UK Wind Energy Technologies

The objective of this book is to give an overview of the status of wind energy research in the UK, resulting from the programme funded by the UK Government’s EPSRC SUPERGEN Wind project. Phase 1 started in March 2006 and the work continued under Phase 2 until March 2014. The strategic aim of Phases 1 and 2 was to re-establish a strong research community in wind energy technologies, across the UK’s leading academic and industrial research institutions. This book presents some of the key findings from a number of the collaborations established during the project, and demonstrates that this overall objective has been successfully achieved.

The book covers the full range of engineering topics from harvesting energy from the wind through to transmission and connection to the National Grid. Specifically the topics are: wind resource assessment, turbine array layout, environmental interactions, control of turbines, drive train reliability and condition monitoring, turbine array electrical connection, power transmission to grid, assessment of operations and maintenance strategies, and the analysis of turbine foundations and structures. Each of these components contributes to the over-riding technical objective of reducing the cost of energy from wind.

This book will be of interest to researchers and engineers from industry and academia who have interests in evaluating prospective wind farm sites, developing onshore and offshore wind farms, operating and maintaining wind farms, improving the reliability of turbines and extending their operational lives. The book also provides workers from other countries with an overview of the range of activity within the UK resulting from the SUPERGEN Wind project.

Simon Hogg is reader in the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, Durham University. He is PI of the ￡4.8M EPSRC SUPERGEN Wind 2 Consortium and holds a number of industrially-funded research grants on new turbine technologies.

Christopher Crabtree is a Lecturer in Wind Energy Systems in the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, Durham University. He currently acts as project management assistant to the EPSRC SUPERGEN Wind Energy Technologies Consortium.