Career
Garrad has been professionally involved in wind energy since 1979, when he joined the Wind Energy Group. [2] Mathematical modelling remained his main enthusiasm and Garrad Hassan [3] was built on the provision of mathematical models of all aspects of wind energy. Garrad’s mission for the company was to be able to predict the weather, through the turbines and wind farms, the electricity they provided to the grid and the resulting cash flow. [4] [5] In 1984 Garrad wrote the initial version of the wind turbine system aeroelastic code Bladed, whose development continues to this day. [6] Data, both measured and predicted, were the main currency of Garrad Hassan and the company produced many other computational tools [7] [5] [8] adopted by the industry. He was heavily involved in the technical due diligence of very large wind farms as part of the project finance process common to big capital projects. GH, together with the offshore consultancy Tecnomare, undertook the first ever floating offshore wind turbine design studies. [9] Although GH specialized in wind energy it also provided parallel services in wave and tidal energy, for example its WaveDyn software for predicting the dynamic behavior of wave energy devices. [10]
Garrad was one of the pioneers of Chinese wind energy development and was co-Chair, with the Chinese Minister of Electric Power, of the first Chinese International Wind Energy Conference in Beijing in 1995 when there were no turbines in China! Later on, starting at the turn of the century, GH helped shape the newly formed Chinese industry with many design contracts and also strategic advice on the development of their nascent offshore industry. [11]
Garrad is a past-Chairman of the British Wind Energy Association, now Renewable UK. [12] He was President of European Wind Energy Association (EWEA, now Wind Europe) [13] from 2013 to 2014. Garrad chaired Bristol's year as European Green Capital in 2015. [14] [15] [16]
Garrad sold Garrad Hassan to Germanischer Lloyd in 2009 and became President of the combined company, GL Garrad Hassan, and hence was responsible for both consultancy and certification. When Garrad retired in 2015 the renewable energy company had 1,000 staff in 29 countries. In retirement he remains active in wind energy and, in 2019, he was appointed Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Renewable Energy by the University of Bristol. [17] In 2023 Garrad was appointed visiting professor in the Department of Engineering Mathematics. Garrad’s job is to introduce students to the engineering world outside university. [18] In March 2024 he became Chair of the Severn Estuary Commission whose task is to investigate the feasibility of generating electricity from the Severn Estuary in the UK. [19]
Awards and prizes
Garrad received honorary doctorates of engineering from the University of Bristol [20] in 2009 and from the University of Exeter in 2018. Garrad was a member of the Council (Governing Body) [21] of the University of Bristol from 2012 to 2016 and is on the advisory board of the Cabot Institute. [22] He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Royal Academy of Engineering [23] and an Honorary Fellow of New College, Oxford. [24]
Garrad was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) "for services to renewable energy" in the 2017 New Year Honours. [25] [26]
The industry magazine Wind Power Monthly has named Garrad one of "the most influential people in the wind energy business" on several occasions. [27] [28] [29] [30] The magazine referred to him on his retirement as "the godfather of wind energy technology." [31] OGM [32] named him one of the world's seven most influential energy leaders; Daily Magazine made a similar reference. [33]
In 2006, he received the EWEA's Poul la Cour prize for "outstanding achievements in the field of wind energy." [34] In 2015 he became the only non-Greek recipient to have ever received the Aeolus prize from the Hellenic Wind Energy Association. [35] [36]
In 2024 he and Henrik Stiesdal received the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for their work on the development of high performance wind turbines. [37]
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