• Energy Research
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• 2015 close

Building methodology in skyscrapers marked a turning point in the construction sector. Due to the high altitude of those buildings, the only way of building them is a crane that rises in the same manner the skyscraper does. The main objective of the AIRCRANE project is to complete, qualify, standard setting and demonstrate in real working conditions a self-climbing telescopic crane (AIRCRANE) for the construction of full-concrete towers for wind turbines, at very low cost compared to current market solutions. This new solution has been inspired by the skyscraper’s building methodology. As a consequence of the development of this new crane, the second objective will be the introduction in the market of a new full-concrete tower with no height limit and with a new patented procedure of building that will bring reliability, time saving, quality and workers safety. In the current decade the main trend in the wind energy sector is to decrease the costs of the energy produced by wind turbines. One of the main strategies is the installation of the rotor axis (as well as nacelle and generator) at higher heights, as much as possible, where turbulences are minor and the efficiency of the equipment is higher. However, the wind industry has found some technical and economic constraints given by the construction of steel towers. This constraints are related to: size limitations in transport (larger diameters of tower segments), cost increase for heights greater than 100m., vibrations, etc.. Full concrete towers, built with precast concrete elements are a feasible solution: easy to transport, more durable (~50 years vs. ~25 years of steel), less vibrant, less required maintenance, etc. Another advantage is that concrete annual average price is significantly lower than steel. The development of the new AIRCRANE will help in the construction of full concrete towers, to reach heights unreachable with conventional nowadays crawler cranes (>140m) and at a much lower cost.

The project focuses on the Concentrated Solar Power sector (CSP). A HTF (High Temperature Fluid) is a liquid used to heat transport and transfer it in a solar thermal plant. Nowadays, most of the plants (both parabolic or tower technology) use synthetic oil as the HTF, which reaches working temperatures up to 400ºC. However, high temperature cycles accelerate oil degradation and then impurities appear. The appearance of impurities is a problem that affects the operation and the integrity of the current CSP power plants. Oil regeneration is a common operation in many industrial processes, however, there is no specific solution for CSP power plants that meet their efficiency and costs related needs without risking their profitability. By now, CSP power plant operators treat the oil periodically in external far regeneration plants that provide a standard fluid distillation with low efficiency and big fluid loses that represent great costs. Due to sector’s current constraints to increase power plant’s capital investment and operation & maintenance costs new more efficient, and with more flexible management models, HTF regeneration solutions are required. TRANSREGEN is a new high efficiency oil regeneration system that implements a compact & transportable design in order to extend fluid generation and waste management possibilities. Having successfully designed & validated TRANSREGEN technology in a relevant environment, the overall objective of this project is the demonstration of the final solution in solar thermal plants in real operating conditions.

At least 3% of wind production downtime due to breakdowns and maintenance problems that can reach up to 40%. This leads to production losses of over €2.9 billion worldwide annually. Our current SmartCast remotely connects SCADA and sensor data with a virtual database to monitor wind turbines. It involves algorithms based AI, cloud computing and data mining. The SmartGear product is a low cost Condition Monitoring System based on IoT technology which acquires raw data and connects with SmartCast Platform for further processing. The overall objective of the future Phase II Cloud Diagnosis project is to scale-up our SmartGear technology by introducing communication protocols that allow us to extract data from multiple devices allocated in the wind turbines and additional transducers. Additionally, SmartCast cloud diagnosis algorithms need to be improved. Our innovative solution will allow faster detection of wind turbine system failures through complex algorithms implementing intelligent sensor fusion, therefore, optimizing the performance of wind turbines. It does not require onsite visits but provides information online. In this way, our technology will be able to: Reduce wind turbine maintenance cost by 20%: €44 million annually in the Spanish market, €190 million per year in Europe and €440 million annually in the world market. Reduce wind turbine operation cost and component replacement of cost by 20%: A standard park of 50 MW (16 turbines) installation power working 2,100 hours per year faces production losses of at least €378,000 annually. Our system enables 20% savings of €75,600 (€4,725 per turbine). Currently, our SmartCast platform processes real-time data from SCADA and sensors by means of SVM (support vector machine) in 300 turbines. Our SmartGear Solution is present in two wind farms and is being rolled out in five more.

Our proposed technology uses bamboo for manufacturing a unique new bio-material which has the potential to replace most commonly used structural materials such as concrete, steel and timber. This novel process will not only ensure the sustainable supply of raw materials via environment friendly new solution in construction industry, but will also provide participating SME with the opportunity to derive an ongoing income. BAMBENG proposal outlines the opportunity to develop an innovative technological process which will produce a new constructional product, chemical free and environmental friendly (avoiding the use of toxic and polluting glues) with supreme technological, economic and environmental footprint performances. That would make BAMBENG advantageous competitor and feasible alternative as BAMBENG structural material, represents the best performing material for supporting structure for seismic building. BAMBENG is obtained by a simple chafing and pressure welding process, producing a semi-finished completely biological new component. The process in chemical free, energy saving and with a very low footprint, Compared with the most direct and similar competitive materials (wood, glulam and glubam) BAMBENG offers better technical performances and up to 45% of cost savings (based on Cost Structure Analysis). BAMBENG is worth to invest in because it is a combination of proven technology and novel application of demonstrable technology and methods which have both economic & environmental benefits: - Development of bigger structural components for buildings sector for easy substitution of current material like steel, aluminium, concrete, and even timber, - Development of building design to exceed seismic and hurricane requirements, - Transfer to other sectors such as interior and exterior architectural, packaging and design artefacts, - Improvement of local bamboo crops at EC level, and - Potential to license the technology to SMEs throughout the EU.

Wind power plays a crucial role in Europe’s strategy towards a zero-carbon, clean energy-powered economy. While efforts have primarily focused on the development of wind turbine technology, it starts to become evident that the planning associated with the end-of-service life of these equipment has been vastly neglected. Rotor blades are a particularly challenging component, as there is uncertainty about how to get rid of them properly and safely. Furthermore, their sheer huge size imposes important constraints on the trucking requirements for their transportation, which translates in significant costs for decommissioning and disposal. EcoBlade presents a disruptive concept which tackles the cumbersome transportation of decommissioned large size rotor blades. Our mobile separation platform relies on a modular system optimized for blade shredding and material separation. It also opens the path towards profitable and economically sustainable value chains aiming at the revalorization of the disposed blade material. Since existing experience on blades’ decommissioning is still limited, disposal best practices are still to be defined. Therefore, the development of our scalable platform currently holds important economic risks, given the uncertainty on market acceptance. For this reason, Frandsen Industri firmly believes that a two-phase approach under EU-funding is the ideal scenario, in order to initially assess the market for concept feasibility before initiating the innovation project. Ecoblade will serve as a key enabler for future decommissioning of rotor blades, allowing to save more than 60 M€ in transportation costs for the disposed blades during the 2020-2030 period. Moreover, the successful implementation of EcoBlade will also significantly enhance the profitability of Frandsen Industri, as its successful implementation would return an expected turnover of nearly €5 million, 5 years post-project, corresponding to over €1.6 million profit to our company.

INGECID is a renowned engineering company focused on developing innovative constructive processes applied to wind energy, where the cost of installations is dominated by the CAPEX of wind turbines (ca. 84%). While the need of minimizing the costs per installed MW has not been yet successfully addressed, the cost-effective redesign of taller wind turbine towers is now indispensable due to: a) the limited height (ca. 85m) and the fatigue vulnerability of actual towers, which hamper wind turbines harnessing higher wind velocities, at greater altitudes and for longer times (thus from delivering more electric power: P≈v3); b) the load needs for bearing heavier turbines (150 tons), and c) the costs of actual alternatives (hybrid steel/concrete and precast concrete towers) that have avoidable expenses of lifting, maintenance and transport. In this context, INGECID will become a reference within the tower manufacturing business (predicted global market investment of 17.11 bn€ by 2020, at a CAGR of 6.9%) by offering a 140m cost-competitive in-situ monolithic concrete tower solution for 3 MW wind turbines: LiraTower. This novel tower design, patent requested, surpasses actual solutions due to: a) its height (above hitherto reports of 120-137m); b) its unique design of internal and external tendons, which allow for excellent compressive strength (slender diameter of 4m), fatigue resistance and stiffness; and c) the cost reduction (ca. 30-40%) that in-situ technology offers over available solutions in market. With the proposed construction process and tower design, wind velocity increments of up to 8% and 26% higher output powers in comparison to 80m are now feasible at a competitive cost. Additionally, the drawbacks and transport costs of large tower sections, nearby prefabrication plants and on-site mechanizing are totally eliminated. Once in market, LiraTower would have a return on investment of 3.8 years, generating cumulative revenues of 9.53 M€ and 55 new direct jobs.

The overall objective of the SOLARGE45 project is to accelerate the market introduction of a new Concentration PhotoVoltaic (CPV) technology, called the MF45 System, which yields the highest efficiency all year round, without giving up simplicity, and therefore enables the lowest manufacturing costs. The MF45 System will be capable to convert the equivalent of 45% of the direct sun light into clean electricity at costs equivalent to those of conventional sources (CO2 intensive). This represents conversion efficiency increases of 30% and 60% relative to other commercial CPV systems and FP systems, respectively. As result of the SOLARGE45 project, LPI aims to become a worldwide reference manufacturer and supplier of a novel CPV System able to generate profits in large-scale utility solar plants, and without the support of government policies backing up clean electricity. This will bring a positive impact in the challenge stressed in the 'Secure, Clean and Efficient Energy' Work Programme: low-cost, low carbon electricity supply. Through the Phase 1 of the SME Instrument LPI will be able to assess the industrial and commercial feasibility of the business innovation project proposed for introducing the MF45 System into the market. The specific objectives that must be achieved in the course of the Feasibility Study are the following: - To define the MF45 System specifications needed to assure long-term-performance under real operation conditions to guarantee product bankability and standard certification - To assess different product-development and industrial process pilot plant alternatives with optimal quality within cost and reliability balance - To identify the specific operational and financial resources and/or partners to cover the whole MF45 System manufacturing and commercialisation - To assess the feasibility of the preliminary Market Strategy and Commercialisation Plan, by an in-depth study of the MF45 System market size and barriers.

Briareo is an innovative micro-wind turbine intended at offering users a higher efficiency of power generation with low speed winds, thereby increasing the penetration rate of this renewable energy technology throughout the European Union and worldwide. Current commercial micro-turbines operate on average only 20% of the time being unable to work at wind speeds less than 4m/s. This result has given micro-wind turbines an inefficient and undesirable reputation, and they are now scarcely recommended by suppliers as they cannot guarantee their payback time. The patented Briareo polymeric blade has been designed by applying high quality aerodynamic principles to operate in both lift and drag modes according to the specific wind, being especially performing in winds lower than 4m/s. The SME proponents have eventually developed their own turbine which in tests has exhibited a rotational capacity 4x that of current turbines. The Briareo micro-wind turbine is based on the “Ikea” concept: it can be purchased of the shelf, easily self-assembled and installed without needs for certification, not imposing greatly on its residency (smaller than 100cmx150cm) or producing much noise. The high manufacturability of Briareo allows the use of the low cost rotational moulding industrial process. The technology has reached a TRL of 6 and Phase 1 project aims at establishing a robust industrialization and operational plan, at identifying all stakeholders in the value chain securing appropriate suppliers, sale channels and strategic partnerships, at contacting potential early adopters’ communities that can ensure a quick market test and at strengthening the business model with an in-depth market analysis, sound marketing strategy and reliable financial projections. Briareo project is proposed by 2 Italian SMEs, Arken and Gymnotus, who have strictly cooperated on the design, prototype development and test since the beginning, equally sharing the IP ownership.

Water and energy are highly interdependent and are both crucial to human well-being and sustainable socio-economic development. In 2014, the UN reports that 768 million people worldwide still do not have access to a safe source of drinking water, and more than 1.3 billion lack access to electricity. We have developed the Watly® unit with the goal of providing a solution for fast, simple and efficient wastewater treatment and energy supply in developing and/or remote regions. Watly combines cutting-edge technologies to offer i) complete sanitation for well, surface ground, sea or recycled rain water, ii) off-grid electricity from solar energy and iii) Wi-Fi internet connectivity, all in one portable autonomous unit. Watly embodies the ambition of a European company to address a global market. The wide range of customers worldwide that could benefit from this all-in-one solution include diverse market segments such as: Governments and public institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) and foundations, mobile hospitals, military organizations, hotels/resorts/businesses in remote destinations, massive open-air events, oil platforms, gas/oil & construction sites, etc. Scale-up beyond our current prototypes and industrialization of the production process is the key to growth and expansion of our company taking advantage of a new market opportunity. In order to do so, we are applying for SME Instrument Phase 1 funds to: (i) elaborate an exhaustive technical feasibility study focused on scale-up beyond our current prototypes, design and industrialization of the final commercial unit of Watly-L; (ii) elaborate a detailed business plan for the commercialization of Watly-L at the conclusion of the envisaged Phase 2 project. If the results of the feasibility study, both from the technical and commercial point of view, are positive, we will proceed to apply for Phase 2 funds in order to carry out the abovementioned scale-up, product refinement and industrialization tasks.