ABOUT CONTINUUM
Continuum is an open-source wind energy software tool developed by wind professionals for the wind industry. It includes all tools needed to generate wind energy production estimates and to determine a site's suitability.
LEAD DEVELOPER
Liz Walls
Liz Walls has been working in the wind industry since 2007 and is the creator and lead developer of the Continuum® wind energy software. Liz holds two US patents related to the Continuum® wind flow model algorithm, which uses all available meteorological data and a self-learning algorithm to form site-calibrated wind flow models.
In 2007, Liz graduated with a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from UMass Amherst where she studied at the Renewable Energy Research Lab (now the Wind Energy Center). She then began her career in wind as a member of the SecondWind team (now Vaisala), helping develop the Triton Sonic Profiler®.
In 2010, Liz entered the wind consulting space after taking a position with RAM Associates led by meteorologist Jack Kline. While at RAM, Liz co-developed the wind flow software tool RAMWind, and developed a new wind flow model algorithm that combines field observations with fluid mechanics theory.
In 2014, Liz co-founded Cancalia Engineering & Consulting, LLC, released the first version of Continuum®, and was granted the first of two US patents related to the wind flow model algorithm.
In 2016, Cancalia was acquired by distributed wind energy company One Energy, based out of Findlay, OH. The team at One Energy identified the value in open-source software and the need for it in the wind industry. Thus, the plan to create and freely distribute Continuum® was formed.
While at One Energy, Liz held the position of Head of R&D and was involved in many different aspects of research, including strain gauge measurements of foundations and turbine blades. During this time, Liz developed a suite of software tools needed for planning a wind project (in addition to the wind flow and wake loss modeling tools available in Continuum® 2). These tools included met data filtering, MCP, exceedance modeling, and others. The tools were merged into one wind energy software package: Continuum® 3. This new generation of the software was published to the public domain on GitHub in October 2019.
In 2020, Liz moved to the Pacific NW with her husband and started a new position as a Renewable Energy Consultant with ArcVera Renewables. Liz continues to lead the development of Continuum® and is dedicated to sharing this open-source tool with the wind industry.
CONTRIBUTORS
Developing Continuum® 3 was only possible due to the many people who have contributed to the source code, documentation, and model methodology. Thank you to everyone who helped bring Continuum® to the industry!