Founder Q&A - Philip Bradstock
Philip is an experienced developer of scientific software and algorithms. With a robust knowledge of engineering maths, physics and scientific programming, Philip now takes the lead in the algorithms and numerical methods that lie behind Bitbloom’s systems and services, ensuring they are based on rigorous scientific principles.
As co-founder, Philip has been essential in driving the workplace behind Bitbloom, emphasizing the importance of creating a Bitbloom home and work culture where we collectively feel valued and are inspired to do our best work and build meaningful collaboration. Here he shares some of his thoughts.
What experience have you had in your career that led you to found Bitbloom?
I started my career working with aeroelastic simulations of wind turbines – very much on the design side and theoretical optimisation of aerodynamic performance and turbine loading. When I started to work with real data from the field of how the turbines were actually operating, it was quite surprising in many ways. As I gained more experience with operational data, I became passionate about using my knowledge and skills to use data analytics to monitor wind turbines. Ultimately, there was a right-time right-place factor of collaborating with Michael and Staffan who had a shared vision, with complementary skills which led to the founding of Bitbloom, and we’ve never looked back.
Why does the world need Bitbloom?
The world needs low-cost low-carbon energy, and wind energy has matured to play an important role in that. However, unlike its alternatives, wind has the unusual difficulty of having a messy and hard to measure input fuel, which can lead to performance issues of several percent going undetected. The industry needs Bitbloom’s customisable and scalable analytics tools to cut through the noise and waste, minimise energy cost, and maximise yield of these important energy assets.
What’s a fact about yourself that people might find surprising?
I grew up as a farmer’s son in rural west England. My city life and climate tech job often seems a world away from the rolling orchards and meadows of my home county, which I still visit regularly. On the other hand, there are a lot of advancements in agri-tech and it’s not so different from wind energy in that you need to work with many instances (of plants or livestock) which are subject to an unpredictable input environment; and there are a lot of environmental benefits too! Maybe I’ll pivot one day, but I have work to do here first!
What is Bitbloom planning that has you excited?
Bitbloom’s software already has customisable and scalable analytics. But we want to go a lot further than this. We want to democratise wind energy analytics and allow 3rd party analysts to develop algorithms and be able to share them with asset owners. There are a lot of clever ideas out there which don’t make it to deployment. Bitbloom’s Sift Monitor creates a platform to capitalise on these great ideas and actualise them.
What impact will digital technology have on wind farm operations in the future?
It’s going to be (even more) crucial. Wind turbines are complex machines, they’re numerous, going to be much more so and also relatively expensive to maintain. Whilst we always expect there to be humans in the loop, we can’t expect a growing army of analysts and engineers to keep on top of everything going on. There’s a huge opportunity for technology to help. At present for supervision of operational turbines, we’re mainly talking about technology to inform and predict, allowing quick actionable insights. But in future, we will see the technology become more prescriptive and adaptive, optimising energy production in a dynamic manner.
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