ACT lab proves it pays to go in windmill punching

Sunday Canberra Times
Sunday 21/11/2010 Page: 12

TECHNOLOGY developed in Canberra has made local company Windlab Systems a world expert in wind farming and one of Australia's fastest growing businesses. When CSIRO scientist Keith Ayotte started developing a wind modelling tool with colleague Nathan Steggel, wind farms were still in their infancy in Australia. But in the past four years company turnover has grown by 100% annually almost the same pace as the industry itself in Australia, which has seen the total installed capacity of wind power nearly doubled in the past five years.

The growth helped the global wind power development company overcome uncertainty around a carbon price and the global financial crisis to grow from a small business to a global enterprise, with 33 employees and annual revenue of $9 million Undaunted, the pair raised $10 million at the height of the economic downturn to develop wind maps that could quickly and easily identify potential wind farm sites based on weather data.

Windlab Systems's success also earned Dr Ayotte a spot in the national finals of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards in Sydney this week. "Being an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist means I get to learn things from lots of other people", he said. "As a scientist you make a habit of learning from anyone you can usually that is a fairly broad spectrum". Dr Ayotte said the company succeeded because it started from a solid base. "We've been successful because we started off with some good technology and then we found some good people", he said.

"I'm proud that we went and built wind farms which are big projects and difficult to do we made something that worked". But the next challenge will be securing the company's global position. "We are absolutely looking at international expansion", Dr Ayotte said. "The financial crisis affected us a little bit, we have had to do some rationalisation in the US but it is generally business as usual. "Recruiting the right people to do the jobs in foreign markets is hard, so that's a challenge for the coming year".