Bristol-based renewable energy software company Sennen has appointed Mike Young as a senior consultant.
Mike, pictured, first met the Sennen team when he was operations manager at London Array, the 175-turbine wind farm 20km off the Kent coast. 
The project was the first to deploy Sennen’s highly specialised offshore wind software, which offers a centralised system for all aspects of offshore operations.
At present much of work linked to building wind farms offshore is done manually, making the process unwieldy and inefficient.
Sennen’s sophisticated alternative will reduce risk and deliver significant cost savings.
Mike’s role at Sennen will be to build the connection between the firm and its customers to ensure its software is exactly meeting the needs of wind farm operators.
He has more than 15 years’ experience working in the renewables industry primarily on the engineering side. 
As well as at London Array, Mike’s other roles have included O&M engineer at Scottish Power Renewables, site manager at Vestas and high voltage O&M manager at RES, the world’s largest independent renewable energy company.
He said: “I’m really excited about this role as it draws on my operational expertise to bring insights that will underpin the development of Sennen’s software.
“Having worked directly with the Sennen team for several years while I was at London Array, I experienced first-hand how the system transformed operations. As an operations manager, it was exactly what I needed so I’m a big advocate.
“Sennen’s approach has always been different in that they work with operators in a partnership. We use our industry expertise to make sure the system fits the customers’ needs and then we work together with them to embed it.”
Mike believes Sennen is ideally placed to help address the industry challenges that lie ahead.
“As turbines get bigger and are located increasingly further offshore, operators are going to have to be more efficient and aware of what is happening on site,” he added.
“They will have to be 100% focused on what the maintenance teams are doing. If a 15MW turbine remains down due to a poor operational decision, the impact can be serious. Having a system in place that tracks it all and optimises work planning is essential.”
Mike said he was really enjoying being part of the Sennen team.
“The culture is very open – there are lots of ideas and people work collaboratively. Everyone is totally committed to the renewable energy cause,” he added.
Sennen, which has offices at The Programme near Castle Park, was founded in 2017 and now employs 21 people, most based in Bristol or the South West.
As well as London Array, it has also worked EDF Renewables and leading renewable energy infrastructure and private equity investment manager Foresight Group, for which it developed a system to help it manage its portfolio of renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure investments.
It has been a technology partner for London Array, having built a system which transformed the way the project – one of the world’s largest wind farms – operates.
It has also worked EDF Renewables and leading renewable energy infrastructure and private equity investment manager Foresight Group, for which it developed a system to help it manage its portfolio of renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure investments.
Last summer it secured grant funding of £112,000 from the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP) to expand its software’s functionality at a time when the offshore wind sector is forecast to expand to seven times its current size over the next decade.
