Wednesday 22nd November 2017

Wind Watch

Wind Watch is published every Monday and Friday.

In the meantime, have you checked out the latest posts on our blog? If not, you should!

This week, we have shared some highlights from our exclusive interview with Ward Thomas, CEO of Sentient Science, in our sixth-annual Top 100 Power People special report.

You can find out more about it in our Top 100 Power People report, published last week in association with Sentient Science.

Top 100: Interview with Ward Thomas
By Frances Salter

The publication of the Top 100 Power People has already provided some great talking points within the industry.

As well as being the definitive guide to the most influential people in wind energy, the report provides an overview of the year's most important trends, such as the rapidly-falling costs of offshore wind and the emergence of floating turbine technology.

It also contains a series of big interviews. Here are some key take-home points from our conversation with Sentient Science's president and CEO, Ward Thomas:

Materials science could help make wind 13% cheaper. Thomas outlined how Sentient Science's prognostic models combine data science and materials science to provide accurate predictions of when and where failures will occur within turbines.

For example, they are currently providing savings equal to 2% - 3% of revenue by focusing on gearboxes specifically: this represents a fifth of the predicted savings that will come from applying the technology to the complete turbine.

Wind is the ideal starting point for commercialising this technology. This is the first commercial application of technologyoriginally developed in the aerospace sector...