Cameron Buckley, Director of Energy Southern Region, says, “Australia’s net zero targets, the electrification of homes, transport and industry to support this, the development of an offshore wind industry in Australia and the potential of hydrogen as a new energy storage medium, will all drive growth in wind energy projects across the industry.
“Connecting projects to the electricity network designed for coal power, how to develop good projects in less optimum sites given the optimum sites have now been developed and providing the skills and expertise required for a rapidly growing industry are all challenges WSP is addressing for our clients.”
To support these clients and help them meet the challenges of project development and construction including in the emerging Australian offshore wind industry, WSP is broadening our range of industry leading service offerings with the appointment of four new professionals.
Mairead Lynch - Principal Renewable Energy Engineer
Joining our well-respected wind technical division within the Power team, Mairead Lynch has joined the firm as a Principal Renewable Energy Engineer.
Mairead will be leading and conducting wind farm energy yield assessments, power curve verifications, feasibility studies and other technical development work. She will also be contributing to the wind engineering team for technical due diligence, lenders and owners engineer support.
Mairead says, “I’m delighted to be a part of such a talented team and being part of the solution for climate change where there are so growth opportunities!
“With the huge demand for cleaner energy sources, especially wind, a key trend that emerges is a huge push for green hydrogen and all these proposed massive wind farms where grid connection is not necessarily required.
“This is a game changer given the grid issues which many projects face and could be the transition needed for regional areas.”
Over the past 13 years, Mairead has worked in both development and consulting in the wind sector in France, UK, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia.
“Throughout my career I’ve been involved in all stages of wind farm development, from green field feasibilities to finance grade energy yield assessments and operational analysis reviews.
“I’m very excited to be able to contribute my expertise to the team so we can create more innovative, future ready solutions for our clients.”
Amr El-Mekawy, Senior Project Manager – Renewables
Amr recently joined the Renewables team and is responsible for looking after renewables projects from a delivery and design perspective, supporting owners’ engineers.
“Opportunities for renewables will present themselves in the form of change of landscape of policy towards more decarbonised energy mix,” says Amr El-Mekawy, Senior Project Manager – Renewables.
“We see these examples manifesting in the likes of Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET) which is a mandate for uptake in renewables into the energy mix. This will lead to increase in demand owning, developing and transacting renewable energy plants, big battery plants.”
Passionate about innovation, renewable energy and digital futures, Amr has a strong background in solar engineering and sustainable energy with key skills in project management, contract administration, design management and renewable energy engineering.
As to where he sees growth and opportunities, Amr says, “The other factor will be the cost driver as renewables will marginally cost less than conventional generation and will be more economically viable. Without policy support it will be an exciting horizon to navigate. In the near future, along with uptake of renewables including new technologies like utility scale battery, there’s a lot of growth opportunity in battery storage and hydrogen widescale adoption.
“Drivers for adoption will be reducing technology cost, generation costs and redevelopment of Australia’s transmission network to accommodate increasing renewable energy, given the overarching piece of Australia’s commitments to decarbonise its energy mix and reduce GHGs for power generation.”
Amr expands the project management capability of the team and his extensive project management experience and working in owners engineer roles on wind and solar projects, makes him a very valuable asset to the team.
Michael Quan - Senior Wind Engineer
As the renewable energy and the broader energy market evolves, so too do the demands from our clients. To help us meet those demands with future ready innovative solutions, Michael Quan has joined the firm as a Senior Wind Engineer.
As part of the technical wind team, Michael is involved in various forms of project development work such as wind farm energy production estimates, compliance reviews, wind flow modelling, reviewing design plans, commissioning of meteorological masts. As well as a variety of desktop-based developer support assessments including visual impact, site conditions, electromagnetic interference, shadow flicker and noise modelling.
Michael says, “I’m very passionate about the implementation of automation in our field of work by utilising existing programming technologies that have been proven to work and drastically speed up workflows. Automation also makes the work we do less prone to error and more efficient.
“I’m excited to bring my extensive knowledge and expertise in this field to the team and equipping them with the skills to develop their own automations. Even though these automations are gradually being implemented in a range of different applications, there is still a lot of work that can be done in the field of technical wind and developer support.
“I’m also keen to get involved in the various aspects of wind engineering, especially within a supportive environment that allows us to transition to different teams and specialisations, and further develop our skillset and overall knowledge in the field.”
Speaking on where he sees growth opportunities Michael says, “Emerging hydrogen economy; Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS) – utility and residential scale; Smart grids; Machine learning and deep learning for forecasting in the energy market; Transport optimisation.
“There is quite a lot that can be leveraged using machine learning in the energy sector and renewable sector.
“One of the main problems associated with variable energy from renewables is intermittent generation. As we begin to see greater renewables penetration into the grid, problems arise pertaining to system strength and system health.
“With accurate generation and demand forecasting, we can proactively manage a grid with increasing amounts of variable generation and reducing reliance on gas for system stability and strength. Ultimately it can be used to improve scheduling and enable flexible demand. The growth opportunities here are high leverage cases that will need constant collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator.”
Michael brings great experience in the field of forecasting, specifically short term 5 minute ahead forecasting incorporating machine learning technology. With an understanding of domain knowledge in the wind industry sector, the integration of machine learning gathered throughout his skill set further extends to other forecasting fields such as utility solar, short and long-term demand.
Caitlin Barnes - Renewable Energy Engineer
Greatly motivated by the opportunity to play a part in bringing us closer to a net zero future, WSP welcomes Caitlin Barnes to the firm as a Renewable Energy Engineer.
In her first 100 days Caitlin has hit the ground running, getting involved in project management and really seeing all facets of a project from design and construction through to operations while also not losing touch with her electrical roots.
“In this role my main responsibilities include assisting with Owner’s Engineer, Lender’s Engineer and technical due diligence work which entails technical reviews, wind farm design,” she says. “I’m also very interested in finding ways to automate processes that are repetitive and ensuring that people are not bogged down with busy body work and can focus on the important things.”
Cameron Buckley says, “Caitlin expands the electrical engineering capability of the team and is looking to put her electrical engineering and design management experience to use on our wind energy projects.”
Caitlin brings a strong background in substation design, with an emphasis on design management, client interfacing and primary and earthing design. These skills are a great starting point to bring into the owner’s engineers’ roles as she has a keen understanding of the processes of design, where things can go wrong and the importance of keeping up a strong communication stream with all involved parties. Her technical experience in Primary and Earthing design strengthens her ability to review designs against Australian standards and good industry practice.
“Professionally I’m looking forward to the challenge of the construction side of projects which I haven’t been heavily involved in previously and understand different issues to those faced during design. I also, can’t wait to be able to climb my first wind turbine!”
To stay abreast of our latest news, publications, videos and posts, please follow us on LinkedIn.
