Carlo L. Bottasso holds the Chair of Wind Energy at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where he is also the founding director of the Wind Energy Institute. He received a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in Italy, where he also started his academic career, raising to the rank of full professor before moving to TUM in 2013. He has over 30 years of experience in research, teaching and consulting, including 25 years in the field of wind energy. Among his professional activities, he has been the president and vice-president of the European Academy of Wind Energy (EAWE), and he is the Editor in Chief of the Wind Energy Science (WES) journal. He has published more than 500 papers, including more than 150 journal papers, and given numerous plenary and invited keynote addresses at international conferences. In 2023, he was honored with the EAWE Scientific Award for “his outstanding contributions and pioneering role in the research on modeling and simulation, aero-servo-elasticity, control and design of wind turbine technologies”.
Lecture: Wind Energy at Scale: Scientific, Environmental, and Societal Challenges
Meeting the demands of a deeply electrified, climate‑neutral energy system requires wind power to transition from a supplementary resource to a central pillar of electricity supply. This shift cannot be achieved by simply scaling existing technology, but instead calls for new scientific understanding of atmospheric dynamics, turbine behavior at unprecedented scales, and the collective operation of wind power plants within future grids. At the same time, the large‑scale deployment of wind energy raises important environmental and societal challenges, including interactions with ecosystems, landscapes, and local communities. This lecture explores the technical, environmental, and social research gaps that must be addressed jointly to enable wind energy systems that deliver abundant, low‑cost electricity while remaining sustainable, socially legitimate, and capable of creating tangible value for society.