• Energy Research
• 2015 close

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.