Van der Wekken, Ton

       

Ton is one of KEMA’s wind turbine experts with broad international experience of wind turbine/farm design and operation. Ton’s experiences in renewable energy, and in particular wind energy, start in 1990 and from that date without intermission he has worked in the field of renewables. At the Netherlands Energy Research Foudation (ECN) until mid 1990s Ton was responsible for assessing, certifying and testing new wind turbine designs. Part of the certification work was assessing the wind turbine safety systems, structural integrity and electrical safety with respect to the applicable standards. As a result of the certification activities Ton participates in several international working groups on certification. Also at ECN Ton performed measurements, i.e. wind speed, power, noise level, loads and vibrations, on prototype wind turbines located at site.

Throughout the mid/late 1990s Ton worked at a wind turbine manufacturing company as senior R&D engineer and project manager responsible for the development, testing and type-certification of new wind turbines (750 kW), and maintenance engineering (both preventative and corrective) of operational wind turbines. Key achievements during this period were the lowering of noise levels on 80 and 250 kW designs, a retrofit programme for 200 towers sensitive to fatigue failures and a repair programme for weak carbon rotor blades. In cooperation with a local wind turbine maintenance company the repair and testing of the carbon rotor blades was performed at site in India, state of Tamil Nadu.

From end of 2001 Ton is employed at KEMA as wind turbine expert. For several clients, mainly project developers, manufacturers and maintenance companies, projects have been performed varying from feasibility phase up to tendering procedures, wind farm commissioning and operation and maintenance matters.

The background of Mr. Ton van der Wekken is MSc (Delft University) in aerospace engineering.

Contributions

• Application Note - Wind Power
• Application Note - Wind Power Case Study
• Webinar - Wind Power
• Application Note - Photovoltaic Installations