Business
Successful Stereax Field Trial
Successful Stereax Field Trial.
About this update from Ilika Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 8114B Ilika plc 04 February 2020 \n\nIlika plc\n(\"Ilika\" or the \"Company\")\n \nSuccessful Stereax Field Trial\n \nIlika completes condition monitoring trial of solid-state battery on wind turbine blade \n \nIlika (AIM: IKA), a pioneer in solid-state battery technology, announces it has successfully integrated its Stereax® solid-state battery in condition monitoring sensors placed on a test wind turbine blade at the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult facility in Blyth, UK. The trial, carried out in January 2020, concluded that energy harvested from the vibrations of the blade can charge a Stereax® M250 solid-state battery which can in turn power condition monitoring sensors and LoRa communication.\n \nThe global wind turbine market consists of over 300,000 wind turbines providing 600 GWh of renewable energy per annum. This is forecast to increase by 22.5% from 2018 to 2025 with annual market revenue generation rising to $30.5bn. The repair of turbine blades is very costly due to the difficulty of accessing the blades themselves: an average blade repair can cost up to $30,000 and a new blade costs, on average, about $200,000. Real-time monitoring of the blade's health can help to avoid catastrophic events caused by delamination, cracks, impact or ice. \nAs part of the Innovate UK-funded development program \"SmartBlade\", in collaboration with Titan Wind Energy, Ilika partnered with the Universities of Chester and Aston to design and construct an autonomous (i.e. self-powered) wireless sensor device which uses harvested energy from the vibration of the blade to increase battery life. The device has now been successfully tested in a real-life environment, i.e. a specially constructed test blade, of length 40m, placed in ORE Catapult's facility. The tests confirmed the durability of the sensors in such hostile environments and yielded numerous useful data such as the best section of the blade to collect optimal wind-induced energy. Moreover, the test confirmed theoretical models showing that enough energy can be harvested from wind to charge a Stereax M250 sufficiently to enable full sensing and data transmission cycles every 10 minutes. Such a short interval is more than sufficient to provide real-time condition monitoring information of possible issues such as crack formation o...