Wind researchers blow in from around the globe

THE wind power research possibilities of the newly formed Australian Sustainable Energy Centre (ASEC) have drawn students from around the globe.

The students are working under the guidance of Dr Jonathan Whale, ASEC Wind Project Coordinator, focusing on the challenges of monitoring wind resource and wind turbine performance.

Dr Whale has been in the field of wind energy for 12 years, having worked with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the USA before joining ASEC. He brings his experience to his teaching in the School of Engineering Science within the areas of Energy Studies and Renewable Energy Engineering.

“There are very close synergies between my teaching and research commitments, and I found a way to link students with wind-related projects so they could gain valuable experience in this growing field and find new ways to collaborate,” Dr Whale said.

“Murdoch University Energy Research Institute (MUERI) has a long-standing partnership with local wind turbine manufacturer Westwind turbines and our wind team are working on four Westwind machines currently being tested at Murdoch.”

Bert van der Plas, a Masters student from the Netherlands is working on a wind energy resource assessment of a potential wind farm site in the North of Western Australia. Supervised by Dr Whale and Professor Tom Lyons, Bert is compiling a wind atlas of the site to predict the optimal place to install wind turbines.

Ramon Correa Cabrera, a postgraduate student from Mexico and Ashraf Garana, a postgraduate student from India are monitoring the Westwind turbines at MEURI to predict the performance of the machines in different areas of the world. The project is of particular interest to Ashraf since Westwind plan to install three of their machines on Elephanta Island off the coast of Mumbai (Bombay) in India.