Wind and weather are corroding wind turbine blades, shortening their service life. A new project launched by
DTU Wind Energy aims to extend the life of wind turbine blades by looking closer at the erosion process. Innovation Fund Denmark supports the project with DKK 8 million (EUR 1.1 million).
By Charlotte Boman Hede
Over the next three years, representatives from DTU Wind Energy, the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), E.ON, R&D, Vattenfall, and Vestas will improve the service life of wind turbine blades. This will be done through the EROSION project—Wind turbine blade erosion: Reducing the biggest uncertainties.
"Today, more than 40 per cent of Danish energy is generated by wind turbines. But there is a problem with wind turbine blades in relation to wind and weather. "
Charlotte Hasager, senior researcher at DTU Wind Energy
“Today, the leading edge of wind turbine blades often needs to be repaired due to weather conditions, and the project group will try to improve this by changing the way wind turbines are used,” explains Charlotte Hasager, Project Manager and Senior Researcher at DTU Wind Energy.
“Today, more than 40 per cent of Danish energy is generated by wind turbines. But there is a problem with wind turbine blades in relation to wind and weather. Unfortunately, this problem cannot be solved here and now through the use of better materials or better coatings. There are many expenses connected with maintenance of wind turbines. We will therefore be looking more closely at what we can do to improve the useful life of wind turbine blades,” she says.
Large volumes of energy (5-20 per cent) are lost as a consequence of damaged wind turbine blade surfaces, and maintenance costs are huge. For a wind farm of 400 MW, a loss of produced energy of 5 per cent corresponds to 1081 GWh and economically DKK 0.5 per kWh. An ambitious target for the EROSION project is to reduce repair and downtime for wind turbines due to leading edge erosion and thus reduce costs by more than DKK 10 million a year for a 400 MW wind farm.
E.ON and Vattenfall are two large companies that produce high volumes of energy from wind turbines. Both companies’ motivation for participating in the project is to find new ways of limiting wind turbine blade erosion. In fact, maintenance expenses are very high for wind turbine blades, both at sea and on land. The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) contributes with weather knowledge. Vestas is the largest producer of wind turbines and is interested in wind turbine blade improvements. The company R&D specializes in testing materials such as wind turbine blades, and will contribute with laboratory tests in the project.