News 2010

Risø DTU is 13 - 15 September 2010 hosting the first annual meeting of the EU supported research project CARBO-Extreme. About 60 researchers from EU, USA and Switzerland will meet at Risø DTU to discuss their latest findings on how strongly extreme weather events affects the European CO₂ balance. New evidence suggests that extreme weather influences the atmospheres CO₂ balance dramatically, which in turn may exacerbate climate change.

After six months of measurements, Risø DTU estimates that now only 266 hectares need to be cleared at the future national test centre at Østerild to make space for the wind turbines and ensure the right wind conditions around them.

With its distinct wind conditions, 250-metre-high meteorological masts, seven foundations for wind turbines up to 250 metres and a unique concept for connecting the wind turbines to the electricity grid, Østerild will be tomorrow’s workshop for wind energy research, one that can maintain Denmark’s leading position within research and industry.

Today Lars Martiny (42) begins his appointment as Risø's new deputy director. Lars Martiny has been head of the Radiation Research Division at Risø DTU since 2008.

The short-lived radioactive isotopes used in hospitals and in research in Denmark, are something that the scientists here at Risø DTU know a great deal about. From 25-28 July Risø is hosting the 13th workshop on "Targetry and Target Chemistry." The workshop has been held since 1985 at leading research institutions in Europe and North America with two-year intervals.

The Danish company Topsoe Fuel Cell A/S and Risø DTU have received a grant of 54.5 million DKK from the Danish Energy Agency’s Programme for Energy Technology Development and Demonstration (EUDP). This will ensure that the current efforts within solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) will be continued, leading to prototypes in 2012 which meet market demands for efficiency, life time and price.

Ten years of intensive research and development at Risø DTU is now materialized in a fully operational production line for polymer solar cells at the Danish company Mekoprint A/S. Polymer solar cells which is an inexpensive alternative to silicon solar cells, has a significant industrial potential.

In 2030 it is estimated that the installed power from nuclear plants can be as high as 500 to 800 GWe (gigawatt electric). In the annual publication "Nuclear power and Nuclear Safety"(in Danish), published by Risø DTU in collaboration with the Danish Emergency Management Agency, summarizes on the global trends for 2009. Which plants are closed, which plants is about to be build or closed, and what safety measurements and nuclear preparedness do we have?

The Wind Energy Division at Risø DTU has designed a new load-bearing box girder, which is what we call the interior of the grand white aerodynamic shell. The load-bearing box girder is the skeleton that gives the blade its strength and flexibility, but unfortunately also helps to increase the blades weight. Three Risø patents now mean that scientists have been able to save around 40 % of the thickness of main laminate away.

The biggest rock festival of the summer is having a visit from Risø DTU again this year. A mini-biogas plant will show the guests at the festival, how easily one can make energy from their remains of kebab and chips. The sustainable quarter ‘Climate Community’ ’ will be hosting the event . Risø will also take part in a climate debate giving presentations on sustainability in developing countries and on the use of waste for energy production.

Since 2008 Risø has been making an effort to bridge the gap between research at Risø DTU and the business community in Region Zealand. 11 enthusiasts have been working at regional companies from three different approaches, and the results are very promising. In a booklet Risø Innovation Activities now summarise some of the exciting and growth-enhancing outcomes provided by the cooperation agreement.

Professor Frederik Krebs has received Ellen and Niels Bjerrums Kemikerpris 2010 in recognition of his work within solar cells and his chemical approach to the challenges within energy technologies.

From 7 - 11 June, 25 PhD students from different countries are attending a summer school at Risø on remote sensing for wind turbines. Remote sensing is a way to measure things and phenomena from a distance. Remote sensing is performed using e.g. laser beams, microwaves and sound waves. A well known example of remote sensing is when the police use speed control by means of laser measuring equipment.

Wind Day 2010 focuses on wind turbines at sea. As it is windier at sea than on land, the numbers of offshore wind turbines are still increasing. Moreover, the offshore wind turbine market is expected to increase by 71 % in 2010 compared with 2009. At the wind day the Danish Research Consortium for Wind Energy will present the latest research results from offshore wind energy.

Ten major research institutions in Europe, including Risø DTU, decided eighteen months ago to enter into formalised cooperation on the development of sustainable energy technologies and, at a conference on 3-4 June in Madrid, the first joint research programmes are being launched by the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA). In connection with the conference, Henrik Bindslev, Director of Risø DTU, has been elected new Chairman of EERA.

At the animal show in Roskilde scientists from Risø DTU are showing how easy it is to produce useful energy from biomass residues such as household rubbish and slurry from agriculture. For this purpose they are going to use their home-built simple biogas plant. Furthermore they will demonstrate how agriculture can kill several birds with one stone by producing biogas.

Four days in August, PhD students will be going through an interesting and challenging programme at the annual HyFC Academy School on Fuel Cells and Hydrogen. This year the topic is SOFC degradation mechanisms and their mitigation. The research school, which has been running for four years, is supported by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and led by Professor Søren Linderoth, Head of Division at Risø DTU. There are still vacant places.

Risø DTU's next energy conference will deal with the pressing large, long-term energy issues:

An area at Risø DTU, equivalent to 20 football fields is being planted with willow trees. This is the beginning of a new research project aiming to show how a willow plantation impacts greenhouse gas balances and use of resources.

The EU is now launching the TWENTIES Project. The project is to advance the development and implementation of new technologies that will make it possible to increase the use of wind power in Europe significantly. This will contribute to the EU objective for 2020: a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions; a 20% improvement in energy efficiency, and a 20% share of consumption from renewable energy sources. Risø DTU is going to lead the research activity of this project and assess the consequences of these solutions for the European electricity supply in 2020.

Risø DTU and Lindoe Offshore Renewables Center, LORC have signed a historic cooperation agreement that will ensure the development of the Danish wind turbine industry at sea. The two parties agree on the establishment of a common test facility at Lindoe, a test bench that will be among the largest in Europe.

On 2 - 7 May, 10,000 researchers from all of Europe gather in Vienna for European Geosciences Union. This is a great opportunity to exchange information and experiences on the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano. A scientist from Risø DTU seized the opportunity and organised a special session at the conference.

In a new report, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) stresses the need to improve access to clean energy to the more than 2 billion people currently living without access to modern energy services.

Lower CO₂ emissions demand more renewable energy in the energy system. This calls for new solutions that take account of the considerable variations in the amount of wind energy, hydropower, solar energy etc. One of the solutions is a distributed energy system. Here it must be possible to store surplus energy locally using, for example, local SOEC electrolytic cells. The foundation for this technology is being developed by the CASE research project.

At Risø DTU’s test station for large wind turbines at Høvsøre in western Jutland, a so-called LIDAR follows the progress of the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajökul volcano across Denmark. This has now been confirmed by comparing data from Risø with calculations made by the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) and the National Environmental Research Institute (NERI). LIDARs provide more details about the actual height and development of the ash cloud as well as qualitative measurements of the volcanic ash concentrations in the cloud.

The Festival of Research is marked in Roskilde with a big event at Stændertorvet on Saturday 24 April 2010, 10:00 to 14:00. Here Risø DTU together with Roskilde Municipality and local research and educational institutions and trade associations offer a lot of entertainment for all city residents.

A summer job at Risø can kick-start careers for students – Tobias Thomsen is living proof of this. During his Bachelor in Engineering studies, he had a summer job at Risø DTU, and then chose what he had been working on as the subject of his exam project. Since his exam, he has held a technical-administrative job in the department, and is now hoping to be enrolled on the MSc programme in Sustainable Energy.

Ceramic materials are used, for example, for components which can separate pure oxygen from air. The component is a sandwich of three different ceramic layers and its manufacture currently involves a three-stage process. With a new grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research, Technology and Production Sciences, the Fuel Cells and Solid State Chemistry Division at Risø DTU will seek to manufacture complex ceramic components by means of well-known, simple methods. The components can also be used for magnetic refrigerators, cleaning exhaust gases and much else besides.

Networking and idea sharing were on the agenda on 17 March when Risø DTU and Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster (CCC) held a preview of the new cluster organisation. Risø DTU is a driving force behind CCC, and the aim of the event was to demonstrate how efforts to match research at DTU with business can help develop Denmark as a cleantech powerhouse.

Risø DTU is one of the principal organisers of Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster. On 17 March at 13:00 we open the doors to some of our project activities within cleantech and innovation.

Danish industrial players have expressed a strong need for support in the process to push fuel cell and hydrogen technologies from the research and development stage into the commercial domain. Risø DTU has now with Danish Gas Technology Center (DGC) as partner received support from the Danish Programme for Energy Technology Development and Demonstration (EUPD) to initialize a center which will eventually support industry with test, development, analysis, approval, certification, consultation, and training in the areas of fuel cell and hydrogen technologies.

The recently completed Africa Carbon Forum in Nairobi had significantly more participants than expected. The UNEP Risoe Centre at Risø DTU was one of the main organisers.

The largest regional carbon trade fair in Africa so far is taking place in Kenya from 3 to 5 March 2010. The UNEP Risoe Centre at Risø DTU is responsible for a major part of the event at the UNEP headquarters on the outskirts of Nairobi.

For some years, the Wind Energy Division at Risø DTU has been working to develop a method for controlling the loads on large wind turbine blades using a flexible trailing edge made of an elastic material which can be controlled by means of compressed air or hydraulics. Now, the invention, which has been called CRTEF (Controllable Rubber Trailing Edge Flap), has been tested in a wind tunnel with promising results.

With new, advanced equipment, scientists at Risø DTU have shown that materials to produce micro-and nanocomponents react very differently depending on whether crystals are large or small. This research creates important knowledge that can be used to develop technologies aimed at the nanoproduction of micro-electro-mechanical systems such as digital microphones in mobile phones, miniature pressure sensors in water pumps and acceleration sensors in airbags.

Two years ago, Risø DTU had the opportunity to set up measurement masts on the small peninsula of Bolund at Roskilde Fjord. Within a few months unique data on wind flow in complex terrain was collected. The data can be used to check the different wind calculation programs around the world. In the autumn of 2009 users from Europe, the USA and Canada participated in a blind comparison and a workshop where the measurements were published.

Frederik C. Krebs heads Risø DTU's research into polymer solar cells. From 15 January he is appointed Professor at DTU in the field of ”Organic Photovoltaics”.

Smart Embedded Sensor Systems will allow operators of offshore wind farms to check ‘the health’ of the wind turbines, while the operator is sitting in a warm and dry place on land and while the turbine blades are spinning merrily, far away at sea.

This is made possible by incorporating sensors into the wind turbine blades to discover changes and damage in the blade structure at an early stage before the blade breaks. Remote monitoring of damage to off-shore wind turbines could save money, because the intervals between inspections can be increased. Moreover, operation becomes safer and more stable as it possible to check from a remote place whether a blade has been damaged after a heavy storm. The project is called SESS and stands for Smart Embedded Sensor Systems.

In the future, most wind turbines will not stand alone in a field, but together with other wind turbines as part of large wind farms on land or at sea. If yield and durability are to be perfect, the location of each wind turbine must be planned carefully. The Risø-led EU project TOPFARM provides the tools for a more rational design of wind farms.