Bjørnar Lona Svingen
Chief Developer, dr.ing
Co-founder and co-owner of Flow Design Bureau AS, Norway.
I use my long-time experience from the energy industry and from research institutions, SINTEF and NTNU to enhance FDB’s expertise in hydropower systems engineering, transient calculations and digital twins/predictive governing systems. I am the developer of LVTrans. LVTrans is used by several major hydro power utilities, consultants and turbine manufacturers. It is used for transient/stability analysis, FCR analysis and for predictive governors/digital twins.
I am a long term member of the International Advisory Panel for Pressure Surges, now hosted by Deltares, previously BHR Group. I also contribute to IEC working groups within the same field.
Work Experiences
- Chief Developer, Flow Design Bureau (2024-present)
- Principal Engineer/Head of Systems Engineering at Rainpower/Hymatek/Aker Solutions (2008-2024)
- Associate Professor, 20%, NTNU (2015-2022)
- Founder and owner of Svingen Tech (for LVTrans) (2015-present)
- Research Scientist at SINTEF Energy (2003-2008)
- Co founder and CEO of FDB (2001-2003)
- Post.Doc at SINTEF (2000-2001)
- R&D Engineer at Kværner Process Systems (1997-2000)
Education
- dr.ing in 1996, NTNU – Fluid Structure Interactions in Piping Systems - (1992-1996)
- Master of Science in 1991, NTH, – Undersøkelse av selveksiterende trykksvingninger i rørsystemer tilkoblet en fjærende ventil - (1987-1991)
- Aircraft mechanic, Fenrik, Royal Norwegian Air Force (1985-1987)
Skills
Development of systems engineering software
100%
Transient and stability analysis of hydro power plants
100%
Systems engineering of hydro power plants
100%
Design and installation of predictive governors (digital twins) in hydro power plants
100%
FCR analysis
100%
Commissioning of turbines and turbine governors
90%
Professional Skills
- LabVIEW (LVTrans)
- C/C++
- Scilab/Xcos
- Python
- Lua
Publications
- Large and rapid set-point adjustment of hydro power plants using embedded transient hydraulic simulations of the plant as a model predictive method, BHR Group, 2015
- A predictive controller based on transient simulations for controlling a power plant, IAHR Symposium, 2016
- First principle approach linear model for hydraulic turbines suitable for use in available simulation platforms, BHR Group, 2028
- Transient Hydraulic Calculations with a Linear Turbine Model derived from a Nonlinear Synthetic Model, IAHR Symposium 2018
- Waterway stability analysis of hydropower plants using a nonlinear numerical method and FFT with focus on the response of hydraulic power, BHR Group, 2023
Portfolio
- Transient- and stability analysis of a whole range of small and large hydropower plants world-wide in connection with turbine and turbine governor deliveries (Rainpower, Hymatek, Aker Solutions). Systems engineering lead on many of these projects.
- Developer and designer of predictive governors for two hydro power plants, one plant being the largest in Norway.
- Developer, designer and distributor of the open-source transient- and stability analysis software LVTrans. This software is also the core of the digital twins/predictive governors.
