My expertise
- Research management
- Innovation exploitation
- Wind farm aerodynamic modelling
- Quantifying uncertainty in wind energy
- Wind farm control
- Layout optimisation of wind farms
- Best practice for wind LIDARs
My biography
I completed my PhD in computational aerodynamics at the University of Glasgow. This led to concentrating on parallel computing and computational fluid dynamics in the early part of my career.
In support of wing design at Airbus UK, I was group leader for aerodynamic design optimisation and analysis methods. At that time I learned a lot about collaborative research which has informed my more recent career.
Since joining Frazer-Nash more than ten years ago, I have assisted in developing research projects and programmes in several sectors (including rail, aerospace, defence, nuclear energy and renewable energy) in many different technical areas (eg: AI&ML, materials, safety, multi-discipline optimisation, systems engineering). These range from multi-year programmes with over 50 suppliers, to short and punchy two-month projects. Sometimes I am leading these programmes, sometimes one of many contributors, sometimes advising.
I have been involved in renewable energy, particularly offshore wind, since 2009. The research projects I have led and contributed to in wind resource assessment and wind LIDARs have led to reduced cost of energy from offshore wind. Layout design is another area where I have assisted developers in developing their own production methods.
At the present time I am involved in developing rapid models for blockage effects and in understanding the mechanisms and impact of wind farm interaction with the wind resource.
I’m passionate about understanding value streams and the benefits that can bring. Other sectors can learn a lot from the renewable energy sector, where investment in effort in increasing performance or reducing cost and uncertainty is made in the context of global value models which are surprisingly simple. Why doesn’t everyone do that?