The People Behind The Project

Prof Maarten Kamper

Maarten J. Kamper received the M.Sc. (Eng.) degree in 1987 and the Ph.D. (Eng.) degree in 1996 both from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

He has been with the academic staff of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Stellenbosch since 1989, where he is currently a Professor of electrical machines and drives. His research interests includes computer-aided design and the control of reluctance, permanent magnet and induction electrical machine drives with applications in electric transportation and renewable energy. Prof. Kamper is a South African National Research Foundation Supported Scientist and a Registered Professional Engineer in South Africa.

Johan Stander

Johan is conducting research in the field of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) more specifically CFD research applicable to wind resource mapping and wind turbine flow simulation. His PhD research will commence at Oldenburg University in collaboration with ForWind (www.forwind.de) in 2010.

Johan started with this project in 2007 as part of his MSc research. The research concerned the mapping of SANAE IV’s wind resources. This year he acts as an independent project consultant. He designed and constructed, in part, the wind turbine foundation, tower, nacelle (i.e. generator housing) and yaw system.

Johan is originally from George, South Africa’s Garden Route. He loves exploring the outdoors while on a mountain bike or with his Great Dane named Bruno.

Johannes Potgieter

Johannes H.J. Potgieter was born in Oudtshoorn, South Africa. He received the B.Eng. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2007. He is currently in his second year of the M.Sc.(Eng.) degree at the Department of Electric and Electronic Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch. His research focuses are wind power generation solutions and optimising of permanent magnet machine technologies. Johannes joined the Stellenbosch SANAP project at the start of 2009 and focused mainly on the design of the permanent magnet electrical generator.

Ivan Hobbs

Ivan started on this project in 2008 as part of his MSc research into anti-islanding methods for a grid connected power electronic converter (PEC). He developed the software used, in combination with a DSP, to control the PEC. The software is responsible for grid synchronization, DC bus regulation, power point tracking of the wind generator and general system operations. He also developed a python based logger, with Stephan Gouws, to monitor the operation of the PEC while installed at the SANAE IV base.

Ivan is originally from Mosselbay in the Southern Cape. In his spare time he enjoys a good game of squash or fiddling around on his guitar.

Jaco Serdyn

Adriaan Lombard

Adriaan joined the Electrical Machines Laboratory in 2007 when he started his research into renewable energies. His studies focused on the design and implementation of a sub 10 kW grid-connected hydro power system. He joined the Antarctica wind turbine project team at the start of 2009 as Project Manager. He also designed the generator for the system.

Dominic Wills