KIC InnoEnergy researchers work on their first commercial product

KIC InnoEnergy researchers are working on Neptune, a combination of hardware and software which will contribute to a breakthrough in energy generation: expanding offshore wind farming from the North and Baltic Seas into the Mediterranean and later into many other regions of the world. The working group is composed of 15 people from universities, research centres, a utility and a commercial company of the German and Iberian Co-location centres of KIC InnoEnergy. The UPC coordinates the Iberian Co-location centre.

The Neptune project is working towards the development of two different products: The “EOLOS” LIDAR buoy (a wind measuring system based on laser technology) and “NEPTool”, a highly accurate software program for forecasting wind, waves and currents.

 

”EOLOS” can be used instead of meteorological masts, which due to costs are limited to use in shallow water and are only able to take measurements up to 200m in height. “NEPTool”, on the other hand, combines the simulation of wind, waves and currents into a single tool. These both represent substantial improvements on current commercial systems. It may not sound like a very exciting combination, but put together these two advances will dramatically reduce the financial risk of developing wind farms in the Mediterranean and many other seas around the world.

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