I Angle of Attack I Everything Starts From Something

　　For the past twenty years, whenever there's a chance to be inside the turbine nacelle up in the air, while the wind was blowing my sweaty cheek and hair once I opened the hatch. The time I spent with the gigantic machine in a confined space, which always reminds me why I started this extraordinary journey for no reason, just like the speech given by Steve Jobs to the 2014 graduates at Stanford University: "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever–because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference." (reference 1)

　　In the1990s, GE was definitely the best company in the world. When I left my first job in Kaohsiung back in 2003, I was constantly applying for various GE positions because I wanted to enter and become part of GE. Nothing would stop me from doing so. Several months after the presidential election that year, I got a phone call from GE Human Resources one day. I was told that TaiPower was going to build the largest onshore wind farm in Taiwan and GE would provide the turbines and technologies. The company needed a site engineer who can look after the construction, had working experience with TaiPower, and had good English proficiency. This engineer must project manage the construction of this project and local contractors. By thinking that I may have the chance to work in GE, I felt so excited that time, as the odds would be ever in my favor. The HR scheduled several rounds of interviews for me, so I had to take the midnight Ubus several times to attend the interviews in Taipei and ended up singing in KTV with my friends afterward. The last round of interviews was led by the Manager of the Asia-Pacific region, who spoke with me in English throughout this process. He was a Korean-American and to my surprise, he was very satisfied with my performance during the interview. Thus, I got this job successfully and my dream come true.

My Dream Come True

　　This initiated my journey in the wind industry for almost 20 years. Obviously, I didn't mean to enter the industry out of climate change at the very beginning. Little by little, I have gradually accumulated my knowledge of climate-related issues. Ten years ago in 2012, a while after the Fukushima Incident happened, I began to have frequent emotional swings, upon seeing that human beings had caused various kinds of environmental and spiritual contamination due to economic activities. Moreover, several years later, the Fukushima incident has also caused explosive momentum in the global wind market growth until now.

Opportunity

　　Not only does GE have a renowned reputation but also has the world's best CEO – Jack Welch. I've read at least four of his biographies, and having this opportunity of working in this admirable company, I was ready to explore the treasure hidden within, to learn as much as possible. I graduated from the Department of Aeronautical Engineering and before joining GE, I had been working in two thermal power plants in succession; one was in Xingda, and the other was in Nanou power plants both in Kaohsiung. I took part in the early stage of Taiwan's large-scale construction of combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT). I was so excited that I have the chance to learn the technologies from the market leader and become a real member of this company.

Wind Power

　　However, wind power was never "in the range of my radar of knowledge". Wind power is a completely different gigantic power generation equipment without using fossil fuel, which indeed triggered my great interest in how GE developed and manufactured the machines. At that time, Yahoo was still leading the Internet era without losing its stand to Google. As I searched on the internet for a while, I found that the entire wind power department had nothing to do with GE's original technologies because it was an acquisition from ENRON, owing to the notorious Enron Scandal. (reference 2) GE's wind power department started by merging Enron's wind power business, while this previous Enron's wind power department had also acquired an American and German wind turbine company by integrating both technologies and products, thereby forming the complete GE wind division with products and services gradually.

　　Among them, the American company was called "Zond Energy System" with its headquarters in Tehachapi, California. It is a remote township in the Mojave Desert in California, where Tom Cruise's hangar is located at the very beginning of the recent movie sequel "Top Gun: Maverick". At that time, I was also trained there to become a turbine engineer. During the training period, my instructor told us that GE was not the biggest employer in this area. It was the state prison that hired most of the people locally. This was how I began to realize that the development of wind power usually began in the middle of nowhere. If you have the chance to come to L.A. and if you also have time and enjoy driving, you may arrive at the place in approximately two hours where you can personally experience the real scenery of the mountains and valleys full of wind turbines that you had seen in the movies.

　　Zond started as a wind farm developer and purchased Vestas' wind turbines on a large scale. The turbines were all installed in the desert area mentioned above. In the 1980s, two oil crises triggered the tremendous demand for wind power development in the US. Given to the support from the US Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the 500KW wind turbine had been co-developed; the company officially marched into turbine manufacturing. However, the prosperity did not last long, Zond had always been struggling until the mid-1990s. Before its closure, Zond purchased the patent owned by another American rival company "Kenetech" at that time. Not too long after that, Zond was wholly acquired by Enron's newly established wind power division. Furthermore, Enron merged with the German wind turbine company "Tacke". By using the technologies of both sides, Enron developed one of the bestselling wind turbines in history, namely the 1.5MW wind turbine platform, and from 2002, GE used its network and sold globally after its merger of Enron. As far as I know, at least more than 20,000 such turbines were installed around the world.

　　GE utilized these patents to successfully kick out Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of the American market in 2013. (reference 3) However, the same thing backfired on itself when it was about to take off in the American offshore wind power market ten years later. (reference 4) 。 On the other hand, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries instantly formed a joint venture with Vestas to create the company "MHI Vestas", intending to focus on the offshore wind market, (reference 5) but it was acquired by Vestas in 2020. (reference 6) 

　　Mergers and acquisitions had become an approach in the wind industry. Certainly, GE will never suspend its plan for M&A.

　　Within several years after the merger, the turbine availability had never been improved to a stable state, while its offshore wind turbine development was greatly behind Danish Vestas and Bonus (which were purchased by Siemens afterward and now they are called Siemens Gamesa. The name may probably become "Siemens" soon). The offshore project GE installed with seven 3.6MW offshore wind turbines in Arklow Bank of Ireland (reference 7) was a significant project in Europe back in 2004 and had adopted the technologies developed by the merged German team. Nevertheless, several years later, this project was hastily decommissioned. Inside GE, some opinions began to appear, saying that the gearbox technology may not be suitable for offshore wind farms. Even so, it found its new savior, namely the direct-drive turbine designed by Norwegian Scanwind, (reference 8) and quickly completed the acquisition but ended up with nothing very soon. GE continued the acquisition with Converteam (reference 9) which focused on a direct-drive generator and converter in 2011, followed by its merger with Alstom in 2015 (reference 10) and the acquisition of blade manufacturer "LM Glasfiber" in 2017. (reference 11) Then, it began to have a complete turbine system with designs and manufacturing.

It Is Just The Beginning

　　During the 1990s, the global economy was getting better and better. Turbine companies of different scales were listed in the market. These companies went through a series of bankruptcy, mergers, renaming, and restructuring, to get better performance and stock prices. Big corporations in the major economies of Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, and India, also competed to enter the wind industry but ended in closures. Until now, the development of the wind industry around the world is still very bumpy. All these true stories can be the experiences and lessons learned to us.

　　In this journey, I did participate in numerous projects and tasks. I also traveled to more than thirty countries in the world. The wind industry indeed gave me the key to opening up the knowledge of a non-mainstream world at that time. Thus, I also have the chance to make very good friends in the wind.

　　Going back to the original story, after GE was awarded by TaiPower, (reference 12) the government initially asked that 30% of the contract value should be localized. In 2003, GE had already been in Taiwan for several decades and was very familiar with public infrastructure projects as well as the military and civil aviation industry. It was easy for GE to ask the national steel company to create the first set of larger-scale turbine tower sections in Taiwan back then. In those years, similar operating performance was rarely seen among steel fabricators in the entire Asian region. In fact, among the Northeast Asian countries, TaiPower was one of the few developers that installed a single turbine of more than 1.5MW at the early stage. However, twenty years passed by; the government is still asking for local content, which seems to be a déjà-vu. However, with so many young talents joining the wind industry now, we would expect the active participation from the private sector could trigger the complete wind industry in Taiwan for real international collaboration.

　　In Taiwan, business tends to be specialized in mutual competition within the island rather than collaboration. This time, let's learn to seize opportunities with real support from each other, we can truly march into the international community. Although we may already smell the upcoming combats in the future, it is still just the beginning.

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