Phil Helwig | Comparison of Renewables: Hydro, solar, and wind. | 2023-01-04 CACOR Zoom Presentation

Speaker:  Phil Helwig

Topic: Comparison of Renewables: Hydro, solar, and wind.

Time: Jan 4, 2023 13:30 Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Summary:

The objective of this presentation is to explain the attributes of hydro, wind and solar renewables, and to challenge the notion that hydro is not “sustainable.” This presentation has evolved from a lecture presented at the Waterloo Institute of Sustainable Energy in July 2013 that has since been updated to include wind and solar technologies, and present several examples of large and small applications of renewable energy systems.

BIO:

Phil Helwig has had a varied engineering career in both education (8 years) and in design and technical management (52 years).  His main area of expertise is in the fields of hydro-power and water resources where he has been involved in investigations, economic planning and project optimization studies and detailed design. He has been responsible for several innovations in Canada:

• Cat Arm Hydel unlined pressure tunnel (head = 386 m); “bathtub overflow spillway”
• Hinds Lake Power Canal based on natural armouring
•  Design of the Paradise River double curvature arch dam—only the third arch dam built in Canada.

He had two international assignments:

• Sri Lanka with the Dept of Public Works on planning and investigations for roads in the Kandyan (Mountain) area, linking remote villages to larger centres (1962-63).
• Senior Lecturer at Balwant Vidyapeeth Rural Institute a community college educating mainly village youth as civil engineering technicians (1963-64).

In 2004 Phil formed his own company – Helwig Hydrotechnique Ltd.   Phil has worked across Canada and internationally using four languages.

Edited CHAT record…