Buffalo, NY -- (ReleaseWire) -- 08/12/2014 --Sentient Science announced today that Joshua Kunkel has joined the company as Director of Energy Services. Mr. Kunkel brings 10 years of energy and energy finance experience to Sentient Science, most recently with AWS Truepower, a global leader in wind and solar engineering and consulting.

At AWS Truepower, Mr. Kunkel led the global Due Diligence Services team, his team assisted investors and lenders assessing the technical suitability and risk of renewable energy projects. His team assisted on transactions ranging from $50M single asset loans to $1B+ portfolio acquisitions.

Sentient Science is currently focused on assisting wind farm owners to optimize and evaluate their operating strategies with their software solution DigitalClone®. This solution provides real-time insight into gearbox and bearing failure rates, which allows wind turbine operators to predict and extend the life of their assets. Sentient is currently managing 1 GW of wind energy, including most of the Clipper 2.5 MW turbines. Mr. Kunkel will be a key contributor as Sentient Science works closely to manage the GE 1.5MW units throughout North America and as they expand into other turbine models and energy sectors.

“The wind industry is currently in a state where owners and investors have a growing concern over the inability to accurately assess and quantify the remaining useful life of their wind projects, or even the ability to accurately project operation and maintenance costs on a yearly basis,” commented Mr. Kunkel.

It’s no secret that wind plant owners are not getting the returns they expected 10 years ago. Sentient Science, through their DigitalClone® technology, is giving owners visibility into their operations that has never existed before. They now have real-time insight into gearbox and component predicted failure rates, at a turbine, plant and fleet level. This allows owners to efficiently plan, quantify and predict operations costs, maintenance strategies and remanufacturing needs.

“Sentient is growing at a rate to support the addition of senior management talent to the team”, said Ed Wagner, Vice President at Sentient Science. “Our focus on the energy sector means we need to hire more expertise that will help us engage the market effectively. Josh Kunkel begins to round out our energy and Industrial Internet management team."

“The wind is hard enough to predict,” stated Mr. Kunkel. “Sentient’s technology will help to reduce the uncertainty associated with operational failures and downtime. With decreased operational uncertainty, owners will be able to make decisions that will help their bottom line increase. It’s exciting – it’s what the industry needs for wind to continue to be competitive year after year in the energy sector.”

About Sentient Science
Sentient Science, headquartered in Buffalo, NY provides computational performance product testing, life extension, remanufacturing, risk reduction and supply chain services to increase the remaining useful life of industrial assets in power generation and defense markets. For the first time, Sentient Science is able to calculate the point in time when critical components and systems will begin to fail and make recommendations to extend the life of these components, systems and assets, creating enormous financial value for its customers. In June 2014, the White House honored Sentient Science with the SBIR/STTR TIbbetts Award for their DigitaClone multi-physics prognostic modeling simulator, which is now available commercially.