A company in Galway has secured €3 million from the European Commission to research and design a marine turbine built with recycled materials, believed to be the first of its kind.
Engineers at ÉireComposites believe that the marine hydrokinetic power system can produce reliable clean energy at a reduced cost.
The company, based in Indreabhán, will work with a number of partners on the research venture. These include the marine energy specialists Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC), NUI Galway, Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials in Germany and the Italian National Research Council.
The total value of the project is €3.9 million, €3 million of which has been awarded to the Irish design team.
Tomás Flanagan, chief executive at ÉireComposites, said that the aim was to use recycled carbon fibre for a “mini” version of a larger turbine that ORPC will build. He said that marine turbine systems can harvest a potential 615 terawatt hours per year from tidal streams, ocean currents and river currents, about 21 times Ireland’s annual electricity use.
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A turbine with foils made of recycled materials can reduce manufacturing costs, and reduce the environmental footprint of the materials employed, he said. It is estimated that this could reduce capital expenditure and operating expenditure on a marine turbine by 33 per cent and 66 per cent, respectively.
“It will be tested in Italy, and it is up to ORPC then to apply for a licence to trial it in a river system,” he said.
The project is named Crimson — standing for Commercialisation of a Recyclable and Innovative Manufacturing Solution for an Optimised Novel marine turbine — and is being supported by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 fast-track to innovation programme.
“The amount we have received will cover 75 per cent of this project’s cost,” Flanagan said.
He added that if the project is successful it could “drive down costs for both the industry and consumers” while also increasing the “productivity of the renewable energy sector”.
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ÉireComposites has already worked with ORPC, which has headquarters in Portland, Maine, and a base in Ireland, on previous turbine design projects. These include ORPC’s first commercial river generation power system, installed in Igiugig, Alaska, to provide a remote community with local energy from the Kvichak river.
The Irish company is one of 16 partners in seven countries in the EU-funded Marewind project to design the next generation of offshore wind turbines. It also recently secured a contract to design and manufacture equipment for the European Space Agency’s Altius satellite, which is due to be launched from French Guiana in 2023.
OIP Sensor Systems, a Belgian company, has commissioned ÉireComposites to design and produce three carbon-fibre stray-light baffles, which can prevent out-of-field stray light from reaching the lenses of the satellite’s optical instruments.
James Donegan, ORPC director of European operations, said that the technological advances achieved with the Crimson project would be “crucial in commercialising our marine energy systems in the region”.
He added: “Having worked with ÉireComposites and [NUI Galway[ on previous and current Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland projects, we look forward to working with them on developing our megawatt-scale turbine.”
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ÉireComposites was established in 1998 and employs over 60 staff at its Indreabhán headquarters in south Connemara. It focuses on designing, manufacturing and testing lightweight, high performance fibre-reinforced composite materials. It has a customer base extending from renewable energy and aerospace to Formula 1 racing.
