Aquanis has announced that it was awarded US$ 3.5 million in funding from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding will be used to develop a segmented active load control system that will allow wind turbines to react more quickly to changes in the wind.
The system features the company’s electrical blade-mounted actuators that modify the local flow over the surface of the blades without using mechanical components (no moving parts). designers must find a way to mitigate unsteady loads on the turbine blades, caused by wind gusts, turbulence and other changes in wind speed. All of the remedies tried to date have moving parts, and are costly and complex to implement. Aquanis is developing a new technology that can mitigate unsteady loads on the turbine blades with no moving parts and minimal blade modifications. Aquanis will lead a team of researchers that includes the University of Texas at Dallas , Sandia National Laboratory, and TPI Composites. In addition to introducing new innovations to advance the company’s actuator technology, the team will develop an integrated design approach to maximise the impact of segmented active load control on the cost of energy.