MAXBlade project launched

The €10m project, funded by the European Union and UK Research and Innovation, aims to deliver a range of innovations to improve the performance of tidal turbines and reduce costs.

It will investigate the full lifecycle of tidal turbine blades, from materials, manufacture and operation, to decommissioning and recyclability. The project’s long-term aim is to ‘ensure the European composite sector becomes the international leader in tidal blade manufacture’.

MAXBlade plans to increase the area harnessed by Scottish tidal technology company Orbital Marine Power to generate power – known as the rotor swept area – by 70 per cent, to over 1000m^2.

According to the team, MAXBlade will increase the length of the turbine blades from 10 to 13m,  making them the longest of their kind. They added that boosting blade length will have the ‘single greatest impact on reducing the cost of tidal energy’.

Modelling by Edinburgh University’s Institute of Energy Systems estimates £40bn could be generated for the UK economy by harnessing wave and tidal energy.

The project will involve a two-year design and development phase, followed by an 18-month build, during which blades will undergo advanced structural testing at FastBlade.

The technology will then undergo two years of real-world testing at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney. Two of Orbital Marine Power’s O2 floating platforms will each be fitted with four of the newly developed blades.

The team aims to generate 120,000 hours of performance data that will be assessed by EMEC and project partner TECNALIA, a research and technological development centre.

Innovations from MAXBlade will be integrated with findings from its sister project, FORWARD2030, to enable large-scale production of Orbital’s O2 turbine technology. This will pave the way to the tidal energy sector making significant contributions towards Europe’s energy systems, energy security and industrial development by 2030 and beyond to 2050, the team said.

Professor Conchúr Ó Brádaigh, head of school and chair of materials engineering at Edinburgh University, said that the FastBlade facility’s unique rapid testing capability will help the tidal energy industry to de-risk their ongoing turbine developments and provide low-cost, reliable renewable energy to the grid.

“We will also lead the development of thermoplastic resins in MAXBlade and the circular economy roadmap needed for future tidal blade manufacturing and recycling,” Brádaigh said.

MAXBlade is led by TechnipFMC and includes Orbital Marine Power, Marasoft, TECNALIA, Edinburgh University, EMEC, Laborelec and European Composites Industry Association. It is supported by Edinburgh Innovations, Edinburgh University’s commercialisation service.