Swiss developing wind turbine design and assessment tool

Akselos and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have won a CHF 1.2 million grant from the Swiss Innovation Agency (Innosuisse) to deliver a next-generation structural design and assessment tool for wind turbines.

The grant is part of a project that aims to increase the computational capabilities of wind turbine applications, lowering the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCoE) of wind power overall.

The research is expected to expand the engineering limits of new turbine designs.

According to the partners, currently, the high computational demands of simulating large assets such as turbines in harsh conditions limits the number of designs that can be explored, leading to non-optimal designs and higher energy cost.

“This grant allows us to keep working at the cutting edge of computational design and engineering,” said Annalisa Buffa from EPFL and member of the Presiding Board of the National Research Council for the Swiss National Science Foundation. “

“It’s hugely exciting to be able to work on problems of such economic and societal importance as managing the energy transition. By developing superior designs, we can help governments and operators generate clean, sustainable power for future generations.”