Power June 2023 - 37

WIND POWER
3. Airturb's vertical-axis turbine can be installed
on a rooftop, and can work alongside
solar panels. Courtesy: Airturb
requiring fewer turbines to generate the
needed amount of energy, which leads
to lower cost, " said Andersen. " But the
'race' to larger turbines needs to be run
with a strategy. Large or small, all turbines
need to be monitored and maintained
to drive peak performance and
deliver the most return on investment.
As owners and operators add assets of
any size to their fleet, they still need builtfor-purpose,
comprehensive, integrated
automation solutions to efficiently operate
and maintain all turbines throughout
their lifecycle. "
Building for purpose includes designing
wind farms that can work in
challenging conditions, both onshore,
near shore, and far offshore. " In order
to achieve worldwide decarbonization
goals, it is necessary to develop more
wind power, which requires overcoming
land and near-shore constraints associated
with onshore and fixed-bottom offshore
wind, " said Jason Wormald, chief
technology officer of Gazelle Wind Power,
based in Dublin, Ireland. " Additionally,
large turbines, ranging from 15 to 20
MW in size, will be needed to make the
most of wind generation and ramp up
capacities worldwide. "
Wormald told POWER, " The larger
the turbines, the more cost-effective the
installation, as the percentage reduction
in both capital expenditures and overall
turbine installation is greater. "
Innovation for Smaller Turbines
Smaller turbines, including some designed
for areas of low wind, have
entered the offshore market. SANY Renewable
Energy has become among the
world's top 10 global wind turbine manufacturers,
ranking ninth globally with 4
GW of installations over the past year.
SANY is known for its 3-MW and 6-MW
onshore turbines, some of them customJune
2023 | POWER
made for specific geographies and/or climatic
conditions. The company this year
entered the offshore wind sector with
the introduction of a 9-MW turbine designed
for low-wind regions in China.
SANY said the new turbine has a
230-meter rotor diameter. The company
said there is growing demand for lowerrated,
longer-rotor turbines that can be
installed in areas with low wind speeds.
SANY said its high-speed drive train and
doubly-fed induction generator is in contrast
to other offshore turbines, which
utilize medium-speed drive trains and
permanent magnet generators.
Then there are smaller turbines
set atop wooden towers. Modvion
and RWE Renewables Sweden AB in
late March announced a deal in which
Modvion will supply wooden towers to
RWE's future onshore wind farms. RWE
said it's part of the company's plan to
reduce the carbon footprint of its wind
power business.
" We see that modular towers in laminated
wood have significant market potential
and can contribute to lowering
the cost of new renewable electricity
production by replacing steel and concrete
with environmentally friendly and
climate-smart wood. RWE will be assessing
Modvion's wooden tower for
potential use in future wind farms, " said
Lars Borisson, head of Onshore Origination
and Development Nordics at RWE.
" Our technology can help the wind
industry dramatically reduce emissions,
while facilitating taller towers to
reach stronger winds, " said Maria-Lina
Hedlund, CFO and acting CEO at Modvion.
The company has said laminated
wood is stronger than steel proportionate
to its weight, which makes for
lighter towers.
Modular Floating Platform
Designs for floating offshore wind installations
continue to evolve. Gazelle Wind
Power has developed a modular floating
offshore wind platform (Figure 2), and
has teamed with Portuguese renewable
energy developer WAM Horizon on a pilot
plant in Aguçadoura, Portugal, using
the technology. The 25-MW WindFloat
Atlantic Project is the first of its kind in
Portugal, a country that wants to install
at least 10 GW of offshore wind generation
capacity this decade.
" WAM Horizon has exceptional offshore
wind experience in the region,
making them an ideal partner to support
Gazelle's project and help position
our one-of-a-kind platform as the
www.powermag.com
benchmark solution for floating offshore
platforms, " said Gazelle CEO Jon Salazar.
The platform uses a combination of
semi-submersible designs and tension
leg platforms to enable deployment in
deeper offshore waters. Gazelle said
the platform reduces costs because it is
modular and scalable.
Salazar told POWER: " Onshore and
even close-to-shore [less than 60 meters
water depth] sites are scarce. Onshore
and close-to-shore/fixed-bottom wind
farms do not have the powerful winds
that are felt in deeper waters. We must
take advantage of wind generation farther
out at sea. Fortunately, the place
where the most innovative solutions are
being introduced are in floating offshore
wind. That is the next phase of development
for the wind industry. "
Rooftop and Airborne
A company based in the Netherlands
recently announced it has developed
a hybrid wind-solar power system for
residential applications (Figure 3). Airturb
said its system includes a vertical-axis
wind turbine with a modified
helical Savonius shape. The turbine's
galvanized steel and rubber base can
hold four 30-watt monocrystalline solar
panels. Airturb said the system can be
used on a rooftop-with a roof load of
131 kilograms per square meter-and
for off-grid applications.
The wind power system includes a
300-watt axial-flux permanent-magnet
synchronous alternator, or PMSA, that
converts the mechanical energy into
electrical energy, what Airturb characterizes
as a three-phase alternating current.
The hybrid system features a DualVolt
Hybrid Inverter with an output of 500
watts. Airturb said its equipment can be
installed with or without solar panels.
As for airborne wind energy, among
its features is the ability to be deployed
at sites where traditional wind turbines
are not feasible, such as locations with
low wind speeds or limited land availability.
This makes the technology promising
for distributed energy production,
such as in remote or off-grid locations.
" The energy transition requires both
powerful and efficient wind power
generation to achieve decarbonization
and sustainability goals, " said Andersen.
" Harnessing power and efficiency
in parallel is not difficult. It simply
requires technology to expose more
granular operation. " ■
-Darrell Proctor is a senior
associate editor for POWER.
37
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Power June 2023

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