Novel solutions for offshore wind farms - WILLOW project

Welcome to WILLOW European project.

Renewable energy sources will have a higher and higher participation in the future European electricity mix. As electricity generation has to match demand on real time, this means that wind farms will have to deliver commanded output power following the needs of the grid operator, which implies down-regulating the wind farm, producing less power than is available.

Today this is done either by shutting down a few turbines and letting others produce maximum power, or by down-regulating each turbine by the same amount. These strategies introduce additional dynamic stresses that may negatively affect the fatigue life of the wind turbine.

The optimization of these decision-making schemes is extremely complex. Why? Because of the need to better understand and include many factors, such as component degradation, the particular complexity of grid integration, or specific offshore issues like corrosion or the additional loads from waves, tides and currents.

WILLOW is going to work in three different areas to solve this challenge:
1) Novel Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system combined with drone-based inspections focused on pitting corrosion, coating degradation and load damages.
2) Data-driven prognosis tools by combining SCADA and SHM data for wind farm-wide corrosion and lifetime consumption.
3) Decision-making support tools for wind farm operators for smart power dispatch in curtailed conditions and Operation & Maintenance scheduling.

To develop these novel solutions, the consortium will work with real data from two offshore wind farms:
-Norther offshore wind farm,
-and Baltic 1.

In addition, the consortium will have the opportunity to test the new coatings and monitoring solutions in two offshore test benches:
-Blue Accelerator, the maritime innovation and development platform and test site.
-and HarshLab, the largest floating test laboratory for offshore industry.

WILLOW innovations expect to have the following impacts:
-Reduction of 50% on the inspection costs.
-Potential of 5+ additional years of operating life.
-Expectation of reducing noise pollution by 4%.
-Up to 10% reduction of LCOE, between 3.5 and 4.5 €/MWh.

WILLOW has a consortium made up of benchmark institutions.

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