Testimonials

I am Manoj, aerodynamics and wind energy graduate from TU Delft. I have been working in the field of airborne wind energy (AWE) for 5 years starting with a wind energy course in undergraduate education. I became interested in AWE and started a fun project which is to develop an aerodynamic analysis tool for soft kites. I presented this work at the AWEC 2015 conference and it is here I got an opportunity to speak with Prof. Roland Schmehl. He encouraged to do a M.Sc. in wind energy and I moved to Delft in this pursuit. 

I worked as a student assistant for Prof. Schmehl and supported him in maintaining the awesco website, editing the second edition book on AWE and organizing the AWEC 2017 conference. In this journey, I got several opportunities to engage in interesting conversations about both professional and personal life which remain memorable. 

During the M.Sc. study, I had the opportunity to do an internship at Kitemill, AWE company in Norway. I spent five months at Lista, test field for airborne wind kites. Here I developed tools to estimate the performance of the kite in crosswind flight, tether drag. I participated in several flight tests and worked with Sture Smidt, lead engineer at Kitemill with whom I had a great time contemplating about the future of AWE. This internship gave an experience of working etiquette of a startup and introduced to the real world flight test environment. My graduation thesis is an extension to the research work of Rachel Leuthold which is an investigation on vortex models for leading-edge inflatable tube kites. I thank Rachel for the interesting discussions during this journey that helped deepen my understanding of flow separation and wake modelling. I had a fruitful time as a student at TU Delft and cherish these moments for a long time. 

After graduation, Kitemill offered a position as aerodynamics and structural design engineer. I am happy to pursue a career in this field, particularly at Kitemill and I moved to Norway. Currently, I am contributing to developing a 30kW kite system. I perform the aero-structural analysis, design test rigs, participate in flight tests here at Lista. I believe that a combination of the academic experience at Delft and industrial experience during internship helped to have a smooth transition. 

I would like to thank Prof. Schmehl for being supportive in professional and personal life, Sture Smidt for being a mentor and positive influence, and the entire AWE research group at TU Delft for a wonderful student life experience.

Finally, it was time to pick a thesis and I always told myself that I didn’t want a thesis that will end on a “shelf”. I talked with Roland Schmehl the head of the kite power research group and he proposed that I could continue my unfinished project at kite power and bring it to the next level. I never imagined that my thesis could be so much fun and in such a professional environment. I had a design project from start to finish, were I decided to cover the entire design process. Which included making use of the wind tunnel facilities of the aerospace faculty, making noise calculation and creating a wind turbine design tool. 

Almost halfway during my thesis, it was time to look for jobs. I thought it would be much tougher to find one but after 2 months of searching, I already signed a contract with Eneco, as a data analyst. The reason why they hired me was due to my background in wind energy and because I did several internships. Now that I work here I realize that aerodynamics and wind energy gives you the right competencies to develop you further after you graduate. 

Design”: in a group of 5 students we went through the entire process of designing an 8MW offshore wind turbine. Combining the multiple disciplines, from analysing wind data to looking into the electrical system, was very insightful. During the course, interesting guest lectures by industry experts were organised.

Michiel Zaaijer, the main lecturer for “Wind Turbine Design”, inspired me during the course and I was very pleased that he also supervised my master thesis. His expertise, combined with creativity and commitment resulted in excellent guidance during this project. Other wind energy staff members were also always available for a coffee or a quick brainstorm. During my master thesis I really noticed how much expertise, on different fields, was available within the group.

Even though I decided to go into strategy consulting instead of wind energy after my studies, I can honestly say that the Aerodynamics & Wind Energy master programme has taught me a number of skills that are very useful in any professional career: being able to quickly understand very complex problems, a can-do attitude, tenacity, analytical skills… Therefore I would like to thank everyone from the wind energy group at the Delft University of Technology who contributed to my development in these areas!

The one and a half years study at Duwind are the best years in my life. My classmates and officemates shared with me not only good coffee but also the joy of graduate student life and great passion for exploring the academic world of wind energy.

Duwind is my first step to enter the wind energy community. The group is always helpful and willing to share knowledge with you. I could not finish my thesis without the help from my tutor Wim Bierbooms and other staff members. Moreover, Duwind is a good platform to communicate with researchers from the industry. Gerard Schepers and Dick Veldkamp have helped me a lot to deepen the topic of dynamic wake modeling. It is always fantastic to talk together with people from the academic world and the industry, enjoying the exchange of ideas.

When I left Delft and joined GL Garrad Hassan, I began to realize that Duwind has trained me very well to take over the commercial turbine design jobs. I am working in the similar field as in Delft and transferring the knowledge from Duwind to the industry.  I would like to thank TU Eindhoven, TU Delft and the whole Duwind group for the wonderful master student life. It was a great college experience!