L2M – WindChat Intelligence: Conversational AI for Wind & Hydrogen Site Screening

The wind energy industry currently relies on a fragmented workflow involving multiple disconnected and expensive software tools for site assessment, energy calculations, and reporting. This inefficiency limits the number of sites developers can evaluate and creates a high barrier to entry for smaller developers and community projects.

This project, titled WindChat, focuses on validating a conversational AI tool designed to streamline preliminary screening for wind farms and green hydrogen projects. WindChat aims to allow users to describe a potential site in natural language and receive transparent, auditable estimates of wind energy and hydrogen production, along with simple techno-economic indicators.

Through the Lab2Market Validate program, the intern will bridge the gap between academic research in wind resource assessment and commercial viability. The primary objective is to conduct rigorous customer discovery to determine whether wind professionals trust an AI interface for decision-making and under what conditions. Key activities include building a professional demonstration environment using real Canadian wind site scenarios, developing a technical documentation package to ensure transparency and trust in the tool’s calculations, and testing various pricing models with potential customers.

The project involves conducting customer interviews to gather evidence on willingness-to-pay and feature priorities. By the end of the internship, the intern will deliver a validated Business Model Canvas, a functional demo platform, and a go-to-market roadmap. This initiative supports Canada’s transition to a net-zero economy by potentially lowering the cost and complexity of deploying renewable energy infrastructure, particularly for smaller and emerging wind and hydrogen developers.

Faculty Supervisor:

Kevin Pope

Student:

Partner:

Springboard Atlantic Inc.

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Program: