1. Offshore Wind Infrastructure
Application Lab (OWI-Lab)
For efficient and reliable offshore wind energy.

2. Sirris
Federation Collective centre
for the technology industry of the technology industry
• Non-profit organisation
• Industry owned
Mission: To help companies implement
technological innovations

3. Sirris locations
Antwerp
Offshore Wind Infrastructure
Application Lab
Ghent
Materials Engineering
Materials Research Cluster Gent Hasselt
Materials Engineering
Leuven Production Technology
Smart Coating Application Lab
Mechatronics
Technology Coaching
Sirris Leuven Composites Application Lab
Liège
Brussels Additive Manufacturing
Materials Engineering
Software Engineering & ICT
Sirris Microfabrication Application Lab
Technology Coaching
Charleroi
Additive Manufacturing
Bio-manufacturing platform

4. 4th Sirris Application Lab
Sirris Leuven Sirris Smart Coating Sirris Offshore Wind
Composites Application Lab Microfabrication Infrastructure
Application Lab Application Lab Application Lab
“The Sirris Application labs focus on technological
themes that will be crucial for the future of our companies
in the coming years”.

5. Why OWI-Lab?

6. 1) The offshore wind energy market fast expanding !
 Interesting alternative energy technology
 Grid parity forecasted in 2030 by IEA (the point that the cost of offshore wind energy
becomes equal to the cost of utility power from coal, natural gas, nuclear)
EWEA 2011 EWEA 2011
EU MARKET FORECAST:
The coming 4 years 12 GW will be installed
offshore, this is 3 times the amount of what
has been realized over the last 20 years.

7. Belgian pioneering at the North sea
 Belgium committed to realize 13% of energy mix out of renewable energy
 1/3 of this  Offshore wind energy
- planned offshore wind capacity = 1,6 Giga Watt -
Phase 1 = 165 MW
Annual generation for 175.000 inhabitants
Phase 2 = + 165MW
Phase 1, 2 and 3: 325,20 MW 50km
Annual generation for 600.000 inhabitants
Coming up: Northwind, Phase 3 C-Power,
Norther, Rental, Seastar, Mermaid

8. 2) Creation of jobs and export opportunities
Actual figures – Source: Agoria
40 % of Belgian wind energy jobs are related to ‘offshore wind’
Strong potential growth

9. 3) Innovation needed to make this industry a succes
1352 - 1521 2015 (?)
 Harsh environmental conditions (wind loads, temperatures, salt,…)
 Not so much datasets yet available (or accessible) to optimize components
 Operations and maintenance (O&M) cost needs to go down to reach grid parity
 Bigger turbines (12MW in design) ; Bigger means better design

10. What does OWI-lab do?
 Investing 5.5M € in test - and monitoring
infrastructure to support (offshore) wind
power R&D in the whole industrial value chain
 4 investment programs in R&D
infrastructure
 Platform to initiate local and European
research projects together with industry and
universities (SBO, O&O, FP7,…)
 Innovation projects with / for companies in
the wind power sector

11. Introduction OWI-Lab 09/2012
10/2012
01/2012
2010
2008
Development of Expansion of the
Operationalize infrastructure Innovation projects
R&D infrastructure research infrastructure
Proposal OWI-project Launch
Kick-Off  Inauguration OWI-Lab Kick-off
submitted to the OWI-Lab
OWI-Project Test Facility
Flemish government Platform Shared R&D project
OptiWind (SBO)
 24 Companies / universities
participating in user group
 Kick-off feasibility study
Flanders Wind Farm Test Site

12. Growing industrial involvement
2008
Founding members
Involved partners
2012

13. 5.5 mio € investments in state-of-the-art test & monitoring infrastructure
Stationary and Wind turbine component
Floating LIDAR Test Lab with
(FLIDAR™ ) large climate chamber
(Temperature testing)
Remote measurement Development of tools for
& monitoring systems smart O&M
(SHM & CMS)

14. 1

15. 2

16. Why a ‘Large cold climatic test chamber’ ?
 On- and offshore turbines are standard designed to
operate from -10°C to +40°C, this condition has
to be tested.
 Remote locations with extreme temperatures:
 Finland  turbines operate @ -40°C
 Desert of India  turbines operate @ +50°C
 need of extreme temperature testing
 Offshore turbines
 High O&M costs
 testing is needed to ensure reliable components
in all environmental conditions up to their limits

17. Large cold climatic test chamber
 Unique test infrastructure in EU
 Components up to 150 ton
 -60°C to +60°C
 +60°C to -40°C air in 1 hour

18. 3

19. What is next?
OWI +
“expanding the
SBO lab”
Flanders Wind Farm
(Offshore test site)

20. Eerste project TINA-fonds