Narec has awarded a framework contract to Shepherd Construction for the building of three new facilities to house new test rigs for full scale wind and marine prototype devices:
* Project Nautilus, a 3MW drive train test rig, will de-risk in-field activities by allowing Narec to perform certification activities, reliability and performance appraisal of new marine devices. Based around the existing dry docks, there will be no comparable open-access R&D facilities elsewhere in the world.The project is supported by government, One North East and the European Regional Development Fund 2007-13. In July 2009, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) granted funding of £10 million for Project Nautilus with £4.46 million from ERDF.
* A new 100m blade test facility will provide an independent and confidential environment to accelerate the development of new blade designs before they are taken offshore. It will be the largest of its type in the world and expands on Narec’s existing blade testing capability developed over the last five years, serving the global supply chain and industrial research community.The new world class facility is jointly funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Energy and Climate Change (£11.5m) and Regional Development Agency One North East (£2.5m).
* Project Fujin will be the world’s largest offshore wind drive train test facility rated at 15MW. It will provide land based development and testing of whole ‘power systems’ in conditions representative of the in-field environment.Funding for the build of a major offshore wind turbine component and drive train testing rig has the support of the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) and One North East (ONE).Our plans, to design the world’s largest open access offshore wind turbine drive train test rig for machines up to 12MW were announced by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) in February 2010. The test rig design specification is a result of nearly two years of engineering development and industry consultation by Narec and ETI. ONE will invest £10 million in the building to house the rig.
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Source: narec, January 11, 2011