If you have to ask who is Henrik Stiesdal, then it’s clear you don’t know much about wind power. In Denmark and also around the world, Henrick Stiesdal is revered and admired as a father of the wind industry we see today: The Siemen’s late fifties CTO was making a name for himself a long time ago leading to his first 30kW offshore wind turbine in 1991.

Siemens continues to be one of the wind industry’s leaders- they have just installed their newest turbine off the coast of England.  Stiesdal has an impressive 85 patents to his name and it’s no exaggeration to say that he changed Siemens Wind Energy from a regional and rather parochial turbine builder into a global phenomenon, with research and manufacturing centres in all the major markets including China and the United States.

Henrik Stiesdal was born in  Horsolm, a town located in the East of Denmark.

Between 1979–1988 Stiesdal studied medicine, physics and biology at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. But even before then, in 1976, he  built his first wind turbine out of wood and material he collected at a scrapyard an installed it on his parents’ farm.

In 1979, his first wind turbine design was licensed to Vestas, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer. Stiesdal’s design formed the basis of this company’s rise to become one of the leading wind turbine manufacturers. After first working for them as a consultant, he joined the company in 1983 as project manager. In 1987, Stiesdal joined the Danish wind turbine manufacturer Bonus A/S as a development specialist and in 2000 he became Chief Technology Officer. In 2004, Bonus Energy was acquired by the German technology company Siemens as CTO for Siemens Wind Power where he has been ever since.

In 1990, Stiesdal had overall responsibility for the world’s first offshore wind farm which included the first offshore adaptation of wind turbines. The wind farm, comprising 11 450 kW turbines, was installed at Vindeby, Denmark in 1991. In 1996, Stiesdal developed the CombiStall® blade regulation system which was implemented in the company’s megawatt-range of turbines. Two years later in 1998, Stiesdal designed the first variable-speed for Bonus Energy A/S which has been used in all of Siemens’ new products. From 1999 onwards, Stiesdal was in charge of the development of Siemens’ Direct Drive technology, eliminating the gearbox which is the classical weak spot of traditional wind turbine design.

As far as recognition from his industry peers go, he was awarded the “Poul la Cour” Prize of the European Wind Energy Association in 2011.  Siemens awarded Stiesdal as the Inventor of the Year in 2008 and as Top-Innovator in 2010. In 2012, the influential trade magazine Windpower Monthly declared Henrik Stiesdal as the 2nd most influential person in the wind industry. Many thought he should have been the Number One!

Henrik Stiesdal - Erinder des Jahres 2008 / Henrik Stiesdal -

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