WESA members had the possibility to join the conference for one day, to get insights into the world of wind energy research. The one-day tickets were given out in a lottery.
We would like to thank our Wind Energy department to provide the tickets and our members for the interest and articles that you sent to us after. We have gathered some of the winner’s experiences in this article and hope that you will enjoy reading them!
Cheerio from WESA
INTERVIEW with Thomas and Freddy
Btw, cool fact: did you know that also some of our members presented the work of their research projects?
Freddy J. Madsen and Thomas Raahauge Nielsen for example, who presented two abstracts based on the work they did in their MSc thesis. Here is a small interview with them, how it was to be part of WESC 2017.
WESA: “Tommy and Freddy, what were the abstracts about?”
T&F: “One about the experimental- and the other about numerical investigation of the dynamic response of the scaled DTU 10 MW RWT on a tension leg platform (TLP).
WESA: “How did it feel to present at WESC?”
T&F: “It was a huge experience presenting at WESC! No less! To present your work to experts from around the world who are interested in what you are doing was a bit frightening – but it felt great.”
WESA: "And how was the conference in general?"
T&F: “The conference was very interesting. We saw it with a student helper perspective as we organised and monitored all the different sessions. The 15 min presentation + 5 min Q&A worked in general very well with coffee breaks every ~1.2 h. People were nice and there were a wide range of sessions to choose from, meaning each presentation would yield something new. We are very glad to have been part of WESC17.”
IMPRESSIONS: Michael Sangster
“As a DTU wind energy master student and member of WESA, I was able to obtain a day pass to two days of the WESC conference this year at DTU. I found the conference to cover a wide range of topics (mostly technical but some sessions also covered social and commercial aspects of wind energy), and the presentations were generally very informative and high quality. My main interests are site assessment, wake modelling, loads and optimisation techniques, and several sessions tied these themes together in interesting ways. I was particularly interested in the session on TOPFARM by David Verelst from Risø - TOPFARM is a framework to optimise the cost of energy from wind farms, using a detailed cost model which considers the value of all layout-related revenues and costs. This is a highly complex topic due to the deep inter-depencies between layout, loads and power due wake effects, but also an area which shows much potential for future reduction in cost of energy.
Another interesting presentation was given by Katherine Dykes from NREL on the load effects on turbines when wake steering is employed to improve wind farm efficiency. This is an area of intense interest for many manufacturers at the moment, but one of the open questions is the effect on loads, so it was interesting to hear about progress in characterising these effects.
All in all the conference provided many opportunities to hear about the latest developments in wind energy, and I highly recommend attending next time for anyone wishing to gain an understanding of the current state-of-the-art in their areas of interest.”
Michael Sangster
Masters Student at DTU European Wind Energy Master Program
IMPRESSIONS: Dimitrios Agriostathis
“It was with great pleasure that I attended the symposia on grid integration of wind power on the first day of WESC 2017, organized by Nicolaos A. Cutululis, senior researcher at DTU Department of Wind Energy. The introductory presentation illustrated the current state and future needs of grid code harmonization in the requirements for connection and the operation of wind turbines in national grids across Europe, which is particularly important in assuring the stability of the power system and at the same time increasing the penetration of wind energy.
The following presentations elaborated with state of the art research on power converters, HVDC grids, transient response, optimal control and asymmetrical fault analysis of wind turbines. I also had the opportunity to discuss with the presenters and learn about the status of wind power research in different parts of the world.
On the fourth day the symposia on wind power forecasting sustained the high quality of the presentations and investigated issues more closely connected to the power market operation. The common ground of the presentations was the great potential that exists in incorporating uncertainty and probabilistic forecasts into the operations of power system components, something that the industry has not yet exploited to its full extent.
A big thanks of course goes to WESA for giving us the chance to participate in WESC 2017 and get inspiration from the people who strive to make wind power an ever appealing solution to our energy needs.”
Dimitrios Agriostathis
MSc in Sustainable Energy - Electric Energy Systems
IMPRESSIONS: Tibor Takarics
It was a great pleasure to have the opportunity of participating in two days of WESC 2017. The second day of the conference began with Henrik Stiesdal’s presentation aboutThe Impact of Research on Cost Reductions in Wind Power. He gave an inspiring speech about the current market trends in energy industry and the potentials of wind energy.
In the morning session, I attended symposium onTurbine Plant Control. I would like to highlight Wim Munters from KU Leuven. He presented his fascinating research experience about optimal coordinated control of wind-farm boundary layers in large-eddy simulations focusing on dynamic yaw control and dynamic induction control.
In the afternoon session, I followed the presentations aboutDesign and systems engineering of wind turbines and plants. David Robert Verelst drew the attention to the need for coupling models to address wind farm optimization challenges. He presented TOPFARM (Tool for Optimisation Of Wind Farm Topology and Operation) as a possible framework for cooperation.
In the last day of the conference, I focused onGrid integration and the Energy system. Bert Kruyt acquainted us with the surprising potentials of wind energy in Switzerland. However, I am not convinced that these are feasible because of the significant aesthetic conflicts.
All in all, it was a well-organized conference with a lot of interesting topics. I am grateful to WESA for giving me the chance to be a part of it.
Tibor Takarics
Master of Science (MSc), Electrical and Electronics Engineering
IMPRESSIONS: Feng Guo
“It was a great luck to win a ticket from WESA and attend the conference WESC on the second day when a lot of interesting topics were covered. In the morning, the “Development of layout optimisation tool for a wind farm in complex terrain: the FarmOpt project” presented by W.Z. Shen was really impressive to me. It shows how an optimisation tool for optimally placing wind turbines in wind farms in complex terrain was developed based on site measurements.
In the afternoon, I attended several presentations related to wind farm optimal control. The wind farm optimal control is a hot topic in recent academic studies. There were speakers from DTU Wind Energy, KU Leuven and NREL from the US. Through their presentations, I found that most of the works so far are mainly based on simulations, but there is a great potential that those new control approaches could be verified by industrial applications.”
Feng Guo
Msc System Integration of Wind Power
IMPRESSIONS: Darius Allam
“The organizers of the first Wind Energy Science Conference (WESC) at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) delivered an event both well-coordinated and of high quality knowledge. I won a ticket from WESA and the conference program was on my side -I could enjoy an action-packed Monday!
The conference opened with speeches calling for cooperation and highlighting the responsibility that universities have to contribute to the society.
My choice for the first part of the day was the 'Grid integration of wind power' session chaired by Nicolaos A. Cutululis. One might wonder what a mechanical engineer has to do with these topics. Little to nothing. This is probably what makes such sessions so enjoyable to me, most of the knowledge there is simply new!
The afternoon session of the day chaired by Morten Hartvig Hansen was something I had been looking forward to for many weeks. Floating wind turbines. June 2017 will definitely be a month to remember as coming back from Offshore Wind Energy 2017 in London powered by WindEurope & Renewable UK, my enthusiasm and strong belief in floating wind turbines was further reinforced at DTU. The takeaway from this session in Lyngby with both industry and academic speakers is that serious model and lab tests have become part of daily operations and the next keyword for floating wind turbines is manufacturing.
Optimism could be seen on many faces and clear progress can be seen in the wind industry. And with so many disciplined colleagues around, one can only look forward to the very near future.”
Darius Allam
MSc Wind Energy