Power & Energy Solutions

The premier renewable energy publication

Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

Hamburg, 13 February 2019. The Nordex Group has succeeded in entering the Ukrainian market with a major order for 133 MW. By the end of this year, the manufacturer will install 34 turbines from the N131/3900 series for the construction of the first phase of the "Syvash" wind farm. According to plans, and once completed, the wind farm will total 250 MW. Nordex contract partner is Powerchina Ltd., which will build the wind farm for the local project company SyvashEnergoProm, a joint venture comprising the Norwegian project developer NBT AS and Total Eren, a leading French based renewable energy IPP. "This order marks the perfect entry into the Ukrainian market. We are looking forward to collaborating with such experienced partners, and are proud that our turbine technology is to be used in what will be the largest wind farm in Ukraine," says José Luis Blanco, CEO of Nordex SE. The wind farm is to be built in the region of Kherson, on the north shore of Lake Syvash. Once the entire 250 MW wind farm is completed after the final construction phase in 2020, it will feed 850,000 MWh of clean electricity a year into the grid and can supply approximately

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

ANCOUVER, BC: Canadian optimization software company, Clir Renewables has secured its first project in France following the recent opening of its first office in Europe. The client, a GW scale owner-operator in the region has chosen Clir to support optimizing the performance of their current wind portfolio. Having considered other providers in the market, Clir was chosen by the owner specifically due to the system’s ability to provide actionable items to increase production and hold the OEM to account. France offers an excellent opportunity for Clir Renewables to expand its reach within Europe. At the end of 2017, France Energie Eolienne reported there was 13.5 GW of onshore wind installed. In 2018 the French Government released their Multiannual Energy Programme (programmation pluriannuelle de l’énergie, PPE) laying out their energy transition to a cleaner energy mix, including plans to triple installed onshore wind capacity by 2030. This commitment to onshore wind shows the market is strong and will grow steadily over the coming decade. Craig McCall, Director of Europe “In recent years we have seen a shift in owners focusing more on their operational assets in France. A significant contributor to this shift is due to the recently imposed regulatory requirements surrounding noise impact

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

Schiedam, Netherlands – February 8th, 2019 – Last week Penta-Ocean Construction Co., Ltd held the completion ceremony of its “CP-8001”, a GJ-3750C GustoMSC construction jack-up design. The delivery of “CP-8001” is an important milestone for the Japanese offshore wind development as this is the first and largest DP2 jack-up built in Japan for offshore wind and civil construction projects off the coast of Japan. Penta-Ocean, one of the largest civil construction companies in Japan, ordered the GJ-3750C GustoMSC design at the Japan Marine United (JMU) shipyard in the fall of 2016. Earlier this year the company announced the completion of “CP-8001” followed by various sea- and jacking-trials in Japanese coastal waters. After its completion ceremony last week, the jack-up is now offcially ready for its first operations. ‘The CP-8001’s unique features allow highly efficient operations in Japanese ocean side areas with harsh wave and weather conditions, while not giving in on the welfare of the crew. The proven technology make it most suitable for various installation works from a safe and stable self-elevating platform. The enactment of relevant Japanese regulations will undoubtedly provide further potential for offshore wind farm projects’, says Jan-Mark Meeuwisse, Commercial Director, GustoMSC. The GJ-3750C design The GustoMSC GJ-3750C jack-up design

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

£28 million pound investment, underpinned by a £10m award from the EPSRC with further investment from industry and the Universities of Strathclyde, Sheffield and Newcastle Hub will aim to design new electrical machines with improved performance, such as offshore wind turbines and electric vehicles Project will work with industry to drive innovation and overcome manufacturing challenges The University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) and department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering will form the Scottish arm of a hub that is combining expertise in electrical machines and manufacturing for the first time, aiming to put the UK at the forefront of an electrification revolution. We are witnessing a huge global shift towards cleaner growth and more resource efficient economies. Electrical machines are at the heart of the move towards electric cars, planes and the use of renewable energy such as offshore wind, but face significant manufacturing challenges, particularly around new materials and the application of digital approaches. The £28m investment, underpinned by a £10m award from the EPSRC, will enable researchers from the new EPSRC Future Electrical Machines Manufacturing Hub to work with industry on addressing key manufacturing challenges, designing new electrical machines with improved performance for the aerospace, energy, automotive

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

Zurich, Switzerland, 06 February 2019 – Sulzer & Schmid Laboratories AG, a Swiss company pioneering next-generation technology for the inspection of wind turbine rotor blades, announced today that it has launched a new highly competitive inspection platform. The company’s new 3DXTM HD product has been developed as a cost-effective solution to cope with large volumes of high definition blade inspections. Based on the compact and flexible DJI M-210 drone, Sulzer Schmid’s latest innovation delivers high performance and fully autonomous drone inspections at a significantly lower cost compared to its existing 3DXTM Ultra-HD product based on the DJI’s M-600 drone. Thanks to the new capabilities offered by unmanned aerial vehicles, the market for drone-based rotor blade inspections has boomed in recent years. “Our technology produces high-definition image quality that is superior to any other inspection method,” explained Tom Sulzer, Co-founder of Sulzer Schmid. “Our drone inspections offer a myriad of benefits: they are automated and therefore immune to human error, repeatable and consistent in quality while covering 100% of the blade. Most importantly, the fully digital end-to-end process creates a foundation for trend analysis and predictive maintenance” he continued. Depending on the type of inspections and their requirements, wind turbine OEMs, wind asset owners

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

Experimental testing should remain economically viable for manufacturers despite the increasing lengths of rotor blades - either in the form of full-scale blade testing or the testing of segment or blade components. Fraunhofer IWES received funding to the tune of around € 12 million for the `Future Concept Operational Stability Rotor Blades Phase II` project. The scientists develop and test out new methods for the evaluation of modern rotor blades measuring up to 115 meters in length. To this end, a new test bench is set to be constructed in Bremerhaven as of the end of 2019. It encompasses a very large test bed for full-scale blade testing and benches for segment and component tests. The predecessor project investigated the viability of new test procedures and tested them out in small-scale test runs; the second phase will now see them employed on a larger scale. Actual developments have now exceeded the specialists’ expectations: When Fraunhofer IWES opened the first rotor blade testing hall with its 70-meter test bed back in 2009, the maximum length of a rotor blade was just 62.5 meters. This was joined by a second hall in 2011, allowing testing of blades measuring up to 90 meters. However, blades measuring

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

Leading renewable energy consultancy and service provider, Natural Power, has acquired the Texas-based firm Ascent Technologies – a developer of software for commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operations. The specialist software, which has been developed by Ascent Technologies during the course of the past two years, will enable Natural Power to automate drone flights, thus increasing speed, consistency and quality of the data gathered during wind turbine blade inspections. Watch our drone video here https://vimeo.com/315845975 The automation enabled by this new software means that the drone system calculates and manages the optimal flight along the surfaces of the blades without pilot intervention, as well as constantly monitoring, adjusting and optimising camera angles, exposure, focal distance and timing of the image acquisition. This ensures excellent data quality capture during the inspection process, whilst also enabling a much quicker inspection process that reduces the turbine’s downtime and associated loss of revenue. The cost to undertake the inspections are lowered and the images obtained during the process are of consistently high quality. Craig Gordon, Global Head of Inspections at Natural Power, said: “Our blade inspections business continues to gather pace and we have invested in a number of drones that will complement our existing blade inspection services. The

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

Distribution utilities need to adopt new technologies and new ways of thinking to slash the cost of integrating renewable energy generators, electric vehicles and other distributed energy resources (DER) into their grids, according to the latest white paper from Smarter Grid Solutions. As DNOs accelerate their transition to become distribution system operators (DSOs), the report concludes that utility companies should begin implementing distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS) immediately to save money and meet decarbonisation targets, while also continuing to meet the needs of their increasingly sophisticated and active customers. The company’s experts identify that the policies and practices used by the transmission system operators (TSOs) to manage their networks cannot simply be copied across to the distribution grid. The transmission networks are operated using well-established and accurate mathematical models and have monitoring systems in place, along with a high degree of redundancy, multiple layers of security and a common set of price signals to operate the market. In contrast, distribution networks have a much larger number of connections and are not commonly monitored and controlled autonomously in real-time.  The amount of electricity flowing into and out of the distribution system is now changing rapidly with DER often clustering in localised areas, causing issues

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

Scottish Renewables welcomes new faces Industry body Scottish Renewables has appointed four new directors to its Board. An election for the posts, held among Scottish Renewables’ 260 member companies, saw a record number of candidates (24), a record number of total votes cast and a record turnout (101 out of 170 eligible commercial members voting – nearly 60%). Directors have been elected with varying terms, as below: Rob Forrest, GreenPower (Chair) – three years (standard term) Susie Lind, EDF Renewables - three years (standard term) Richard Hatton, Enercon – three years (standard term) Rachel Anderson, RES – two years (shorter term due to resignations) Mike Hay, RIDG – one year (shorter term due to resignations) The appointments follow the departure of Jeremy Sainsbury (Natural Power), David Cameron (EDF Renewables), Euan McVicar (Green Investment’s Group) and Colin Anderson (Banks Group). Claire Mack, Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables, said: “It is great to see so many members engaging in what is a vital process for the proper governance of the organisation at a complex and challenging time for all parts of our industry. “Increased participation in the election process, alongside the introduction of greater gender diversity, was one of our key organisational objectives, so I am pleased to see both reflected in this

Read More
Press Releases, Renewable News, Wind

Zurich, Switzerland, 06 February 2019 – Sulzer & Schmid Laboratories AG, a Swiss company pioneering next-generation technology for the inspection of wind turbine rotor blades, announced today that it has launched a new highly competitive inspection platform. The company’s new 3DX™ HD product has been developed as a cost-effective solution to cope with large volumes of high definition blade inspections. Based on the compact and flexible DJI M-210 drone, Sulzer Schmid’s latest innovation delivers high performance and fully autonomous drone inspections at a significantly lower cost compared to its existing 3DXTM Ultra-HD product based on the DJI’s M-600 drone. Thanks to the new capabilities offered by unmanned aerial vehicles, the market for drone-based rotor blade inspections has boomed in recent years. “Our technology produces high-definition image quality that is superior to any other inspection method,” explained Tom Sulzer, Co-founder of Sulzer Schmid. “Our drone inspections offer a myriad of benefits: they are automated and therefore immune to human error, repeatable and consistent in quality while covering 100% of the blade. Most importantly, the fully digital end-to-end process creates a foundation for trend analysis and predictive maintenance” he continued. Depending on the type of inspections and their requirements, wind turbine OEMs, wind asset owners

Read More
© 2012+ P&G Media. CR. 5706994. Registered in England and Wales | Power and Energy Solutions is published by P&G Media