As the wind sector develops and matures, ancillary industries are becoming ever-more important. From education to logistics to weather forecasting, there is seemingly no end to the skills and ‘feeder’ roles that both fuel our fortunes and help improve the quality and consistency of our output.
We’ve brought together a roster of some of the finest minds from the farther-flung reaches of the sector, and pitched them a selection of our very best questions.
PES: Welcome to the roundtable. In this issue, we have a range of experts on hand. Can you explain a little about your background and how you ‘serve’ the wind industry?
Scott Sutherland: My career in the wind industry began in 2004 as a construction technician. From there I progressed in to the O&M side of the industry with a leading manufacturer for over two years before relocating to Aberdeen and accepting a position with a third party O&M company. This gave me the opportunity to develop further by working in a variety of locations such as the USA and Ireland. After this, I developed a taste for working overseas which led me in to my next contract position role.
As Commissioning Manager, I oversaw the build of a 650MW onshore wind farm located in Romania near the Black Sea. This was an extremely interesting and challenging position both in terms of job itself and the location. Once my contract was complete, I returned to the UK to work for EDF-ER as WTG Package Manager for a Teesside Wind Farm. My day-to-day tasks involved negotiating the turbine supply agreement, engaging with other packages within the project and planning ahead for the fourth coming installation phase.
Upon leaving EDF-ER I moved over to Hamburg, Germany to take up another contract position with EON. Here I was in charge of logistics and installation. Unfortunately, due to the volatility of the Germany market especially in relation to grid connection this project has been delayed. My current role is with RWE Innogy back in the UK, and I am thoroughly enjoying my role as Installation Package Manager for the Galloper offshore wind farm.
Michelle Spillar: The Met Office is an expert in numerical weather prediction and weather forecasting and has been providing services to both government and business customers for over 150 years. For the past five years, we have been providing services to the wind industry as wind energy has increasingly become a focus area. We have developed weather and climate services to meet the requirements of both on and offshore wind, throughout all stages of the wind farm project lifecycle, from early development through to operations and re-powering.
As Head of Renewables I have a background in both meteorology, having trained as an operational meteorologist, and account management and business development in the utilities area.
Yves Van Ingelgem: Zensor is a spin-off company of the university VUB in Brussels, Belgium. After starting with the initial idea back in 2009 the company was established as an independent entity in August 2013. We offer intelligent monitoring solutions for various industrial markets, including offshore wind.
For this industry we serve as a ‘one stop shop’ for foundation monitoring where we collaborate in the design of the optimal multi-parameter monitoring approach, assemble it and assist in getting it installed. There the story doesn’t stop as we also take care of maintenance, data transport, data storage, interpretation, reporting and alarms, together with appropriate partners.
PES: What are you working on at the moment?
Simon Reader: RES’ mission is to be a leader in this age of disruptive technology change and political uncertainty, driving the vital energy transition from a reliance on fossil fuels. Key to creating this low carbon future is the provision of a diverse and growing range of energy and infrastructure projects and services. This is what we work towards, every day.
Examples of work around the globe at the moment include growing our onshore and offshore asset operations and maintenance business, marketing our offshore post-consent services – meeting construction timelines and budgets whilst discharging conditions – and further establishing ourselves in new markets like Japan and Germany. Clearly, our development and construction activities continue apace too, in North America, Europe and beyond.
Scott Sutherland: I have my own consultancy company which provides technical support to projects throughout Europe. I am currently working with RWE Innogy as the Installation Package Manger on the Galloper Offshore Wind Farm. The Galloper project is a round 2.5 project located on the east coast of England with construction of the WTGs due to take place in 2017. My role involves negotiation with the potential turbine supplier on the installation and commissioning.
Leonardo Meeus: Power grid companies have a key-enabling role in the transition towards a more sustainable power system that increasingly relies on wind and solar power. They are regulated companies that are expected to change more in the next 10 years than they did in the last 100 years. At Vlerick Business School in Brussels, we created an Energy Centre with executive education, research for business, and events focusing on specific business challenges and opportunities for power grid companies.
As Director of the Vlerick Energy Centre, I am about to welcome a new group of senior power grid managers from all over Europe for an executive education program of 11 days spread from October to June that we organize together with the Florence School of Regulation (i.e. the Future Power Grid Managers Programme). The previous edition of the program included senior managers from 10 power grid companies in seven countries: transmission grid companies (Eirgrid, Elia, REE, RTE, Statnett, Tennet,) as well as distribution grid companies (Alliander, Eandis, Enel Distribuzione, ORES).
It has been an eye-opener for everyone. If you are in the day-to-day management of these networks there is plenty to worry about, but at the same time this is a business that is likely to change radically over the next 10 years. The executives working in transmission and distribution power grid companies need management and leadership skills if they want to change quickly. Networks are also increasingly connected and interdependent so it is important that their future top managers have a platform to meet and discuss the future of their industry.
Regulated businesses are however not served particularly well by business schools, which is why we took this initiative in Brussels at the Vlerick Business School.
Michelle Spillar: At present we are working on developing a number of services for the industry and strengthening our team to meet demand for our services across Europe. We are making improvements to our weather services for operating wind farms which help safeguard the health and safety of maintenance personnel and we have recently released a product based on our new long term re-analysis datasets for use in wind farm planning and development.
An innovative and exciting area of our work is around seasonal forecasting. For the first time we are trialling – with a selected group of customers – seasonal forecasts for wind farm operators and traders. This is very new science and we are working closely with industry to understand how this can be applied to increase operational efficiencies and reduce risk to both on and offshore wind farms.
Yves Van Ingelgem: Being a technology-driven entity we are continuously extending our offering by developing new sensor types, monitoring concepts and interpretation algorithms. This allows us to obtain an increasingly broader but also deeper understanding of the structures we are monitoring. This R&D activity is an essential part of our company’s being and presently we are for example working on new concepts to follow up the state of thick organic coatings on offshore infrastructure.
PES: We’re interested in the role that ancillary sectors play in driving wind industry growth. Do you agree that we’re seeing more consolidation and collaboration between organisations?
Simon Reader: Financial services, in particular the listed funds sector, has an interesting role to play in the secondary market. In less than 18 months, six renewable energy infrastructure funds have listed on the London Stock Exchange. They have established themselves as a credible and distinct sector that crossed the £1Bn mark in a relatively short space of time.
RES collaborated with InfraRed Capital Partners to bring The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) to market in July 2013. TRIG now has 27 onshore wind and solar PV assets in its 398MW portfolio. InfraRed is TRIG’s investment manager; RES is the operations manager.
Scott Sutherland: I do. This is evident in large scale wind farm projects where the risks associated are high, companies and employers want to collaborate. We are seeing electrical contractors collaborating with installation companies to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ to employers. This is extremely beneficial to employers who are looking for external project financing as this, on the face of it, reduces the potential risks associated with multi contracting on the employer/investors.
There is also a push coming from the government to get as much local content in to wind projects as possible. It’s getting to the stage where sometimes projects are actually selecting the least viable commercial offer for local content which can only be beneficial for the UK as a whole.
PES: Year upon year, turbines are increasing in size. Would you agree that we perhaps need smarter turbines instead?
Scott Sutherland: It is true that turbines are increasing in size year upon year but they are also becoming more advanced by increasing the efficiency of the blades through design, reducing electrical losses, increasing reliability, reducing cost and so on. So while the general feeling might be that we are just trying to build bigger and bigger turbines, this is not the case. Turbine suppliers are constantly striving to produce smarter turbines which increase production whilst striving to reduce costs.
PES: Is the domestic wind market now dead and buried?
Simon Reader: Focusing on the German market, the reform of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) in August 2014 makes it more difficult for wind developers, as it not only changes the site-specific tariffs for the moment, but also in the medium term the support mechanism as a whole. It now requires an obligatory direct marketing of renewable electricity on the spot market, which in turn requires resources and capabilities in the marketing of electricity and increases the revenue risk for generators.
From 2017, there will be tenders to determine the support levels for renewable generation, which will probably pose additional pressure on the market players.
However, the introduced “corridor for added capacity” should not restrict wind development significantly, as it’s in the range of the net capacity additions of the last years. For example, there is still unused wind potential in certain regions, like the south-west of Germany. Overall, in order to continue developing viable projects in Germany, costs for turbines and the development need to come down. Despite these changing market conditions, RES is committed to the German renewable energy market and believes in middle and long term opportunities.
PES: Which aspect of the industry provides the most satisfaction for you right now?
Leonardo Meeus: After a long liberalization process, we have market-based competition and innovation in electricity production and retail in Europe, but I think that we are only at the beginning the reforms in the power sector. New players are increasingly challenging the incumbents. We can expect that this will lead to business model innovation, comparable to what companies like Uber are doing in the taxi sector and companies like AirBnB in the hotel sector.
This power sector has traditionally developed its business from inside out. When a power grid company needed telecom services, it built its own. If specific IT solutions were required, it developed its own proprietary software. And if investment or acquisitions had to be financed, they did it with their own resources and with very little external financing.
Since the 21st century, this situation has drastically changed, either from the power companies themselves or from new players moving into the power industry business; whether in generation, retail or demand side participation.
Potential challengers are everywhere: A first candidate: car companies. If they are going to install a battery in your house (via an electric vehicle), it may as well supply electricity at a reasonable price. To date the issue has been how to get the individual correctly connected to the centralized power grid when they buy an electric vehicle, but if you turn that argument around, why couldn’t the car salesman help you to reduce your dependence on that power grid – and supply the electricity as well?
Another challenger could be a company involved in data mining for marketing purposes. Just as companies like Google use internet based communications to send us specific advertising or supermarkets know what brands and products you prefer through their loyalty programs, so could some players explore data from the energy consumed at a home or a business. It’s not too far fetched to imagine these data miners understanding and profiling exactly who you are through your consumption, and using this information to promote other products and services … like electricity.
Michelle Spillar: It is great to work with such a large number of technical experts who understand the value of accurate and timely weather and climate information. We have found high levels of engagement and enthusiasm right across the industry in Europe. Meeting with new customers who have an appetite for new weather and climate services is also really satisfying. It is fantastic to see weather and climate information being used well to help reduce risk in operational decision making and to plan effectively for wind farm development across the industry.
Yves Van Ingelgem: The dynamics and innovation. New concepts are being launched and tested, approaches are improved, lessons learned are used to implement alternative solutions. Some may consider this as a weakness of the industry, but it is an essential part of the evolution towards a stable and broadly accepted source of energy. Every industry relies on incremental improvement in its growth path towards maturity. As the offshore wind industry is a component of the larger worldwide problematic of energy security it receives of course closer attention than other fields, but we should use this as an asset and keep on proceeding in the good direction.
It should be clear that, given sufficient and appropriate monitoring is implemented, introducing new and improved solutions should not be a source of concern or unrest. The monitoring will assist in finding out whether the components or approaches are performing as foreseen, but also signal unexpected behaviour, allowing early, low-cost corrections or modifications. These in turn translate into insights to implement further improvements. As such the risk associated to the process of innovation can be reduced impressively.
PES: Is the energy infrastructure in your main region of focus developed enough to support wind’s growth?
Simon Reader: In many of our markets, the slow pace of change in electrical grid systems is increasingly holding back the deployment of renewable energy projects. Beyond the current energy infrastructure, there is a need to urgently redefine the way we generate, transmit and consume energy to support a growing population facing the challenges of energy security and climate change.
Leonardo Meeus: The Pan-European electricity network – that is crucial to the development of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar power – is managed by 41 transmission grid companies, and more than 2300 distribution grid companies. While there has been a lot of consolidation in energy production and retail businesses, the networks have been unbundled from production and retail, but they have remained largely untouched by corporate activity in Europe.
More recently there are some interesting developments. We’ve seen two larger consolidations among independent transmission network companies in Europe, with Tennet and Elia buying into the German grid. We’ve also seen mergers of electricity networks, natural gas networks, district heating and telecom at local level, like in Vienna. It is uncertain how this will develop, but it will for sure have an impact the growth of wind power.
The trends towards multinational power grid companies could be favourable for the development of large-scale offshore wind parks, while the trend towards more local integrated multi-utility network companies could be favourable for the development of smaller scale lower wind power projects.
Yves Van Ingelgem: Not entirely. In Belgium for example a lot of offshore wind projects that are in the pipeline depend on a joint grid connection: the Belgian Offshore Grid. At present the roll-out of this project is on hold due to permitting issues. This is not a positive situation as all projects depending on this grid connection are of course suffering of the related uncertainty.
PES: And where do the main challenges come from?
Simon Reader: In certain markets, affordability of electricity has become a significant political issue. With consumers funding support mechanisms, pressure is increasing to accelerate the reduction in costs of building and operating renewable energy projects. There is also a political perception that renewables cannot compete with conventional generation without subsidy.
Leonardo Meeus: Today, already, millions of small wind and solar power units are generating electricity all over Europe. Just how far this decentralization of power generation will go is unknown but we can assume that this (r)evolution will go on. This new context is not only changing the business model of power generation, but also transmission and distribution grid companies see their investments and grid operation significantly impacted.
Where should the priority investments be made? Should the focus be in more (very) high-voltage transmission grids (the highways of electricity transmission), more local (and lower voltage) distribution grids, or in making the grid smarter, or in higher efficiency appliances, or demand side management, or everything all at the same time?
These are some of the questions that are being asked in the boardrooms of the power grid business in Europe, and the regulatory authorities overseeing the investments of these companies.
Michelle Spillar: At present, the main challenges for us are in understanding the needs of, and providing services for, the new Round Three offshore wind farms in the UK and other offshore farms in the planning stage across Europe. We are conscious that the challenges faced by developers and future operators of these farms are significant. This, in turn, provides us with a challenge in terms of ensuring appropriate weather and climate information is developed and provided to meet their needs. This will help the industry to plan and operate efficiently and in turn contribute to the cost reduction targets being placed on offshore wind.
Jackie Maguire: Wind energy has boomed since the start of the millennium but figures from the Global Wind Energy Council show that the growth is stalling with North America and Europe installing less new capacity each year and any growth likely to come from the Asian market. The large players (e.g. Vestas, Siemens) are warning their shareholders of a future of less generous subsidies and concessions within Europe which may stifle growth.
Yves Van Ingelgem: One of the main challenges remains lowering the cost of the electricity generated. This is essential to getting this source of alternative energy accepted by the broad public, resulting in a long-lasting future for the industry.
PES: How are you working to meet these challenges?
Simon Reader: RES is not alone in setting its sights on competing with conventional power without subsidy. That means driving cost down and requires not only reviews of our internal systems and processes but also working externally with our supply chain, local communities, trade bodies and decision makers. These initiatives must cover the whole project life cycle and take into account factors as diverse as cost of capital and reliability.
Leonardo Meeus: The Future Power Grid Managers Programme (see previous answer) is the flagship international executive education program of the Vlerick Energy Centre.
Vlerick Business School has also joined forces with the Elia Group, one of Europe’s top five system operators, to establish a Chair that will look closely at the future of the energy landscape, and more specifically the impact on electricity networks.
This will allow us to continue to support policy makers, regulatory authorities, and energy companies in the transition towards a more sustainable power system.
Michelle Spillar: We are working closely with the industry to understand the weather and climate challenges faced by offshore wind farms. We are doing this by consulting with a number of stakeholders and a key group of customers and major developers. We are currently gathering requirements to identify the detail of the challenges being faced and the weather and climate information that is needed to form accurate judgements and ensure sound investment in these environments. This is particularly important offshore, where weather risk can impact construction costs by up to 40% and becomes more and more significant as the industry moves further from the coast.
Yves Van Ingelgem: At present we are increasingly advocating the use of integrated monitoring for foundation structures as one of the many contributors in the process of reducing the total cost of electricity. Integrated monitoring includes the follow-up of all processes of relevance to the state of health of the offshore foundation structures. It encompasses selection of proper sensors, robust data acquisition as well as interpretation algorithms.
Only this allows early detection of potentially costly structural issues, but gives you at the same time to optimally understand the issue, come up with a cost-effective solution and even follow-up on the state after implementing corrective measures. This allows early and low-cost repairs to be made. Moreover this approach significantly reduces the risks associated with operating the structures over their 20 to 25 years of operational life. Risk reduction translates in lower insuring and financing costs, again contributing to lowering the cost of the electricity generated.
Our view however reaches beyond these 20 to 25 years. Soon initial request will be made towards extending permissions with a few years or repowering an existing farm. These requests will of course have to be supported by a heavy report on the state of the infrastructure to show that it is technically sane to carry on.
Imagine what will be the most cost-effective tool to generate this report: 20 years of broad-spectrum monitoring data complemented with a limited set of targeted inspections, or a separate, intricate inspection project providing only a snapshot view on the state of the structures?
PES: Similarly, has there been enough progression in complimentary technologies such as smart meters, storage, grids, etc.?
Simon Reader: We are excited by emerging opportunities in smart energy systems and services, such as energy storage and Demand Side Management. This is an area of the market that RES is diversifying into. The global market for energy storage is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years.
Navigant Research estimates that worldwide revenue from advanced batteries for utility-scale energy storage applications will grow from $164 million in 2014 to more than $2.5 billion in 2023. RES has already conceived, developed and constructed two energy storage systems in North America, that now provide frequency regulation services to grid operators. These services represent a small fraction of the numerous benefits that energy storage can provide to the grid.
PES: Do you feel that the wind industry has won over the general public? Or is there still PR work to be done?
Simon Reader: The wind industry has strong public support. Suffice to say that opinion, poll after poll, proves that the majority of the general public support renewable energy. The most recent survey in the UK showed that a record 70% of the British public support the development of onshore wind. However, another survey published in August from the newly-launched non-profit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit found that only 5% of the UK population is aware that renewable energy enjoys this majority support.
There is clearly still a communications job to do. Firstly, we need to ensure that decision-makers and influencers in the media are aware of public opinion and that policies reflect the high support for wind energy amongst the electorate, not just the views of a vocal minority.
Secondly, we must build on this support and ensure that our stakeholders at local, national and regional level continue to be kept informed about the true facts surrounding wind energy, recognise its direct benefits and are motivated to stand up in support. This does not just entail communicating the principle arguments surrounding energy security, countering climate change and keeping down costs to the consumer: there are also lots to talk about regarding the genuine and tangible economic and social benefits that flow into communities from hosting these projects.
Scott Sutherland: I think the majority public’s perception on the subject is that offshore wind is the lesser of the two evils. The general perception overall of onshore wind farms is that they are an eyesore, inefficient, kill hundreds of birds and are destroying the landscape. PR work is still a necessity. Without the wider general public’s backing, new onshore developments will become harder and harder to obtain and so we as an industry need to do more to engage with the public and most importantly, address the main concerns head on.
Unfortunately, as I see it currently, there are some groups that may never accept wind turbines as a viable alternative electrical source As an industry, it is vitally important that we do our utmost to communicate to the majority, the many benefits that wind turbines have to offer moving forward.
Yves Van Ingelgem: Related to the remark on social media, indeed still a lot of PR work needs to be done. On the other hand we need to continue optimizing technology and maintenance approach to continue lowering the cost / kWh generated. This will always remain one of the main arguments in whether this source of energy is going to be embraced or not.
PES: We speak to experts from all sorts of areas of the industry that find it difficult to recruit staff. Is this a problem for your organisation?
Scott Sutherland: Recruiting the correct people to any organisation is always challenging, particularly in a relatively new and rapidly growing industry such as offshore renewables. In recent years, I have witnessed an influx of talented people crossing the divide from similar industries, mainly hailing from the oil and gas sector in particular.
I feel that due to the complexity of offshore wind construction and the diverse nature of work streams, it is potentially easier for us to recruit the correct talent. For instance, we have people hailing from the national grid working on our electrical systems package, our ports team consist of ex-port managers and our logistic specialists are former mariners. As you can see, our team is diverse and consists of expertise gained through adjacent industries thus, allowing for a wider talent pool. Whilst enticing the right people to your organisation is always a challenge, we don’t necessarily have a lack of candidates.
Michelle Spillar: Yes we do find recruitment a challenge. For our work within the wind energy industry we require staff that can operate in a number of countries, and have the appropriate language skills. In addition sufficient scientific and technical skills are important, so staff members can understand the detail of the renewable energy industry and then match or build appropriate products for our customers. It can be difficult to find staff with the right qualities.
PES: What are your thoughts about the state of the renewables market right now?
Scott Sutherland: Currently offshore wind in the UK is in a state of flux due to the changes in the tariff system. At present we operate the ROC system which is due to undergo transformation in March 2017. We have an interim solution from DECC, which is the investment contract running between the end of the ROC scheme and prior to the introduction of CFD project, which has the ability to achieve partial completion prior to March 2017 will be entitled to the ROCs as it currently stands.
This creates issues with projects which are on the cusp of achieving this. Previously, if your project was unable to meet the March 2017 deadline, there was the opportunity to apply for the investment contract.
However, this process has now closed. Projects which found themselves unsuccessful now face a very uncertain time ahead with DECC having yet to finalise the structure of CFD. These projects will certainly have to re-evaluate their schedule, technology, costs and so forth. Therefore, any company looking to invest in a project which is scheduled for completion towards the end of the decade, will certainly be assessing strategy and investment priorities.
If not resolved soon, we are likely to witness a significant slow-down in the UK renewables market which will not only affect the utility companies but the wider local supply chain in turn.
Jackie Maguire: The fact that there are challenges shouldn’t be taken as entirely bad news. The reasons why the subsidies are dropping is because the manufacturers have successfully reduced the cost of energy through a decade of innovation and policy makers are reducing the incentives as wind is more able to compete with traditional forms of power generation.
By no means are the big players predicating the end of the domestic (European) wind market, there are still plenty of opportunities here to optimise existing designs and harness the offshore wind resource, but the growth for the manufacturers is going to come from new installations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and the increasing service requirements of the existing farms.
In this increasingly competitive market the big players have had to innovate technologically to stay ahead of the competition. The increase in this activity is indicated by the increase in patents relating to wind turbines up to 2011. The question is, has this innovative activity now plateaued or will it tail off? It does appear to have started to dip in 2012.
Turbines have become larger and more reliable, since in theory, the economies of scale reduce the cost of energy. The market is still new and evolving with most of the growth having occurred in the past decade. There is still a lot of field learning to be done to optimise and improve future turbine models.
The manufacturers have flag ship projects with Siemens developing their 75m blade design, and Vestas with their 164m diameter rotor 8MW turbine. However such large technical projects present some risk for the single developer and, Vestas, for example is entering into Joint Venture with Mitsubishi for the offshore version of the V164-8.0 investment.
The European Union has helped to pave the way for developments with its 22mEuro UPWIND programme, although this is dwarfed when compared to one of the larger company’s annual R&D budget of 241mEuro. Much of the value in the manufacturers R&D programmes is intended to come from the optimisation of the existing 2-3MW platforms, which, in technology terms, are also still new. So where next?
There are plenty of opportunities to improve performance, increase reliability, and engineer out weight and cost. The current technology development focuses relate to:
ï System design: How to optimise the performance of a turbine over its lifetime by understanding the metrological characteristics of the site and designing according to wind speed and weather profiles.
ï Advanced rotors: New materials are needed and their behaviour needs to be understood, as blades get longer noise becomes a greater problem and noise reduction technologies are required.
ï Drive train: The need for better components to work in increasingly extreme conditions, novel drive train designs (e.g. hydraulic systems rather than mechanical gears)
ï Power systems: Designing the cost out of inverters and other components
ï Tackling the availability of rare earth metals, commonly used in the generators. This will be an increasingly big problem if direct drive (i.e. no gearbox) systems become a preferred design choice with the larger radius generators that are needed
ï Support structures: the wind is cleaner and stronger higher up, designing the weight out of the nacelle allows for lighter and cheaper towers and foundations
ï Offshore challenges: Supports, anchoring, the marine environment, shore connections, maintenance scheduling are technologies that need developing
ï Diagnostics and preventative maintenance: There are opportunities to reduce the downtime and unscheduled maintenance costs by understanding and avoiding the common failure modes.
Currently, the horizontal axis upwind three blade design dominates with the size of the turbine increasing. It is unclear for how much larger the turbines will become after the Vestas 164m 8MW and how long further developments will take to get to market but it is inevitable that the designs will reach an engineering limit at some stage. When this does eventually happen, fundamentally different designs may begin to gain traction, but arguably not within the life time of a patent filed today.
PES: Can the industry share knowledge and products across borders?
Michelle Spillar: Our new Virtual Met Mast Time Series is an exciting European 30 year 4KM re-analysis dataset, designed for experts in the industry to use for site assessment across the continent. Outputs from this data-set can be provided to wind farm developers across Europe for use in their own modelling process and input into onward models.
PES: Are we doing enough to protect the IP of wind innovation?
Jackie Maguire: There is no shortage of opportunities to protect the improving technologies with patents. And this is happening – take look at Vestas and how they have increased their filing rate. Since 2007, soon after their upturn in financial performance and a patent dispute with Enercon, one of its German rivals, they acted to protect their innovations in a competitive market with a step up in patent filings. They have increased their patenting activity to a peak of over 200 applications in 2011.
What is Vestas filing? Their recently published patents relate to blade manufacture, designs to allow easy access for maintenance personnel, electrical power controllers, automated manufacture, noise reduction, control of extreme events, offshore turbine designs, frame structures, main bearings, heat exchangers, self-learning control systems, reducing vibrations and oscillations, de-icing methods, assembly and installation methods, pitch systems, yaw drive systems, power balancing, wind sensors, gearboxes, power plant, composites, foundations/towers, blades, control, hub bearings, sensors, lightning protection, oscillation damping, transport. This wide range of technical fields is replicated in the patent filings of the market as a whole.
PES: In 2009, we asked our roundtable interviewees if they thought that social media had a part to play in driving the industry. They thought not. Five years on, do you agree?
Yves Van Ingelgem: We need to say we disagree. It is crucial for our planet that we increase the fraction of renewable energy sources, including (offshore) wind in our energy mix. This cannot be realized without the support of the general public: acceptance requires understanding. We need to communicate, openly, about the achievements, but also about the challenges still faced by our industry and how they are dealt with. Not all is perfect yet, but if we can demonstrate the progress that has already been made together with new developments that are coming up, many will be impressed.
As we move towards more and more decentralized production, sources of energy are becoming more and more part of our daily lives. Social media form an integral part of information streams in today’s society, so are essential in the process of informing the general public on the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of energy production. This does however not mean that other, more traditional, sources of information should be neglected. All have their place.
PES: What’s your on-the-ground assessment of the coming 24 months for wind?
Jackie Maguire: In summary, the wind turbine manufacturers have had several years of booming growth, they developed and commissioned bigger and more powerful turbines in the field, and they have significantly reduced the cost of energy over that period. Now they face a potentially stagnating market in Europe, but they are well placed for growth in the emerging markets.
The large players will always have their flagship projects but may increasingly focus their attention on optimising the designs of their existing platforms. The technology in wind turbines is complex and diverse as shown by the patenting activities of the innovative manufacturers. A question that remains is: who will continue to fund this innovative development in an increasingly competitive market?
PES would like to thank all our roundtable contributors. For more information, please visit their respective websites:
Simon Reader
www.res-group.com
Yves Van Ingelgem
www.zensor.be
Leonardo Meeus
www.vlerick.com
Scott Sutherland
www.rwe.com
Michelle Spillar
www.metoffice.gov.uk
Jackie Maguire
www.colleripmanagement.com
