Emeritus Professor Bill Leithead established a wind energy research stream within Strathclyde’s Industrial Control Centre in 1988, later serving as the Centre’s own Director. That stream grew, over more than three decades, into what is today the Wind Energy and Control (WEC) Group — one of the largest university-based wind energy research groups in the UK.

His research spans the dynamics, modelling and control of wind turbines and wind farms, with a consistent focus on practical control algorithms that can be deployed in real systems. He chaired the UK’s Supergen Wind Hub from 2006 to 2019, the major EPSRC national wind energy research programme representing the UK within the IEA and the European Energy Research Alliance’s Joint Programme on Wind Energy.

Professor Leithead established Strathclyde’s first EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Wind Energy Systems in 2009 — the start of an unbroken run of four consecutive national Centres for Doctoral Training that continues today through CDT-WAMSS and the EnerHy CDT. Over his career he has published more than 300 research papers and been awarded more than 75 research grants.

More recently, his research has turned to radical new turbine architectures, leading development of the X-Rotor concept — a hybrid vertical-axis/horizontal-axis offshore wind turbine — and coordinating the €4m EU Horizon 2020 project that carried it forward with an international consortium including TU Delft, University College Cork, NTNU and GE Renewables.

In 2023, Professor Leithead received Honorary Membership of the European Academy of Wind Energy (EAWE) — only the sixth person to be given the accolade in the past decade — “for his life achievements in the fields of control engineering and wind energy systems.” He remains a member of the EAWE Executive Committee, the EERA Joint Programme Wind Steering Committee, and ORE Catapult’s Research Advisory Group.

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Key expertise

• Wind turbine and wind farm control system design
• Novel turbine concepts and conceptual turbine design
• National doctoral training leadership in wind energy
• Wind energy research programme leadership (Supergen Wind Hub)
• Control-theoretic modelling and simulation of wind energy systems

Professor Leithead’s four decades of continuous leadership underpin WEC’s standing today — from the Industrial Control Centre’s control engineering foundations through to a nationally-recognised centre of gravity for UK wind energy research.