With all the moving parts — both literal and metaphorical — involved with the development of a wind-energy project, it sometimes becomes a serious challenge on just where to start in order to turn a dream into power.
To that end, the minds behind Triumphus use their multi-tiered expertise to assist in calming the noise of a renewables project and bringing all the parts into focus.
“Mergers and acquisitions are how we started, and then we got involved with Horizon Wind Energy in the very early stages here in Houston,” said Dave Hopson, founder and managing partner with Triumphus. “We figured out that nobody really knew how to do wind or solar farms because they’re so far from everything, and it became our niche. That’s what we do is renewables, and we do that because we have contacts and capabilities that the bigger firms don’t have and the smaller firms don’t know.”
The two sides of a project
According to Hopson, there are two sides to bringing a wind farm into operation from an IT and compliance perspective: The operational network and the corporate network. These networks are sometimes called the OT or process control network and the corporate or business LAN.
“Let’s start with operational: Substations that are 200 miles outside of Abilene are a problem,” he said. “There’s no cable; there’s no fiber; there’s not even a road. We have to figure it out. We use a lot of satellite and a lot of WiMAX to get the lay-down yard figured out to do the substation in such a way that you’re NERC compliant, but yet you don’t spend a fortune. That’s not very easy to do unless you’ve done them repeatedly.”
Over the years, Triumphus has managed the start of 100 substations and 12 remote control centers that all have to be NERC (North American Electric Reliability) compliant on one level or another, according to Hopson.
“We can come in and our specialty is to do that because wind farms and solar farms — renewables in general — don’t have a large budget,” he said. “They don’t ever even think about technology. Some of the newer companies are thinking about it, but they’re usually a startup or somewhere low on the totem pole of revenue. The question is: How do we do this in stages so that we’re scalable later, and we’re compliant, but we’re not busting the budget? That’s what we bring. That’s really what we bring on the operational side.”
The corporate side of the equation can be even more of a challenge, according to Hopson.
“They’re probably on QuickBooks; they may have SharePoint, but there are no rules; they probably have Microsoft Teams, but again, there are no rules,” he said. “So, we help them bring everything together with all the policies and procedures to make NERC happy. We can bring all that in pretty much turnkey because we’ve done it 20-plus times.”
Helping customers
Many times, Triumphus can offer assistance before a company even becomes a client, according to Hopson.
“It’s become a niche for us where we can help those guys,” he said. “We have quite a few customers now that are 10- to 12-people strong because we’ve got to help them get there before they can become clients. That’s what we bring to the table because we’ve done it so many times that we don’t need to do an assessment; we already know what’s wrong. We can just come in and fix it.”
Hopson’s confidence is evident in how he does business with his clients in order to be successful.
“My company has no employees, including me,” he said. “We work, and we get paid when we work, and we don’t get paid when we don’t work. If we can’t take a client to where they want to be, and it’s not a win-win, we will help them find the right consultant or internal staff, because it may not always be us. And that’s OK. It may not always be a fit. If we walk in and do a free assessment — which we do, all of our assessments are free — and if we’re not the right group, we’ll try to help you find the right group. We probably know them anyway.”
But Triumphus’ success record with its clients speaks for itself, as Hopson uses Horizon Wind Energy as an example.
“We have networks there that have been up for over 10 years with no hack and no unscheduled downtime,” he said. “There’s nothing more important to a wind or a solar farm than remote control. If somebody — like ERCOT — comes in and tells you to curtail, and then you can’t, then that means somebody’s got to go flying down a dirt road in a pickup truck trying to curtail. Network resiliency is one thing we bring at a cost-effective rate.”
Seeing the big picture
Another important aspect of what Triumphus can bring to the table is having the ability to design a project’s architecture while keeping possible growth in full view, according to Hopson.
“I’m pretty sure I can show you how to do procurement — both on the construction side and on the technology side — such that it pays the bill,” he said. “We call that the 180 shift — when you stop acting like a startup. If you get half a billion dollars from a venture capital firm, stop acting like a startup. You’re not. You’re a half-billion-dollar firm. Let’s act like it. Let’s force the pricing like it. We are really good at doing that as well so that our projects to get you from in control to in compliance are really cash neutral.”
Triumphus’ experience and intuitiveness have really been key to the company’s success, which are important tools to yield in an industry that has seen constant change over the years, according to Hopson.
“This industry is so fun,” he said. “Initially, you had 18-wheelers heading to Abilene, dragging blades and stands. Now, you see freight trains coming out of Houston and just car after car after car. Beautiful. What we bring as a company is how to connect them to each other and to the corporate office or the control center.” Hopson said he is proud of Triumphus’ work for the wind and renewables sector.
“We have one network with 27 wind farms that has never been down except for planned outages and has never been breached from a cyber security attack,” he said. “We’re going on 18 years now.”
After the project is operational
According to Hopson, Triumphus’ main goal when setting up a renewables project is, that once it’s operating, the company will move on.
“We’re good at it, and we work ourselves out of a job — that’s our goal,” he said. “When we’re done, you shouldn’t need us unless you add more wind farms. It should run itself. It should self-report any issues it might have. I — and all four partners —pride ourselves on when we walk away, we’re done. You don’t need another consulting firm. We’ve trained your small staff to manage it, and you can call us if you’ve got an issue, but if you don’t have an issue, you don’t need to call.”
Hopson also pointed out that Triumphus has been instrumental as control centers have become more outsourced. He said he expects more businesses to have direct access to renewable energy.
“What you’re going to see are projects like those two new data centers in Virginia where they put up a wind farm right outside the data center that was specifically built to feed the data center, not the grid,” he said. “It’s called ‘built-for-purpose’ renewables. That’s the next step. But now you’ve got to build a control center inside the data center, not to do the curtailments, but to shut them down when they need to, to fire them up when they need to, watch for your preventive maintenance, watch for your wind speeds, and your blade turbine angles. And that’s what we’re seeing as the newest level of work.”
Eye on the future
As offshore projects in the U.S. continue to ramp up, Hopson said he expects Triumphus’ plate to be quite full in the coming years.
“Offshore is really starting to take hold, and people are starting to accept it,” he said. “We have a couple of clients that are doing that. Of course, they’ve had setbacks in the last few years. I don’t think that will go away, even with the current administration, I think offshore wind is one direction. And those companies that support it — the floaters, the development, the construction of that — is going to grow. The connectivity is crucial, so your cable-layers and those guys will grow.”
But Hopson really sees sector growth as AI becomes a more welcome player within the renewables market.
“AI is really redefining what a turbine looks like and how you can make one that’s more efficient,” he said.
“How AI is going to touch this world is amazing and it is going to make a big impact on the planning and the placement of turbines and projecting whether it’ll be a profitable wind farm. Given all the gigantic amounts of data that’s out there, AI should make a huge difference in profitable renewables.”
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