Europe - EWEA’s involvement in a wide range of EU-funded projects

EWEA’s involvement in a wide range of EU-funded projects

Here, we outline our latest on-going projects:

TP Wind –
the European Technology Platform for Wind Energy – is at the cutting edge of wind energy technology. The platform works on constantly identifying new opportunities for innovation including bigger, more efficient wind turbines and developing ones that can operate in more extreme environments such as offshore, or in the world’s cooler climes.

TP Wind, funded by the European Commission’s FP6 research programme, is in fact currently looking for new members to join. Also focussing on wind energy R&D is Upwind. Supported by the Commission’s FP6 research programme, this is Europe’s largest R&D wind energy project which aims to improve and develop wind turbine components for use in very large-scale wind farms on the scale of several hundred megawatts.

Wind Barriers, supported by Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE)is another project EWEA is involved in. It has analysed the administrative, planning permission and grid access barriers wind farm developers face before they can get their wind farm installed, operating and connected to the electricity grid.

Switching attention to offshore wind energy, EWEA is involved in three projects aimed at removing the obstacles to bringing more offshore wind energy online. Seaenergy 2020 , IEE-funded, is looking at Maritime Spatial Planning, while Offshore Grid, also IEE-funded, is analysing offshore grid infrastructure and the power market. A third project – Orecca, which is funded by FP7 – aims to create a knowledge sharing platform and a vision for the development of an offshore renewable energy sector.

Set to take a more general look at electricity grids, Twenties is an FP7 project that will explore how to operate grid systems once large amounts of wind energy and other renewables are fully integrated.

WindBarriers -
Analysis of administrative and grid access barriers affecting wind energy development in the EU27 – A toolkit for policy makers.

- Running time: 01 December 2008 – 30 November 2010

Wind Barriers is an Intelligent Energy Europe project that aims to gather up to date and comprehensive information on the administrative and grid access barriers that obstruct the development of wind energy in Europe.

The project intends to quantify lead times for projects installed in the last 12 months (2008), both onshore and offshore, across the EU-27. The data gathered inter alia covers the timeframe for getting the necessary permits, the costs linked to the process, the number of actions involved, the success and failure rate of the applications etc. The data is obtained from national wind energy associations, and from project developers active in the EU-27.

The final results of the project including recommendations will be published and disseminated by the consortium in 2010 through the organisation of workshops in five EU countries, including three in new EU Member States, and meeting with different policy-makers and grid operators.

All the results will be available via the WindBarriers website.

Project partners:
* European Wind Energy Association, EWEA
* Associatión Empresarial Eólica, AEE, Spain
* Danish Wind Industry Association, DWIA, DK
* Polish Wind Energy Association, PWEA, PL
* Hungarian Wind Energy Association, HU
* ENERGY E2 A/S, Dong Energy, DK
* Austrian Wind Power GmbH, AWP, AU
* Fraunhofer – Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e. V, Fraunhofer Institute, DE

Project website: www.windbarriers.eu

Seanergy2020 -
Running time: 01 May 2010 to 30 April 2012

SEANERGY 2020 is funded by the Intelligent Energy Europe programme and is coordinated by EWEA.

The project will recommend how to remove maritime spatial planning policy (MSP) obstacles to offshore renewable power generation. It will study ways through which MSP can be better coordinated to help reach the 20% by 2020 renewables target. The project will also consider the grid infrastructure needed to develop offshore renewables.

Project Partners:
1) European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), Belgium
2) The University of Birmingham (UOB), United kingdom
3) 3E (3E), Belgium
4) Stiftung Offshore Windenergie (SOW), Germany
5) Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia (LNEG), Portugal
6) Energieonderzoek Centrum Nederland (ECN), Netherlands
7) Klaipeda University Coastal Research and Planning Institute (CORPI), Lithuania
8) Center for Renewable Energy Sources (CRES), Germany

www.seanergy2020.eu

OffshoreGrid -
Running time: May 2009 – October 2011

OffshoreGrid is a techno-economic study within the Intelligent Energy Europe programme. It develops a scientific view of an offshore grid in Northern Europe along with a suitable regulatory framework considering technical, economic, policy and regulatory aspects.

The assessment for a techno-economic analysis consists of two modelling tasks, one focusing on offshore grid infrastructure, and the other on the power market. The geographical scope is, first, the regions around the Baltic and North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea. In a second phase, the results will be applied to the Mediterranean region in qualitative terms. Conclusions and policy recommendations will be drawn for all regions.

The project is targeted at European policy makers, industry, transmission system operators and regulators. Regular feedback from stakeholders is ensured via interviews, regional stakeholder workshops, scientific discussions and a stakeholder advisory board.

Project partners:
The OffshoreGrid consortium is led by 3E and made up of consultancies, research institutes and industry representatives from six different European countries.

- www.offshoregrid.eu

UpWind -
Running time: 01 March 2006 –28 February 2011

UpWind is Europe’s largest European R&D wind energy project. It is a five year project that aims to develop and verify substantially improved models of the principal wind turbine components, which the industry needs for the design and manufacture of wind turbines for very large-scale future applications, e.g. offshore wind farms of several hundred MW. The wind turbines needed will be very large (>8-10 MW) and the rotor diameter will be over 120m. Present design methods and the available components and materials do not allow such up-scaling.

In order to achieve the necessary up-scaling before 2020, full understanding of external design conditions, innovative materials with a sufficient strength to mass ratio, and advanced control and measuring systems are essential.

In order to achieve this up-scaling in the most efficient way, the following critical areas are being addressed in this integrated project:
* metrology
* transmission and conversion
* smart rotor blades and rotor control
* aerodynamics and aeroelastics
* foundations and support structures
* control systems
* remote sensing

Project partners:
The project includes 40 partners from the manufacturing industries, service providers, universities, R&D establishments and professional organisations who are working on 15 integration and research work packages.

The 40 partners involved in the project are the following:
* Technical University of Denmark (Risø National Laboratory), Denmark, Project Coordinator
* Technical University of Denmark (Risø National Laboratory), Denmark
* Aalborg University, Denmark
* Energy research Centre of the Netherlands, The Netherlands
* Stichting Kenniscentrum Windturbine Materialen en Constructies, The Netherlands
* Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
* Centre for Renewable Energy Sources, Greece
* National Technical University of Athens, Greece
* University of Patras, Greece
* Institut für Solare Energieversorgungstechnik Verein an der Universität Kassel, Germany
* Universität Stuttgart, Germany
* Elsam Engineering A/S, Denmark
* GE Wind Energy GmbH, Germany
* Gamesa Innovation and Technology, Spain
* Fiberblade Eólica S.A., Spain
* Garrad Hassan and Partners Ltd., United Kingdom
* Werkzeugmaschinenlabor, Aachen University, Germany
* LM Glasfiber A.S., Denmark
* Germanischer Lloyd WindEnergie GmbH, Germany
* Ramboll Danmark A.S., Denmark
* Fundación Robotiker, Spain
* VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finland
* SAMTECH S.A., Belgium
* Shell Windenergy BV, The Netherlands
* Repower Systems AG, Germany
* Det Norske Veritas, Danmark A/S, Denmark
* Lohmann und Stolterfoht GmbH, Germany
* University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (link to )
* Instytut Podstawowych Problemow Techniki PAN, Poland
* Institute of Thermomechanics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic
* Lulea University of Technology, Sweden
* Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, United Kingdom
* Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium
* QinetiQ Ltd., United Kingdom
* Vestas Asia Pacific A/S, Denmark
* Smart Fibres Ltd., United Kingdom
* University of Salford, United Kingdom
* European Wind Energy Association, Belgium
* Ecotècnia S.C.C.L., Spain
* Fundación CENER - CIEMAT, Spain

- www.upwind.eu

Orecca -
ORECCA (Offshore Renewable Energy Conversion platforms - Coordination Action) aims to create a framework for knowledge sharing, and developing a research roadmap for activities in the context of offshore renewable energy. The roadmap will define strategic investment opportunities, R&D priorities, and the regulatory and socio-economic aspects that need to be addressed to achieve a vision and strategy for a European policy towards the development of the offshore renewable energy sector.

ORECCA will stimulate collaboration in research acitivites leading towards innovative, cost efficient and environmentally benign offshore renewable energy conversion platforms for wind, wave, and other energy resources. The project runs from March 2010 to August 2011.

Twenties -
Twenties is a EUR 30 million EU-funded grids project that will look into how to operate grid systems with large amounts of wind and other renewables has now been launched. The project, which will run for three years and will be funded by the 7th Framework Programme, will develop demonstration projects to help overcome obstacles to a larger integration of wind power. Twenties involves TSOs, EWEA and over 20 partners, with the Spanish system operator Red Electrica in the lead.

WindSec -
The “Wind Energy Technology Platform Secretariat” (WindSec) was an EU funded project under FP6. The project was aimed at optimising the activities of the European Wind Energy Technology Platform (TPWind), and developing its infrastructure. WindSec played a key role, along with the active participation of its members, towards the achievement of TPWind objectives.

TPWind, which is still operational, was launched in 2006. It aims to comprehensively model the market development and technology research needs and resources of the wind energy sector, with a view to cost reduction through economies of scale and new technology. The platform gathers stakeholders from private industry, Member States, EU institutions, finance, research institutions, etc, for maximum representation, building intra-sector sensitivity for greater collaboration and the development of new synergies. EWEA coordinated this project.

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