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Wind energy is the fastest growing renewable energy source in Europe, accounting for 10.2% of total electricity in 2015, however there is still a need to reduce the overall cost of energy – CoE to increase its competitiveness. The capital costs represents 78% of CoE and can be broken down into several categories, with around 54% attributable to wind turbine, from which the blades represents 30%. CoE can be reduced by maximizing energy production for the site by installing larger turbines. However, as the length of current rotor blades increase, their associated cost and weight increase at a faster rate than the turbine’s power output. Furthermore, as blades get longer they are becoming increasingly more difficult to manufacture and transport setting the limit at 90m. Winfoor (WF) and Marstrom (MC) aim to pursue this market opportunity by bringing to market its innovative and ground-breaking blade technology – Triblade. Triblade is a “3-in-1” modular blade, built as a Composite Material Truss that will allow rotor blades to be longer (up to 50%), stiffer (up to 290%) and lighter (up to 78%), whilst reducing around 65.2% production costs and increasing ease of transport and installation resulting in up to 15.5% CoE reduction. These are game changing improvements that can play an important role in driving the development of next generation of larger turbines and accelerate the transition to greater use of renewables worldwide. TRIBLADE project is expected to significantly enhance WF&MC’s profitability, with expected accumulated revenue of €85M and profits of €40M, 6 years after commercialization. Moreover, the successful achievement of TRIBLADE objectives is expected to assist Europe in achieving objectives to secure a sustainable energy system based on a low-carbon electricity from wind. This project will therefore entail increased competitiveness for the SME value chain and for the EU as a whole.

The overall objective of WinWind is to enhance the socially inclusive and environmentally sound market uptake of wind energy by increasing its social acceptance in 'wind energy scarce regions' (WESR). The specific objectives are: screening, analysing, discussing, replicating, testing & disseminating feasible solutions for increasing social acceptance and thereby the uptake of wind energy. The proposal considers from a multidisciplinary perspective the case of WESR in DE, ES, IT, LV, PL and NO. These selected countries represent a variety of realities ranging from large (but with WESR) to very scarce wind energy penetration. WinWind analyses regional and local communities´ specificities, socioeconomic, spatial & environmental characteristics and the reasons for slow market deployment in the selected target regions. Best practices to overcome the identified obstacles are assessed and – where feasible – transferred. The operational tasks are taken up by national/regional desks consisting of the project partners, market actors and stakeholders in each country. The project´s objectives will be reached by: i) analysing the inhibiting and driving factors for acceptance, ii) developing a taxonomy of barriers to identify similarities and differences in development patterns , iii) carrying out stakeholder dialogues in all participating regions, iv) developing acceptance-promoting measures that are transferable to specific local, regional and national contexts, and v) transferring feasible best practice solutions via learning labs. WinWind develops concrete solutions. The activities focus on novel informal/voluntary procedural participation of communities, direct and indirect financial participation & benefit sharing. Finally, policy lessons with validity across Europe are drawn and recommendations proposed. Already 62 stakeholders and market actors provided letters of support showing their commitment in supporting the WindWind activities and in implementing useful results.

FloatMast is a floating platform that performs the best wind data measurements for the most promising and advanced Blue Energy activity, Offshore Wind Parks (OWPs). These wind measurements are vital for the cost benefit analysis of OWPs as they are used in the estimation of the annual income. Moreover, the wind measurements are also critical to the definition of the Operation and Maintenance costs as they are used in the design specification of the OWP’s turbines, towers and foundations. The wind measurements collected by FloatMast are according to the highest industry standard (IEC 61400-12-1) and provide the greatest net benefit to the Developers of OWPs. It can perform wind measurements at a 70% lower cost, by combining the best features from the two existing solutions: the meteorological mast and the Lidar remote sensor device on a stable floating platform. Furthermore, it is re-usable and provides the added value of being re-deployed in other locations of interest. It can be used at all stages of the life cycle of the OWP, from the design phase to the development and operational phase and until the decommissioning phase, twenty years later. Moreover, the platform can perform multi-purpose measurements as it can incorporate oceanographic instruments and environmental sensors, providing a fully integrated solution for a complete monitoring of the OWP site. The innovation has been developed by two Greek SMEs, it has been patented and certified, tested in a tank test at a 1:25 scale model, constructed at 1:1 physical scale, launched to the sea and conducted a series of tests with perfect compliance. The design and hydrodynamic behavior of the platform have been proven and the next stage involves enhancements and upgrades. Finally, the platform must undergo a demonstration phase in the operational environment in order to provide the needed verification of its operational capabilities and advance the already 2,3 m Euros investment to the commercialization phase.

Solar energy, attractive source of energy being it free and endless, can be converted into electricity by means of a Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant. However, the biggest limit of such technology is the intermittency and the diurnal nature of the solar light. For their future development, CSP plants need to be coupled with storage system. Among the existing thermal storage systems, the ThermoChemical Storage (TCS) is one of the most promising technology and it is based on the exploitation of the reaction heat of a reversible chemical reaction. Just recently, perovskite systems have drawn increasing interest as promising candidates for TCS systems. Perovskites are generally indicated as ABO3, with A and B the two cations of the structure and with O the oxygen. They exhibit a continuous, quasi-linear oxygen release/uptake within a very wide temperature range. Their reduction being endothermic consists in the heat storage step, while the exothermic oxidation releases heat when it is required. The overall objective of the proposal is to study more earth abundant compositions (Ca-, Fe-, Mn- or Co-based) of perovskites for identifying one or more promising candidate storage medium for the design and the realization of a prototype of a multilevel-cascaded TCS system. It aims at solving the no-easy solution problem of the wide temperature range to be covered by a TCS system for CSP plant by using perovskites with different operating temperatures cascaded from the lowest operating temperature to the maximum one. As main result it could bring the TCS systems to a level closer to the market scale. The research project will be developed in collaboration with the IMDEA Energy Institute and the Materials Science and Engineering Department of Northwestern University. This project idea is totally in line with the current strict global energy and environmental politics and also with the Horizon 2020 objectives.

Regarding NdFeB PM technology for WT, it is still necessary to break through 3 important barriers: Strong dependence on China for supply and high price of REE present in PM, high difficulty of substitution of REE in PM, and technical and economic barriers that avoid establishing commercially viable, large-scale REE recycling framework. In this context, NEOHIRE main objective is to reduce the use of REE, and Co and Ga, in WTG. This objective is mainly achieved through the development of: a) New concept of bonded NdFeB magnets able to substitute the present state-of-the-art sintered magnets for WT, and b) New recycling techniques for these CRM from the future and current PM wastes. In this way, the EU external demand of REE and CRM for PM in WTG will be reduced in a 50%. The specific objectives are: i) To develop a new NdFeB material solution that reduces the use REE and CRM amount in PM for WTG (100% of HRE, 30% of LRE Nd/Pr, and 100% of CRM Co and Ga), ii) To increase the deliverable electric power in wind power electric generators from current 2.74 MW to 3.56 MW per 1Tn of REE owing to novel electric machine designs, iii) To research and develop two recycling processes to highly increase the CRM recycling rates in NdFeB PM wastes for sintered PM from current WT (increase from 0 to 70% the recovered Nd, separate 100% of Dy and recover 90% of Co) and novel Bonded NEOHIRE PM (recycling almost 95% of Nd), iv) To achieve an economic and technically feasible large-scale framework for NdFeB PM commercial recycling, and v) To ensure the economic and technical sustainability of NdFeB resin-bonded PM developed technologies. NEOHIRE will count on PM material RTD experts (CEIT, UOB), material recycling experts (UOB, KU LEUVEN), material characterisation RTD experts (CEIT, UPV, LBF), JP Powder manufacturer (AICHI), PM manufacturer (KOLEKTOR), LCA experts (UNIFI) and WT manufacturer (INDAR). AICHI (Japan) will be involved by providing advice and raw materials to the project.

Market trends show clearly that the wind energy sector keeps growing up in Europe and worldwide. However, this industry faces serious investor confidence which hinders many wind projects from taking off. The viability, profitability and trustworthiness of any wind energy project is crucial to make the project bankable and de-risk the investment for our clients, namely utilities, investors, greenfield developers, consultants, wind turbine manufacturers and operators. At MeteoPole Zephy-Science we have developed a disruptive, opensource wind modelling software package called ZephyTOOLS to help our clients in performing critical tasks during wind farm project development. We have recently made a step ahead and launched ZephyCloud, a cloud-based simulation platform that brings unlimited computational power to accelerate ZephyTOOLS calculations and enables users to gain a significant amount of time (hours instead of weeks!) and reduce dramatically the IT costs thanks to our pay-per-use model. On top of it, we aim to build ZephyCloud-2, a major evolution of the current ZephyCloud platform towards an integral solution for wind analysis and optimization along the entire project lifecycle by (1) scaling up ZephyCloud and building a completely new user experience based on web applications, (2) opening our advanced cloud calculation engine to third-party developers thus encouraging open innovation and (3) extending our toolbox ZephyTOOLS with innovative post-construction applications that will help our clients to optimize wind turbine performance and reduce O&M costs. ZephyCloud-2 is the result of our willingness to reduce natural uncertainties and maximize the economic value of wind energy sites. With Phase 2, we will be able to accelerate the development of our next-generation wind power simulation and analysis cloud platform with the aim of boosting the deployment of renewables and contributing to the achievement of EU and global objectives for clean energ

A step change in our noise mitigation strategies is required in order to meet the environmental targets set for a number of sectors of activity affecting people through noise exposure. Besides being a hindrance to our daily life and subject to regulations, noise emission is also a competitive issue in today’s global market. To address these issues, new technologies have been emerging recently, based on radically new concepts for flow and acoustic control, such as micro-electro-mechanical devices (MEMs), meta-materials, porous treatment of airframe surfaces, airfoil leading-edge or trailing-edge serrations, micro-jets, plasma actuation, … Some of these new ideas appear nowadays promising, but it now appears to this consortium that the development and maturation of novel noise reduction technologies is hindered by three main factors. The first factor is an insufficient understanding of the physical mechanisms responsible for the alteration of the flow or acoustic fields. In absence of a phenomenological understanding, modelling and optimization can hardly be successful. Secondly, tight constraints (safety, robustness, weight, maintainability, etc.) are imposed to any novel noise mitigation strategy trying to make its way to the full-scale industrial application. Thirdly, there is an insufficient knowledge about the possibilities that are nowadays offered by new materials and new manufacturing processes. With this project, we intend to setup a research and training platform, focused on innovative flow and noise control approaches, addressing the above shortcomings. It has the following objectives: i) fostering a training-through-research network of young researchers, who will investigate promising emerging technologies and will be trained with the inter-disciplinary skills required in an innovation process, and ii) bringing in a coordinated research environment industrial stakeholders from the aeronautical, automotive, wind turbine and cooling/ventilation sectors.

The benefits of high efficiency concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) are well known: environmental protection, economic growth, job creation, energy security. Those technologies can only be applied properly in regions with annual mean radiation values higher than 1750 kWh/m2 per year. CSP has advantages in front of PV: possible 24h continuous electricity production, electricity and heat generation, heat for distributed in cogeneration plants. Within CSP, four technologies have been currently developed: parabolic trough collector (PTC), tower solar power, Stirling/ dish collector and linear Fresnel collector with its advance type named compact linear Fresnel collector. In 2015, there is global 4GWe production (96% PTC), almost 3GWe are under construction. However for huge deployment, a reduction of Levelized Cost of Electricty (LCOE) is imperative for industry consolidation, when nowadays is around 0.16 – 0.22 €/KWh depending on the size plant, Direct Normal Irradiance and the legal framework of site installation. CSP main components: solar field for solar to thermal conversion, power block for thermal to electrical conversion, and thermal storage system are the key to reduce LCOE. IN-POWER project will develop High efficiency solar harvesting CSP architectures based on holistic materials and innovative manufacturing process to allow a Innovation effort mainly focus in advanced materials such as High Reflectance Tailored Shape light Free glass mirror, High working temperature absorber in Vacuum Free receiver, optimized Reduced Mass support structure allow upgrading current solar field. IN-POWER reduce environmental impact also by reducing THREE times standard thermal storage systems by novel thermal storage materials; and a amazing reduction FOUR TIMES the required land extension in comparison of current mature PTC power generation with the same thermal power output. IN-POWER solution will bring LCOE below 0.10 €/KWh beyond 2020.

Alerion Technologies commercialises turnkey data solutions for extreme environments through proprietary RPAS that are autonomous and intelligent. After a Feasibility Study, Alerion has decided to focus on windmill inspection market, due to its high barrier of entry, and geographical proximity to important customers that can accelerate international growth. According to the EWEA windmill operations and maintenance represents 30% of the cost of windpark project, and NREL (U.S. Department of Energy) estimates cost of windmill inspections €22K/ MW for onshore and €67K/ MW offshore. Nowadays, most windmill inspection tasks are performed using high-rise equipment and specially trained altitude workers. These solutions are expensive, time consuming, and inefficient for most cases, while effective autonomous and automatic damage identification tool such as an RPAS is a highly desirable solution across the industry. Alerion has estimated that the potential market for autonomous windmill inspection with RPAS is currently €830M annually, with expected growth to €2.6B by 2025. The WEGOOI systems developed by Alerion Technologies will allow customers to drastically reduce windmill infrastructure inspection costs, increase damage assessment effectiveness, and eliminate health risks. This platform is especially suited for structures of difficult access such as windmills, and the company will adapt its technology to fit the exact needs of this market. Alerion has been testing its technological developments in windparks maintained by a multinational company and service provider, and it has already validated Alerion’s prototype RPAS, for its windmill inspections. The prototype version of WEGOOI is at TRL6, capable of inspecting one blade at a time and analysing images in a ground computer. The main goal of WEGOOI is to adapt the existing platform to inspect three blades in one flight and analyse images on-board in real time, and industrialise and commercialise the solution.