Windlab Systems. Consultants for wind resource assessment, wind map, wind atlas and complex terrain services.

Windlab News

17/08/07 Windlab Systems Successfully Completes a A$5 million Capital Raising.

Windlab Systems, a world-leader in the development and application of atmospheric modeling systems used globally to locate and develop wind energy sites, today announced the successful close of a A$5.0million equity financing. The investment round was led by Innovation Capital, a leading Australian venture capital fund and included investments from Blue Cove and the continued support of Epicorp and other existing shareholders. “Windlab Systems has enjoyed excellent growth over the past 4 years since its inception, and is benefiting from operating in a global market that is experiencing unprecedented growth and long term opportunity” stated Windlab’s CEO Mark Sinclair. Sinclair said, “Our world leading technology provides a sustainable competitive advantage in this increasingly active market and the successful conclusion to this funding round will provide the resources needed to implement our aggressive growth plans.” Innovation Capital’s Roger Price said “We are excited by the prospects for this business in the rapidly developing wind energy sector. Windlab has an exceptional technology platform, a well rounded and experienced team and a track record of successful early stage growth”. Nick McNaughton, CEO, Blue Cove Ventures said "We are delighted to be co-investing with Innovation Capital. They have a strong team and a successful investment track record". He went on to say "Windlab has executed well over their formative years. This investment now provides the capital to accelerate expansion". Windlab, a successful spin-out from Australia’s CSIRO and Graduate from Epicorp’s Incubation program, is active across four continents, and has partnerships with strong global infrastructure organisations. “We will continue to develop prospects in targeted global markets where the opportunities for growth and value creation are highest” said Mark Sinclair. “We look forward to working with Innovation Capital as a strategic investor in the business, and developing a significant portfolio of valuable wind farm assets globally.”

01/02/07 Windlab to develop turbulence prediction technology

Windlab Systems Pty Ltd is pleased to announce that it has successfully won support from the Australian Government for the commercialisation of a computational model for turbulence prediction on wind energy sites. Wind energy is heavily reliant on computational models of wind flow. No reliable method currently exists for prediction of damaging turbulence shed from topographic features and as a result, turbines can be damaged or under-utilised. Windlab, already a leader in the field, will commercialise a model that will allow high-risk areas to be identified during the feasibility study of a proposed site. "This will allow Windlab's clients and partners to develop wind energy projects with lower risk and ultimately deliver lower-cost emission-free energy to the community" said CEO Mark Sinclair. Windlab was one of eight companies awarded a grant under the Renewable Energy Development Initiative run by AusIndustry. In announcing the award, Environment Minister, Senator Ian Campbell said "Research into and development of renewable energy technologies will give Australia a strong base on which to grow its own industry and expand opportunities overseas". The project will be run by Windlab's Chief Technology Officer Dr Keith Ayotte and is scheduled for commercial release in around 2 years time

25/08/06 NZ Projects Gain a Boost

New Zealand's Contact Energy today announced that it has signed an MOU with Investec to investigate the opportunity to work with Investec towards jointly developing Investec and Windlab's portfolio of wind sites in New Zealand. Contact's Chief Executive, David Baldwin said Contact was pleased to secure the arrangement, which would give them important options in wind energy. Mr Baldwin said the alliance with Investec would allow Contact to assess wind farm sites and development opportunities, and put in place a process for Contact and Investec to agree a long-term relationship. This is a step forward for Contact towards the option of a new, emerging form of electricity generation, said Mr Baldwin. Read full press release. (requires acrobat reader)

30/06/06 NZ Project portfolio takes flight

Under the partnership with Windlab, Investec Bank has finalized agreements to progress with development of a portfolio of 5 sites in New Zealand. The sites, across both North and South Islands, have a potential capacity in excess of 500MW. A monitoring program is now under way across the portfolio, with development progressing on the sites. Windlab's Chief Operations Officer Nathan Steggel said this is an outstanding result for the Joint Venture. Within 12 months, we have built a significant project portfolio with Investec, and now look forward to working to bring the projects to a successful close.

19/07/06 Windlab's CTO gives invited talk at CWE2006

Windlab Systems' Chief Technical Officer, Dr Keith Ayotte was recently an invited speaker at the Fourth International Symposium on Computation Wind Engineering held in Yokohama, Japan, 16-19, July, 2006. Read more details in The Lab.

05/03/06 Windlab funding round complete

Windlab Systems is pleased to announce that its recent funding round was fully subscribed to by existing shareholders. CEO Mark Sinclair says, "this demonstrates a strong vote of confidence from our current shareholders in Windlab's Business Plan - with our existing partnerships and projects progressing well, Windlab is well positioned to take advantage of the continued strong growth in the global wind market"

01/11/05 World's first LES calculation of flow over a canopied hill

Windlab Systems in collaboration with NCAR, the USA's National Center for Atmospheric Research, have successfully completed a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of wind flow over a canopied hill. Windlab's Chief Technical Officer Keith Ayotte remarked, "the project represents a significant advance in wind modelling technology. Results from this research are being applied by Windlab to further enhance our ability to predict wind strength and turbulence for wind energy applications"

17/10/05 Investec puts big stock in wind

Ambitious private investment bank Investec expects to develop wind farms worth $500 million or more over the next two to five years after forming a joint venture with the CSIRO's partly-owned company Windlab Systems to help identify suitable wind farm sites.

The deal with Windlab, which has developed technology to accurately locate sites for greenfield wind farm projects, marks the latest step in Investec's increased presence in the clean-energy sector.

Investec was an instrumental backer of the listing of Viridis Clean Energy Group last month, which raised $126 million from investors to fund its portfolio of clean-energy projects.

Complete article (requires acrobat reader)

01/07/05 Appointment of Mark Sinclair

Windlab Systems welcomes Mark Sinclair as General Manager. The company looks forward to continued close relationships with our clients and partners under Mark's leadership. Mark takes over the company as it builds on a strong base to expand its presence in markets such as China, North America and Europe.

15/06/05 Waubra Wind Farm Achieves Planning Approval

Windlab Systems congratulates Wind Power Pty Ltd on achieving planning approval for its 192MW wind farm at Waubra, in Victoria, Australia. This project was an early beneficiary of WindScape technology. Windpower was able to identify the site and rapidly achieve a good relationship with the local community resulting in rapid approval by the Victorian Government. Windlab is proud of its contribution to this project and looks forward to positive outcomes for landholders, the local community and the environment.

01/05/05 Windlab Systems Enters Collaboration with Scientists at National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO

Scientists at Windlab Systems have begun a collaboration with scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. The NCAR scientists are leaders in Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and vegetative canopy flows. The work focuses on using eddy resolving calculations to model flow over topographic features with and without vegetative canopies present. "A core part of what Windlab does is to entrain leading edge science into tools and methods used in wind resource assessment in a commercial setting" says Windlab's Chief Technical Officer Dr Keith Ayotte.

01/05/05 Windlab Systems Installs Apple Mac G5 Computational Cluster

Windlab Systems has recently installed a six-node cluster of Apple Macintosh Dual Processor G5 computers. The cluster is being used for mesoscale and microscale atmospheric flow calculations. The cluster will be used for development work in ensemble and eddy resolving calculations of flows in topography with and without forest canopies. Chief Technical Officer, Dr Keith Ayotte says "benchmark tests to date have shown a significant increase in speed over other solutions we have tested. This is very much a development system. Our aim is to be working on a much large cluster either in-house or externally as the development of our new modelling tools progresses." "We are looking to up-scale our computational capabilities in terms of the types of calculations we can do and the turn-around times we can achieve for broad area mapping work" stated Chief Operating Officer Dr Nathan Steggel.