Catapult clones Levenmouth giant

The Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult is creating a digital clone of its 7MW Levenmouth demonstration wind turbine in Scotland.

The clone will use sensor instrumentation to advance the industry’s understanding of how large MW turbines behave and identify cost reduction opportunities through design optimisation, the organisation said.

The £450k project, with £215k of funding from the Scottish Government, will enable Catapult to monitor the Samsung turbine´s behaviour in real-world conditions.

Catapult will then use the outputs to validate the current design methodologies and tools available to build large-scale offshore wind turbines, trying to reduce design inefficiencies and flaws.

“With the rapid scale in growth of offshore wind turbines, with 8MW machines now being readily deployed and the industry looking to develop 10MW turbines, industry needs to rethink and revalidate assumptions associated with offshore wind turbine designs,” ORE Catapult´s sector lead for wind Cian Conroy said.

“Deploying sensors on the Levenmouth turbine gives us a unique opportunity to understand the behaviour of a large turbine in real-world conditions, and benefit the industry, its supply chain and academia,” he said.

“Having a validated model is crucial for understanding the impact of design decisions in the weight and cost of different components of the turbine.”

Image: ORE Catapult