HybridLabs consortium receives NWA-ORC funding for innovations in offshore renewable energy
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has announced that the HybridLabs consortium will receive 10.4 million euros in funding within the National Research Agenda programme: Research on Routes by Consortia (NWA-ORC). The HybridLabs consortium project will accelerate Dutch innovations in offshore renewable energy through data-driven hybrid labs. The consortium consists of around 40 partners and is led by the TU Delft Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, with a valuable contribution from the team Dynamic Stability of Sustainable Electrical Power Systems of EEMCS’ Intelligent Electrical Power Grids Group (IEPG).
Unique data-driven hybrid labs
At the core of HybridLabs is a unique Dutch infrastructure of hybrid experimental facilities, simulators and offshore demonstration sites, which learn from each other using new data- and physics-driven approaches. The scale of infrastructure and innovations in HybridLabs is unique, because a wide range of labs and offshore demonstration sites will be connected.
HybridLabs accelerates the energy transition by developing renewable offshore technologies for electricity as well as hydrogen production. Because of the hybrid infrastructure, technology development takes place faster and cheaper. HybridLabs simultaneously strengthens the offshore food and environmental transition. The consortium project leads to a strong position for the Dutch knowledge and innovation chain and also creates important commercialisation opportunities for floating wind energy along the Irish Atlantic coast.
Assessing the resilience of integrated offshore-onshore energy systems
The team Dynamic Stability of Sustainable Electrical Power Systems, led by Dr. José Rueda, associate professor of the IEPG Section, will use a synthetic digital model of the entire Dutch electricity grid to assess the stability of integrated offshore-onshore energy systems. The group will use a combination of computationally efficient digital simulation, hybrid AI-Signal processing techniques, multi-variable control theory, and probabilistic stability assessment and enhancement.
The self-calibrated and unsupervised digital models enable trustworthy monitoring and mitigation of steady-state and fast dynamic instabilities that cannot be correctly studied with existing aggregated static and myopic models (that lack foresight).
The team of Dr. Rueda will attract one PhD candidate that will focus on obtaining robust adaptive equivalent models of offshore networks, and will investigate their limitations. The PhD will also investigate adaptive equivalent models and how they can enhance situational awareness and robust control design in integrated offshore-onshore systems. For example: How can these models inform wind farm operators (combined with solar PV, conversion and storage systems) to take actions, e.g. adapt dispatching and control settings?
NWA-ORC funding
NWA-ORC funding is awarded to Dutch consortia working on scientific and societal breakthroughs. Active collaboration between different research disciplines, different knowledge institutions and with public sectors and industry are at the core of the projects.