Power-Up: Dual Wind Turbines and Modular Blades

First up, Aerodyn Consulting’s patent for a single point mooring system with dual wind turbines. This concept is only being utilized by MingYang for their OceanX wind turbine so far, but it’s promising. Then Newtech Group’s method for connecting modular wind turbine blades, which could make the concept more viable. Finally, a method for keeping your dogs ears out of their food.

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Allen Hall: Welcome to Power Up, the Uptime podcast focused on the new, hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow along with me, Allen Hall, and IntelStor’s Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future.

Phil, another busy week in the ID and patent world. And we’re going to start off with the single point mooring wind turbine with two wind energy conversion units. That’s a complicated name for something that seems rather simple from Aerodyn Consulting over in Singapore. And this idea has been implemented by MinYang and we’ve seen this, I think it’s called OceanX, where they have two independent turbines on a platform.

a master controller for the two and it’s floating and it points itself on a single mooring system But there’s more details to that you want to explain what else they have going on in this idea.

Philip Totaro: Yeah, so this this is a pretty complicated and but clever idea And I actually want to take a step back and talk about the fact that nobody else in the industry at this point is using this technology other than Ming Yang, who’s licensed the design from, from Aerodyn.

And, and again, what this does is it’s going to ensure that. Basically, the, the platform that has these two counter rotating turbines on it doesn’t basically kind of yaw itself or shake itself apart from, from having the having the both rotors pointed in, in different directions.

Directions that they shouldn’t be pointed in. So the mooring system is kind of helping with with that to an extent. But it’s also ensuring that the entire platform is able to yaw into into the wind in a way that’s going to be favorable, including the typhoon that this thing actually just survived over in China.

So when they deployed this prototype, it’s, in a typhoon prone area. And it seems like this single mooring system did his job pretty well.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, the single point mooring is not a new concept, right? It’s just with this patent, it’s filed with the addition of the twin rotor and how that thing works together.

But single point mooring has been used offshore and oil and gas world for a very long time. There’s a, There’s a type of vessel called an FPSO. It’s a floating production and storage and offloading facility. But these things are massive. If you’ve ever seen an offshore, what they, it looks like an offshore oil rig.

They look like a big ship, but usually they aren’t powered or anything. They’re drug out there by tugs and they’re hooked up to what is called the single point mooring system. And that single point mooring system is a way of affixing that structure topside to one spot and then it can rotate around it.

in production and one of the downfalls of this this setup for operations and maintenance is not so much with this ming yang machine because it’s a 16 megawatt machine it’s a big big thing but if you have to put a lot of these out there a single point more Needs to be anchored off in usually the four cardinal directions.

Sometimes they do six. So you end up with a lot of lines and a lot of anchors coming off of this single point more. So there’s a lot of work to be done to get these things out into position. ’cause you have to do geotechnical investigations. All the anchors go in these kind of things. A lot of anchor lines, chain lines to get ’em.

to get them in place. Now, that being said, these processes have been done many times in the offshore world. So the knowledge of how to install a single point mooring system is there. It’s pretty common. You’re not reinventing the wheel to get this done. And they’re robust. That’s one of the reasons they use them for these massive SPF, SPF PSOs.

They can be 1300 feet long. Those ships can and weigh hundreds of tons. So, It proved itself in the typhoon that just came through in that part of the world. And I think that it’s a good design, it’s a robust design, and you’re not going to be reinventing the wheel to get it installed offshore.

Philip Totaro: At this point, Ming Yang, as I mentioned, is the only company that’s utilizing this.

So this patent is kind of a purely defensive thing for them, just protecting their little corner of the world. But the fact that this technology has proven itself to be kind of typhoon resistant, so to speak this could encourage more companies to go talk to Eridan about licensing this technology and utilizing it in, in other markets where, floating platforms are, are likely to become more prevalent, including places like South Korea.

And potentially even Brazil.

Allen Hall: One of the dreams in the blade world is to be able to make modular blade sections and allow you to make sorter sections, transport them, and then maybe even assemble them on site. Well, this next idea comes from the new tech group over in China for a cord wise segment connection structure for wind turbine blades.

And to simplify this a little bit, the they’re building the blade in roughly three sections of leading it, a trailing edge, and then a Sort of a box section in the middle. But Phil, the key to this idea is how they’re attaching all the pieces together.

Philip Totaro: Yeah. And it’s kind of interesting. And I made the comment off air that this seems very similar to how you already kind of bond and attach a shear clip.

For those that aren’t familiar, this is basically a part of the blade that goes into what we call the shear web. So it’s a structural beam. Usually towards the, the back end of, of the blade and the, the trailing edge of the blade away from, the, the, what Allen just mentioned, the, the box beam section or your, your either single or dual vertical spars and vertical supports.

So, The, the interesting thing about this is it’s, it’s maybe kind of combining a couple ideas and while that usually doesn’t sound very exciting to, engineers or even, patent office reviewers, what they Are able to do with concepts like this, where you’re combining kind of preexisting technologies is say, and explain that, Hey, we’re doing something in a new way and that’s still valid and viable to be able to go get a patent on whether or not this technology is going to revolutionize the market.

We’ll see. The one thing I can say though, is in China, the reason that they’ve probably developed this is because you’re now seeing blades that are at a minimum. meters in length, just the blade. And some of these rotors for onshore turbines are now going up to like, And I’ll call it 230 meters rotor diameter.

So there, you, like I said, you’re talking about blades that are anywhere from 85 up to, potentially 120 meters in, in length. And you’re, you’re going to need, new technologies and new ways of assembly potentially to, to be able to address that those kind of logistical challenges.

Joel Saxum: So what this aims to do is solve some of the structural issues in the sealing up of these blades in a modularized fashion, if you can build them on site The validity of it and the reality of it is, is what, what I’ve heard and what we’ve seen on root cause analysis studies and stuff for modularized blades right now is the technology’s just not quite ready.

So maybe this can get some of these projects down the road and over some of the hurdles that we have and make that a reality.

Philip Totaro: And, and that’s a good point, Joel, because a lot of what we’ve seen for modular blades in the past was, was, bolted joint connections that tends not to work that well. You get fatigue failure and other things that, that happen.

This is literally a, a means for assembling a modular blade utilizing again, kind of the same type of bonding methods that you would use in a factory controlled environment, it’s just whether or not you can have that same level of quality control out in the field when you’re trying to put together these little bonded sections of, of blades.

Allen Hall: And our last idea of the week is a really useful device to keep your ears from falling into your food. Now, most people don’t have that problem, but your four legged friends probably do, particularly if you’re a poodle, that when you reach down into your bowl to eat your dinner, your ears flop around into your food.

So this device rolls over the poodle’s ears and wraps around the back of its head to keep its ears up and away from the dinner bowl. Now, Phil, come on. This is a really good idea. There’s a lot of poodles with this problem. I’ll tell you what, I,

Joel Saxum: I’m gonna agree. It’s a useful idea. And I’m here to tell you, if you try to put this on, on my dog, Yogi, at dinner time, you’re gonna lose a finger.

This is not gonna happen. This is not gonna happen while there’s food ready in the bowl. She’s not gonna go down with it. You’re gonna have to just let it go and use a rag to clean off the ears, or in her case, her chin beard.

Philip Totaro: Which is, you know what, Joel? That may be another patent for another day.