ONGOING PROJECTS

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:

 
Project website:
http://www.windbarriers.eu

Supported by:

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

Supported by:

More information will be provided as from the end of October 2010 on the project website:
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.

Read more: 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:

 More information on UpWind as well as on the outputs of the project is available on the project website 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.