European Industrial Initiative on wind energy

Indicative Roadmap (click on Figure to enlarge)

Strategic objective

To improve the competitiveness of wind energy technologies, to enable the exploitation of the offshore resources and deep waters potential, and to facilitate grid integration of wind power.

Industrial sector objective

To enable a 20% share of wind energy in the final EU electricity consumption by 2020.

Technology objectives

1.    New turbines and components to lower investment, operation and maintenance costs:

• To develop large scale turbines in the range of 10 - 20 MW especially for offshore applications.
• To improve the reliability of the wind turbine components through the use of new materials, advanced rotor designs, control and monitoring systems.
• To further automate and optimise manufacturing processes such as blade manufacturing through cross industrial cooperation with automotive, maritime and civil aerospace.
• To develop innovative logistics including transport and erection techniques, in particular in remote, weather hostile sites.

2.    Offshore technology with a focus on structures for large-scale turbines and deep waters (> 30 m).

• To develop new stackable, replicable and standardised substructures for large-scale offshore turbines such as: tripods, quadropods, jackets and gravity-based structures.
• To develop floating structures with platforms, floating tripods, or single anchored turbine.
• To develop manufacturing processes and procedures for mass-production of substructures.

3.    Grid integration techniques for large-scale penetration of variable electricity supply.

• To demonstrate the feasibility of balancing power systems with high share of wind power using large-scale storage systems and High Voltage Alternative Current (HVAC) or High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) interconnections.
• To investigate wind farms management as “virtual power plants".

4.    Resource assessment and spatial planning to support wind energy deployment.

• To assess and map wind resources across Europe and to reduce forecasting uncertainties of wind energy production.
• To develop spatial planning methodologies and tools taking into account environmental and social aspects.
• To address and analyse social acceptance of wind energy projects including promotion of best practices.

Actions

1.    New turbines and components to lower investment, operation and maintenance costs:

• A R&D programme focused on new turbine designs, materials and components addressing on- and offshore applications coupled with a demonstration programme dedicated to the development and testing of a large scale turbine prototype (10-20MW).
• A network of 5-10 European testing facilities to test and assess efficiency and reliability of wind turbine systems.
• An EU cross-industrial cooperation and demonstration programme drawing upon the know-how from other industrial sectors (e.g. offshore exploration) for mass production of wind systems focused on increased component and system reliability, advanced manufacturing techniques, and offshore turbines. A set of 5 – 10 demonstration projects testing the production of the next generation of turbines and components will be carried out.

2.    Offshore technology with a focus on structures for large-scale turbines and deep waters (> 30 m).

• A development and demonstration programme for new structures distant from shore aiming at lower visual impact and at different water depths (>30m). At least 4 structure concepts should be developed and tested under different conditions.
• A demonstration programme on advanced mass-manufacturing processes of offshore structures.

3.    Grid integration techniques for large-scale penetration of variable electricity supply. A programme focused on wind farms management as “virtual power plants”A virtual power plant is a cluster of distributed generation installations which are collectively run by a central control entity in order to increase the system flexibility (including with the support of existing storage systems) and to make the best of available potential (spatial smoothing)  to demonstrate at the industrial-scale:

• Offshore wind farms interconnected to at least two countries and combined with the use of different grid interconnection techniques.
• Long distance High Voltage Direct Current.
• Controllable multi-terminal offshore solutions with multiple converters and cable suppliers.

4.    Resource assessment and spatial planning to support wind energy deployment. A R&D programme for forecasting distribution of wind speeds and energy production that includes:

• Wind measurement campaigns.
• Database on wind data, environmental and other constrains.
• Spatial planning tools and methodologies for improved designs and production.

Indicative costs (2010-2020)

This reflects the total sum of the required public and private investments.

Indicative Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Strategic Key Performance Indicator: average wind energy electricity production cost reduced by 20% by 2020Under the same assumptions as presented by Wind Energy –The Facts www.wind-energy-the-facts.org