Booking Form Garrad Hassan releases next generation wind farm design software – GH WindFarmer 4.0 - 27th May 2009Garrad Hassan announces the release of its next generation wind farm design software: GH WindFarmer 4.0This new version combines the strength of GH WindFarmer 3.6, which is widely used across the wind industry, with major new features including a new wake model for very large wind farms, support for geo-referenced map data, projection conversions, map editing and map digitising. Further features include layout optimisation for a financial target and export to Google Earth. The pricing structure has also been updated in order to facilitate purchase. GH WindFarmer is developed by Garrad Hassan and is used to design onshore and offshore projects of all sizes. This powerful tool integrates all aspects of wind farm energy and environmental assessments, wind farm layout design and data handling in a user-friendly package, which is recognized for its fast and accurate calculations and is based on highly transparent data models. Dr. Wolfgang Schlez, leader of Garrad Hassan’s WindFarmer Group, says;“Users of GH WindFarmer are effectively applying advanced wind farm design tools years ahead of others, which gives them a commercial edge over their competition. We greatly value the feedback of our users and continue to invest in applied research and to embrace technological advances, in order to stay ahead of the market. The development of GH WindFarmer 4.0 follows our tradition of being the cutting edge and we are very pleased with the results.”For more information and to request a downloadable demo visit the GH WindFarmer pages of our site here Garrad Hassan provides technical advice on UK’s 4th largest Offshore Wind Farm. - 22nd May 2009Garrad Hassan recently completed an independent technical assessment for Statkraft, analysing their investment in the UK’s Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm. Working to a tight programme, Garrad Hassan provided an independent risk assessment looking at costs, energy yield, operational issues, general programme and technical risks.The Sheringham Shoal project, joint-owned by Norwegian Statoil-Hydro and Statkraft, will be Britain’s fourth largest Offshore Wind Farm and will be located 20km north of Norfolk costal town Sheringham. Consisting of 88 wind turbines over 35 square kilometres – this will, on completion equate to 1.1 TWh of electricity going into the National Grid every year. By drawing on extensive and unparalleled offshore wind experience, Garrad Hassan was able to provide Statkraft with valuable additional confidence on the viability of the development and were able to advise on where the key residual risks lay. In terms of Offshore Wind Energy alone, over the last two years Garrad Hassan has provided Due Diligence services to around ten major clients in utility, banking and private equity sectors on over twenty Offshore Wind Farms – equating to a total capacity of 8,000 MW. To date, Garrad Hassan has assessed offshore wind farm projects located in Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Garrad Hassan announces dedicated service to meet worldwide demand for strategic and policy advice. - 28th Apr 2009The world’s largest independent renewable energy consultancy, Garrad Hassan, today announced its dedicated strategic and policy advice service for governments, NGO’s and industry leaders.Demand for the company’s expertise, particularly in relation to its understanding of the interplay between technology, policy and regulation, has lead to the creation of a specialist team to meet the rapid market developments both worldwide. Dr. Andrew Garrad, Chief Executive at Garrad Hassan says“We have been providing policy support and industry advice, on wind energy in particular, for many years but the continuing growth in demand has dictated that we create a dedicated service team. We have senior staff in 18 countries around the world who really know what is going on in their patch; no other industry analyst or adviser has anything like such a network. We have been using that intelligence very successfully in an ad hoc way and now it will be carefully focussed and even more valuable. The combination of technical and policy knowledge which we provide is also unrivalled”Garrad Hassan’s Strategic and Policy Studies Group will be led by the company’s grid integration expert, Paul Gardner, who has 25 years of experience in the connection of wind farms to the grid in conjunction with policy expert, Daniel Argyropoulos, who joined recently from the Federal German Ministry for the Environment. Garrad Hassan helps Chilean government to identify marine energy project sites - 11th Mar 2009Garrad Hassan recently presented initial findings from its study to identify Chile’s potential for wave and tidal energy projects to the Chilean government.The worldwide renewable energy consultancy has been working with the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), under the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change (SECCI) initiative, to identify priority areas for the development of marine energy projects in Chile. Initial findings from the study estimate Chile’s raw offshore wave power at 164GW - about 12 times the total capacity of the electrical system in Chile. The Chacao Channel was found to have the largest potential for exploitation of tidal currents, estimated at up to 500MW. João Cruz, Garrad Hassan’s wave energy expert said “While these are early findings, and there are several levels of further work to undertake before embarking on a commercial project, they place Chile comparatively high among the other geographic regions that have conducted similar assessments of their raw wave and tidal capacity”. Proposed further stages of the study include ongoing data collection and analysis of sites, identifying and promoting technologies, and developing demonstration projects. Chilean Government Minister of Energy, Marcelo Tokman, explained that conducting research into the best prospective locations at this relatively early stage in the marine renewables sector meant that, when the technology became more advanced, Chile would be in a strong competitive position. When talking about the raw marine power identified, he also described Chile as “the Saudi Arabia of Marine Energy”. Indian wind industry expert joins Garrad Hassan to head new office in Bangalore - 26th Feb 2009Garrad Hassan, the worldwide renewable energy consultancy and leading wind authority, announces its new office in Bangalore, India. Garrad Hassan now has 24 offices in 18 countries. The Indian business will be managed by MP Ramesh, a key figure in the Indian wind industry. He was previously the Executive Director of India’s Centre for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET) for nearly six years.
Dr. Andrew Garrad, CEO of Garrad Hassan says “I have known MP Ramesh for more than a decade and we are delighted that he has decided to join us. As a pioneer of the Indian wind industry for over 30 years, he brings enormous hands-on experience which will be invaluable in the further development of Garrad Hassan’s Indian operations.” Andrew Garrad continues “Our tried and tested model at Garrad Hassan is to open regional offices so that our global perspective is based on strong local understanding. We have been working with Indian clients from the very beginning of the industry there – we have analysed 8,000 MW of proposed and operating plant – the majority of the total installed capacity. India is a very important market and we have long had the intention of opening an Indian office but we needed to find somebody who could deliver high quality Indian representation to our organisation – now we have done that! Initially Mr. Ramesh will be supported by expert staff from elsewhere in the Garrad Hassan Group (indeed some are already there) and then we shall find additional staff locally – Bangalore is a great place to recruit engineers!” Garrad Hassan contributes to three ETI funded projects to help meet UK energy and climate change targets - 16th Jan 2009Garrad Hassan, the worldwide renewable energy consultancy with its headquarters in Bristol, announces that it will play a role in three of the four projects that have been selected by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) to receive funding as part of a 1.1 billion initiative to help the UK meet ambitious energy and climate change targets.As a partner in the ReDAPT project and a sub-contractor in both the Helm Wind and Deepwater Turbine projects, Garrad Hassan further cements its reputation for advanced technical expertise in both the wind and marine renewable energy sectors. All three projects will utilise Garrad Hassan’s GH Bladed software, the industry standard for turbine design. Within the Helm Wind project it will be used for turbine concept design as part of a collaborative project to optimise the design of large scale offshore wind farm power stations. The wide scope of this concept study, performed by a consortium of major industrial partners, should enable more timely and cost-effective solutions to key issues related to the scalability of offshore wind as a serious part of the future energy mix. The Deepwater Turbine project is focused on determining the design and feasibility of a 5MW offshore wind turbine utilising a floating platform for deepwater deployment. Garrad Hassan will be responsible for numerical modelling of the turbine and the floating structure in order to analyse the structural dynamics and to calculate design loads. This project has the potential to allow offshore wind turbines to be deployed in large areas of deep water where bottom-mounted wind turbines cannot be installed. The ReDAPT project is focused on collecting environmental and performance data from a 1MW tidal turbine device that will be installed at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. Garrad Hassan will be responsible for the turbine control system and will develop their existing SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system for wind turbines – GH SCADA, to produce a standardised recording and reporting mechanism that will enable coherent data collection and processing. GH Bladed has already been adapted, utilised and sold as the world’s first tidal turbine design software, named GH Tidal Bladed, and Garrad Hassan intends to use the data collected from the ReDAPT project to allow comparisons between measurements and GH Tidal Bladed predictions and to further enhance GH Tidal Bladed to improve future tidal turbine design. David Quarton, Director at Garrad Hassan said:“We are obviously thrilled to be involved with these projects selected for ETI funding. The consortia are made up of world class organisations and it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to work with them on, what we anticipate will be, ground-breaking projects. It’s also a testament to the level of knowledge and expertise of our own staff, who are working collaboratively across departments and energies to develop cutting-edge advice and solutions to help drive the future of renewable energy as part of a serious global energy solution.” Garrad Hassan helps set the standard for offshore wind turbine design. - 15th Jan 2009The international standards body, IEC (the International Electrotechnical Committee), has announced the result of international voting which gives approval to a new international standard for the design of offshore wind turbines The standard, which was developed by a working group of international experts, convened and chaired by Garrad Hassan, provides rigorous design guidance for offshore wind turbines and their support structures. It provides much needed international consistency in a rapidly growing industry.
Offshore wind turbines present difficult design challenges due to the complexities of wind, waves and structural dynamics. The new standard, IEC 61400-3, defines the required design calculations and provides specific guidance on the methods needed to perform them. The eight year development process, involving intensive research, review, beta testing and documentation reviews, recently culminated in a 100% vote for publication from the IEC’s national committee members from around the world. Garrad Hassan America receives R&D grant from BPA for advanced short-term wind forecasting project. - 13th Jan 2009Garrad Hassan America, part of the Garrad Hassan Group, has been awarded a 1-year grant by U.S. Department of Energy federal agency, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).The grant is to part-fund a research and development project that will focus on improving techniques for short-term wind power prediction across the U.S. Pacific Northwest with a view to optimizing and balancing the output of both individual and multiple wind farms with other energy sources. The focus of efforts will be on improving detection of impending large fluctuations in wind energy generation over short time periods, or ramp events. Engineers and meteorologists from Garrad Hassan’s specialist forecasting team will undertake the short-term forecasting for multiple projects in the Pacific Northwest, utilizing historic data supplied by wind farm owners, in order to achieve the most accurate results. Craig Collier, Senior Meteorologist at Garrad Hassan America said “Ramp events are common at individual wind farms around the world and particularly problematic for regional transmission operators, such as BPA, that use short-term forecasts to schedule and balance power from wind projects with that from hydro and other conventional sources.” Garrad Hassan funds wind workshops for local schools - 6th Jan 2009Garrad Hassan, the worldwide renewable energy consultancy headquartered in Bristol, is helping to bring sustainable energy to the attention of future generations by funding the Centre for Sustainable Energy`s wind power workshops for school children. This is the second year running that the consultancy has supported this educational initiative which delivers specially tailored workshops to school children at key stages 1, 2 and 3 across the South West of England. The workshops encourage children to think about harnessing the power of the wind by providing them with information about wind resource and turbine design principles. The learning culminates in a turbine design challenge where they are tasked with creating a miniature ‘turbine’ with maximum output, using a desk fan, some additional ‘building’ materials and a small volt-meter. Dr. Andrew Garrad, CEO at Garrad Hassan and trustee of the Centre for Sustainable Energy said “The feedback from last year’s workshops was extremely positive. In future years, these children will face more pressure to adopt alternative energy solutions than any previous generation and we are therefore thrilled to be able to support this educational initiative for a second year”. For further information about the Centre for Sustainable Energy, the work they undertake, and the 'Garrad Hassan Wind Workshops', please visit www.cse.org.uk |
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