Project description
Efficient cooling technology reduces wind turbine costs and extends their lifetime
Key components in wind turbines need to be cooled as they heat up during operation. Despite recent improvements in wind turbine technology, current cooling systems demonstrate a number of disadvantages. For example, they consist of many components, which reduces reliability, increases maintenance costs and limits their lifetime. Furthermore, they are energy intensive, consuming around 1 % of the energy produced. With the help of the EU-funded DESIRE project, Spain-based company Alaz Arima is developing efficient, simplified cooling technology based on thermosyphons that addresses all these issues. Alaz Arima cooling solutions can also be applied to solar PV plants, for example, to cool down power electronics of inverters.
Objective
ALAZ ARIMA S.L. is a company specialized in the design, development, manufacture and commercialization of two-phase thermosyphons based technology cooling systems, applicable to wind turbines components and to other sectors, such as photovoltaics. Through DESIRE, the company has developed a breakthrough cooling solution for wind turbines whose technical viability has already been validated through different developments and testing activities.
Even with recent improvements in wind turbines technology, there is a need for more efficient cooling systems in order to reduce operating and maintenance costs and to optimize the performance of wind farms. Current cooling systems are complex and formed by many components (motor pumps, fans, etc.) which: increase the cost (expensive components); limit the life of the complete system to less than 20 years; increase maintenance expenses (thousands of euros during the useful life); consume energy (up to several tents of kW, approx. 1% of the produced energy) and need big room generating high noise.
The new technology developed by ALAZ will allow to remove certain components of the current cooling solutions, simplifying it and leading to reducing system associated costs, increasing the useful life, reducing maintenance costs, reducing energy consumption and reducing space needs and noise. Currently, ALAZ is working in the assembly and validation of the first prototypes. The support of the SME Instrument Phase 1 will help consolidating ALAZ’s activity and reaching the market by 2019 as well as new clients and sectors as soon as possible, increasing exponentially the sales and staff.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
- H2020-EU.3.3. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy Main Programme
- H2020-EU.2.1.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
- H2020-EU.2.3.1. - Mainstreaming SME support, especially through a dedicated instrument
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
31195 BERRIOPLANO
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.