Wind turbines must consider neighbours and wildlife

Engineering is freedom

Tuhfe Göçmen was born and raised in the capital of Turkey, Ankara, where she also started her education as an engineer in aerospace engineering—a choice she made already at the age of 16.

“I come from a family where education is an important value. I was good at mathematics and physics, while also being aware almost instinctively that if I as a woman was to achieve as much freedom as possible, it was important to be financially independent. This means that my education should also lead to a well-paid job. So combined, these factors led me towards an engineering education,” says Tuhfe Göçmen.

During her BSc studies, Tuhfe Göçmen was attracted to wind turbines, which are structures that are also affected by turbulence. She decided to turn her education in that direction and therefore took a master’s degree in wind energy, even though it meant moving from Ankara to Türkiye’s second largest city, Izmir.

“Most aerospace engineering jobs are for defence and military purposes, while wind energy is more in line with my own values of contributing to a positive development in the world,” she explains.
In Izmir, Tuhfe Göçmen met a visiting lecturer from DTU Wind, which is how she learned about DTU. As a newly graduated engineer in 2012, she therefore applied for a PhD position in the world’s largest research environment in wind energy at DTU Risø Campus—and got it.

PhD in turbulence

As a PhD at DTU Wind, Tuhfe Göçmen dived into turbulence. It occurs behind each turbine, and in a wind farm it affects the other turbines. This knowledge can be used to optimally manage the current wind farms and to design the future farms to achieve the most efficient production.

“When we talk about offshore farms, it is difficult to measure the turbulence, because you cannot just go out there and record it. But we could use data from the turbines and study how the turbines sometimes create shelter for each other, which affects power production,” says Tuhfe Göçmen.

Tuhfe Göçmen was soon flooded by data from the many wind turbines throughout Denmark. At the same time, AI emerged as an opportunity to handle and find patterns in all the information, so as one of the first researchers at DTU Wind, Tuhfe Göçmen started using AI to extract knowledge from the data material. Since then, she has gained many more colleagues who work with AI.

“Now, we’re almost two groups at DTU Wind working with AI,” says Tuhfe Göçmen.

Engineers don’t look the same

Tuhfe Göçmen is easy to spot among a crowd of wind energy researchers with her curly hair, which is sometimes purple, sometimes pink. The style reveals that she used to play in a punk girl band, she says.

“I think the category was ‘feminist melodic hardcore punk’, and I played drums. We were quite serious and played around the world, but the pandemic stopped this, and for different reasons we haven’t been able to restart the band,” says Tuhfe Göçmen, who still plays drums at home in her spare time. And a little synthesizer.

But there are several reasons why Tuhfe Göçmen wants to stand out.

“My mission has been to take the lead in showing that engineers can look in many ways. I like to provoke. You might think that it was because I had a lot of self-confidence, but in reality it’s more an expression of the fact that I, especially as a younger researcher, felt vulnerable. You don’t have all the answers, and there are many things you don’t know. My different look gave me the confidence in the beginning—now it’s become a habit."

Strength to show weakness

Tuhfe Göçmen took advantage of her boost in self-confidence to dare to speak at major conferences. Something that gave her unexpected support from other women.

“Often, women have come up to me afterwards and said that because I dared to ask many questions, they also found the courage to do so. Since then, I have noticed that once one woman has made her mark at a conference, more women will do the same,” says Tuhfe Göçmen.

So Tuhfe Göçmen continues to ask lots of questions—both to ensure that more women get involved, and to understand and learn more herself.

“Some may perceive it as a weakness if you show that you don’t know everything. But I think it’s the greatest academic strength to admit that you don’t know the answer. Because if you are genuinely curious and show that you are also open to working together to find an answer, then you can really help make science move forward,” says Tuhfe Göçmen.