The US Department of Energy (DoE) will back four companies’ development of technology to underpin wind turbines of up to 15MW for use on- and offshore.
The DoE will commit funds to generator technology projects underway by GE, AMSC, ABB and WEG “that will facilitate the continued growth of wind turbines for both land-based tall wind and offshore applications”.
It hopes the projects – two of which focus on direct-drive systems – will result in generator designs that are 50% smaller and can cut cost-of-energy by 10-25%.
One will be selected to receive up to $6.4m to deploy a prototype of its generator.
The four projects backed by DoE are:
- ABB – a lightweight double-stator generator that uses an innovative advanced magnet cooling system suitable for both geared and direct drive machines, scalable up to 15MW.
- WEG – a high-efficiency permanent magnet direct drive lightweight generator to integrate into its existing platform.
- AMSC – a high-efficiency lightweight wind turbine generator that incorporates high-temperature superconductor (HTS) materials to replace permanent magnets in the generator rotor, potentially reducing size and weight by 50%.
- GE – a high-efficiency ultra-light low temperature superconducting (LTS) generator, tailored for offshore wind and scalable beyond 12MW, leveraging technology from the US giant’s magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) business.
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