harder in Australia, where fleets are smaller and geographically dispersed.

It’s expensive to build internal processes, inventory systems, technical depth, safety frameworks and 24/7 operational support. Most Australian owners will remain reliant on third parties.

That makes governance capability even more critical. Owners must be intelligent buyers of O&M – not merely customers.

Blades: the growing anxiety

If there is a component that generates consistent concern nowadays, it is blades. To name just a few of the worries, think about lightning damage, manufacturing defects, blade root bearing issues, and structural integrity as turbines scale in size.

Blade monitoring technology has advanced rapidly. Aerial drones for external inspection are now standard. Internal blade inspections are becoming mainstream. Condition monitoring systems (CMS), once debated, now appear broadly accepted for new turbines.

Leading-edge erosion remains an issue, but discussion has matured: the structural implications may be more significant than the production losses, which are often less severe than feared.

As turbines grow, so do consequences. Bigger rotors mean higher loads, more complex failure modes and more expensive interventions. The industry sounds confident … but confidence must be backed by data and structural understanding.

Harking back to the song’s refrain “And the more I learn, the less I know”, the wind industry faces a similar paradox with turbine blades.

As blade lengths have grown, the theoretical sophistication of design, modelling and materials science has increased. Yet the practical ability to apply rigorous quality assurance has, in some respects, diminished. The sheer physical scale of modern blades makes full inspection more complex and less forgiving. Manufacturing tolerances become harder to control. Logistics, handling and curing processes carry greater consequences.

Layered on top of this are compressed production schedules driven by global demand and competitive pressure. When volume and velocity increase, quality assurance systems are strained – not necessarily by intent, but by physics and time.

In other words, as we have learned more about blades, we have also discovered how much harder they are to build flawlessly at scale.

Underground cables: the invisible risk

Repeatedly, practitioners stressed the importance of quality oversight during construction, especially at underground cable joints.

These are invisible assets. When they fail, remediation is slow and costly. The lesson is simple: invest in the right people on the ground during construction. Operational excellence begins years before commercial operation date.

This ties back to contracts and handover. Development teams must think like operators. Construction quality must anticipate 25-year asset lives.

Noise and compliance: a moving target

Noise remains both contentious and technically challenging. It’s hard to isolate turbine noise from background noise. Another noise complexity is understanding the interactions between wind farms and BESS installations.

These are not static risks. Regulatory expectations – like 5-year compliance measurements – continue to evolve.

Again, the industry says it has matured. But maturity means anticipating future scrutiny – not reacting to it.

The small things matter

One practical observation was that wind farms need more toilets for operators working remotely from O&M buildings.

That might seem like a small thing, but operational design must reflect human realities. As fleets expand and layouts become more dispersed, infrastructure for field technicians must keep pace. Productivity and safety are not abstract concepts – they depend on practical, on-site conditions.

Sometimes maturity can be measured in amenities.

Knowledge sharing … or the illusion of it?

There was optimism that engineering problems are able to be solved and that knowledge sharing is strong. But is it?

The same issues – blade defects, cable failures, contract disputes – continue to circulate. Commercial sensitivities and reputational concerns still inhibit transparent lessons learned.

If the industry is truly ‘better’, it should be demonstrably learning faster.

The missing conversation: LCOE

Reducing levelised cost of energy (LCOE) was an implicit but not always explicit theme of the conference. As befitting an operations and maintenance conference, much of the focus was on reducing long-term costs, even at the expense of high initial costs.

Australia is on an unstoppable path toward renewable energy, yet relatively few wind farms have progressed recently. Connection challenges, financing conditions, cost inflation and supply chain constraints all contribute.

But operational excellence is also an LCOE lever:

• reducing unplanned blade repairs
• improving defect management
• ensuring robust cable installation
• designing contracts that minimise disputes
• leveraging data to optimise maintenance.

These are not just risk controls. They are cost controls.

If the industry wants to move beyond confidence into competitiveness, LCOE discipline must return to the centre of the conversation.

‘Never been better’ or ‘becoming better’?

The refrain from Ben Abraham’s song is not triumphalist; it is layered. It carries strength, but also fragility.

The Australian wind industry is more experienced, more technically capable and more sophisticated than it was a decade ago. That is undeniable. But maturity is not the same as invulnerability.

Active ownership. Data control. Contract clarity. Blade vigilance. Construction quality. Real knowledge sharing. Human-centred operational design. LCOE focus. These are the fundamentals our industry must keep tackling, if 5 years from now it is really going to be ‘better than ever’.

Continue the Conversation

If you’re interested in hearing more about the evolution of the Australian wind sector and the lessons learned from over two decades in the field, you can listen to the insights Andrew shares on the Entura Behind the Scenes podcast. In this episode, Andrew shares his journey from aircraft aerodynamics to pioneering some of Australia’s earliest renewable projects.

You can also explore more of Andrew’s insights through some of his previous articles:

• Unlocking repowering for Australia’s older wind farms
• Breathing new life into Australia’s aging wind farms
• How an Owner’s Engineer smoothes the progress of a renewable project
• Asset management trends for profitable wind farms

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Andrew Wright is Entura’s Senior Principal, Renewables and Energy Storage. He has more than 20 years of experience in the renewable energy sector spanning resource assessment, site identification, equipment selection (wind and solar), development of technical documentation and contractual agreements, operational assessments and Owner’s/Lender’s Engineer services. Andrew has worked closely with Entura’s key clients and wind farm operators on operational projects, including analysing wind turbine performance data to identify reasons for wind farm underperformance and for estimates of long-term energy output. He has an in-depth understanding of the energy industry in Australia, while his international consulting experience includes New Zealand, China, India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines manian Division), and has published more than 30 technical papers on dam engineering.

5 March, 2026