Manufacture and Design of Large Offshore Wind Turbine Blades

The MADEBLADES project targets further development and prototype demonstration of a disruptive design and manufacturing solution for large (>90m) offshore wind turbine blades. Overall project objective and success criterion is to enable a 30% reduction in the cost of produced blades. The MADEBLADES project will demonstrate paradigm-shifting concepts for design, material usage and manufacturing processes for industrial blade production with a higher degree of automation. A Danish based logistics chain will be developed to handle pre-fabricated components and transfer blade material to the blade mould with a minimum of manual handling. The expected outcome of MADEBLADES is an improved competitiveness due to a higher throughput by a reduction of moulding cycle time, person-hours required per produced blade and a material cost reduction. Expected impact is therefore a better competitiveness by reduction of cost for offshore wind turbine blades and thereby reduced levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for offshore wind energy. Furthermore, MADEBLADES will improve the scientific understanding of blade manufacturing based on fiber preforms as well as fiber composites in general.