Funding enables development of new wind turbine structural integrity testing

Funding awarded by the North of Tyne Combined Authority, through the Technology, Innovation and Green Growth for Offshore Renewables (TIGGOR) programme, has enabled a Northumberland business to develop a new technology for wind turbine structural integrity testing.

Transmission Dynamics, based in Cramlington, received a share of £1.7million in match funding through the first round of the TIGGOR programme’s technology demonstration strand.

The business is a multi-award-winning Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) company with 20+ years’ experience designing and manufacturing bespoke systems to measure critical parameters in challenging environments.

Jenny Hudson, Business Development Director of Transmission Dynamics, said: “This funding will support us to develop innovative, low cost, ultra-sonic sensors to deploy guided waves across wind turbine towers and foundations; identifying cracks, corrosion and loss of bolt tension for wind turbine structural integrity testing.” 

The initial stages of the new technology development involved reviewing and trialling existing commercially available technologies, with testing carried out at the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult in Blyth, Northumberland. 

“End-users are reluctant to be the first adopters of new technologies causing a barrier to entry. Therefore, the proposed approach of developing a user informed solution and demonstrating, testing and validating it in collaboration with the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult aims to address this,” explained Jenny. 

“We have benefitted from early and ongoing active engagement with O&M specialists from both Siemens-Gamesa and SSE Renewables to understand their requirements for structural monitoring of these critical assets. 

“This has enabled us to ensure we design a user-led solution that will be fit for purpose both technically and commercially. We also hope there will be opportunities to demonstrate our technology to them on their own assets near the end of the project.” 

Jenny says that the funding has not only enabled the research to take place but will also lead to the growth of Transmission Dynamics as a business and the creation of new jobs: “We would not be able to commit to this ambitious industrial research project without funding support due to the total level of resources required.

“However, now that TIGGOR have invested in this work, we expect significant turnover increase. We aim to patent the IP generated, offering opportunities to license the technology developed. This will collectively contribute towards our commercial target to generate £4million revenue on hardware annually and £4million on data provision and diagnostics annually, from the global wind market by 2030. Ultimately this will all feed into our business plan which includes creation of 50 new jobs over the next five years to service the company’s growth in this and other sectors.” 
 
Find out more about the TIGGOR programme here. 

Transmission Dynamics is just one of hundreds of organisations helping the North East reach its net zero targets and make a difference on a global scale. 

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