Speakers 2023

Michael Moser, eologix sensor technology, AT

Increasing O&M benefits from icing sensors by means of smart data augmentation

Short biography: Michael Moser obtained his MSc in Electrical and Sound Engineering and his PhD in Electrical Measurement from Graz University of Technology and Graz University of Music and Performing Arts in 2007 and 2013, respectively. After an incubation phase at Science Parkt Graz, he founded eologix sensor technology together with 2 former colleagues. Since then, he is managing director and CTO of the company with more than 25 employees. He is attending Winterwind since 2011 and in his free time, he enjoys hiking and playing the piano.

Katie Gracie-Orr, Wood Renewables, UK

Power Curve Tests in Cold Climates on Complex Terrain

Short biography: Katie specialises in power performance testing of renewable energy turbines, and joined the Analysis team at Wood after studying at Strathclyde University for honours and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering. Her doctoral research, undertaken within the SuperGen doctoral training programme, focussed on the overspeed power regulation method for horizontal axis tidal turbines with a view to increasing industry understanding of associated benefits and constraints, developing a blade design methodology for use in this power regulation method. This experience feeds directly into Katie’s role at Wood, where she has involvement throughout the power curve testing (PCT) process for wind turbines, including independent review of power curve warranty documentation, terrain and forestry complexity assessments, and meteorological mast and power measurement data analysis, under the various stages of IEC Standard 61400-12-1 compliant PCTs for wind turbines. She has worked on projects located from the USA to Pakistan, with a strong focus with our Nordic client base. Katie also has practical on-site experience micro-siting mast and anchor points and installing power measurement equipment in turbine nacelles. Her work includes the use and manipulation of various GIS data sources (contour, grid, lidar elevation data), analysis of meteorological measurement, SCADA and independent power
measurement data, and of the associated uncertainties.
Katie sits on the British Standards Institute PEL/114 for Marine Energy, and the IEC Management Team responsible for the development of IEC/TS 62600-200, outlining the industry specifications for best practice in PCT for tidal energy converters, leading the team working on uncertainty estimation. Outside of work, Katie loves taking her son into the wilds to pick berries and splash in lochs, and taking chances to get out into the hills or for a dook (as we say in Scotland) in any body of water deep enough to contain a human being.

Carsten Ebert, Wölfel Wind Systems, DE

The Next Generation Ice Detection System – Control System Integrated Software Solution for
Substantial Cost Optimization

Short biography: Carsten Ebert is civil engineer (Dr.-Ing.) and 46 years old. He has been working for Wölfel Wind Systems since 2008 and is CTO of the company. He has an extensive knowledge in structural dynamics, especially in the field of structural health monitoring based on vibration measurements. At Wölfel, he is mainly responsible for the products and services for the structural monitoring of rotor blades, towers and foundations. In addition, he is a member of various working groups for the preparation of guidelines and standards and was in this role involved in the preparation of VDI-Guideline 4551, a German guideline for the condition monitoring of offshore wind foundation structures.

Lasse Hietikko, Wicetec, FI

AEP losses – less than half of the truth of the economic icing losses

Short biography: Will be delivered later

Timo Karlsson, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, FI

Case study on vertical variability in icing conditions in Finland

Short biography: Timo has a decade of experience in working with cold climate wind power related research and development mostly at VTT. The projects Timo’s been working on at VTT have covered a wide variety of topics: icing detection method development, pre-construction icing assessment, ice mitigation and blade
heating system development and production data analysis. Currently he’s also the head of IEA Wind task 54 “Cold Climate Wind Energy”, an international expert group. He has a Master’s degree from Aalto university school of electrical engineering.

Simo Rissanen, Kjeller Vindteknikk Oy, FI

Experiences with IPS icing losses

Short biography: Mr Rissanen has a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Helsinki University of Technology. He has worked in the wind industry for 15 years. In 2003-2006 and 2011-2019 he worked at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd in Wind Power team. Since 2019 he has been working as adviser at Kjeller Vindteknikk. At Kjeller Vindteknikk, he works with commercial and R&D-projects, mainly related to icing losses, wind resources, energy yield assessment and post construction production analysis. In his free time, he enjoys fishing and skiing.

Florian van der Stap, Wood Thilsted, DK

Sea ice conditions in the Baltic sea and impact for offshore wind farm foundations

Short biography: Florian van der Stap is a recently graduated offshore engineer from the TU Delft currently employed at Wood Thilsted. Throughout his studies Florian had a strong focus on offshore wind as well as arctic (offshore) engineering. This came together in his MSc thesis conducted at Wood Thilsted in close cooperation with the TU Delft, in which the impact of sea ice on monopiles was investigated via the coupling of the numerical VANILLA ice model to aero-elastic simulation software (HAWC2). Besides his work Florian enjoys a wide variety of sports, including but not limited to crossfit, squash & running.

Charles Godreau, Nergica, CA

On the performance of ice detection methods used in wind energy: a long-term field study

Short biography: Charles Godreau specializes in wind turbine performance assessments in cold climates and icing detection/protection systems. He possesses strong skills in data analysis for operational turbines as well as for developing, planning and implementing research projects. He notably represents Canada in the International Energy Agency’s Task 54 working group on wind energy in cold climates and is an active member of Winterwind’s program committee. In his free time Charles enjoys improv and backcountry skiing.

Patrice Roberge, Université Laval, CA

Mythbusters: wind energy in cold climate edition 

Short biography: Patrice is currently doing his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Université Laval in André Bégin-Drolet’s lab. He has been working on the operation of wind turbines in cold climates for over 6 years where he had the chance to contribute in the development of an ice detection device. He has authored and co-authored eleven scientific publications. He completed his bachelor’s degree in engineering physics. He also completed a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He is a very inquisitive person that loves to learn and understand the why and the how of the everyday phenomena. He is passionate about skiing, snowshoeing, and trekking.

André Bégin-Drolet, Université Laval, CA

Modelling ice accretion on a cylinder, simple? Right?

Short biography: André Bégin-Drolet is a full professor of mechanical engineering at Université Laval in Canada and CEO of Instrumentation Icetek, a spinoff company launched in November 2020 that commercialize the ice sensor he and his team have developed at Université Laval. His research, in the wind energy sector, focuses toward improving wind power production in cold climate where atmospheric icing is prevalent. His research led him to the design of a patented smart sensor, the Meteorological Conditions Monitoring Station (MCMS), adapted to measure meteorological conditions in cold and icy environment. He is very interested in developing methods to improve the production of wind energy in cold climates and have done so with many industrial partners. Wind is also part of his hobbies as he is an active racing sailor who loves to perform in both inshore and offshore regattas.

Sara Koller, Meteotest, CH

Icing detection with LiDAR

Short biography: Sara Koller holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Geosciences from the University of Basel. Since 2009, she has been working in the wind department at Meteotest in Switzerland. In 2019, she became head of the Wind & Ice team. Meteotest represents Switzerland in IEA Tasks 54 and 52, at which Sara is active in the LiDAR Correction in Complex Terrain and Icing Detection with LiDAR working groups of Task 52. Wind in all its aspects has been her topic for the last 13 years, although every time she works in the field she regrets that she is not working in the solar energy department. In her second life, Sara is a performance artist.

Andreas Christian Espersen, Wind Power LAB, DK

Addressing lightning risk in cold climates – a swedish case study

Short biography: Mr. Andreas C. Espersen holds a master´s degree in Geoinformatics. He specialises in the wind power industry with specific focus on how technology can assist in driving down the cost of operating a wind farm. Mr. Espersen has extensive knowledge and experience in data gathering, data conversion, data mining and data quality control. He also has strong knowledge of working different data format, raster, vector, text data and combining different data sources. As a result of his extensive university studies and career within the utility sector, Mr. Espersen has obtained sound theoretical and practical knowledge of the complex aspects inherent in the industry, which enables him to turn both complex and non-complex business challenges into IT solutions. Mr. Espersen has expertise and experience with project management of both small- and larger projects. and data driven insights from fleet management of wind turbines. In 2016 Mr. Espersen co-founded Wind Power LAB ApS with the aim to develop an automated defect detection algorithm to help analyse and assess wind turbine blades. By
means of cloud computing and a defect detection algorithm, based on a global data set of wind turbine blades, Wind Power LAB is able to provide customers with a quick, automated and high precision analysis and assessment of wind turbines blades quality assured by a team of experienced and professional blade
specialists. Outside work, Mr. Espersen spends his time in the nature. A good vacation for Mr. Espersen is a trip to Norway or Sweden to wander the woods and mountains.

Nils Lesmann, Phoenix Contact, DE

Lightning Monitoring in Cold Climates? Is there any need?

Short biography: Being with Phoenix Contact for 15 years Nils Lesmann is doing working now with eleven years most of his business career in the wind sector. Starting as application engineer, he is now in charge for the blade monitoring platform called “Blade Intelligence”. If he doesn’t feel the wind at work he likes to feel the wind while driving his motorbike.

Utku Turkyilmaz, Kjeller Vindteknikk part of Norconsult, SE

Experiences analyzing operational wind farms in cold climate

Short biography: Utku Turkyilmaz works as a consultant at the science-based consultancy company Kjeller Vindteknikk (KVT) AB at the Swedish office, and is responsible mainly for energy yield assessments. He holds a master’s degree in Aeronautical engineering specializing in wind energy from Istanbul Technical University. In 2010, he moved to Finland to work for Winwind, the Finnish wind turbine manufacturer as a wind analysis engineer. In 2014 he moved to Sweden to work for KVT. Since then, he involved in various wind energy topics including remote sensing devices, cold climate topics and pre and post-construction phase wind energy yield assessments. In his spare time, he is still trying to get acclimatized himself to the Nordic weather, to grow vegetables and to run outdoors.

Timo Müller / Moritz Rodenhausen, ENERCON GmbH, DE

ENERCON E-175 technologies

Short biography: Moritz Rodenhausen Dipl.-Ing., M.Sc. Head of Product Management and Timo Müller
Senior Platform Product Manager (more info will follow)

Ines Runge, Nordex Energy SE Co. KG, DE

Turbine performance during icing events

Short biography: Ms. Ines Runge works as a Senior Engineer in the Blade Engineering department at Nordex Energy. She has a PhD in mechanical engineering. After starting her career at an automotive supplier, she has been working on the Nordex anti-icing system since 2011. In addition to system design, her responsibilities include prototype evaluation. Ines likes long walks with her dog and baking cakes for her family.

Pieter Jan Jordaens, Sirris, BE

Gearing up for cold climate validation testing of 15MW+ wind turbine drivetrains

Short biography: Pieter Jan Jordaens joined Sirris (the Belgian collective technology center – www.sirris.be ) in 2010 in the role of project leader to manage the Offshore Wind Infrastructure (OWI) project lead by Sirris, VUB and a group of Belgian companies active in the early days of offshore wind power. Since then he has been responsible to initiate, set-up and roll-out the operations of the (offshore) wind energy RD&I department at Sirris and it’s supporting services in different roles (project engineer, senior engineer, business developer, cluster manager). Pieter Jan also acts as operating officer of OWI-Lab (www.owi-lab.be), a joint collaboration between Sirris, VUB and UGent to support (offshore) wind RD&I activities in Belgium. During the past years PJ has set-up the large climatic test facility for wind turbine components in Antwerp, supported the structural health monitoring (SHM) RD&I trajectory of OWI-Lab in partnership with VUB, and together with UGent managed the IBN Offshore Energy Cluster as cluster manager in which between 2007-2020 more than 40 large RD&I projects linked to offshore wind energy were set-up with industry. Pieter Jan now acts as Program manager Energy Transition within Sirris. Before joining Sirris, Pieter Jan obtained a Master’s degree in Electro-Mechanical Engineering at KU Leuven. He also joined the International Postgraduate Programme in Entrepreneurial Engineering after
his Master. PJ is also the president of Technovation Hub vzw, a platform initiating and supporting hi-tech engineering student projects. PJ is also board member of Seacoop cvba, a cooperative venture that will co-develop the upcoming 3.5GW Princess Elisabeth offshore wind zone in Belgium in which participation of Belgian citizens will be supported.

Stephen Jude Buggy, Vestas Technology UK

Development and deployment of a new anti-ice product – an OEM perspective

Short biography: Stephen has been working for Vestas since 2012. Originally working in the blades design area on sensors systems, he now works in the blades protective functions team and has technical responsibility for the cold climate blade systems. Previously he has worked in academia on optical fibre technologies and monitoring systems and in the power industry for GE – online transformer monitoring systems, and for Pirelli Cables – real time thermal monitoring systems. He holds a PhD from Cranfield University in optical fibre sensors, and an MSc. and a BEng from the University of Portsmouth in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. He enjoys running up hill, jumping in the sea and spending time with the family.

Bram Cloet, Sirris, BE

An active/passive coating stack for surface icing mitigation tested under various climatic
conditions.

Short biography: With over a decade of experience in the energy sector, Bram Cloet is a respected professional in the industry. He currently holds the position of Senior Engineer for Energy Transition Industry at Sirris, where he leads efforts to create a sustainable energy future. Bram has a wealth of experience working on long-term operation projects for Belgian nuclear power plants with Tractebel/Syngenia and was also a team leader at the Global Product Design Group of CG Power Systems (formerly Pauwels Trafo), where he managed R&D projects related to the development and improvement of high voltage distribution transformers. Bram’s education in Mechanical Electrical Engineering (option electrical energy) from KULeuven in Leuven, Belgium in 2007, has been instrumental in his success. His expertise, dedication to the field and problem-solving skills have earned him a reputation as a trusted and valuable professional in the energy industry.

Simon Kloiber, VERBUND Green Power, AT

Challenges for a smart algorithm controlling wind turbines under icing conditions

Short biography: Bachelor and master degree in meteorology at the University of Vienna (2011-2017). Visitor at NCAR – The National Center for Atmospheric Research (2016 – Three month). Weather forecaster at Ubimet (2017-2018). Performance Analyst Wind and PV at VERBUND since 2018. Project staff within the research project ICE CONTROL. Member of the VGBE project SOPWICO. Project leader of the research project SOWINDIC. Interested in sport – active and passive.

Franziska Gerber, Meteotest, AG

Can we make better use of ice protection systems?

Short biography: Franziska Gerber was always interested in snow and ice, which was part of her work throughout the years. Snow distributions and small-scale wind fields in complex terrain were the topic of her PhD at EPFL Lausanne and the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF (Davos). She continued her work at SLF Davos on blowing snow over Antarctica as a PostDoc. In April 2021 she joined the wind and ice team at Meteotest AG, where she extended her horizon to icing of wind turbines. When not at work she can be found on skis in winter, hiking or cycling in summer or chasing shuttles on the badminton court throughout the year.

Christoffer Carlsson, INKOM, Industrikomponenter AB, SE

ESS – Energy Storage Systems in cold climates

Short biography: Application Engineer at INKOM for Energy Storage Systems with M.Sc. from Chalmers university of technology. Responsible for solutions to industrial production lines, DC charging stations, electric utility companies and marine applications etc. My personal interest is green energy systems.

Salur Basbug, RISE, SE

Potential and costs for wind power of providing system services to the electricity grid

Short biography: I am working at RISE within the unit ”Renewable energy from wind and sea”. My expertise is in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and other types of simulations related to wind energy, such as aero-elastic analysis using BEM method. Currently, I am involved in the following projects:
-Active yaw control for increased windfarm production
-Influence of wind-wave interaction on the blockage effect for offshore windfarms
-Potential and costs for wind power of providing system services to the electricity grid (Part 2).
Besides engineering and technology, I am quite interested in economics and finance.

Wout Weijtjens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, BE

Proof of concept of using an existing foundation structural health monitoring system to detect icing

Short biography: Wout Weijtjens (°1988) is a junior Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel with an expertise in structural health monitoring, with a particular focus on (offshore) wind energy applications. As researcher he was involved in monitoring campaigns at all Belgian offshore wind farms and on various
onshore wind farms, with a particular curiosity to quantify fatigue life consumption and sudden variations in resonance frequencies, e.g. as caused by icing.
Wout enjoys running, is an avid quizzer and tries to be a ’maker’.

Matthew Stead, Ping Services, AU 

The importance of early-stage ice detection

hort biography: Matt has over thirty years of experience in the areas of wind farm acoustics, environmental noise, low vibration design, building acoustic design and transportation noise. His professional acoustic consultancy experience has been gained in both Australia and the United States, where his advice has been provided to a range of companies and industries. Matt has been instrumental in rapidly commercialising and scaling the Ping Monitor as a global service and driving the innovation of new products based on customer needs, to round out Ping’s product portfolio.
He has an undergraduate Bachelor of Engineering (First Class Honours) degree under the acoustician Colin Hansen and also a Masters of Engineering Science specialising in signal processing and condition monitoring. He is a prolific author of technical papers, is actively involved in the industry and is the past
Chairman of the Association of Australian Acoustical Consultants and a past Australian Acoustical Society Federal Councillor.
Education:
– Master of Engineering Science, Acoustics Monash University
– Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (First Class Honours) The University of Adelaide

Daniela Roeper, Borealis Wind, CA

Determining power requirements for de-icing/anti-icing systems for onshore and offshore turbines 

Short biography: Daniela is the CEO and Founder of Borealis Wind, a company offering a blade de-icing retrofit for wind turbines. A mechanical engineer by trade, Daniela applies her practical thinking and passion for renewable energy to her company. She is inspired by the opportunity to increase wind power production in cold climates.

Claas Rittinghaus, Energiewerkstatt, AT

Winterwind Workshop – “Performance envelopes of blade heating systems” – A Subtask of IEA
Wind TCP Task 54 “Cold Climate Wind Power”

and

NICE – Reduction of ice formation by nanostructuring of surfaces with an ultrashort pulse laser

Short biography: Claas Rittinghaus earned his diploma in physics at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. After 10 years of working as a product manager for Phoenix Contact in Blomberg, Germany, he joined the Energiewerkstatt in Friedburg, Austria, in 2021 as a project manager in research and consultancy services. As Austrian participant of IEA Wind TCP Task 54 specifically icing topics are in his focus. He is a mountain enthusiast, in summer as in winter, and enjoys hiking, climbing, bouldering, downhill skiing and ski touring. Another passion of his is music, especially playing the guitar and singing.

Emilie Iversen, Norconsult, NO

Climate change impacts on Nordic icing climate

Short biography: I recently obtained my PhD within atmospheric icing, weather modeling and climate prediction, and have been working as a consultant for wind engineering tasks for close to four years, with a specific focus on atmospheric icing.
I enjoy snow and ice in my free time as well, as I enjoy snowboarding both down and uphill.

Erik Almkvist, Viking Supply Ships, SE

How to handle the sea ice

Short biography: Master mariner and ice advisor with more than 20 years of experience from offshore operation in harsh conditions, arctic operations and ice management.

Stefan Bill, REWITEC GmbH, DE

Innovative technology to increase efficiency and extend the lifetime of gears and bearings

Short biography: Stefan Bill is Managing Director of REWITEC GmbH and also Global Business Director at Cargill Bioindustrial. He developed the REWITEC technology, applied for the relevant international patents in 2012 and has been in the lubricant and additive business for 18 years. Stefan studied electrical engineering with a focus on electrical drives and has already held various management positions at drive technology companies such as ABB and others.

Ibrahim Rotich, Eötvös Loránd University, HU

Numerical study on inversed designed airfoil under adverse weather conditions

Short biography: Ibrahim Kipngeno Rotich is currently a PhD student working under supervision of Professor Kollár László at Eötvös Loránd University (Savaria Egyetemi Központ), Szombathely. I am currentlyworking on an inverse design of a section of wind blade under adverse weather conditions.

Narges Tabatabaei, DNV,SE

Multi-fidelity modelling of wakes and blockage for realistic atmospheric conditions in cold climate

Short biography: Narges has more than 10 years of experience in CFD simulations of turbomachinery. She has also worked with aerodynamics investigations in different applications, as well as the algorithm development for modeling the various flow systems. Narges is a senior engineer who has been working in different industries and research groups, with expertise in fluid mechanics. She received her doctoral degree from Luleå university of technology with the doctoral thesis on icing effect over wind turbine performance. Important part of her work includes the CFD developments as a part of her PostDoc in KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Albert Bosch, VORTEX, ES

6-month seasonal forecasting of monthly wind speed anomalies

Short biography: Albert Bosch is a physicist and wind meteorologist who has spent a considerable amount of time working in the renewable energy industry. He holds a Masters of Science in Meteorology from the University of Barcelona. Albert has been working at Vortex since 2016 in the Technical Department developing tasks such as short-term forecasting, icing time series and wind and site mapping. He was also a Vortex team member for the Global Wind Atlas project in conjunction with The Work Bank R&D areas/s: E) Operation, maintenance and forecasting Group (globalwindatlas.org). During the last few years, his main research interests have been in long range forecasting for the wind industry.

Don Browning, Phazebreak, US

Chemical coating solutions for turbine blade icing

Short biography: With 15 years of experience in wind energy and aviation, Don Browning brings knowhow and confidence to his role as Vice President of Operations at Phazebreak. A graduate of University of California, Don has helped lead Phazebreak Coatings in its rapid growth during its early years. Between networking with customers, organizing field crews, or attending wind energy tradeshows, he still makes time for his favorite things: family, cigars, and, as he puts it, ”Golf is a good hobby.”