• Energy Research
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POWDERBLADE aims to gain market acceptance and rapid market take up of an innovative materials technology involving carbon/glass fibres in powder epoxy to be commercialised initially in the production of larger wind turbine blades (60 metre +). The immediate impact of this disruptive materials technology in the wind energy sector will be reduced wind turbine cost (-20%). This in turn will lead to increased productivity of low-carbon energy from more rapid market deployment of large turbines. The reduction in costs and increase in productivity will reduce the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) for the European citizen – the ultimate beneficiary of this innovation. This ambitious project is led by Éire Composites, an established industry player in composites manufacturing for the Aerospace and Renewable sectors and an experienced FP7/Horizon 2020 participant.In the year after project end, ÉireComposites will generate over €7m in revenue from direct sales of larger blade components using the new materials, increasing to €39m by 2021. The longer term commercial strategy is to focus on recurring revenues from the supply of advanced materials directly to manufacturers to produce blades and other products under license. This revenue stream will generate €60m by 2021. ÉireComposites will employ an additional 78 staff in direct production at project end increasing to 489 employees over both revenue streams three years later. Suzlon, a large wind OEM and end user, is the second industry partner. Their involvement demonstrates early market acceptance of the new technology. Suzlon are committed to investing substantial funds in the commercialisation of this technology in return for the opportunity to gain significantly as the first large industry player to market with light, cost-effective carbon-glass hybrid blades. Technology partner (University of Edinburgh) and innovation specialists (WestBIC) will support the industry partners in achieving the goals of POWDERBLADE.

In Europe, there is a clear long-term objective to decarbonize the energy system, but it is very unclear how this will be achieved in the heating and cooling sector. As a result, there is currently a lot of uncertainty among policymakers and investors in the heating and cooling sector, primarily due to a lack of knowledge about the long-term changes that will occur in the coming decades. This HRE proposal will enable new policies as well as prepare the ground for new investments by creating more certainty in relation to the changes that are required. The work in this proposal will build on three previous HRE studies, all of which have been successfully completed on time and all of which have already influenced high-level policymakers at EU and national level in Europe. The work from these previous studies will be significantly improved in this project. The new knowledge in this project will: - Improve at least 15 new policies at local, national, or EU level, - Specify how up to 3,000,000 GWh/year of fossil fuels can be saved in Europe, and - Quantify how the €3 trillion of investment required to implement these savings will reduce the net cost of heating and cooling in Europe. Furthermore, one of the most significant improvements compared to previous studies is the dissemination and communication strategy that has been developed as part of this proposal. These activities represent the largest work package in this proposal, which is necessary to ensure that policymakers, investors, and researchers at local, national, and EU level are all aware of the new data, tools, methodologies, and results from this project. The dissemination activities are expected to directly build the skills and capacity of at least 350 people in specific target groups identified by the consortium, while the communication activities will inform at least 50,000 people about the project activities and results.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

The main objective of the project is the organization of the international conference “SET Plan 2016 - Central European Energy Conference X” during the presidency of the Slovak Republic in the second half of 2016. The SET Plan 2016 conference will be conjoined with the 10th annual Central European Energy Conference (CEEC X). The conference will aim to examine the process of accelerating the development and deployment of low-carbon technologies and creating the European Energy Union, focusing on the research and innovation strategy. Its ambition is to improve the visibility of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan and Energy Union, to identify policy options and priorities and to plan future actions. Based on that, the proposal stipulate these the main objectives of the SET Plan 2016 – Central European Energy Conference X: to examine achievements in the implementation of the Energy Union with a special focus on the role of its Research & Innovation dimension; to assess progress and evaluate the role of Central European member states in the implementation of the goals of the Energy Union within the other four priority dimensions of the Energy Union, including security of supply, creation of an integrated energy market, improving energy efficiency and reduction of emissions; to create a platform for a discussion, dialogue and networking for member states, civil society, business, science and academia, regional and local authorities and other stakeholders in the area of strategic energy technologies; to foster visibility and understanding of the Energy Union and the topic of Strategic Energy Technologies, and to disseminate information. Planned activities include plenaries and panel discussions with international keynote speaker, parallel thematic dinner sessions, side events, poster session and social events.

Sensors are widely used for optimization of technical systems. In most cases they are electrical, hence not safe to operate e.g. on wind turbines blades due to lightning risk, on fuel tanks, in strong magnetic fields or close to generators due to the risk of electrical short circuits. Furthermore cabling is costly, can be cumbersome to handle and signals are difficult to transmit reliably over long distances. CEKO Sensors (CEKO), a spin-out from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Department of Nanotechnology, will disrupt the sensor market by providing sensors that are 100% optical, frequency modulated, have very high sensitivity and are metal-free. The force sensitivity of the sensors has shown to be 1200 times larger than what can be obtained using comparable technologies. At the same time the physical size is 100 times smaller and the weight 3000 times less than other sensors on the market today. These unique features make them crucial for applications where sensitivity, size and weight are critical parameters. The initial proof-of-market application for the CEKO sensor is wind turbines. Wind turbines have been selected as CEKO sensors addresses several significant challenges for wind turbines owners: Monitoring of blade damages for reduced maintenance and repair costs, optimization of blade loads for efficient production and detection of icing on the blades, which has a high impact on the power production and the safety on ground. The CEKO sensors will initially be marketed through Brüel & Kjær, a world leading sensor manufacturer, who has estimated the direct achievable market for the CEKO sensors in the wind power segment to be 36.000 sensors/ year worth €22 million. The objectives of the over all innovation projects are to 1) finalise the development of the optical sensor for wind turbines 2) Complete a full scale field test in collaboration with H&L Wind A/S (owner of several wind parks in Germany) 3) Obtain the required industry certifications.

Wind energy is an attractive solution for the energy demands of remote installations. It could provide energy to remote Base Station Sites, which account for up to 50% of the total operational costs in the Telecommunication Industry. It is also a feasible source of energy in the agricultural sector. Farms spend around €50.000/year in power supply due to their remote location with respect to power plants. Installation of Small Wind Turbines (SWT) that allow energy harvesting on-site will produce operational cost savings of €32.000/year. However, large purchase costs and long return of investment (25-30 years) are strong barriers for wind power implementation. Responding to these market needs, at EVR Motors we have invested so far €1.000.000 of private capital to develop a novel direct drive generator: SWITLER. Using a lean philosophy design and eliminating non-desirable features we achieve a manufacturing cost reduction of up to 60%. Reducing magnet mass materials in 20% and eliminating iron from the rotor, we reduce the generator weight by up to 70% when compared to current solutions in the market. Furthermore, efficiency is increased in as much as 96%. Our generator removes the need of a transformer, which enables the use of SWT applications off-grid in remote areas. This already patented (approval in process) technology will revolutionize the Small Wind Turbine manufacturer’s value of chain. Our objective is to start SWITLER commercialization by 2017 introducing it in the SWT market. This market is expected to increase massively from €768 million in 2013 to €2.517 million by 2020, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 22%. Our market strategy will focus on Israel for the first two years. We will then percolate the European market through UK, which accounts for 13% of the global market. After the 6 initial commercialization years, SWITLER sales are forecasted to accumulate €25.728.000 revenues.

Improving road safety is a prime objective of the European Union's transport policy. Overloading of lorries is one of the most common infringements found in road freight transport: one in three lorries controlled is overloaded by 10%-20% over safe legal weight limits making roads much less safe. European Directive 2015/719 establishes maximum gross vehicle weights and urges for regular weight checks for commercial vehicles in the 28 EU countries. Truck scales are therefore essential for hauliers or public authorities. In addition, accurate truck scales are key for businesses delivering their products on the road as they are used to determine the weight of bulk goods being bought and sold in truckload-sized quantities being a crucial part of the business transaction functioning much as a cash register. Currently, the construction work, infrastructure and time needed to install a truck scale in a company’s facility results in a highly expensive burden. In addition, connection to the electric grid is indispensable and the heavy materials used make the relocation of the scale a concern. This results in very expensive solutions hindering competitiveness. The previous scenario has encouraged Cogo Bilance s.r.l., an innovative company fruit of the merger of major brands in the Italian weighing industry, to develop Sensolweighs. Sensolweighs is a truck scale powered by solar energy (with wireless connection) giving the possibility to work off-grid in remote locations, based on an innovative hydraulic system to measure weight. Its light resistant materials make its relocation and installation an easy task, reducing costs by more than 32% with just 2% of the time currently needed to set up a truck scale. With 44% of goods transported by road in the EU and an annual growth of more than 3% expected in the global truck market from 2014 to 2024, Cogo estimates revenue of €466M with 15500 units sold after 5 years of commercialization and the payback period reached in one year.

One of the major current scientific and technological challenges concerns the conversion of carbon dioxide to fuels and useful products in effective and economically viable manner. This proposal responds to the major challenge of developing low energy routes to convert carbon dioxide to fuels and useful chemicals. The project has the following four main strands: (i) The use of electricity generated by renewable technologies to reduce CO2 electrocatalytically, where we will develop new approaches involving the use of ionic liquid solvents to activate the CO2 (ii) The use of hydrogen in the catalytic reduction of CO2, where we will apply computational procedures to predict new materials for this key catalytic process and subsequently test them experimentally (iii) The development of new materials for use in the efficient solar generation of hydrogen which will provide the reductant for the catalytic CO2 reduction (iv) A detailed life cycle analysis which will assess the extent to which the new technology achieves the overall objective of developing low carbon fuels. Our approach aims, therefore, to exploit renewably generated energy directly via the electrocatalytic route or indirectly via the solar generated hydrogen in CO2 utilisation for the formation of fuels and/or chemicals. The different components of the approach will be fully integrated to achieve coherent, new low energy technologies for this key process, while the rigorous life-cycle analysis will ensure that it satisfies the need for a low energy technology.

Conventionally designed wind turbines only operate efficiently in steady, uninterrupted air. However, most users want to access wind in urban areas or near industrial units where the nature of the wind is more turbulent and swirling. Conventional designs do not work efficiently with the swirling, variable nature of wind at such sites. In this project Swift Energy present a radical re-design of a vertical axis wind turbine, with key technological improvements that will allow efficient operation in small-footprint, urban sites. Such sites have the added advantage that they are close to consumers, minimising transmission losses. WindSurf is a vertical axis, active pitching wind turbine. Swift's patented control technology uses servomotors to continually alter blade pitch, which allows self-starting in wind speeds as low as 3m/s, and optimised energy capture in free and turbulent wind streams. Edinburgh's role in this project is to produce an optimised design of the electrical generator for the WindSurf rated at 16kW, taking into account the environment in which it will be operating. A direct drive generator will be used to eliminate the gearbox, which will improve reliability and efficiency. Both of these contribute to LCOE: reliability through increased availability and reduced OPEX; and improved efficiency will enhance annual energy yield. An air-cored permanent magnet generator will be designed and built that is optimised for the structure of the Swift wind turbine. In order to achieve such an optimised design an integrated design approach is required, which links electromagnetic design, with structural design and thermo-fluid design. Edinburgh has built up 10 years of experience in the integrated design of direct drive permanent magnet air-cored generators for wind and marine renewable energy applications. Air-cored machines eliminate undesirable magnetic attraction forces that try to close the gap, and thus this topology benefits manufacture, assembly and structural design. A vertical axis wind turbine allows the electromagnetic design of the machine to have a large diameter, out near the blades. A large diameter will result in high airgap velocity and thus have a positive impact on torque density (Nm/kg), reducing the amount of active material, which is the most expensive part of the machine. A novel structural arrangement will be developed for integration into the turbine, which where possible makes best use of the existing structural material, again to minimise material usage and thus cost. A modular design approach will be adopted to ease manufacture and assembly of the generator, but also to make O&M easier. By positioning the generator close to the blades, we will investigate we will investigate methods of "scooping" air from the turbine onto the generator to assist with cooling. Effective cooling will benefit the torque density and the overall performance of the machine. Numerical modelling tools will be used in the design process, such as ANSYS for structural analysis, StarCCM for thermo-fluid analysis, and Infolytica for electromagnetic design. An existing analytical design tool will be refined based on the structural and CFD modelling in order to assist SWIFT in the future design and production of their turbine. Multi-body modelling using SIMPACK will be combined with structural modelling to investigate the impact of environmental loads on the generator in terms of airgap deflection. Once the design is finalised, the machine will be built under subcontract to Fountain Design Ltd, with whom we have worked in the past to build prototype generators. The machine will be tested at the University of Edinburgh on its wind-emulator test rig to verify performance and the design tools developed. A thorough integrated design approach with manufacturing and production techniques in mind supported by laboratory testing will ensure that SWIFT can move towards commercialisation.