Seven projects have been funded by the first
DemoWind project and five by DemoWind2. Summaries of the funded projects can be
found below. (click any project name in the table to take you to the project summary)
Project Name: Deutsche Bucht Demonstrator
Acronym: DBOD
Coordinator: Universal Foundation A/S (DK)
Partners: Harland & Wolff Heavy Industries Ltd(UK), SIF Group BV (NL)
Abstract:
Universal Foundation and partners will
demonstrate new technologies for offshore foundations. The offshore foundation
to be demonstrated is the Mono Bucket; next generation novel foundation concept
for offshore wind farms. The project will conduct full scale designs and
installations of the Mono Bucket with WTG, including demonstration of the
innovative Mono Bucket Design Configurator -and Integrated Design Model
prepared by Universal Foundation, bringing the Mono Bucket ready for
commercialization by advancing TRL for the Mono Bucket from TRL5 to TRL7.
The project addresses in particular the
industry target of cost reductions up to 40% by 2020 and the need for new
technology to move to deeper water (25- 55 meters), further from shore (+150km)
and with bigger turbines (+6MW class), aiming to demonstrate a significant
delivery of CAPEX reduction for foundations and a correspondingly significant
impact on Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE).
The project further seeks to demonstrate
the Mono Bucket’s unique ability to install a foundation and a turbine in the
same installation run and hence have the possibility to generate first power
within weeks instead of today’s industry standard of ½-1½ years.
Finally, the project will demonstrate new
products and solutions aimed at cutting O&M costs in relation to corrosion
and scour protection.
Further information on the project is
available at http://universal-foundation.com/media/news/#100852
Project Name: Compact High Efficiency Generator
Acronym: CHEG
Coordinator: Magnomatics (UK)
Partners: ORE Catapult Development Services Ltd (UK), GL Garrad Hassan Nederland (NL),
Newton Derby (UK), EDF Energy R&D UK Centre Ltd (UK), JL Mag (NL)
Abstract:
As the market for large offshore wind
turbines increases, the requirement to reduce the cost of energy becomes more
important. The installed base of offshore wind turbines is expected to rise by
up to 5 gigawatts per year through 2020.
This project aims to advance the state of
the art in wind turbine generator technology by reducing the cost of the
turbine and increasing the efficiency of the generator to reduce cost of
energy. The generator and gear box are major turbine components and constitute
a major part of the cost, complexity and failure modes of wind turbines. The
use of the innovative pseudo direct drive (PDD) generator within wind turbines
will reduce the capital cost of such installations and subsequent decommissioning
and have a positive impact on operation and maintenance costs.
The Compact, High Efficiency Generator
(CHEG) project will deliver a pseudo direct drive (PDD) machine based around
Magnomatics innovative magnetic gear technology which brings significant
advantages in efficiency and reduced costs of maintenance due to its method of
transmitting torque through the magnetic gear without the physical contact and
subsequent requirement for lubrication required by traditional mechanical
gearing.
Preliminary overall Cost of Energy (CoE)
modelling shows significant advantages from the PDD system when compared to
other current machine topologies, with notable advantages in increased
efficiency, reducing cost by 2% taking worst case scenarios, high relative
annual energy output, reduced mass and reduced maintenance costs.
It is accepted by the consortium that the
technology being developed, whilst potentially ground breaking in reducing cost
of energy, must be affordable to potential end users once serial manufacturing
volumes are achieved. It is estimated that the proposed technology with be
within 2.5% of the cost of the current state of the art technology when
manufactured in similar volumes for a similar output turbine.
Further information on the project is
available at http://cheg.eu/
Project name: Wind integrated platform for 10+MW power per foundation
Acronym: WIP 10+
Coordinator: EnerOcean S.L. (ES)
Partners: INGETEAM
Services (ES), Ghenova Ingeniería S.L (ES), Tension Tech International Ltd (UK)
Abstract:
The project WIP 10+, “Wind integrated
platform for 10+ MW power per foundation” will demonstrate at sea and at
significant scale a fully integrated offshore wind floating platform Wind2Power
that holds a couple twin wind turbines of up to 6 MW each, and that it is also
able to host additional functions due to its size.
The objectives of the innovation are:
1)
To provide a floating foundation
for high installed wind capacity
2)
To optimize the O&M
procedures
3)
To prove that cost reduction is
possible acting both on capital and O&M costs
4)
To improve sea space management
The project addresses the need for cost
reduction in offshore wind by providing a light but large semisubmersible
platform able to host two 5-6 MW wind turbines for a total of 10-12 MW per
platform.
Specific expected results are: validation
of numerical and laboratory estimations on forces and motions, proof of
engineering design including moorings and wind vanning platform concept. More
comprehensive expected results are survivability of the platform through winter
conditions in real sea environment, quantification of cost reduction compared
to two floating wind turbines, and optimization and validation of specific
installation, operation and maintenance procedures.
Further information on the project is
available at http://wip10plus.eu/
Project name: Robotic Submarine Geotechnical Site Investigation for Offshore Wind
Acronym: MDWIND
Coordinator: IGLOTEST (ES)
Partners: MG3 (UK)
Abstract:
This project aims to launch a new remotely
operated seafloor-based site investigation system into the offshore wind (OW)
market. A recently developed robotic general-purpose submarine drilling machine
has been tooled for the specific site investigation requirements of OW. The
system has been tested at sea in a demonstration test. The characteristics of
the sampling and testing performed have been documented. The quality of the
obtained samples has been evaluated.
Further information on the project is available
at https://www.era-learn.eu/network-information/networks/demowind/joint-call-2015/md500-wind-robotic-submarine-geotechnical-site-investigation-for-offshore-wind-projectwind-integrated-platform-for-10-mw-power-per-foundation
Project name: Cost of Energy Reduction-Driven Development, Manufacturing and Infield Validation of the World's Largest Offshore Wind Turbine Blade
Acronym: XL-BLADE
Coordinator: ORE Catapult Development Services Ltd (UK)
Partners: LM Wind Power S.L. (DK), Adwen (ES)
Abstract:
Achieving the ambitious EU target of 27%
renewable penetration by 2030 requires step-change technological innovations
across all sectors of renewables, paving the way for industrialization and
scale. Within this context, offshore wind has proven its viability as a mature
utility-scale contributor to the EU energy mix, with substantial cost
reductions achieved over the past decade, and a similar trajectory as onshore
wind towards grid parity.
Within an offshore wind turbine system, the
rotor set is one of the most influential ways to reduce total cost of energy.
The overarching program objective of the consortium is to reduce the overall
offshore wind cost of energy by merging the technological leadership of three
offshore industry leaders across three participating countries to design,
validate and deploy the world’s largest offshore wind turbine blade.
Specific technological objectives are
design, manufacturing and in-field validation of blade approaching 90m in
length with aggressive weight targets:
·
Definition of the optimum
fibre, resin and laminating process with respect to structural properties,
weight and cost.
·
Tackling industry-plaguing
issue of blade erosion through development of new coating and application
systems.
·
Characterisation of offshore
atmospheric conditions affecting blade erosion, to enable the development of
new coatings.
·
Defining real-scale laboratory
tests that reproduce relevant environmental conditions over the operating
lifetime of the blade.
·
Demonstration of the blade
technology readiness at the test bench level.
·
Demonstration of project
results via field validation in a full-scale offshore wind turbine prototype.
Further information on the project is
available at https://ore.catapult.org.uk/stories/bi-axial-blade-fatigue-testing/
Project name: Wind turbine life-minded production management
Acronym: WINDSTEP
Coordinator: Gamesa Innovation and Technology (ES)
Partners: Romax Technology (UK)
Abstract:
The objective of this project is to provide
the customers and Wind Farm Operators with extended elasticity so that they can
adapt the operation and O&M activities to:
·
The actual Wind Turbine
Generator (WTG) wear condition produced by the specific site conditions of the
wind farm and
·
The evolution of electricity
prices.
The customer would have the capability to
temporarily overpower the wind turbine or alternatively reduce the rate of life
consumption in their WTGs to extend actual WTG life expectancy and increase
energy production respectively. On top of this the price of electricity would
be taken into account so that overpower is preferably applied in times of high
prices and fatigue load reduction strategies would be preferably applied in
times of low electricity prices.
These new capabilities would provide the
customer with increased margins.
In order to achieve this goal new technical
developments are going to be integrated and tested in this project:
·
Monitoring of the critical
components of the WTG and generation of maps representing life consumption vs operation conditions, which would provide the WTG control with the information
about the wear condition of the component relative to the expected one.
·
Control strategies aimed at
overpowering the WTG and control strategies aimed at reducing fatigue loads on
the WTG components.
·
A control layer aimed at
automatically managing the operation of the WTG depending on its wear
condition, electricity prices and wind conditions in order to safely fulfil the
general strategy selected by the customer (extend actual life time of the WTG
or maximize the short term economic return)
Lastly, the increased knowledge of the
component state achieve through monitoring and the capability to protect the
components from excessive wear will reduce the O&M costs as the O&M
provider will be able to better adapt their resources and O&M plan to the
actual condition of the facility. Additionally, it is expected that the number
of critical failures and the number of large corrective actions in the WTG
components will be reduced which contributes to the O&M cost reduction and
implies an increase of availability.
Project name: Development and demonstration of 'float and submerge' gravity base foundations (FSF) for offshore wind turbines
Acronym: FS FOUND
Coordinator: Blyth Offshore Demonstrator Limited (UK)
Partners: ODSL (UK), EDF R&D (UK), BAM Van Oord JV (NL)
Abstract:
The exploitation of float-and-sink gravity
base foundations (FS GBF) has the potential to impact positively upon the
development of deep-water offshore-wind farms (>35 metres), resulting in a
reduction of the Levelised Cost Of Energy (LCOE) and an increase of deployment
of Wind Turbine Generators (WTGs). The project supports the objectives of the
EC Wind Energy Technology Roadmap under the SET-Roadmap, which seeks to develop
offshore technology through the development of ‘new stackable, replicable and
standardised substructures for large scale offshore turbines….and gravity based
structures’.
The industry to date has predominantly
utilised monopile solutions with jackets and GBFs requiring specialist
installation equipment. These foundation types, even if suitable for deeper
waters, present a number of challenges to the development of the sector, for
example: piling, piling noise, availability and cost of specialist installation
vessels. While GBF have been used previously no FS GBF solution has been installed
for an offshore wind turbine. It is widely accepted that this type of solution
will be required to exploit the potential of offshore wind globally.
The successful demonstration of an FS GBF
project would prove the technical feasibility of the solution and enable
further refinements of the design for mass manufacture and deployment. The
potential benefits of using a FS GBF solution include:
·
Lower installation costs by
employing standard tugs and self-buoyancy rather than specialised vessels.
·
Reduced costs deriving from the
elimination of piling
·
Reduced environmental impacts
through noise mitigation techniques.
·
Lower costs in the
mass-manufacturing phase, as personnel costs will be lower in this process.
·
Lower costs during the
operational phase as a result of reduced inspection and maintenance.
·
The option to manufacture and
deploy the FS GBF in physical proximity to the offshore site.
·
Increased deployment of WTGs in
sites where piling is not technically feasible.
Project name: Forthwind Offshore Demonstration Project
Acronym: FORTHWIND
Coordinator: CIERCO (UK)
Partners: New Waves Solutions (UK), SAITEC (ES)
Abstract:
This first offshore demonstration of the ground-breaking
CIERCO technology will provide the opportunity for the validation of some of
the key design choices offered by the CIERCO technology, specifically related
to foundation optimisation, installation methodology, operation and maintenance
process validation and future design scoping for commercial stages of
deployment.
The overall technology approach is one
which is derived from an integrated design philosophy, focusing on reducing the
cost of energy at every phase of wind farm life, from component supply, through
installation and commissioning, to operation and maintenance. Radically
different design choices have been made, resulting in a reduction of the LCoE
of up to25%.
A key component of the integrated design
strategy is the novel three-legged truss support structure. The ‘full jacket’
concept delivers an “integrated” design between the normally separate elements
of foundation and tower. This project will focus on deployment of the structure
with the 2-blade downwind turbine in an offshore environment for the first
time. This process will allow for demonstration and assessment of the
following:
·
Design, Demonstration and
Assessment of the performance of the support structure in combination with wave domain and turbine loads, including assessment of component lifetime to support
the 40-year pro-active O&M strategy
·
Design and Demonstration of the
simplified installation process and assessment of the impact on installation
costs
·
Analysis and assessment of the
deployment of the CIERCO with different foundation techniques, in different geological conditions and water depths with the development of an integrated
floating design in partnership with Saitec for full scale deployment in Phase 2
of the Forthwind project.
·
Detailed design, trials and
certification of the integrated helideck and Helicopter Landing process to
allow validation of the O&M approach
·
Validation of potential LCOE
savings for the large-scale deployment of the technology