The technology has been tested on a piece of wing in a freezer at the university’s lab and then tried out at wind turbines in Jämtland. A camera on the nose of the wind turbines teaches the technique to detect ice formation. That, in combination with weather forecasts, means that you can predict when ice will form.
– Then you can turn on the de-icing system earlier or maybe you can then start running the wind turbine in a slightly different way so that you don’t have as big a problem, says Johan Casselgren, assistant professor of experimental mechanics at Luleå University of Technology.
Large production losses
The wings of the wind turbines catch the wind less well when they form ice and the skew load wears down the structure Despite heat in the wings and de-icing systems, the wind power industry has major problems with ice formation.
– The icing problem is somewhere between four and 12 percent of annual production. It varies slightly depending on where in the country you are, how high above sea level you are and what kind of system you have, explains Per Olofsson, chairman of the Swedish Wind Energy Association.
20,000 villas effect
Just over half of the country’s wind turbines are in electricity areas 1 and 2, i.e. Norrland where the problems are greatest. The ability to detect icing on the wings in good time means that energy production can increase and more green electricity can be sold.
– If you can remove this snow and ice effect, maybe not all but half, then we have calculated that it is almost equivalent to 20,000 villas in effect that we lose every winter. If we could extract more such electricity, that would be very positive, says assistant professor Johan Casselgren.