This month, the branch was privileged not only to have an international speaker, but two presenters. The presentations were done by Garrett Bywaters and Martin Brand, both from WEG. Attendees had the option of attending in person or following via a live stream.
Garrett is a leading engineer with 25 years of demonstrated success in the development of wind turbines and wind turbine technology. He holds the chief engineering position at WEG Wind United States of America.
Current wars: Edison vs Tesla (New York, 1897) Barret vs Brand (Cape Town, 2021).
Martin is R&D; manager for Renewable Energy Development at WEG, which is concerned with renewable energy applications. He studied electrical engineering and graduated in 1999 from the Technical University Darmstadt, Germany.
The audience was first given an overview of the different system layouts for typical solar photo voltaic (PV) power generation plants. Notably, Martin gave a very informative explanation on the design parameters of the different optimisation schemes for power output from such plants. This was expertly delivered in an easy-to-absorb session, which the audience thoroughly appreciated.
Following Martin’s engaging delivery Garrett took the audience through the historic developments of wind turbine design. His presentation covered ancient applications of wind power all the way through to modern development efforts. Garrett then discussed specific efforts in wind turbine blade designs and gave interesting insight into specific choices regarding the shape of the blades.
The branch thanks Martin, Garrett and WEG for these most informative presentations.
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