Led by Alberto Pirrera at the Bristol Composites Institute, we’ve been awarded a Prosperity Partnership grant in collaboration with Vestas Wind Systems and LMAT.
The BladeUp project will secure the upscaling of wind turbine blade production capacity to meet growing demand in clean wind energy.
The project will transform the design and manufacture of wind turbine blades using advanced computer modelling and machine learning, thereby cutting costs, reducing waste and speeding up production to make wind energy more affordable and reliable.
The push towards sustainable energy has increased the need for renewable sources likes wind power. Meeting this rising demand requires a scale-up in wind turbine production capacity while maintaining manufacturing quality. Some estimate a required tripling in global renewable capacity by 2030 to meet net-zero emission targets.
Straight-forward approaches like building more factories to raise production are very expensive. In addition, quality production relies on a skilled workforce which is not abundant in the short term. Finally, increasing production speed is likely to lead to more defects with downstream effects on turbine lifespan and in-service repairs.
A new approach is clearly needed to increase production while maintaining quality.
The BladeUp partnership between the University of Bristol, Vestas and LMAT aims to develop a different approach based on the following objectives:
- new turbine blade designs that are optimised for ease and speed of manufacturing
- new turbine blade designs that are inherently tolerant to manufacturing imperfections and design uncertainty
- devising new streamlined processes for “right-first-time” manufacturing at speed and scale
We anticipate that addressing these goals will also have spillover effects into other industry sectors where composite materials are used at scale.