Bright sparks
Dave March has the latest on the multi-national company Converteam, which is developing new energy delivery solutions
While developments in the sheer scale of wind turbine structures can attract public attention and comment, that is not the case with advances in the internal electrical and electronic systems they contain. Yet without appropriate technological advances in the capabilities of generators and converters, for instance, the ability to build bigger turbines in environments as demanding as, say, the mid-reaches of the North Sea would be meaningless.
Developing such technologies and feeding them into the market is the business of Converteam, a French-owned multi-national whose UK arm - Converteam UK - operates from Rugby in the Midlands. That is where director of technology Derek Grieve is based. Grieve says that his responsibilities include identifying and developing appropriate solutions for target markets with a time horizon of up to ten years. But he adds that a “significant change has occurred for the three-to-five year horizon - a strategic shift in emphasis from wind turbine tower mounted electrical drive train and power conversion products to a total power generation, collection and connection solution.”
Grieve says that in order to meet the challenges involved the company has a stream of innovations in the pipeline that will be progressively released for offshore wind power projects. He cites Converteam’s direct drive permanent magnet generator and compact power converter products as examples. Furthermore, he says that the company is seeking to increase the reliability of the next generation of this technology, known as Active Stator technology - an approach he describes as “de-risking”.
In parallel, Converteam is also acting on its recognition of the fact that wind turbine manufacturers now have 10-12MW turbines under development. It is reacting by developing superconducting (HTS) generators which offer up to double the power from units that are the same size as today’s best-in-class generators.
Meanwhile another development stream is directed towards the power collection and connection capabilities of offshore wind turbine installations. To this end Grieve says that the company has launched a number of technology demonstration initiatives involving a novel DC power system architecture, which will be ‘Supergrid’ compatible.
All of this work, Grieve notes, is targeted toward the delivery of electricity to end-users from offshore wind power stations at an equivalent cost to onshore wind power. He adds that the company aims to achieve full scale demonstration of the total solution in time for the first Round 3 sites with some elements even being piloted beforehand on late Round 2 sites.
The fact that Grieve cites the UK’s Rounds 2 and 3 initiatives at demonstrator targets underlines his belief that for the moment “the UK continues to lead Europe in the development of offshore wind.” He adds that further infrastructure investment across Europe is obviously necessary to help broaden the market. For instance he mentions converting energy users to electricity and addressing the issues of energy storage as areas where action is required.
Appropriately Converteam is involved in a pan-European research initiative - the Hydrogenie project that brings together UK, German, Dutch and Polish partners in a run-of-river superconducting (HTS) small hydro scheme. Nevertheless Grieve adds that Europe has a “rather complex array of international cooperation networks and groups working in the development of renewables.” As such a degree of rationalisation is required. “A major requirement is to bring together all the funding streams and leading thinkers in the field to set, support and deliver on a single clear pan-European objective,” he states.
Right now, though, Converteam supplies around 25 percent of the non-integrated market for wind power converters in Europe. Grieve says that the company aims to build on this position by transferring its technologies to more territories around the world and developing its global supply chains to provide as much local content as possible. He adds that power converters, power systems and system integration solutions will need to be adaptable to satisfy the particular needs of each market. Unusually, he says, Converteam’s offer for offshore wind is already being viewed favourably for onshore wind and in the Far East.
Meanwhile on the generator front Converteam is focussed on the development of gearless technologies and is confident this will become the company’s major technology offering in the field in the future. It has already had a test installation running in an onshore turbine in Denmark for the last 18 months and shortly hopes to have several more units ready for further trials. One of the most significant benefits the technology potentially offers is drastically reduced maintenance requirements, which has obvious attractions for the offshore market where access to installed units will by definition be much more difficult than for terrestrial counterparts.
But the immediate focus is on the offshore market in Europe. “With a five-year horizon, there is no doubt that we must be ready with the necessary technologies for the start of Round 3,” states Grieve. But a decade from now Round 3 may well be nearing completion. Beyond that, says Grieve, “Converteam is supporting the marine renewables pioneers and we expect the diversity that can be achieved with a mix of solutions to be crucial to the high penetration of further renewable power from 2020 onwards.”
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