Patents in Wind Turbine Cost Reduction Tech: Recent Innovations

A compact, lightweight rotary connection for wind turbine blades and azimuth bearings. This connection uses dry-running plain bearings instead of rolling bearings to reduce size and weight compared to conventional wind turbine connections. The plain bearing assembly consists of an inner ring with plain bearing surfaces that mate with plain bearing surfaces on an outer ring. This setup allows for pivoting motion similar to a ball joint but in a more compact package. The plain bearing arrangement saves space and weight compared to using rolling bearings.

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A reduced-profile wind turbine tower that is simpler, more cost-effective, easier to transport, and capable of reaching greater heights. The tower employs a compact horizontal lattice structure instead of a tapered tube. This design provides robustness, stiffness, and load resistance through the efficient use of materials and structural principles. The lattice structure features post-tensioned cables and arms that fan out like a pyramid, with the cables resisting tension and compression forces. This allows for a slimmer tower profile, reducing material usage and costs compared to traditional tapered towers, and facilitating transportation and erection. The design enables the construction of much taller wind turbine towers, allowing access to higher-altitude winds.

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A method for joining wind turbine blade sections together without adhesives, reducing weight and improving bonding strength. The blade sections have tapered edges that can overlap. These overlapping tapered edges are joined by overlying laminates of composite material.

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Additive manufacturing of wind turbine blades using 3D printing enables on-demand, on-site production without the need for molds or large factories. The blades are modular, consisting of layered sections with internal conduits formed by aligned bores. Strengthening elements are inserted into these conduits to reinforce the blade. The sections are 3D printed individually and then joined together end-to-end. This 3D printing technique allows for complex geometries, such as internal voids, to reduce weight. The blades can be customized and easily modified without dedicated molds.

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Wind turbine transmissions that are lower cost and easier to service. The design moves the high-speed gear stage to a direct drive configuration. The high-speed spur gear is directly mounted in the transmission housing with a sun gear shaft from the previous stage coupled to it. This eliminates the need for a hollow shaft, expensive key/shrink connections, and allows better bearing placement.

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A reinforced wind turbine blade structure that improves blade strength and reduces manufacturing costs through an optimized reinforcing web design and molding process. The reinforcing shear web features integrated flanges projecting from the sides, encapsulated between composite laminate layers, eliminating the need for separate flanges and adhesive bonding. The web is produced using a modified mold that allows the flange projections to be molded in place without trimming. Integrating the flanges into the laminate layers enables the web to be molded in a straight shape, rather than kinked to fit blade curves, reducing stress concentrations.

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Reliable, economical, and efficient manufacturing of wind turbine blades using coordinated gantry systems to automate the fiber layup process. The manufacturing arrangement consists of two gantries that move along tracks on either side of the blade mold. One gantry distributes fiber into the mold using a tool attachment. The other gantry supplies fiber from reels to load onto the attachment. The gantries are coordinated to lay up the fibers in the mold.

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Large-scale generator design that minimizes weight and cost while still maintaining the necessary rotor-stator spacing to prevent contact and failure. The generator uses a stack of annular rotors and stators with spacers between them. The rotors have inner and outer annular portions, with the magnet on the outer portion. The spacers brace the rotors to prevent axial displacement and provide the necessary spacing. The spacers have a smaller diameter section that fits between the rotors and a larger diameter section that the stators fit over. The rotors, spacers, and stators are held together with bolts through the center. This configuration allows using a central cylinder instead of a solid shaft, reducing rotor weight.

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Multi-segment rotor blade for horizontal-axis wind turbines that allows pitch angle control of each blade segment to optimize performance and reduce loads. The blade is made up of multiple segments that can rotate relative to each other to change the pitch angle. The blade segments are connected by guiding structures and actuating mechanisms that allow variable pitch between segments. This enables independent pitch control of each segment for optimal angle of attack and feathering. The blade design increases efficiency, reduces loads, and allows transportation of larger blades.

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A cost-effective method of manufacturing wind turbine blades with shear webs of varying dimensions without requiring bespoke molds for each design variation. The method involves using a detachable shim inside the mold that supports the shear web flanges during curing. The shim can be easily swapped out between blade production runs to change the shear web dimensions.

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A rotor reinforcing device that reduces wind turbine blade weight while improving strength and stiffness compared to traditional wind turbine blades. The device uses thin, long blade reinforcing members connected to the blade and rotor hub to reinforce the rotor. This allows using lighter weight materials for the main blade structure. A guide structure allows the reinforcing members to rotate independently of the blades. This provides reinforced blade performance without the need for heavy tension wires between blades. The device reduces blade weight while still meeting strength requirements.

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Segmented pitch ring for blade pitch systems in wind turbines that allows larger pitch ring diameters without the need for large single-piece castings. The pitch ring is comprised of a combination of arc-shaped rolled and casted segments that fit together to form a circular ring. The rolled segments are made using a rolling process and the casted segments are made using a casting process. The segments are connected using bridge elements to maintain uniform stiffness across the interfaces. This enables making pitch rings with large diameters by using smaller, easier to manufacture segments.

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A wind power generation system that reduces costs and size of wind power collection and transmission systems using DC power transmission. The system collects DC power from multiple wind turbines by converting their AC outputs to DC. But unlike typical DC collection systems that directly connect turbines to a common bus, this system has current limiting devices on each turbine feeder to prevent fault currents from flowing back to the bus. The current limiting devices only allow current flow from the turbines to the bus. This prevents fault currents from other feeders flowing into a failed feeder.

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Wind harnessing device with a lightweight, simple, and adjustable blade design for lower cost, weight, and easy maintenance compared to conventional wind turbine blades. The device has an axle with poles extending out at each end and blade assemblies that can swing about their attachment points to the poles. This allows the blades to adjust their angle to the wind for improved efficiency compared to fixed-angle blades. The swinging blade design allows the device to harness wind power from wider angles.

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Modular transportation and storage system for wind turbine blades that can be flexibly adjusted to accommodate different sizes and shapes of blades. The system includes modular tip end and root end frames that can be configured to hold blades at different angles. This allows blades with varying dimensions to be securely stored and transported together, reducing damage and costs. For example, the tip end frame can support blades vertically or at an angle, while the root end frame can rotate to match blade orientations.

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