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Zephyr is a lean onshore wind development company with a small, specialist team: project developers and a GIS expert working together on projects from early-stage exploration through to development. As one of Vind AI's earliest customers, Zephyr has been part of the platform's journey from the beginning, and its use of it has only grown over time.
Before Vind AI, Zephyr relied on a combination of tools: WindPro, separate GIS software, wind maps, and Google Earth Pro, alongside significant consultant input, especially in the early stages of a project. The result was a fragmented workflow, high external costs, and limited team-wide visibility.
"We used to use a lot of different wind maps to know how much a turbine would produce, and then calculated an average, which meant a lot more manual work. We also used many consultants at an early stage." —Eivind Fuglum, Project Developer
For a small team managing multiple projects simultaneously, this approach was unsustainable. Early-stage decisions were slow, obstacles surfaced late, and keeping everyone aligned across tools was a constant friction point.
Zephyr cancelled their other software licenses and moved their entire team onto Vind AI—consolidating visualisation, GIS, layout design, electrical analysis, and photomontage into a single platform. The GIS specialist and project developers now work from the same place, on the same projects, in real time.
Crucially, Vind AI is now used earlier than any previous tool—at the point where a project is still just an idea on a map.
“This shift has changed our early-stage work entirely. Rather than committing resources before obstacles are known, the team can now surface problems and opportunities before any consultants are needed.”
—Eivind Fuglum, Project Developer
If there is one feature that defines Zephyr's day-to-day experience with Vind AI, it is photomontage.
"Photomontage is my favourite. I once placed a wind turbine on an image while the client was onsite in under 2 minutes. The tool is very effective and time-efficient." —Eivind Fuglum, Project Developer
Previously, producing accurate visualisations required specialist input and considerable time. Now, Eivind can generate a photomontage from virtually any image source, including Google Street View, in minutes. The ability to use any image format means compelling visuals can be produced from almost anywhere, at any stage of a project. It has become a core part of how Zephyr communicates project potential, both internally and externally.
Zephyr's confidence in Vind AI was put to the test on Gullslettene, named the best wind project in Norway last year. Eivind and team ran a simulation using operational data and compared it directly against Vind AI's output.
"I made a simulation based on the operational data and compared it with Vind. I needed to tweak the wind profiles a bit, and then it was correct. After that, I used the same adjustment on the next project." —Eivind Fuglum, Project Developer
The accuracy of the results, validated against real performance data, gave the team the confidence to apply the same methodology to adjacent projects.
The cumulative time savings have been significant for a small company handling many projects at once. Zephyr is now producing a 150-page visualisation report for Gullslettene, a deliverable that would previously have required external consultants.
"We are now making a visualisation report for Gullslettene—150 pages—that we could not do on our own before. But with Vind AI, we can now do 90% of it, without needing additional consultant hours."
—Eivind Fuglum, Project Developer
The team now has the capacity to take projects further, faster, with greater confidence, and with a leaner software stack than ever before.
1. Faster go/no-go decisions Early-stage decision-making is the top benefit. Vind AI makes it easy to quickly assess the potential of a project and determine whether to proceed, without waiting on consultants or spending weeks on preliminary analysis.
2. Full-process visibility across the team "Now we have more control of the whole process. We can compare layouts and where people can see the layout." Projects are shared across the team, the GIS expert contributes directly within the same platform, and everyone stays aligned without switching tools.
3. Format flexibility that just works Zephyr still uses Google Earth Pro as a cross-check, and the two-way compatibility, including XML import and upload, makes integration seamless. As Eivind put it: "The flexibility and composition to read all sorts of formats is exceptionally great."
4. 10X faster on key tasks Tasks that used to require painstaking manual work, like mapping owner areas, drawing borderlines for municipalities, are dramatically faster. "In the beginning, we spent a lot of time finding the owner areas, borderlines for municipalities, and now many parts of the process are 10X faster."
5. Reduced dependence on consultants By bringing more of the process in-house, Zephyr now reserves consultant spend for the stages where it truly adds value. The team is also exploring removing their separate GIS licence entirely as Vind AI continues to cover more of that functionality.
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