Last Thursday, 17 September, the meeting with the members of the GEROWIND project Advisory Committee was held at Ikerlan’s facilities in Arrasate, where the progress made to date was shared and input was gathered on the technological developments currently underway.
The GEROWIND project, funded by the Basque Government’s Elkartek 2025 programme, was launched in response to the loads on the turbine and components of the new generation of wind turbines and the limited transfer between OEMs and component manufacturers. For this reason, the project aims to quantify the development challenges of different components of the new generation of wind turbines and provide baseline tools to address those challenges. The consortium is led by Ikerlan in collaboration with Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa, Tecnalia, Tekniker and BASQUENERGY Cluster.
As for the Advisory Committee, it is made up of several leading Basque companies in the wind sector, spanning different areas such as consultancy, component manufacturing, engineering and lifting systems: COESSIO, ERREKA, HINE, NABLA WIND HUB and KIMUA.
During the session, several technical presentations were delivered addressing the progress developed within the GEROWIND framework for the different wind turbine components and systems, taking as a reference the tools currently used in each area and showcasing the improvements and new capabilities the project brings:
- “Beyond TurbSim”: Mann turbulence model and wake models
- “Beyond OpenFAST”: Component modelling in aeroelastic simulations
- “Beyond ROSCO”: New control modes
- “Beyond Mlife”: LCoE estimation tools, energy price forecasting, AEV optimisation, drivetrain digital twin and logistics optimisation
The presentations also provided a space to answer questions and gather input from the companies.
The interest shown by the Advisory Committee members in the ongoing research within the project framework was particularly positive.