• Energy Research
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• 2016 close

Small onshore wind turbines have become increasingly accepted as an alternative to powering many homes, farms and businesses offering on-site electricity generation and increased security of energy supply. However, a number of barriers are preventing wide spread uptake: high cost; performance predictability issues; small wind currently fails to compete with low usage high retail electricity pricing without subsidisation from feed-in tariffs (FiT) or without a very high retail price of electricity. Governments are under immense political pressure to significantly reduce/cut subsidies for renewable technologies, creating a market for small wind which is increasingly unsustainable. To address the need for innovations that overcome principal barriers to small wind, this project seeks to advance Gaia- Wind’s innovative small wind turbine from a prototype demonstrated in a relevant environment (TRL6) to complete and qualified commercial prototype (TRL8). Gaia-Wind’s ‘FortyForty’ is the first low cost, highly efficient small wind turbine that can compete with the retail price of electricity globally and deliver an excellent ROI for customers, independent of financial subsidy. End-users include farms, rural land owners, investors, communities and rural businesses. Gaia-Wind has an existing and extensive customer base in these markets to ensure rapid roll out. Also targeted towards: residential, commercial and industrial, fish farms, hybrid systems, remote villages, pumping, water desalination and purification, remote monitoring, research and education, telecom base stations hospitals, College/Universities. Study Objectives: Technology and manufacturing process optimisation, market analysis, economic and business assessment, operational capacity analysis. Activities will be delivered within a 6 month period and result in a comprehensive feasibility report detailing the next steps towards development and commercialisation, forming the basis of the SMEI Phase 2 Business Plan.

Conventional wind turbines are dangerous for birds, animals and humans in their vicinity and produce harmful low frequency noise; they are made of composites with a considerable carbon footprint. In the project we will provide the first true ecological wind turbine in the world! The realization of the project will place on the market new paradigms in the world of small wind turbines in several ways and will fulfill the following objectives: New material: ECO-TURBINE turbine aerodynamic parts will be made with the revolutionary advanced technology of flax based bio composites and natural based adhesives with 70% less carbon foot print than conventional composites. New technical concept: ECO-TURBINE turbines will have completely new type of movement than conventional HAWT and VAWT wind turbines. Instead of rotational movement of propellers on round surface our solution has a lamella type rectangular »wall« of series of blades. New business/marketing model: ECO-TURBINE turbine will use technical concept of special under angle painted wind turbine as revolving advertising billboard, therefore our solution will be sold primarily as a very effective advertising billboard with additional function of eco and effective electricity generation. New possibility of placement: ECO-TURBINE turbines will be possible to place on areas where conventional turbines could not be placed due to danger (impact and low frequency pollution) to birds and humans or for aesthetic reasons. New revolutionary mechanical principle represent also a huge technological and business opportunity for use in the in hydro power generation for small hydro power plants in rivers and streams with low hydro flow. Patented ECO-TURBINE turbine solution represents a completely new concept that means third basic concept of wind turbines apart from HAWT and VAWT turbines and present attractive business opportunity. With feasibility study will be examined key areas needed for realization of the project.

Solar thermal plants have an important potential to be the energy of the future, but that technology has a very high Levelised Cost of Energy largely due to the high Operation and Maintenance (O&M) cost. To optimize those costs, an intensive control of the Heat Thermal Fluid (HTF) is needed because it presents several problems such as degradation, freezing and overheating. Nowadays only few specific HTF pipe points are controlled, because of the length of it, up to 10 km. The general objective of DIMONTEMP project is the development and further commercialization of an innovative system for DISTRIBUTED MONITORING of HTF temperature through the entire solar field at PTC plants, using optical fiber (FO) allowing a reduction of HTF O&M cost of 38% which represent the 6% of overall O&M cost (120 k€/year). Furthermore, it will enable an 8% increase of production (500k€/year). DIMONTEMP has the following specific objectives in this stage: - Development of a business and exploitation plan adjusted to the technical and commercial features of the project, including the assessment of the cost-effectiveness and exploitation potential. - Design of a commercial feasibility assessment compromising logistics and marketing plan where the market positioning of customers, competitors and technical environments will be analysed. - Detailed analysis of the regulatory standards to be met by the new system. - Complete the patentability study including a freedom to operate analysis in the first-stage targeted markets in order to bolster the IPR strategy for DIMONTEMP system. - Study the main bottlenecks and possible solutions for the commercialisation of the product to reduce risks and tackle de main barriers associated to the introduction on the market - Develop a technical assessment to identify limitations or constraints of the technology and customer’s requirements. Moreover a scalability study if the industrial production process will be carried out

At Meteopole we set our sights on making the wind energy sector more profitable by maximising the economic value of the wind energy site through optimising wind “quality” and “quantity” and de-risking market and performance uncertainties. Meteopole specialising in wind power optimisation. We realised there was a need in the wind energy sector to provide both technical and technological expertise to an industry suffering from a lack of confidence and reliability. Our ZephyWDG (Wind Data Generator) and ZephyCDF (Computational Fluid Dynamics) products are currently sold as desktop packages to utility companies, Green Field developers, consultancies, certification bodies and research institutions and banks. These analytical tools reduce uncertainties at each and every stage of a wind project development to ensure that a wind farm project (onshore and offshore) deployment will be profitable with optimum power performance for all key players mentioned. These industry-proven tools also rectify and optimise performance on existing wind energy projects. However, these tools, in their current format as desktop packages are holding us back and do not give us the benefits of being on the Cloud. This is why need this Phase 1 to carry out a feasibility study and draft a business plan to be full our ambitions to our platform and tools on the Cloud (to offer it as a SaaS to scale-up our products and offer it as a worldwide service, to offer the platform as Opensource, and to be able to analyse and gather big data to for our customers to be use when analysing and evaluating similar “case studies”). We will also define a pricing strategy for our 3 types of users (free users who pay for what they calculate), active users who pay an annual fee and also get premium services and academic users). Together with our know-how, products and service and this Phase 1, we will de-risk the wind energy market to make wind energy a force to be reckoned with!

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.

Much of the challenge for wind energy investors is that wind turbine technology is a capital-intensive industry. The capital costs of a wind power project can be broken down into several categories, where 13% is attributable to rotor blades, which become decisive in reducing costs. In order to increase the efficiency further, and to extract more energy, the trend is to make the turbines larger. However, as the length of current rotor blades increase, their associated cost and weight increase at a faster rate than the turbine’s potential power output, not being economically viable to produce turbines beyond a certain size. Furthermore, as blades get longer they are becoming increasingly difficult to manufacture and transport. In sum, the technical and commercial performance of wind turbines is currently limited by the rotor blade technology and to overcome this problem new design approaches and/or new materials and standardisation of production processes are needed. Leveraging on this market opportunity, Winfoor (WF) and Marstrom Composite (MC) are partnering to develop and introduce a new and ground-breaking technology to the wind energy market. The novel technology, Triblade, is a “3-in-1 blade” that will allow rotor blades to double current size and to reduce 80% weight, whilst reducing around 70% production costs and increasing ease of transport and installation. Commercialisation of Triblade will allow global wind manufacturers to produce larger and more efficient turbines, with simpler installation process and shorter time to market. The companies hold complementary skills, expertise and roles required to market this unique technology, being well positioned to guide Triblade to a sustained market entry and ceasing a market opportunity for an accumulated turnover of approx. €87 million in a period of 5 years.

In the current context of more than 50% dependency on energy imports, increasing fuel and electricity prices and climate change threats, Europe is in a great need to foster its internal production of renewable energy. Small wind can play an important role in meeting this challenge by providing reliable decentralized renewable energy. However, there are a number of technical and economic barriers the small wind industry needs to overcome in order to become fully competitive. These include low performances in urban environments with slow and turbulent winds, high noise levels, need for reliable safety systems to avoid over-speeding, risks to birds and high upfront investments for the purchase and installation of the technology. Existing market solutions only cover a certain range of wind speeds and have low performances in slow winds. They also cause uncomfortable noise with levels that can reach 60dBA - above WHO standards (40 – 55 dBA) - while posing a collision hazard for birds during flight. In economic terms, the average final installed costs of a small wind turbine are around €10,000 to €15,000. SEESWIND is the first technology in the small wind market that offers solutions to cover the full range of winds and user demands thanks to its modular and easy to install (plug & play) configuration, ensuring a silent (0 dBA), efficient and safe performance while reducing by 10-40% the overall final cost for the user. SEESWIND’s feasibility study will aim at exploring our commercial strategy, including the definition of modules with highest commercial interest, technical feasibility and markets analyses, as well as a ‘freedom to operate’ study, in order to define our SEESWIND business plan. SEESWIND will be out in the market by 2018 at a selling price of € 6,300. We expect a six fold increase of our sells between 2018 and 2023, which with a 30% margin will provide €9.3 million benefits in five years. This will allow a Return of Investment (ROI) rate of 3.4.