Institution news
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is delighted to announce the next iteration of its Wind Turbine User Group, one of several prominent power industry technical user groups this year.
Taking place every two years and now in its third year, the user group will once again bring together the growing community of wind turbine engineers, end-user operators, manufacturers, and service providers to address common challenges, highlight new developments, and to share best practice and lessons learned.
Building upon its track record of facilitating technical discussions, knowledge sharing, and networking opportunities, the 2025 user group will be the largest to date, with a two-day agenda featuring over a dozen presentations designed to update and inform engineers of all seniorities.
Presentations have been reviewed and curated by a dedicated committee of senior engineers working across the power industry to ensure they provide attendees with the most relevant updates and from a range of different operational perspectives.
“It is intentionally a single-track technical event to promote broad understanding of wind energy issues and opportunities across the audience,” explained Graham Hawkes, Engineering Manager at Frazer-Nash Consultancy and the User Group’s committee chair. “Whilst we love hearing about problems solved, this is also a safe space to discuss industry challenges and seek the benefit of the hive mind of the audience.”
Organisations contributing their knowledge and expertise this year include DESNEZ, EDF Energy, Siemens Gamesa, SSE Renewables, GreenPowerMonitor, and The Crown Estate. Presentations sharing best practice and lessons learned will be accompanied for the first time by dedicated panel discussions that will promote sharing of experience in the use of robotics and drones, machine learning for optimising maintenance scheduling, health and safety concerns and other key subjects.
“While there are many competing wind energy conferences, the User Group aims to address technical topics from the perspective of the wind turbine operator,” remarked Tim Camp, Innovation Director & Turbine Engineering Lead at the Offshore Wind Consultancy and a fellow organising committee member. “As well as being technically relevant it provides a great opportunity to network with other engineers in the wind industry.”
Among the discussion topics this year, life extension is a key point on engineers’ minds. “The presentations by George Elderfield (Frazer-Nash Consultancy) and Bruce Henry (EDF Renewable) look interesting, particularly in how this could be used in conjunction with condition monitoring to assess which turbines may be suitable for life extension,” explained Francis Bench, a senior data scientist at Eleven-I who will be contributing to the user group for the first time.
“I am particularly interested in learning more about innovative approaches to predictive maintenance, using data-driven solutions to reduce unexpected downtime, and how best practices can be benchmarked against leading organizations in the field” echoed Qian Li, Lead Research Engineer at EDF Renewable R&D, who will be leading one of the discussion panels this year.
The Wind Turbine User Group 2025 will take place on 14-16 May 2025 at the Institution’s London headquarters at One Birdcage Walk, with the early bird discount ending 14 March 2025. To register your place, simply visit the event website or contact the IMechE directly via eventenquiries@imeche.org.