On day 1 the first panel hosted by Bladena represented Birgit Junker (RWE), José Manuel Orza (ENEL), and Signe Olsson (Statkraft). One of the hot topics included the discussion on how the industry will approach today's planning concerning OPEX when the blades and the risk of failures have increased. Previously, blades in terms of OPEX and risk were considered a top 5 out of 10 priorities. Now, it has become one of the most important priorities (top 1 or 2).
In the second panel Christopher Harrison (DNV), John D. Sørensen (AAU), Nicolas Quievy (Engie), and Fran García, (ENEL) discussed the standards and regulations in the wind energy industry focusing on the current initiatives for an updated DNV standard to decrease the risk of catastrophic failure on large blades in operation. Christopher Harrison presented the Joint Industry Project (JIP) project headed by DNV and the panel discussed the importance of additional requirements that can decrease the risk and lower the LCoE, such as:

• Out-of-plane deformations
  
• Torsional loads
  
• Additional sub-component testing campaign

​

​In between these panels, the participants could attend parallel workshops discussing the development of NIFIS.
Another workshop during the day was about the standardization and regulation framework focusing on a decreased risk level of blades under operation together with a lower LCoE. The existing framework, as well as the interpretation of the standards, were discussed with the participants. Participants were updated about the current status in standardization and regulation and a knowledge-sharing discussion was initiated among them.
As a partner in the project, Wouter Haans from Shell sees great value in attending these seminars: “We are pleased to be part of the CORTIR II project as it creates a platform where we amongst others can discuss the future challenges of OPEX, standards, and risk of large blades in operation”

Next week May 19th one more fullday workshop will be held at DTU's main campus where three main topics will be discussed: fracture mechanics, risk-based maintenance strategies, and certification & standardization. DNV will also join this workshop discussing the improvements of the possible standards for different failure modes such as:
• peeling in bondlines
• interlaminar stresses

International open conference in September 2022, Copenhagen
+50 wind turbine owners and operators from the WTO Blade Network, CORTIR Partners, and the rest of the industry will be invited to attend. The overall theme of the conference will be WTG Blade Risk Mitigation & Monitoring.
To become a member of the WTO Blade Network, please reach out to Bladena.

A great thanks to the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP), which is for funding the CORTIR Phase 2 project (Cost, Risk and Transition zone Innovative Reinforcement) together with support from the whole value chain in the wind industry to reduce LCoE.

For further information please visit www.bladena.com, https://cortirproject.weebly.com, and/or contact CORTIR Project Manager CEO Find Mølholt Jensen +45 53700276 fmj@bladena.com.

Ahead of their time
Bladena did not exactly find a goldmine at first with the D-String® not because of the product’s attributes – as it is successfully used globally today – but, because the industry needed convincing on why the wind turbine blades would become prone to structural failures as they grow in size and require structural reinforcement.

“When we marketed our D-String® the blades were still primarily produced in smaller sizes that does not require as much reinforcement as the larger ones,” says Find Mølholt Jensen, who wrote a PhD on structural wind turbine blade design prior to establishing Bladena.

“Our products and knowledge have materialized now because the forces are bigger on large blades. This has increased the need for repairs as the structural challenges are greater for large blades,” he explains.

Transferring knowledge
Besides developing products, Bladena’s management and team realized a great need to bridge the gap between the scientific - know-how of blades - and the commercial part of the trade.
Therefore, Bladena continuously has extended its business scope and now offers expert advisory services and solutions for the entire value chain – wind turbine owners, operators, service companies, insurance companies, etcetera.

In addition, Bladena has led several EUDP projects aiming at developing commercial products that can lower the LCoE, and the company continuously hosts courses and workshops on structural failures and cost optimization for blades in operation.

“Through the years we have accumulated an extensive amount of blade data from the entire industry across the world.  We use this insight when we for instance perform our Root Cause Analysis or Risk Evaluations which are required to get to the root cause of a blade problem and avoid even more expensive repairs in the future,” Find Mølholt Jensen says.

Into the core
One of the companies that have benefitted from working with Bladena through many years is ENEL, headquartered in Italy. Their Head of Global Wind Evolution Projects, Francisco García López has engaged Bladena to provide a maintenance strategy for their operations worldwide that has reduced their maintenance costs and the risk of the blades failing in the future.

“Bladena is the only company in the trade that looks into the very core of the problem when they analyse mistakes and risks in the blade construction. In my opinion, they are the ones with the greatest knowledge of blade failures in the world,” says Francisco García López and continues, “Besides their unique knowledge of blades they are great people to work with. They are honest and straightforward. If I ever was to hold a position where I would have ownership of erecting a wind farm, I would surely ask Bladena to design the blades,” he says.

A life-long mission
After 10 years in the business, Bladena now employs 20 people, and the small office in Ringsted has been replaced with a big office in Høje Taastrup, Copenhagen.  The company depended on investors for the initial seven years but in the last three years Bladena has been growing independently.

“We have found our place in the market helping customers who demand e.g., Root Cause Analysis to find the real reasons for failures. Together we focus on long term solutions that minimize costs and risks consequently ensuring the lowest possible operating loss,” Find Mølholt Jensen says.

By extending the lifespan of the blades Bladena is on a mission to make energy from wind turbines more cost-effective and change the way blades are constructed in the future.

“Although a lot has happened in the business the past 10 years, our work to reduce LCoE through blade design still stands and have relevance. Bladena will continue to work for that in the coming years,” he finishes.  

For Danish version click here

​The CORTIR Phase 2 project focuses on a critical structural blade issue on +60m long wind turbine blades that will increase in the future. In short, in technical terms, the issue is a debonding of the shear web from the load-carrying spar caps in the root-transition zone meaning that a blade with this type of failure will have a higher risk of a collapsed blade.
 
To foresee and prevent this type of damage Bladena together with 26 partners (15 WTOs, 5 ISPs, 1 Insurance Company, 2 Universities, 1 OEM, and 2 R&D companies) met at the kick-off Seminar on the 22nd of September to discuss the planning and developments of the two main objectives – a New Innovative Field Inspection Strategy (NIFIS) Platform and the development of a Root-Transition Zone (RTZ) retrofit solution.

D​epending on a crack’s location and size, the blade type, and blade length, to name a few, this will have a huge impact on what actions to take to prevent it from progressing. Based on the situation the software tool will be able to show ISPs what to inspect, and the position. Furthermore, the ISP and/or the WTO will have an instant recommendation on what action to take onsite. In some cases, the recommendation will be to continue running the turbine but do more frequent inspections.
 
By having ISPs to help build the software tool it will become customized to fit their daily practical work taking structural, cost, and risk knowhow into consideration. 
​

​Many ISPs only have a limited set of options to offer the WTOs and the competition in the service market is high. The main competitive factor for an ISP is to be able to offer the market a reliable cost-efficient retrofit solution for the increasingly critical damage problems.

As of yet, no repair solution has proven more than temporary. Therefore, this failure mode has become a significant risk for the industry, especially for large offshore wind turbines, where limited access may result in the necessity for significantly extended periods of downtime and consequently AEP losses.
 
Through the next 2 years, the aim is to develop and demonstrate an innovative technology of a retrofit solution to a level where it is ready to be commercialized by Bladena after the project period.
 
The RTZ-Solution will fulfill a need in the market and will be uniquely designed for the high forces in the root-transition zone of the blades, removing the root cause of the shear web disbond failure mode and providing more reliable blades for the WTOs.

​In the previous project CORTIR, a Cost and Risk /decision support tool (CAR Tool) was developed to help WTOs be able to calculate different variations of O&M strategies showing the risk of each strategy. Data simulations from the CAR Tool will be used in NIFIS amongst others.
​

Throughout the seminar, the participants had many relevant questions about how the solutions will be developed in the project. The overall answer was that to ensure the most optimized solutions it is key that the partners bring all their knowledge and expertise to the table. Also, they talked about NIFIS and how the WTOs will be able to inspect blades daily without increasing the OPEX drastically. This will be further discussed and developed in workshops in the next two years.

In the panel discussion the WTO Blade Network Steering Group Members Nicolas Quievy, Engie, and Birgit Junker, RWE debated with partners about the future of blades and how new sustainable blades will become an increasing factor in the future. Bladena has for many years been pushing for the industry to improve the certification standards through Owners Requirements, and also here the panel sees some positive improvements as DNV is working on a project to do exactly this. Even though there were disagreements on how to go around these improvements, there was a broad consensus that if wind turbine owners are not involved in supporting the improvements of the certification standards they should get involved.
​
A great to the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP), which is administered by the Danish Energy Agency (EUDP-program) for funding the CORTIR Phase 2 project (Cost, Risk and Transition zone Innovative Reinforcement) together with support from the whole value chain in the wind industry to reduce LCoE.
For further information please visit www.bladena.com, https://cortirproject.weebly.com, and/or contact CORTIR Project Manager CTO Find Mølholt Jensen +45 53700276 fmj@bladena.com.

​The partners cover the entire value chain involving 15 wind turbine owners (WTO), 5 Service companies (ISP), 1 Manufacturer (OEM), 1 Insurance, 2 R&D Consultancies as well as two Danish universities. 

Project deliverables
The main deliverables are a new retrofit solution designed for high forces in the Root-Transition Zones (RTZ) of blades, a new innovative state-of the art operation and maintenance strategy and lastly further developments of the Cost and Risk Tool (CAR Tool). Bladena and partners have a budget of 3.2 mill. Euro to deliver the results.
 
As the wind industry is continuously growing, so are the wind turbines. With increasing blade lengths structural failures of the blades become a significantly bigger technical risk as well as financial risk, resulting in increased cost for repair and loss of Annual Energy Production (AEP).
 
One of the most critical structural issues of large +60m wind turbine blades is debonding of the shear web from the load-carrying spar caps in the root-transition zone. This failure mode is today occurring more frequently due to significantly increased fatigue peeling forces in the adhesive bondlines. 

​As debonding of the shear web can fast lead to very critical blade failures, and as of yet no repair solution has proven more than temporary, this failure mode has become a significant risk, especially for big wind turbines, where limited access may result in extended periods of downtime and consequently AEP losses.
 
The RTZ-Solution will fulfill a need in the market and will be uniquely designed for the high forces in the root-transition zone of the blades, removing the root cause of the shear web disbond failure mode and providing more reliable blades for the WTOs. 
NIFIS will be a New Innovation Field Inspection Strategy developed to be used as a decision support tool.
​
Finally, the Cost and Risk Tool (CAR Tool) developed in house will be used to analyse different maintenance strategies and this will be coupled with field experience and the findings and conclusions gathered in NIFIS, easily accessible and ready to be used by WTOs and ISPs. 

Over the years, the size of the wind turbine blades has increased significantly. With increased blade lengths, the loads on the blades have also drastically increased giving rise to structural challenges.
The rising number of damages leads to an increase in maintenance and repair costs and of the risk of energy production loss for the wind turbine owners (WTO's). The current situation in the wind turbine industry is that when damages and failures occur on blades, it is unpredictable in relation to cost and risk, unscheduled and consequently outside the operational budget.

To help solve this Bladena came up with the idea to create a Cost and Risk / decision support tool (CAR Tool) focusing on blade damages. WTOs would then be able to calculate different variations of O&M strategies showing the risk of each strategy. As a result of this the CORTIR project was born in February 2019.

The main objective of the CORTIR Project has since then been to develop the CAR Tool to make it ready for trial users.
Already, Engie has been a successful trail user and more WTOs are interested to see the potential within their own organisation.
In a CAR Tool video, developed in the project, Nicolas Quievy, Senior Wind Technology Manager at Engie states that; “The tool can have a real impact on the overall optimization of O&M in wind turbines and it will be an important step forward to preventive maintenance based on risk considerations, if the CAR Tool in the future becomes even more holistic with additional damages, erosion and lightning.”     
In technical terms the CAR Tool are based on fracture mechanics describing damage progression and on cost and reliability models. Field data and test data are used to calibrate the models. A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is now in place with a set of different indexes. But the aim is not to stop here.

Therefore, one of the final messages at the Final Online Meeting was, that Bladena will aim for continuing developing the tool, if having support from EUDP and partners.

Also, a retrofit solution for the tip opening of the wind turbine blade in the tip region that is caused by lightning has also been developed in collaboration with the project partners as it is another critical failure mode that the blades often face.

All results in the project are uncovered in the CORTIR Final Report and communicated through visualizations in videos, brochures, posters, The Blade Handbook and models together with Kirt x Thomsen.

A great thanks also goes to the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP), which is administered by the Danish Energy Agency (EUDP-program) for funding the CORTIR project (Cost and Risk Tool for Interim and Preventive Repair) together with support from the whole value chain in the wind with the aim to reduce LCoE.
​
For further information please visit www.bladena.com, https://cortirproject.weebly.com, and/or contact CORTIR Project Manager CTO Find Mølholt Jensen +45 53700276 fmj@bladena.com.

The brand-new office is part of “The yellow buildings”, which is placed in the vivid centre of Høje Taastrup (part of Copenhagen). The office building is located only 100 meters away from the train station, 15 minutes by train away from the main station in Copenhagen and 30minutes from the airport. Being located in the capital makes the travel back and forth from the office easier. Across the street, there is a luxurious congress centre, where Bladena will organize future quarterly seminars and workshops to meet the high request from customers and network.
Unfortunately, the Corona situation is still a serious matter. Therefore, Bladena is planning to host more online seminars as attendance from the industry has proved to be very positive. The new office building contains more meeting rooms with better equipment, which will help Bladena obtain the goal for more online meetings and seminars with better-quality equipment and execution.
In early 2021, when allowed Bladena will organize a reception to celebrate the thriving growth and the expansion of the team.
The new office building opens a lot of opportunities for Bladena. The office space is twice as big as the current office, which means that Bladena has more room for expansion. We are planning to expand our team with new employees quite rapidly in the coming years and if/when we need additional square metres again the building is suited for further expansion.

On the 26th of November at Bladena’s Online CORTIR Blade Failure Seminar, a total of 27 different WTO-companies were present. When damages and failures occur on wind turbine blades, it is semi-unexcepted and often outside the operational budget. The associated costs for repair actions often end up as a dispute between WTOs, OEMs and Insurance companies, and risk will increase with future up-scaling of blades. 

In the EUDP funded project “Cost and Risk Tool for Interim and Preventive Repair” (CORTIR) the whole value chain in the wind industry is brought together to work on a new beneficial strategy to reduce LCoE.

Birgit Junker, Blade Specialist from RWE and partner in the CORTIR project states: “We are seeing increasing challenges when it comes to blade failures in the field. To make drastic change the failures need to be addressed by all the players in the wind industry. The CORTIR Project is a platform where the different players can contribute with input and collaborate to bringdown LCoE”.

Chaired by Bladena and with contributions from Birgit Junker from RWE, Daniel Liu from WoodMac, Nicolas Quievy from Engie, Fransisco Garcia Lopez from Enel, Hans Møller from EWII and Michael Pedersen from Ørsted, the seminar was taken to new heights.
Daniel Liu from WoodMac presented statistics of the above description failure modes (current + trends).

A presentation about the availability of field data and methods to apply Asset Integrity Management systems was done by Francisco Garcia Lopez from ENEL. Along with this he explained how an Asset Integrity Management System can lead to an Optimized Risk Based Maintenance.
​
In the afternoon session, the subject was National and International (IECRE) regulations and how to apply them as a WTO. Hans Møller from EWII and Michael Pedersen from Ørsted took part of the discussion on how they as a WTO fulfill the regulations. The annual inspection e.g. of the lightning system and the obligation to report damages were the key topics. The seminar ended with a final discussion and followed with a roundup by Find Mølholt Jensen.
The goal of the Seminar and the CORTIR Project is to support the WTO’s in the decision-making process with regards to criticality of the damages they observe in the field and how to minimize the risk and O&M cost. To do so it is important to understand where the damages takes place and why the damages occur. The Cost and Risk Tool (CAR-Tool), developed through the CORTIR project, serves this purpose as it consists of fracture mechanics crack propagation models as well as cost and risk models.
 
The next CORTIR seminar will be in Spring 2021 where the central scope of this seminar is Damage Tolerance in Blades.
 
The CORTIR project is supported by the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP), which is administered by the Danish Energy Agency (EUDP-program).
 
For further information please visit www.bladena.com, https://cortirproject.weebly.com, and/or contact CORTIR Project Manager CTO Find Mølholt Jensen +45 53700276 fmj@bladena.com.

The Blade Handbook developed together with Kirt x Thomsen and partners in the CORTIR, RATZ and LEX projects was nominated as one of the finalist in the category Message understood to the Danish Design Awards. We are honored to have been a part of this and be able to show off the book which contains years of great knowledge from partners through the projects.
The category Message understood can be seen here:

​It is now official! The Blade Handbook is one of the finalists to wind a Danish Design Award! We are proud to receive the acknowledgment on behalf of all the partners involved. Good work everyone!  
To read more about the award, please go to:  https://danishdesignaward.com/nominee/the-blade-handbook/  

​​In early February 2020 Kirt x Thomsen announced that the Blade Handbook developed within the CORTIR project supported by the EUDP has been shortlisted between dozens of design solutions to be in the running of winning a Danish Design Award 2020.
The awareness and acknowledgement the Blade Handbook has received over the past couple of years is a result of hard work, clever thinking and dedication from all who have participated in developing the Blade Handbook.
To present the Blade Handbook Kirt x Thomsen has created a short movie presenting the Handbook.