Dr Ian Ashton, University of Exeter / SSE Renewables

With the growth of offshore wind power generation, understanding the marine conditions that the turbines and personnel that work on them are subject to is of increasing importance. Dr Ian Ashton’s research, supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellowship, focuses on improving measurement, monitoring and analysis of ocean waves and currents (metocean) to support more advanced design processes and decision-making for offshore wind farms. 

As a Senior Lecturer, specialising in marine renewable energy, Dr Ashton leads marine teaching for the University of Exeter Renewable Energy Engineering degree courses. His courses include problem-based learning for master’s-level students designed to provide advanced understanding of processes, engineering tools and challenges of applied engineering for marine renewables, including offshore wind. He also supports industry-embedded doctoral students as part of the EPSRC IDCORE doctoral training centre. 

As part of his Industrial Fellowship, Dr Ashton is working with the world’s largest offshore wind farm operator, SSE. As part of the metocean team, Dr Ashton will be investigating how novel methods for monitoring metocean conditions can be adopted into project development and operation of offshore wind farms. This will improve the data available to help decision-making, reduce costs and keep personnel safe at sea.