Stockyard Wind Farm, recently repowered

While headlines tend to spotlight new builds and breakthrough technologies, a less glamorous, workhorse solution to these challenges may hold the key to faster, more efficient progress: ‘lite repowering.’

Lite repowering, the practice of upgrading or replacing aging wind turbine components, can extend the life of existing projects by as many as 15 years, boost grid efficiency and avoid many of the hurdles that plague greenfield development. As such, it’s a strategic shortcut hiding in plain sight. Research funded by the U.S. Dept. of Energy affirms that wind repowering can significantly increase energy production at existing sites, reduce maintenance costs and extend project life — making it a critical tool in the energy transition.

At first glance, repowering sounds simple: take an older wind farm and swap in new hardware. But most traditional repowering efforts are led by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that typically focus on full-component replacement — blades, gearboxes, nacelles — often requiring proprietary parts that generate substantial waste and lock asset owners into limited, vendor-specific supply chains. This drives up costs, stretches timelines and limits flexibility, as owners become dependent on a single manufacturer for maintenance, upgrades and future replacements.

Such short-term, in-kind refurbishment fixes may improve immediate output, but they fail to consider the bigger picture of how all the pieces of a large-scale wind project interact. Turbine specs, grid interconnection, site layout, landowner agreements, even the weather and wildlife permitting all influence a turbine’s long-term performance. Mastering this takes a unique combination of expertise and agility.

“Everyone knows repowering can boost output. The challenge is doing it right,” said Tim Rosenzweig, CEO of PivotGen, a renewable energy developer based in Chicago. “These projects aren’t simple retrofits. They’re complex, multi-layered undertakings that demand deep expertise across engineering, operations, finance, sourcing, and permitting.”

Companies like PivotGen represent a new generation of smaller renewable energy firms capable of delivering the kind of engineering expertise and retain operational agility needed to truly optimize large-scale repowering projects. The innovation they add to the sector can’t come soon enough.

PivotGen is innovating the repowering process. Rather than replace an entire machine, PivotGen takes a much lighter approach, replacing and refurbishing in a more highly customized way. The company recently repowered eight projects in its Stockyard Wind Portfolio, upgrading 79 turbines to deliver 128.5 MW of clean energy to communities in the Texas Panhandle. And PivotGen did it without scrapping large components that still held meaningful useful life.

The problem with traditional repowers

Rotor pitch bearing exchange at the Stockyard Porterhouse site

Today, tens of thousands of turbines across the United States are entering their second decade of service. OEMs are increasingly walking away from legacy models, creating gaps in parts, support and service continuity. Meanwhile, traditional repowering solutions — often “one size fits all” — can’t fully unlock the remaining value of these aging assets.

Why? Because the OEMs don’t take a systems-first, turbine-by-turbine view. And they can’t adapt as quickly.

Consider what engineers face in a typical repowering project. Many turbines might be dealing with locked rotors, obsolete control systems or gearbox failures. Others suffer from yaw bedplate wear beyond conventional repair limits. Each of these factors affects the fair market value and long-term productivity of the asset — yet most repowering approaches fail to account for them dynamically. It’s certainly easier to scrap it all. But is it smarter?

“Standard repowering often means scrapping components that still have life left,” said Bob Grimley, senior VP of engineering at PivotGen. “It’s inefficient and unnecessarily wasteful.”

It’s also environmentally costly. While towers and nacelles are largely recyclable, the blades — made from fiberglass and carbon fiber composites — are notoriously hard to process. A single turbine blade can take up to 45 cubic-yards of landfill space. In one Minnesota repowering project, most of the 65 blades were simply cut up and buried due to the cost of recycling. Multiply that by the more than 235,000 blades that are expected to be decommissioned by 2050 nationwide, and the scope of the challenge becomes apparent.

Why it matters now

Repowering efforts at Stockyard Porterhouse

More than 45 GW of U.S. wind capacity is already over a decade old. Repowering even a portion of these projects could add the equivalent of 13.5 GW of new capacity — enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes — and nearly double what was installed across all U.S. wind farms in 2023. And this business opportunity hasn’t gone unnoticed.

PivotGen, for example, is so convinced of the business value of repowering in general that earlier this year it launched Repowering-as-a-Service, a business unit dedicated entirely to addressing the complex challenges of repowering aging wind farms.

Jim O. Ludwig, VP of renewables at Integrated Power Services (IPS), said his company has also expanded its capacity to take on large-scale repowering jobs in response to the growing demand. He agreed the traditional whole-machine repowering model needs to evolve.

“We see that our customers are starting to increase their partial repower strategies to mitigate the high cost of replacing an entire nacelle,” he said, adding that this surgical approach is even more relevant in light of ongoing trade tensions. “With tariffs impacting costs on almost every component of a nacelle, [this targeted approach] just makes sense. Even before tariffs, it was sensible to repair, replace or upgrade the items critical to turbine performance. Now, it’s even more logical.”

With owners and operators navigating the impact of shifting tariffs, a process built on iteration offers real, flexible business advantages. And with the Inflation Reduction Act still providing expanded tax incentives for qualified upgrades, the economics are finally aligning with the opportunity.

Customized repowering also offers a workaround to one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks: interconnection. By leveraging existing land rights, permits, and grid infrastructure, these projects avoid the costly, years-long delays that plague new builds. Changing only what’s critical accelerates schedules and improves ROI.

A surgical, targeted approach

Lite repowering’s method of surgical, site-specific and data-driven repowering offers the industry a unique model for change. Embracing this systems-first mindset will allow companies to evaluate entire wind farms — not just individual components. By combining regulatory fluency, technical expertise and financial modeling, lite repowering can deliver solutions that are both tailored and scalable.

Rather than defaulting to full hardware swaps, lite repowering begins with borescope analysis and sub-component inspection. Some parts are replaced. Others are refurbished. Every decision is evaluated based on fair market value, supply chain conditions and long-term performance.

In many cases, outdated software — not just worn-out hardware — poses the bigger challenge. Obsolete control systems can constrain sourcing options and drag down productivity. Successful practitioners of lite repowering must factor this into their planning to ensure upgrades extend not only turbine life, but also the project’s financial viability.

Real-world results: The Stockyard Project

Take PivotGen’s Stockyard Wind Portfolio: eight projects across the Texas Panhandle with 79 turbines and 128.5 MW of upgraded clean energy.

Instead of following the typical gearbox replacement path, PivotGen conducted subsystem analysis to identify targeted fixes. Locked rotors were repaired. In one case, a yaw bedplate worn beyond repair was replaced not with an OEM part, but with a custom-machined interface — extending the turbine’s life by up to 20 years.

The result? Less waste, less downtime and a more cost-effective outcome for project owners.

Scaling this kind of impact requires strong relationships across the industry and with the communities these projects serve. Ryan Cooper, VP of commercial operations at Panorama Energy Services, partnered with PivotGen on the Stockyard project. He said success at this level comes down to one thing: building the right team.

“[Their approach of] overhauling the existing machine, versus sending a majority of it to a scrap yard, is truly a cutting-edge solution,” Cooper said. “By improving existing systems and engineering out known defects to improve reliability — not rotor diameter — they’re doing something truly innovative.”

Built to evolve

The key to successful repowering isn’t brute-force replacement — it’s iteration and collaboration. By taking an agile, iterative approach developers can move quickly with great expertise but also pivot to updating technical, financial and regulatory variables throughout the project lifecycle. All decisions are optimized for performance and return on investment, while staying in compliance with tax and policy frameworks.

The case for repowering

Repowering isn’t just a maintenance tactic; it’s a strategic lever for accelerating clean energy without the cost, delay, red tape and environmental burden of greenfield projects. Just as important, repowered projects keep delivering for the local communities through continued payments to landowners, good paying local jobs and increased tax revenue. By adopting the precision-first, waste-averse methodology championed by PivotGen and others, repowering becomes a high-impact tool — balancing engineering, finance and sustainability.

It’s not about fixing what’s old. It’s about maximizing what’s already working, addressing the needs of local communities and building a cleaner, smarter energy future on that foundation.

Bryan Reed is Director of Commercial Ops and Strategy at PivotGen, with over 20 years of experience in renewable energy project development and execution. He has led teams at GE Renewable Energy and NYSERDA, with expertise spanning the full lifecycle of wind energy projects from site identification and permitting to construction, operations, and repowering.

Meredyth Crichton is Director of Systems Engineering at PivotGen. A mechanical engineer with over 25 years of experience, she brings deep technical expertise to optimizing the operational efficiency of wind energy projects. She has served as a senior leader in clean energy initiatives at GE Energy and Clemson University’s Dominion Energy Innovation Center.

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UPC Power Solutions, a joint venture between PivotGen, UPC Solar & Wind and global renewables pioneer ACEN, acquired the Stockyard Wind Portfolio in 2023 when the sites were in desperate need of repair. Utilizing their proprietary approach, PivotGen engineers developed ways to refurbish and modernize the assets so they could continue to deliver economic value to the region.

“We bought these assets less than two years ago, and now, the projects are repowered and back online producing inexpensive, clean energy,” says PivotGen CEO Tim Rosenzweig. “That means continued royalties for landowners, good paying local jobs, and local tax revenue for the community.”

In a nod to their Texas cattle country location, Stockyard’s eight projects are named Filet, Tenderloin, Flat Iron, Brisket, Tri-Tip, T-Bone, Ribeye and Porterhouse. Combined, they will generate 128.5 MW of clean, renewable energy for local communities in Handford, Moore, and Sherman counties.

Developed between 2006 and 2009, Stockyard’s original turbines were designed for a life expectancy of 20 years. PivotGen’s customized repowering plan tailored to the unique needs of each site, has successfully modernized the entire portfolio, extending the life of the turbines by as many as 15 years or more. Breathing new life into those aging assets required knowledge of the legacy turbines combined with cutting-edge technology innovation and operational adaptability on the part of PivotGen engineers.

Rather than replacing entire turbines, PivotGen employed a strategic repowering process designed to maximize efficiency while minimizing costs. This included replacing heavy equipment, upgrading control systems, and implementing software enhancements to optimize performance. By focusing on key components and engineering turbine-specific solutions, PivotGen has restored and improved the operational capabilities of each machine.

“Repowering should be like maintaining an older car,” says PivotGen Senior Vice President of Engineering Bob Grimley. “You don’t replace the whole engine if it’s not broken — you target the parts that need upgrading to get the best performance, cost-saving, and longevity.”

The Stockyard projects produce enough power to supply the energy needs for approximately 34,000 average American homes. These repowered farms will also provide reliable, renewable energy to meet the growing demand in the U.S., driven by data centers, electric vehicles, and other expanding industries.

“Our approach isn’t just about replacing old equipment—it’s about designing a repowering strategy that fits the specific turbines, the local environment, and the long-term energy goals of the region,” adds Grimley.

Unlike larger firms that often take a one-size-fits-all approach to repowering, PivotGen tailors its strategy to the needs of the project — modernizing only what’s needed while preserving valuable infrastructure. What’s more, the company takes a long-term view of its place in the community, planning to own and operate the Stockyard Wind Portfolio into the future.

News item from PivotGen

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Wind energy repowering involves upgrading older wind turbines or entire wind farms with the latest technology to increase their efficiency, capacity, and lifespan. This process typically includes replacing outdated components such as turbines, blades, and nacelles with more modern, efficient versions. Repowering can also involve updating control systems and other infrastructure to enhance performance.

The primary goals of repowering are to:

• Increase Energy Output: Newer technology generates more power from the same wind resource, thanks to improved design and efficiency.
• Extend Turbine Life: By replacing aging components, the operational life of the turbines can be extended, making the investment in wind farms more viable long-term.
• Reduce Maintenance Costs: Newer turbines require less maintenance, which can significantly lower operational costs.
• Enhance Reliability: Modern turbines are more reliable and less prone to breakdowns.
• Optimize Use of Existing Sites: Repowering allows for the continued use of sites that have proven wind resources, existing infrastructure, and grid connections, which can be more cost-effective and environmentally friendly than developing new sites.

The Twin Ridges repowering, which involves replacing the nacelles and blades of the existing wind turbines while retaining the towers and foundations, will produce a 30% increase in energy generation for the project and residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
“As the wind energy industry faces increasingly complex obstacles to growth, including a nearly 3-GW interconnection queue of renewable energy projects trying to connect to the grid, repowering has become a path to help meet clean energy goals,” said Jim Spencer, CEO of Exus Renewables North America. “Thanks to these upgrades, the Twin Ridges project will generate clean, reliable and renewable power — and millions in community investment — to the region for decades to come.”

Exus Renewables will invest approximately $200 million in the project, creating 150 union construction jobs. It expects to inject over $7.35 million into the local economy through the procurement of materials and services from local suppliers and anticipates that over the 30-year life of the project, more than $100 million will be invested in the community through tax and landowner payments. Vestas American Wind Technology supplied American-made nacelles, hubs, blades, and tower adaptors for the project.

News item from Exus

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