Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Fibersail (Fibersail: Shaping the Structures of Tomorrow)

Teaser

Wind turbine blades are not monitored today and that is costing to the wind industry more than 4B € per year in failures and underperformance. With Fibersail technology, a cost efficient, reliable and accurate shape sensor that measures the blade structural behavior, we aim...

Summary

Wind turbine blades are not monitored today and that is costing to the wind industry more than 4B € per year in failures and underperformance. With Fibersail technology, a cost efficient, reliable and accurate shape sensor that measures the blade structural behavior, we aim to drive the digitalization of critical structures health and behavior, preventing failures and optimizing efficiency on wind turbines.
Improving wind turbines capacity in 2% will generate 77 TWh of more energy with the current installed capacity and prevent more than 54 Tons of CO2 emissions.
Increasing the competitiveness of wind industry towards a lower levelized cost of renewable energy is our main goal, while creating a sustainable and profitable venture that dignifies European technology innovations.
With Fibersail technology, OEMs will be able to design and manufacture more efficient blades that will enable wind farm owners to operate more profitable operations even in low wind sites opening new markets for the wind industry.

Work performed

During this feasibility study, Fibersail performed the following tasks:
- Large scale tests to increase its TRL level;
- Met and Inquired industry experts validating the value and business proposition within the wind industry;
- Developed and strengthened professional relationships with potential client and partners along the value chain;
- Freedom to Operate analysis and evaluation based on previous studies with industry experts to search for patenting opportunities and to strengthening the IP strategy;
- Several meetings were held with the SME Instrument coach to prioritize and excel our go to market plan;
- We’ve been nominated Shell New Energy Challenge top10 finalist in the Netherlands, won the Pitch Competition during the Blade Damage and Repair Forum in Belgium and been nominated an Offshore Wind Innovator in the Netherlands;
- Add an advisory board to strength our strategies and business decisions;
- Started the negotiation with several potential clients for the early adoption of Fibersail technology;
In the end of the study, results indicate us that measuring the structural behavior will not only prevent failures and reduce maintenance costs, like current SHM systems, but also improve efficiency of current wind turbines and lead to the design and manufacturing of more efficient blades.
Fibersail technology have been presented and validated along the value chain with Blade OEMs and Wind Farm Owners leading us to test with a major blade manufacturer and initiate the process to test with one of the leading wind farm owner and operators.
The dissemination strategy has been defined along with the industry characteristics, which means, a small group of large corporations (OEMs). In this way, we choose for the direct contact with each of the OEMs in order to present, validate, and create a professional relationship to reach the desidered outcome, get partners to test and first contact with potential clients.
We’ve been part of some pitch innovation contests on the wind industry to present and dessiminate the technology through the rest of the value chain, which have been resulting in an enrichment of the network.
Also we’ve published online articles such as:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfH-T-1ysqA
http://www.compositesworld.com/blog/post/a-better-method-of-structural-health-monitoring
http://www.windpowermonthly.com/event/blade-inspection-damage-and-repair
and published the following patent and articles:
http://www.google.com/patents/EP2921817A1?cl=en
http://rdcu.be/ttVr
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0029801816305972

Final results

Through our validation and expert enquiries, we understand that the potential of Fibersail shape sensor will enable wind turbine to improve its efficiency in average 2%, which means, applying to the world installed capacity, an over production of 77 TWh, or 3.85 B€ if we assume a cost of 50€ MWh.
This will also prevent 54M Tons of CO2 emissions from other fossil fuels.
The technology will also help to prevent more than 3800 blade failures per year wich, according to Gcube, cost between 100k€ to 1M€ each one.
Fibersail technology is in hands with the Industry 4.0 by digitalizing the structural behavior of critical structures.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.fibersail.com.