International Workshop on Natural and Low–Cost Materials in Wind Energy Technologies: Overview

Overview

The renewable energy technologies can provide sources of unlimited, cheap and clean energy to the people in developing countries. Especially, communities in hilly and dry regions, which do not have easy access to the hydro power, and can not afford the installation of long transmission lines or using solar photovoltaic power, could benefit from the wider use of wind energy. Small wind turbines can present a good, economically viable and environmental friendly solution to provide remote villages in hilly areas with light and electricity.
In order to reduce costs of wind turbines and to make this technology more attractive for developing countries, the natural, locally available materials, notably wood, can be used to produce parts of the wind turbines instead of or along with conventional composite materials.
The Workshop will focus on perspectives, and on scientific and technical aspects of using low cost, and natural materials, in particular, wood, in wind energy technologies. The analysis and prediction of strength and reliability of wooden parts, as well as interrelations between wood microstructures, mechanical properties and performances and computational modelling of natural materials and their properties are also important topics for the Workshop.

Page updated by 20.12.2007

Leon Mishnaevsky
Senior Scientist
Materials Research (AFM)
Dir tel+45 46775729