Project description
No more pumps for offshore wind turbines
Wind power is key to reaching the EU’s renewable goals. The offshore wind industry is fast becoming a mainstream supplier of low-carbon electricity. By 2032, it’s expected to cover a quarter of the EU’s electricity demand, up from 11 % today. Reducing operational costs will certainly boost uptake of this key technology. The EU-funded COOLWIND project is developing new technology that does not require seawater pumps, filters, heat exchangers or expensive salt water piping, nor chlorination of seawater. Instead of pumping cold seawater to the transformer platform, heated water from the converters is circulated and chilled in a subsea mounted cooler. Developed by Norway’s Future Technology, estimates show an annual savings of 3 GWh and EUR 1 million.
Objective
Offshore wind (OW) is a key technology in reaching the EUs and UNs ambitions for sustainable energy production. One of the remaining challenges in making OW financially, technically and environmentally viable is reduction of operational cost. In OW the electrical power is transmitted to shore with high voltage technology. A major challenge is the heat generation in the transformer platform that must be removed. The current State-of-the-art cooling solution is to pump seawater up to the platform using electrical pumps and pass seawater through heat exchangers to chill the cooling loop connected to the rectifiers. This is power consuming, brings in particles from the seawater which is causing frequent clogging of filters and gives high maintenance cost for the operator. Chlorination of the seawater is environmentally challenging.
Future Technology(FT), the Norwegian SME company behind the COOLWIND project solves this by introducing the unique patented subsea cooler FSCC® (Future Subsea Controllable Cooler). Instead of pumping cold seawater to the transformer platform, heated water from the converters is circulated and chilled in a subsea mounted cooler. FT proposes by this SME Instruments project to industrialize the prototype FSCC® from current TRL6 to TRL9, to reduce operating cost for the OW platform operators. Estimates show that up to 3GWh and 1M€/year may be saved.
The following benefits are identified compared to conventional systems:
No seawater pumps, No filters, No heat exchanger with seawater cooling medium, No expensive salt water piping, No chlorination of seawater/environmental pollution, Less power consumption and Less environmental emission.
All international operators show great interest in pursuing this new technology to benefit from the savings and 2 have already signed LOIs with FT.
FT is an SME having a strong team of 32 experts with years of experience from offshore energy projects and close cooperation with vital important subcontractors.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
3241 Sandefjord
Norway
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.