Danish world class wind research facilities

New test centre at Odense Steel Shipyard is to contribute significantly to retaining the development and wind turbine production in Denmark as well as strengthen Danish competencies and competitiveness, Risø Director assesses.

A new test centre at the former Odense Steel Shipyard will contribute to securing Danish wind turbine competencies and the development of skills and competitiveness. Lindoe Offshore Renewables Centre (LORC) has already been established with the vision of becoming Europe's leading centre for test, demonstration and research of renewable energy, and now LORC has partnered with research and training centre Risø DTU on the wind field.
 
Here, you will be able to test wind caps up to 10 megawatts because the entire system from the gearbox, generator and connection to the electrical network will be subjected to extensive measurements that will uncover both turbine operation and each component's state concurrently. 
 
- I have high hopes for the cooperation, because the test facility combines LORC's forces with ours and our joint project at Odense Steel Shipyard will be able to take on projects that are 10 times larger than what we currently can handle at Risø. The cooperation benefits both small companies as well as large businesses with specific commercial projects, since confidential work as well as open innovation and the build-up of competencies have been thought of. Furthermore, the cooperation will also ensure unique research and development possibilities and the basis for education and training. Overall, it strengthens the innovation rate and the Danish knowledge resources and we believe that this particular strategy is smart in the global competition, Director at Risø DTU, Henrik Bindslev says.

Test and demonstration benefits all

Denmark has not previously had the opportunity to test turbines of this scale and this type of test and demonstration plant is crucial for the development of the Danish cleantech sector, both for corporate products, but also for the universities' further research.

- The Danish society stands to gain a lot from investments in test and demonstration plants. Here, researchers and companies join forces to bring new knowledge into play and challenge our current knowledge. Upscaling and commercialisation is not trivial and provide challenges most effectively addressed in partnerships between researchers and companies, which forwards the more fundamental problems to universities as inspiration for further research and development, Henrik Bindslev states.

The Director of Risø announces that similar projects are in the pipeline, but it is too early to report on these at the moment.