The Danish EUDP programme supports a project regarding operational costs on WT blades. The project involves the collaboration between Bladena as Project Manager and a Large international network of WTOs, manufacturers, universities and technology compani

Having successfully completed two major research projects (RATZ and LEX), Bladena has been successful to continue the collaboration with EUDP and 22 companies in a new 2-years project called CORTIR.
The partners cover the entire value chain, viz. manufacturers (OEM), wind turbine owners (WTO), service, insurance, technology companies as well as two Danish universities. The main deliverable is a new decision support tool (CAR-Tool) that aims at improving the decision making for operation and maintenance strategies in the wind industry; the overall objective being to minimize costs and risk.
At the CORTIR Kick-Off Meeting last week Vestas (OEM), CODAN (insurance company) and Engie (WTO) attended a panel discussion. See photo below:

Photo from Kick-off meeting: Left: Project manager from Bladena Find Mølholt Jensen, Finn Thyrring from CODAN, Louise Bach Christensen from EUDP, Craig Langford from Vestas, Nicolas Quiévy from Engie and Finn Mogensen CEO in Bladena and board member representing Spring Nordic (Investment company)

​The discussions – as well as the very active net-working - with the panel and the 21 participating partners were very constructive. A clear consensus exists between the parties, that a further development in the level of collaboration throughout the whole value chain will support all partners in the focus on reducing the operational cost (OPEX), maintenance and risk, especially structurally related blade damages.
Today, when damages and failures occur on blades, it is semi-unexcepted and often outside the operational budget implying that the associated costs for repair actions may end up as a dispute between WTOs, OEMs and insurance companies. Until now each player has had individual strategies for how to handle such situations, but the overall aim of the current project is to demonstrate how the new developments can provide a common strategy platform for the WTOs, the OEMs and the insurance companies based on the shared goal to reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE). The development will involve a close dialogue with the entire value chain in the wind energy industry. The project will focus on the financial aspects of the different blades’ defects and how they can efficiently be prevented and maintained to obtain the optimal strategy both money and time wise.