New developments in blade design for wind turbines

• 3 years ago (2021-06-24)
• David Flin

Europe 1089 Offshore wind 121

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A consortium of GE Renewable Energy , LM Wind Power , and TNO are collaborating on the TIADE project (Turbine Improvements for Additional Energy) to develop technologies and design methods for more efficient operation of next generation wind turbine rotors and wind farms with large rotor wakes and demonstrate them in the field.

The research wind turbine from the TIADE project has become fully operational. The innovations developed in the project will be tested on the full-scale 130 m diameter turbine recently installed in Wieringermeer, Netherlands. The turbine is powered by two-piece blades, which allows the outer 12 m of the blades to be replaced by a variety of innovative tips.

Ben Hendriks, Chief Engineer Turbine System Integration at LM Wind Power, said: “Our revolutionary two-piece blade design has helped us drive down the levelized cost of energy. Here, in this project, we are applying new technology to significantly increase speed and reduce cost associated with testing and validation.”

Various innovative blade add-ons, such as spoilers, serrations, vortex generators, ‘turbulators’, and blade tip improvements will be validated using advanced measurement techniques. The results will accelerate widescale application of rotors with higher annual energy production and thus a considerably lower cost of offshore wind energy.

These solutions can be applied to newly manufactured wind turbines in the factory, but they can partly also be retrofitted to existing offshore wind farms. With both options available, the technologies can be implemented in offshore wind farms from 2023.