The current trend in developing wind energy is characterised by:
A rapid increase in size of turbines
An increase in installed capacity per wind farm and an increasing degree of penetration of wind energy in the public electricity grid.
These developments are possible only if the basis of the wind power station, the wind turbine, is
able to satisfy the demands required by these developments. However, the present generation of
design tools has too little predictive value, which makes them insufficiently suitable for the design of economically optimised turbines with the required reliability and operational dependability.
This means amongst others that a new generation of design tools with higher reliability will
have to be developed, that better material models are needed, that a more thorough knowledge
of the loads is required.
The knowledge gained must be made available to designers in the industry. For this reason, the
transfer of knowledge, not just through reports and presentations but also through the development of guidelines and certified software tools, is an essential part of R&D programmes.
The objective of the research programme is to develop expertise, concepts, computer models
and material databases that will be made available and applicable via a new generation of software tools, in order to enable the realisation of large, robust, reliable, low-maintenance and cost-effective offshore wind turbines with high availability.