Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to the EU Energy Projects Podcast, a podcast series from Enlida and France focusing on the clean energy transition for the European Union and the EU Commission funded energy projects that will help us achieve it. My name is Aretid Daradimu. I. I am the editor of the EU Energy Projects Podcast and your host.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Hello everyone. In this episode we explore Project Willow, an EU funded initiative aiming to transform how offshore wind farms are operated. By combining structural health monitoring, AI driven decision tools and smart power dispatch, Willow seeks to extend turbine lifetimes, reduce costs and support grid stability in a rapidly growing energy market.
Now, exactly how is Project Willow going to do all this is what we're going to discuss with Ainoa Cortes Vidal, the coordinator of the project and my guest for this episode.
Hello Anoa.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: Hi Areti.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: For listeners new to the project, can you please tell us in a nutshell, what is Willow and what core problem is it trying to solve in offshore wind?
[00:01:30] Speaker C: Hi everybody. Thank you very much Areti for the introduction. Thank you for inviting me to this podcast today. Let me explain shortly the aim and motivation of Willow Gilow aims to develop smart curtailment tool for the wind farm operators taking into account the structural health of the wind turbines, which is key in this project. Curtailment produces start and stop events which affect the fatigue suffered by the offshore structures and Willow looks for improving the production management in a more efficient way and looking for an extension of the lifetime of the wind turbines. For example, if a wind turbine has several damages then it's good to reduce the energy produced by that wind turbine and if the damage is very critical then can be better to shut down that wind turbine. So Willow will contribute to this kind of smart management, taking better decisions in that way.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Excellent. Why is curtailment however, such a critical challenge for for offshore wind farms today?
[00:02:43] Speaker C: Curtainment is a very critical challenge for the wind farm operators since they need to adapt the power production by the wind farm to the grid needs and depending how they manage this adjustment, they can affect the health of their wind turbines and they can lose money having wind turbines dropped during more time.
So it's important for them to know how much power they are producing and trying not to drop more wind turbines than needed.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: And how would you say that current curtailment strategies affect turbine fatigue and lifetime?
[00:03:29] Speaker C: As I said, the start stop events produced by curtailment affect the fatigue suffered by the structures and more than expected.
Let's say that as the structures are not designed or prepared for those events coming from the grid requirements, the lifetime of the structures are affected and can be drastically reduced.
This added to the fact that they are inoshore and can have corrosion and cracks, then the wind turbine structure can be without worse state or health than expected.
That's why, yeah, containment strategies are important to be improved.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes total sense. Also, given the fact that offshore wind, let's say farms, are becoming more and more important in the European Union and the European Commission strategy for going away from oil and other fossil fuel energy, it makes total sense.
Let's talk a little bit about optimizing power dispatch in offshore wind farms. This is a complex matter. What is it that makes it so complex?
[00:04:46] Speaker C: Well, there are many people working on developing wind farm control strategies.
Always. Wind farm power control is complex and you can follow many different strategies to do this more efficiently.
Then Willow looks for applying a simple power control, in fact, but considering the grid requirements and the health state of the structure.
So the power control must be very aligned with the lifetime assessment of the structures. And this is something we are working on in this project. And it's a different point of view with respect to other projects more focused on developing very sophisticated wind farm control algorithms.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Yes, I understand it. I understand what you say. It is, I think a topic that is quite interesting and important for the well being, let's say, of the farms. However, I want to go a little bit back to curtailment because as you were talking, another question came to my mind, let's say, and it has to do with something that I read while I was researching Willow and I read it on the website, I think of the project. It says something about health aware curtailment strategy. I apologize in advance if you already explained it and I didn't get it, but can you explain what health aware means?
[00:06:05] Speaker C: You're right. And this is an important word for Willow. Okay, Health aware curtainment strategy. This is related to provide through sensing and models specific data about the health of the structures and consider these inputs to decide how to curtail the energy in your offshore wind farm.
That's what we propose.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Okay, that makes total sense.
Let's move a little bit to the physical models combined to some of, let's say some of the technologies that the project is also using. If I understood correctly, Willow combines physical models with AI and machine learning.
How does that work?
[00:06:55] Speaker C: We are combining those physical models with machine learning models. For example, as an example for coding degradation. Okay, let's say that physical models can provide more detailed information about the physics.
Okay. To the neural networks and can improve the final results or the final predictions in the Case of code integradation, for example, we provide the impulse responses of the test medium through the convolution model and trained the convolutional model or the convolutional neural network with synthetic data coming from finite difference time domain simulations. This way the model is able to separate. In this case the echoes overlap due to the coating. In this case we use ultrasound responses, but you can use other techniques and give us the coating thickness precisely after a good training, because the training is very, very important.
So that's the way we combine both worlds.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: And what types of data do you use for structural health monitoring?
[00:08:02] Speaker C: In the project, we are using different kind of data. For example, loads which are mainly structured from accelerometers, combining with physical and machine learning models. Of course, in the case of uniform and pitting corrosion, we are developing different techniques like thermography, electrochemical sensors and ultrasounds for coating degradation as well, we use electrochemical sensors and ultrasounds. And in fact we decided to integrate electrochemical sensors from one partner's cube and ultrasound sensors designed by Said as a unique coupon, since, well, we saw that electrochemical sensors can detect the decision of a pit and ultrasounds can provide more details about the pit size and pit depth. And then combining both techniques is something unique.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: You mentioned corrosion and I want to come back to that. But first I want to ask you something about data again, because there are a lot of technical aspects in this project and yes, it makes it interesting also in a way, I read also that integrating SCADA and SHM data improve lifetime predictions. Can you tell us how does this happen in willow?
[00:09:22] Speaker C: We are integrating SCADA and structural health monitoring data. SCADA provides all the data related to the operation of the wind turbine. Real time data on turbine performance, grid interaction, environmental conditions, wind speed, direction, vibration levels, which are really important.
Combining this available data with the current health state of the structures using the systems developed in WILLOW allow us to provide very reliable lifetime predictions.
We can refine the lifetime assessment of the wind turbine structures, having all the information about the operation and the structural health.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Okay, that makes total sense. I will go back to corrosion like I said now, and I want to ask you, what role do corrosion, coatings and offshore environmental loads play in degradation?
[00:10:16] Speaker C: In our point of view, corrosion plays a crucial role in offshore where the environment is very, very harsh. Then coatings are key as corrosion protection.
And that's why this is one of the aims of willow to foresee if the coating is damaged or degraded, then we can say that we have different zones in the wind turbine. And for example, splash zone is a critical area from the point of view of corrosion due to the constant wetting and drying on the intense aeration.
And in this area, where waste break and tidal chains occur, provides abundant oxygen from the air and continuous salt water, leading to accelerated metal loss that challenges even advanced protective coatings and catalytic protection systems demanding very robust maintenance.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: One of the focuses of Willow is the transition piece which is in this area.
But other zones are at risk is the submerged zone due to constant exposure to aggressive saltwater oxygen, tidal changes and in this case, marine organisms.
This area is under study in Willow as well.
On top of that, the muff line is also analyzed in Willow since it's a critical zone from mechanical point of view due to the large bending moments.
So the goal in this case is to evaluate and test in a real experiment close to the blue accelerator, state of the art corrosion sensors to improve our general understanding of corrosion occurring at the seawater sediment interface. So we cover different areas to analyze what happens with corrosion because it's very important in other structures.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Wheelo also has a decision support tool which is supposed to help operators balance energy production and asset health, which also matches what you said about corrosion coatings, et cetera.
How will this work?
[00:12:24] Speaker C: This decision support tool can make decisions on how the system controller must manage its wind turbine of the wind farm more efficiently. Considering the health state of the wind turbines, this tool will allow the operators to decide which turbine must more power.
As a simple example, if the state of wind turbine one is very healthy and the state of wind turbine two is worse than wind turbine one, then the operator can decide to curtail the power in wind turbine 2 instead of wind turbine 1. The plan here is to improve the management of these wind turbines and avoid a disaster in a wind turbine or try to produce the most.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Okay, and why was the northern offshore wind farm chosen as a key demonstration? What boxes did it take? What were the criteria?
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Okay, this was because the curtainment is a real issue for them and it's something they are willing to solve. Okay, it's real. Then. In addition to that, they work very closely with the WILLOW partners in charge of the lifetime assessment, which is key. Then they. They installed accelerometers. Accelerometers already in their wind turbines.
So they have access to all the necessary data to fit the models they are developing in the scope of Willow. Because they need data. They need SCADA data, but also data coming from accelerometers. And the accelerometers are installed There.
That's well why we decided to focus in Willow on the northern use case.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Could you also tell us a little bit about the Blue accelerator and Harsh lab test facilities and what is the added value of those?
[00:14:11] Speaker C: Yeah. These test facilities allow us to test the sensors developed in this case in Willow in a very relevant environment.
We can validate the robustness of the developed solutions and get relevant data to fit our models.
The costs are acceptable and it's feasible to deploy this kind of solutions in these facilities because to install sensors in a royal offshore wind farm in operation is much more difficult. It's not feasible to use a royal offshore wind farm to test, validate use sensors at a lower trl.
Then you must have the solution in a higher TRL to install something in an offshore wind farm.
The access is more expensive there and it's more complicated since you depend on the maintenance periods to install something there.
So we need these test facilities to reach the desired maturity in the new developments for offshore.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Now let's talk a little bit about one of the project's targets. That is, to put it politely, it seems quite important, but it seems a little bit difficult to achieve. So that target is a significant cost and emission reduction with the help of Willow. How realistic are these goals?
[00:15:32] Speaker C: Wait.
Good question.
The project is not finished yet.
We will try to achieve them. But I agree this will be challenging. Currently we are in the middle of the process to analyze the impact of our developments with the goal of quantifying what we want to reach.
So let's see if we achieve the size reduction in lcoe. In the case of emissions reduction, we have installed a system to measure the underwater radiated noise at Northern wind farm.
And the system will be there during six months collecting data.
So after analyzing the data, we will know more about the emissions and how to act to reduce them.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: I know best of luck with this because it will be very, very important. Even if you don't achieve your ultimate goal, if you go even close to it, it will be very important not only for Willow project, but for other similar projects that will learn from Willow.
Another, let's say important aspect of the project is collaboration between research centers, industry and wind farm operators. How important, however, would you say is it for Willow's ultimate success?
[00:16:52] Speaker C: In my opinion, very, very important. Industry and wind farm operators provide the necessities, what they need to solve, let's say the use case. They provide the requirements and the research centers provide solutions, technological solutions, how they can solve the challenges, complying the requirements fixed by the industry, doing all the Research, analysis and development is something the research centers do very well.
So the wind farm operator is key in this project, in this kind of project to provide not only the use case but also to share real data needed for the models we aim to develop in this kind of projects.
And the industry point of view is also very important since they know more about the reality of the sector. So we need all the partners or all the different profiles to get the success we are looking for in Willow.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: I know. I would like to finish our conversation because we reached the end of our discussion with looking a little bit ahead in a time where Willow has already almost completed or completed its work.
And I would like you to tell me how could Willow's results influence future offshore wind farm design and operation across Europe? I mean, we already touched upon, as we said, the significant cost and emission reductions which will be very, very important.
But in general, what would you say?
[00:18:22] Speaker C: Okay, first I have to say that we have an excellent industry representation in Willow with five SMEs and one offshore operator, as we said, as partners and commitments in this project, but also a strong advisory board with three recognized operators, standardization body and other key companies with activity in offshore. So let's say that there is real interest in these developments, which is the first good point, starting point. The main achievement we expect with these new data driven tools is to detect damage earlier and help wind farm operators, offshore wind farm operators.
Reducing inspection cost by half, turbine lifetime by up to five years is something we need to quantify, but is what we expect then we think that we will be able to exploit our developments. For example, what I mentioned about the unique coupon integrating electrochemical sensors and ultrasound techniques, which is something one of the industrial partners wants to exploit.
So this is an important result. But also all the data driven tools for the operation in curtailment conditions is something that we think will contribute to the future of sorwind.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Yeah, quite important aspect. And yes, since in the European Commission wind is taking off as we go, it's one of the important, let's say renewable energy sources for Europeans for the Commission.
I hope you succeed in. When is Willow ending its work? Let's say more or less.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: Which year is ending? This year in September.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: This year in September.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: So looking forward to see how this will go. I don't know if you're going to go for, you know, some ask for a little bit more time or you're planning to finish in September?
[00:20:25] Speaker C: We plan to finish in September, yes. Because we have a lot of experiments, ongoing testing our developments and yeah, we will finish.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Okay. So good luck. Still some work to do from what I understand.
Good luck with that and looking forward to see the conclusion of this project. Thank you very, very much for, for this interesting conversation.
[00:20:48] Speaker C: Thank you very much. Sarati.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: You'Ve been listening to the EU Energy Projects podcast, a podcast brought to you by Enlit and Friends. You can find us on Spotify, Apple and the Enlit World website.
Just hit subscribe and you can access our other episodes too. I'm Aretita Radimo. Thank you for joining us.
