The energy market in general, and the wind energy market in particular, are experiencing constant decrease of prices, together with harsher and harsher grid conditions. In order to comply with worldwide environmental policies, revolutionary solutions, such as FASTAP, need to reach the market as soon as possible. The FASTAP project aims at scaling from TRL6 to TRL8 the wind turbine application of a very fast on-load tap changer transformer technology. This solution uses thyristors specially connected to multi-tap transformer windings to provide On-Load Tap Changer capability to a standard wind turbine (WTG) transformer. This technology allows to choose the optimum voltage at which the WTG operates in, not only in steady-state conditions but also for dynamic and transient events. This technology will increase WTGs' electric capabilities in weak grid conditions, enlarge WTGs' Low and High Voltage Ride Through capabilities and allow reducing electrical components oversizing. As an overall, the FASTAP will be able to reduce wind's Leverage Cost of Energy up to 5.5% and will be able to connect to worldwide grids an additional 71.64GW wind capacity. The consortium partners have been working together for the last three years to bring the technology up to TRL6. They cover the whole value chain, which guarantees that the product will reach the market 33 months after the project kicks-off: - INF, the market leader in bipolar high-performance semiconductors, brings the technical know-how and commercial capacity for thyristors-based semiconductors. -SGB, number one medium-sized manufacturer of transformers in Europe, brings the technical know-how and commercial capacity for transformers. -SG, WTG market leader, will be the integrator and validator of the FASTAP product into 5MW platforms. -MU, the most industrially-oriented University in Spain, was the first originator of the FASTAP concept and will bring FASTAP transformer for Wind Turbines.

The OYSTER project will lead to the development and demonstration of a marinized electrolyser designed for integration with offshore wind turbines. Stiesdal will work with the world’s largest offshore wind developer (Ørsted) and a leading wind turbine manufacturer (Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy) to develop and test in a shoreside pilot trial a MW-scale fully marinized electrolyser. The findings will inform studies and design exercises for full-scale systems that will include innovations to reduce costs while improving efficiency. To realise the potential of offshore hydrogen production there is a need for compact electrolysis systems that can withstand harsh offshore environments and have minimal maintenance requirements while still meeting cost and performance targets that will allow production of low-cost hydrogen. The project will provide a major advance towards this aim. Preparation for further offshore testing of wind-hydrogen systems will be undertaken, and results from the studies will be disseminated in a targeted way to help advance the sector and prepare the market for deployment at scale. The OYSTER project partners share a vision of hydrogen being produced from offshore wind at a cost that is competitive with natural gas (with a realistic carbon tax), thus unlocking bulk markets for green hydrogen (heat, industry, and transport), making a meaningful impact on CO2 emissions, and facilitating the transition to a fully renewable energy system in Europe. This project is a key first step on the path to developing a commercial offshore hydrogen production industry and will lead to innovations with significant exploitation potential within Europe and beyond.

CIRCWIND will develop and validate innovative technologies for current and future wind turbines (WT), to enhance reliability and lifetime, performance, operability and maintainability, as well as to find cost-efficient pathways towards complete circularity in a context where a growing number of WT are reaching their EoL. CIRCWIND’s most relevant results are: - A prototype Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) material for blades with improved damage-tolerance and fatigue life, using a new multiscale modelling tool and simulation framework. - A circular low Carbon concrete material for offshore floating WT based on a new geopolymer binder and circular lightweight aggregates (CLWA). - New virtual replica-based constitutive models and simulation tools for the FRP material and geopolymer concrete, coupled with monitoring technologies allowing to simulate and predict failure and lifetime, and enabling future digital twinning for blade and substructure components. - Integrated sustainability analysis addressing social, economic and environmental aspects, as well as improved circularity. CIRCWIND will develop its technologies to TRL5, building prototypes and validating them in relevant environmental conditions. Representative components of TLP floater and blade have been chosen, made of geopolymer concrete and FRP materials respectively. These innovations will allow future WT to include circular and cost-efficient materials installed in critical WT components at operating windfarms, ensuring feasibility, sustainability, acceptability and high replicability. Besides, new simulation tools, virtual replicas, DT to improve O&M costs. CIRCWIND consortium has a good balance of academic and industrial partners, which allows the project’s developments to be well-oriented towards real market needs that in addition to the strong dissemination and exploitation plan proposed will maximise future impacts, clustering with relevant Offshore Wind stakeholders.

The aim of this innovative training network is to train a new generation of early-stage researchers (ESR’s) to face the urgent challenge of how to model the performance of engineering structures that operate in dynamic environments. Building trusted virtual models for structures subject to high dynamic loads is a process we call “dynamic virtualisation”. All the ESR’s who receive training through this network will (i) obtain a PhD from an internationally recognised University, (ii) gain experience of applying their research skills in non-academic organisations, and (iii) receive training in transferable skills such commercialisation and communication. The network will be run as part of the Open Data Project giving maximum research impact through open access publications, data, software and public engagement. The research carried out through this network will go beyond the now ubiquitous process of creating computer based simulation models of structural dynamics. Obtaining a valuable virtual model is no longer a question of computing power, but now rests in the more difficult problem of developing trust in the model through the process of verification and validation (V & V). The challenges are perhaps most obvious in the renewable energy sector, where technology is developing at a very rapid pace, and more reliable models are required to cope with structures subjected to extreme loadings which lead to a high degree of nonlinearity, and uncertainties. Applying our research to such problems will be accelerated by close interaction with the industrial partners in the network, with whom we intend to maintain and enhance an innovation focused relationship. This will result in a training network where ESR’s are able to be creative, entrepreneurial and innovative whilst receiving state of the art training that will enable them to deal with future challenges in this important area of engineering.

To deliver the future needed renewable energy capacity, wind farm developers will have to use larger turbines, at higher altitudes, explore novel geographical regions and offshore sites. Currently, wind turbines and wind farms are designed and operated considering “just” wind conditions. Consequently, the models do not take into account the physics and aerodynamics of atmospheric wind flows at high altitudes, neither how this is affected by the location, the effect of precipitation and/or sand. This reduces the expected efficiency of wind energy production, and makes hard to estimate the energy outputs, operating costs and lifespan of blades and turbines, increasing variability and the risk to investors and project developers when designing wind farms, reducing the total potential investment. Unless new sites can be identified and designed optimally, the LCOEs will start to rise as developers have to design wind farms that cannot be well predicted with conventional models. The AIRE consortium foresees precipitation and other events (clouds, sand, shear, inflow) that wind brings into the state of play to be the new key parameters for siting of wind turbines, wind farm design, component design and O&M strategies planning. AIRE will investigate solution to assess the potential impact of REAL climate conditions in different terrains, and different altitudes both onshore and offshore, gathering information from 4 experimental sites and 4 commercial wind farms. Specially AIRE will bring together researchers, blade manufacturers and utilities to create an open access knowledge hub of experimental data, develop new numerical models, build tools to design and control wind turbines and wind farms. The effectiveness of the developed tools and models will be validated using data from commercial wind farms