The new surface coating Novaflex BladeUp prevents unfavorable air turbulence on the surface of rotor blades and thus increases the efficiency of wind turbines. Energiekontor AG, the maintenance company Omega-Tools and BASF's Coatings division have therefore joined forces to apply the functional film with its microscopically fine line structures to Energiekontor's turbines on a large scale.
The technology ensures a noticeable increase in yield. The so-called riblets reduce the occurrence of unfavorable air turbulence on the surface of the rotor blades. This means that a larger proportion of the wind can be used to generate electricity. In a measurement campaign that has been running for around a year, an increase in electricity yield of up to 3% was determined; to prove this, BASF Novaflex BladeUp was installed on a 1.3 megawatt SWT 1.300 (formerly AN Bonus) turbine in Ilsede, Lower Saxony.
"We are impressed by how significantly the electricity yield can be increased with Novaflex BladeUp. It is therefore all the more important that we implement this option for our plants in a timely manner and thus make a contribution to the energy transition," says Carsten Schwarz, CEO of Energiekontor AG. In the future, Energiekontor AG would like to equip all available systems with Novaflex BladeUp. "Retrofitting the functional film to existing wind turbines is feasible without long downtimes and can be realized for any model," says Olaf Dostalek, Managing Director of Omega-Tools GmbH. "Integration into the production processes of rotor blade manufacturers is also conceivable, so that new wind turbines can directly generate a higher electricity yield," says Jörg Lenz, Head of the Beyond Paint Solutions business unit at BASF.
