This is an Elkartek project that is based on the need to adapt to the new conditions derived from climate change and create resilient turbines for the sustainability and efficiency of the technology.

Society, the economy and industry must adapt to the challenges posed by climate change. This adaptation even reaches sectors such as wind power, with increasingly extreme winds, where the resilience of wind turbines will be key in the future. Along these lines, MEEVCE II emerges, a project funded by the Elkartek 2024 program that works on the challenge of transforming the sector, reducing design times and implementing new virtual tools.

MEEVCE II focuses on generating the knowledge necessary to develop an evolutionary design methodology that guarantees the resilience and reliability of critical components in wind turbines (mainly those located in the rotor and in the power train). It is being carried out by a consortium led by Ikerlan, in which Bearinn (the R&D unit of the company Laulagun), Ceit and Mondragón Unibertsitatea, as well as the Energy Cluster, also participate.

Although looking back is important, so is looking forward: currently, generators are designed to have a useful life of up to 30 years, and the wind profiles with which they operate are defined according to historical data. However, it is a reality that climate change brings with it increasingly stronger winds.

MEEVCE II is expected to advance in the evaluation of the robustness and capacity of the system to continue operating despite the changes that have occurred, so that its resilience is anticipated in the design and operation phase for different scenarios and variations in winds. To do this, its objective is to devise, develop, design and operate procedures or test benches on a reduced scale, to reproduce on a laboratory scale equivalent future conditions/loads, derived from climate change, that will occur on a real scale.