Gearing up for European wind power workshop

The benefits of magnetic gear technology to the wind power sector are many and varied – a fact I will be sharing with other industry professionals at a European workshop on wind turbine technology in Brussels later this month.

At the research and innovation workshop, organised by the European Technology and Innovation Platform, I will be outlining the advantages of Magnomatics’ Pseudo Direct Drive (PDD?) system over conventional technology.

However, you don’t just have to take my word for it. The system was noted to offer superior all-round performance when compared with current technologies, in a study by the InnWind.eu scheme. The objective of the project – which has 28 partners and a budget of almost €20m – focuses on the design of cutting-edge 10-20MW offshore wind turbines. Its remit involves identifying key components and so far, innovative rotor designs, drive train components and substructures to reduce energy use have been developed.

It follows a previous EU-funded project, UPWIND (www.upwind.eu), set up to explore the cost-effectiveness of deep offshore windfarms and to investigate new technology. It found that while the development of large wind turbines (10 MW) was technically feasible it was not yet cost-effective. InnWind concluded that Magnomatics’ PDD? technology had shown an improvement in all performance indicators compared with the drive trains used as a reference, adding: “PDD? is providing an innovative generator technology which is scaling considerably better than current drive train technologies. It has therefore been selected as the Innwind.eu candidate for an innovative non-contact drive train.”

The benefits of our PDD? system include:

·        Gearbox is eliminated;

·        Very high efficiency (>97%);

·        High reliability and low maintenance;

·        Low cooling requirements;

·        Smaller and lighter than direct drive equivalents;

·        High power factor.

The system is suitable for use in a variety of applications in addition to wind power, including aerospace, automotive and marine propulsion.