EOLOS, sowento and the University of Stuttgart awarded funding for Neowind R&D project

Under the umbrella of the Eurostars Call 3 European Partnership for Innovative SMEs, co-funded by the Commission and Eureka member states, an R&D collaboration project has been awarded to develop an innovative product in the field of the offshore wind Lidar technology.

The awarding committee endorses the potential of the offshore wind energy as one of the most important energy sources and it exponential growth expected during the first half of the century.

Next Generation of Offshore Wind Lidar Measurements (NEOWIND) puts together 2 wind energy specialized SMEs (Eolos and sowento) and a relevant wind energy research group (Stuttgart Wind Energy (SWE), University of Stuttgart) to develop a Lidar Modular System (LMS).

“NEOWIND is an excellent example of how European SMEs can collaborate with a research university to develop new product and services to de-risk further offshore wind projects by improving the wind field characterization in the relevant spatial and temporal scale using floating lidar, contributing to the technology leadership of European companies and success of offshore wind”, says Po Wen Cheng, professor at University of Stuttgart.

The LMS will deliver wind data with an unprecedented accuracy, reducing the levels of uncertainty for offshore wind farms wind resource assessment during pre and post construction stages, therefore becoming a breakthrough for the offshore wind energy industry by enlarging the flexibility, the capabilities and the scope of classical offshore wind lidars by covering a larger period within the life cycle of an offshore wind project.

“The NEOWIND project is a perfect fit for the challenges floating lidar systems face”, remarks Steffen Raach, Managing Director of sowento, “we address the lidar measurement and apply motion compensation and advanced data processing to reduce the uncertainty in the measurements. This leads to a better turbulence intensity estimation and a higher accuracy in the high- resolution wind measurements.”

Sergi Roma, Business Developer at EOLOS adds,

“NEOWIND is an exciting opportunity to expand today’s Floating Lidar features and commercial services. We aim to incorporate such findings to our current technology and to make a step further in the field of turbulence intensity accuracy, wake modelling and blockage effect.”

The NEOWIND project

• NEOWIND aims to develop a Lidar Modular System (LMS) with vastly increased accuracy compared to State-of-the-art wind measurement tools, suitable for the integration of different Lidar technologies and deployable onto multiple floating platform types , during all phases (planning, construction and operation) of a wind park project, becoming a game-changer technology.
• Awarded in April 2022 and starting in August 2022, the project has a duration of 2 years, with prototype design and assembling as well as offshore tests planned in between and a precommercial version of the product available at the end of 2024.

Eurostars is the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs funding instrument that supports innovative SMEs and project partners by funding international collaborative R&D and innovation projects from 37 countries.

EOLOS offers the combination of wind, ocean and environmental turn-key measuring solutions and digital services to the offshore wind industry. EOLOS’ products and digital services gather data efficiently for offshore wind developers and operators globally accelerating the development phase, lowering costs and risk. EOLOS’ product the FLS200 is a multi-purpose autonomous buoy that integrates cutting edge sensors to measure wind, ocean and environmental characteristics reducing uncertainty and inherent risks during the development, operation and maintenance phase of the Offshore Wind Farm. To find out more visit: www.eolossolutions.com sowento is a German engineering and consulting company for wind energy applications. Its main business areas are in the fields of wind turbine engineering, lidar remote sensing, and floating wind turbines.

sowento delivers engineering services, technology advice, and software solutions, tailored to clients’ needs. The team of sowento has been constantly involved in leveraging the benefits of the lidar technology. With an expertise of more than 12 years and numerous engagements in field testing campaigns, application on several wind turbines and a high number of scientific publications in the field of lidar applications, sowento aims at achieving the highest performance for wind turbine and making the most of lidar devices.
https://www.sowento.com

Stuttgart Wind Energy (SWE), University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart, founded in 1829, has around 24,000 students. Its vision of “Intelligent systems for a sustainable society” and its distinctive “Stuttgart Way” stand for consistent interdisciplinary networking of complimentary specialist disciplines as well as integrating engineering, science, humanities and social studies.
https://www.uni-stuttgart.de/en

Stuttgart Wind Energy (SWE) is part of the Institute of Aircraft Design at the faculty of Aerospace Engineering and Geodesy Research at the University of Stuttgart. Currently about 23 researchers at SWE are engaged in a variety of projects, covering Lidar measurement techniques, measurement system development, turbine control, offshore load analysis and full scale data validation and floating wind turbine dynamics, design and standardization.
https://www.ifb.uni-stuttgart.de/en/research/windenergy/