Eleven Spanish companies and 22 research centers, coordinated by Gamesa, have successfully completed their applied research activities within the Azimut project, which aims to enable the development of the world’s largest capacity wind turbine by 2020.
The project has reached the objective of generating knowledge as well as key technologies that will enable the development of a turbine with unit capacity of 15 MW. This turbine will be capable of overcoming the technical and financial hurdles currently limiting the rollout of offshore wind energy, such as availability and cost of energy.
With a 30.3 million euro budget spanning its 4-year duration, this project, under the National Strategic Consortium in Technical Research (CENIT) program of the Spain’s Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), depending of the Spanish Ministry of Economy, has allowed Spanish industry to fetch technology leadership positions in wind energy generation in marine environments. In addition, the project is helping European countries to comply with the target set by the European Commission of 27% of energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030.
Upon its completion in December 2013, the different companies have obtained important results in key areas mainly developing new technologies, testing process and models, and creating a new web application.
The initiative brings together 11 companies: Gamesa, Acciona Windpower, Alstom Wind, Acciona Energía, Iberdrola Renovables, Ingeteam, Imatia, Ingeciber, Digsilent Iberica, Técnicas Reunidas, and Tecnitest.
Press release, March 13, 2014; Image: IREC