UK - Scots company’s radar invisible turbines to expand wind industry

AN EAST Kilbride chemicals company is seeking to overcome one of the greatest restrictions on wind farm development, through a polymer coating for wind turbines that makes them undetectable to radar.

The technology would allow renewables developers to build beside airports and flight paths for the first time.

The firm, NiTech, operates as part of a pan-European consortium that has received £900,000 in EC funding for the project.

The development comes after a report by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) last week that said Scotland must develop three times the number of onshore windfarms if it is to meet its renwables target.

According to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), in May there were 4GW of turbines across 84 projects outstanding because of radar-related objections across the UK. This amounts to 1GW more than Britain's entire installed wind farm capacity.

The Scottish government aims to make 50% of electricity renewable by 2020 while the Westminster government is aiming for 33% by the same date.

Ian Laird, chief executive of NiTech, told the Sunday Herald: "Planning applications for wind turbines can't get in the way of a flight path, so across Europe there's a lot of areas where authorities turn them down."

Jason Ormiston, chief executive of green energy trade body Scottish Renewables, said: "A large number of otherwise excellent wind farm projects have been slowed by radar issues and we have found that stakeholders and developers working together can find acceptable solutions to allow projects to proceed.

"The industry has already taken a lead in trying to find technical solutions, and I am sure it will take seriously any innovation brought forward by NiTech and its partners."

Laird said that NiTech had been brought into the consortium on the back of its past expertise in mass-manufacturing polymers.

Its consortium partners are Panapol and VTT, both of Finland, Ireland's Surface Power Technologies, and the Loughborough-based Production Engineering Research Association (PERA).

Panapol and VTT are polymers specialists; Surface Power builds wind turbines; and PERA has experience in developing coating technologies and co-ordinating R&D projects.

The research, which is due to start next month, will take place over two years and the EC funding has been matched by the consortium.

If successful, Laird said that NiTech would not only get a share of any future licensing income but would be involved in developing other applications for the technology, such as for the electronics industry.

NiTech, which spun out of Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University in 2003, designs coiled chemical reactors that it claims greatly improve the standard chemicals mixing process by reducing space requirements, cutting costs and giving manufacturers more control over the quality of their products.

As well as carrying out chemical development projects for clients at its laboratories in East Kilbride, NiTech has installed its reactors with Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical giant Genzyme at its Suffolk plant, making one of the world's "blockbuster top 100 drugs".

It is also in discussions with six of the other leading pharmaceutical companies about further installations.

Having previously raised £2 million in funding, principally from Perth-based investment group Braveheart, NiTech is now seeking a second round of funding worth £3m for sales and marketing, to obtain full patent protection and product development.

Laird said: "We have developed and proved our technology and we are looking for the extra funding to take the product to the next level."