Norwegian venture fund, Sarsia Seed, acquired a minority stake in WindSim AS, a provider of simulation software for wind energy companies.
Winsim says it has seen a significant increase in interest from potential customers in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America in the past few months and the new money will be used to bolster the commercial infrastructure and further develop its software.
Demand for more accurate simulation software is increasing in the wind energy industry, because many projects are located in areas with complex terrain. Several studies have shown that Computational Fluid Dynamics captures terrain effects on wind conditions in a more realistic way than traditional technology used within the industry.
Customers use WindSim to optimise the layout of wind farms, maximising wind speeds and avoiding turbulent areas. WindSim is also used for calculating loads on turbines due to wind shear (differences in wind speed at different heights that are, for example, induced by acceleration of the wind close to the ground).
Customers include turbine manufacturers, including Enercon, Gamesa, Siemens and Vestas.
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