Project description
Coating microstructures help increase wind turbine efficiency
Following the increasing demand for clean energy use, the wind energy market size in Europe is growing. By 2020, it is expected to meet nearly 15 % of EU final energy consumption. The sector is still struggling to come up with innovative low-cost solutions to improve efficiency of current and future wind turbines. The EU-funded MicroCoating project is addressing this challenge through novel patented coating technology that creates microstructures on the coating of wind turbine blades. This reduces air resistance and improves aerodynamic performance without involving any manufacturing process or a change in shape. Furthermore, it can be easily applied to existing wind turbines.
Objective
The wind energy market is developing quickly and it will produce 15% of the EU’s electricity demand by 2020, avoiding 333 million tonnes of CO2 per year and saving Europe €28 billion a year in fuel costs. Yet, it struggles to find innovations that can reach the market soon, with little costs, and that be used on existing turbines.
We address this need via a novel coating technology that we have developed in house and patented. In short, we create microstructures on the wind turbine blades in order to reduce their air resistance. These microstructures are grooves that channel the air turbulence on the surface thus improving the aerodynamics. Our innovation is perfectly suited to wind turbines blades, since it helps to increase their efficiency without changing their shapes or manufacturing process, and it can be even used on existing wind turbines, simply by recoating them.
We are currently at TRL 6, we filed one patent in 2018 and performed an extensive Freedom to Operate analysis, with positive results. Our customers are the manufacturers of wind turbines, who want to create a better product without re-engineering the blades, and the Operations and Maintenance companies of wind farms, who want to improve the performances of existing wind turbines. The Total Addressable Market is over €1.76 billion.
Our first sale will happen in December 2020 but we are already commercializing the printing system without the full capabilities of microstructure coating in order to gain revenues and reputation. In our commercial strategy, we will first address five countries that are promising (UK, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands) because of the maturity of the wind turbine market to then expand to the rest of the EU, and eventually to the whole world. According to our forecasts, our turnover will reach €16 million at the end of 2022. We are a woman-led team of 9 people, all with at least a master degree, with complementary expertise in engineering and business.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology environmental engineering ecosystem-based management climatic change mitigation
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering vehicle engineering aerospace engineering aircraft
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels renewable energy wind energy
- engineering and technology materials engineering coating and films
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering vehicle engineering aerospace engineering aeronautical engineering
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
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H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
2629 HG DELFT
Netherlands
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.