The Interconnectedness of Energy

“Energy is at the core of everything today, but we’re so disconnected from its sources that we can’t fully appreciate our relationship to them. That’s why I decided I wanted to be involved with renewables.”

Born and raised in upstate New York, Phil Gauthier was fascinated by airplanes from an early age. “My father had always wanted to be a pilot and to work on aircraft, but his university studies were cut short and he was never able to complete his engineering degree,” Phil says. “He passed his enthusiasm on to me, and my degree path was, in a way, a fulfillment of his ambitions.”

However, attending university in Montreal broadened Phil’s horizons and caused his flight plan to take a bit of a detour. “At university, I had the opportunity to pursue my interest in sustainability. I joined various groups, including Engineers Without Borders, and gradually began to think about engineering and technology less in the context of making cool airplanes, and more in the context of their impact on society, for example, by providing access to clean water and clean energy.”

Phil’s degree involved an internship, which he spent in southern Italy with an Italian aerospace company that had offices in Montreal. The company hired him after graduation, and he worked there for two years, but in 2008 he was ready for a change.

Around this time, Phil was mulling society’s changing relationship to energy. “I was thinking about the harnessing of fire and its role in human evolution. Energy is at the core of everything today, but we’re so disconnected from its sources that we can’t fully appreciate our relationship to them,” he observes. “That’s why I decided I wanted to be involved with renewables. Sourcing power from the wind and the sun brings that fundamental connection closer to home and gives communities an opportunity to participate firsthand in the energy system.”

Phil changed industries and went to work for a small engineering firm that was ultimately acquired by the Norwegian conglomerate DNV. This provided an entrée into the wind business, as well as opportunities to work abroad in northern Germany and the Netherlands – but by 2013 he was back in Montreal and ready for a new challenge.

A former colleague who was now at EDF Renewables encouraged him to apply. Phil was hired as a Mechanical & Commissioning Engineer and progresssed to Lead Fleet Engineer. “I really enjoyed the work and learned a lot,” he reflects. “Some of my best memories are of working in the field and dealing with challenging conditions. It gave me an abiding appreciation for what field technicians are faced with. However, so much of it was reactive – we had to respond quickly and didn’t always have the luxury of thinking more strategically.”

Perhaps because he was vocal about wishing he had more time to look at the big picture, Phil was promoted to Senior Wind Fleet Engineering Manager after four years. “This afforded me the opportunity to approach my work more proactively,” he explains. “I had a platform for making suggestions about how we could do things even better.”

In early 2022, Phil transitioned into an entirely new role with the Technical Services team. As Senior Innovation & Technology Commercialization Manager, a large portion of his time is spent on the “Wind Digital Twin” initiative, which is focused on assessing the true operational lifespans of EDF Renewables’ wind assets and planning accordingly.

This is accomplished by assessing the accumulation of “structural fatigue damage” over the lifetime of each turbine. As the name suggests, a turbine’s “digital twin” is a virtual replica that can be subjected to various tests and scenarios to determine its limitations and estimate the length of time it can be operated safely and reliably.

“As the wind industry has matured, there’s been a realization that many of the original estimates of turbine lifespans were quite conservative. In some cases, what was thought to be a 15-20-year operational life can, with proper maintenance, safely be extended beyond 20 years.” This is highly relevant to sustainability, Phil explains.

“First and foremost, it’s a resource issue. You don’t need to extract additional materials or manufacture and transport new equipment,” he says. “From a carbon perspective, that’s very important – you’re continuing to produce clean energy without incurring any additional carbon footprint, which is great.”

Another benefit is that accumulated knowledge about specific turbines and wind farms retains its relevance and value. “The technicians who work on these turbines know their history. If an existing facility is repowered with new turbines, some of that knowledge may be transferrable, but much of it becomes obsolete. If an existing facility can continue to be safe, productive, and competitive, why replace it?”

Although the digital twin is used for existing wind farms, Phil clarifies that it’s also relevant for new assets. “After nearly 30 years in the business, we’ve acquired a level of knowledge and expertise about turbine longevity that gives us the confidence to propose longer-term project lifetimes. The digital twin is a modelling tool that we can use to test and validate our assumptions.”

Phil loves his current role and sees it – particularly his work on the Wind Digital Twin – as a capstone for his career thus far. “It involves elements of everything I’ve done over the past 17 years, from technology evaluation and root cause analysis, to working with measurement systems and digital analytics.”

“Having been with EDF Renewables for 10 years, I understand the company, and that positions me to have a vision of how all the pieces fit together,” he continues. “This leads to developing solutions that are customized to our capabilities, engineering know-how, and our enterprise data structure, for example.”

He also appreciates the latitude his job gives him to connect at a global level with others throughout the organization. “I work with many colleagues and teams across multiple countries, and they represent a vast knowledge base that can be leveraged. If you run into an issue, there’s a good chance someone from another part of the company has already tackled the same problem or has a solution to propose. Those relationships are extremely valuable to me, and they tie back to the theme of interconnectedness.”