Anchoring Power: Ensuring Control and Stability in Offshore Energy Hubs

We rely on electricity daily, from checking our phones in the morning to grabbing breakfast from the fridge. We drive to work in electric cars and spend much of our day on computers. And just like our internet connection, we need our power supply to be stable. That’s where Assistant Professor Aleksandra Lekić plays a key role. She focuses on the control and stability of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power systems, including offshore energy hubs like wind farms and floating solar panels. Her work is vital in preventing major disruptions, such as blackouts, that could impact the entire power grid.

Energy hub als krachtig concept in de energietransitie

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Anchoring Power: Ensuring Control and Stability in Offshore Energy Hubs

We rely on electricity daily, from checking our phones in the morning to grabbing breakfast from the fridge. We drive to work in electric cars and spend much of our day on computers. And just like our internet connection, we need our power supply to be stable. That’s where Assistant Professor Aleksandra Lekić plays a key role. She focuses on the control and stability of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power systems, including offshore energy hubs like wind farms and floating solar panels. Her work is vital in preventing major disruptions, such as blackouts, that could impact the entire power grid.

reading time: 5 min

Supercharged sustainability: designing circular solar panels

The materials our earth supplies are not infinite. In fact, certain widely used materials are very scarce, with only a few countries able to source and process them – creating a dependency for other countries. These are called Critical Raw Materials. Coincidentally, these materials are used extensively in sustainable technologies. Silicon metal, for example, is used for solar panels. Researcher Malte Vogt wants to protect sustainable technologies from running out of resources: "I design circular solar panels. The goal is to mine the materials only once and use them to build first-generation solar panels for the energy transition and re-use the same materials again and again."

Protecting a Sustainable Future

If you want to know more about the research of Thomas Höllt, you could simply have a look at his work. It should – for the trained eye – speak for itself. And what you will see, will vary from the dispersion of proteins in cells, to the different layers in an old Vermeer painting. His visualization platform does not only help biologists to understand how the immune system works, it also helps them to get to the roots of diseases and come up with specialized treatment. And it can also be used to identify and chart invaluable paintings and could have many more applications.

The energy transition under high tension: the High Voltage Technologies Group

A while ago we thought it was no longer needed within TU Delft: a group entirely dedicated to maintaining and developing the use of high voltage. After all, the expectation was that the grid would become decentralised in the Netherlands, and that households would start generating their own electricity. This has partly become true, however, a vast amount of the renewable energy comes in large ‘chunks’, for example through offshore wind farms and large solar fields. "The fact is that we need high-voltage more than ever," Prof Peter Vaessen emphasizes. "This is also the reason we have a new, revived high-voltage group at TU Delft: the High Voltage Technologies Group."

Leestijd: 6 min

The battery of the future is coming closer

Fast, safe and a bigger battery storage capacity are needed if the energy transition is to be successful. One advantage is that they will be able to store the excess solar and wind energy for later use. There is just one problem – the current generation of batteries have already reached their maximum capacity.

reading time: 4 min

Steel is one of the most important materials ever. Yongxiang Yang has been fascinated by methods of making steel in a green way for decades.

How to produce steel in a greener and cleaner way

Steel is indispensable in our modern society. Unfortunately, its production releases a lot of CO2. Due to steel’s large-scale functionality, we have not managed to find a good alternative yet. But we can solve this problem, thanks to scientific research and technological developments.

reading time: min

The coming age of ‘solar everywhere’

From image recognition to medical diagnostics, Machine Learning has a huge impact. Yet Elvin Isufi adds an extra dimension, enabling its analyzing power to complex networks such as recommender systems, and more down-to-earth: water management.

reading time: min

Improving biotech production with real-time testing

leestijd: 9 min

A geothermal research well on TU Delft's premises

Some ten years ago a group of TU Delft students got the idea of realizing a geothermal well at the university campus. What at first seemed like a wild plan was set into motion when it became clear the campus grounds were in fact an ideal location. Now, for theme leader Phil Vardon things are almost about to get real. After years of measuring, liaising and researching, detailed preparations to make it a reality are in full flow now. “This geothermal source on our campus will become one of the world’s biggest hotspots for research into geothermal energy.”

reading time: 4, 5 min

Ultimate challenge: to make 7 million buildings energy neutral on time

Contentious. That is an apt description of the Climate Agreement’s requirement of achieving a near-zero energy status in the built environment by 2050. How is this supposed to work for the approximately 7 million existing homes and other buildings? Henk Visscher, Professor of Housing Quality and Process Innovation, advocates an active role for scientists in the much-needed innovation. “We need drivers who can make processes better, easier and less expensive.”

Watching time: 12 min

ESP Lab - Lucia Beloqui Larumbe, Power Electronics

Four designers from Delft University of Technology travelled to Lake Victoria, Tanzania and partnered with Sagar Energy Solutions to design a solar-powered fishing lamp for the night fishing industry. This effort aims to put an end to the reliance on dangerous and expensive kerosene lanterns.

Watching time: 12 min

ESP Lab - Peter Palensky, Digital Technologies

Four designers from Delft University of Technology travelled to Lake Victoria, Tanzania and partnered with Sagar Energy Solutions to design a solar-powered fishing lamp for the night fishing industry. This effort aims to put an end to the reliance on dangerous and expensive kerosene lanterns.

Watching time: 12 min

ESP Lab – Miro Zeman, Photovoltaics

Four designers from Delft University of Technology travelled to Lake Victoria, Tanzania and partnered with Sagar Energy Solutions to design a solar-powered fishing lamp for the night fishing industry. This effort aims to put an end to the reliance on dangerous and expensive kerosene lanterns.

reading time: 5 min

Monitoring buildings to boost performance

Professor Laure Itard is working to identify solutions for energy waste and faulty indoor climate within buildings. The key question facing the recently-launched Brains 4 Buildings (B4B) research programme is: how can artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning contribute to improving sustainability and comfort? Living

reading time: 10 min

Innovation needs a place to grow

Mitigating the impact of climate change, facilitating the energy transition, solving the housing crisis… The built environment needs to address pretty big challenges, which ask for innovative solutions. Students at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment have plenty of good ideas to create the necessary innovations, but how can their ideas successfully evolve?

reading time: 6 min

Is hydrogen-powered air travel the future?

Hydrogen is a sustainable alternative to kerosene-powered air travel because there are no CO₂ emissions. But hydrogen is also associated with challenges and risks, such as the danger of explosion. TU Delft scientist Dr. Ivan Langella aims to use mathematical models, high-fidelity computational simulations and experiments to develop a zero-emission hydrogen-powered engine that will enable aircraft to fly safely and efficiently.

reading time: 3 min

Increasing demand for renewable energy will lead to the large-scale construction of offshore wind farms in the coming decades. This will result in increased environmental damage for marine life, because anchoring wind turbines in the seabed is currently still a source of noise disruption. GBM Works, a TU Delft spin-off company, has developed a much quieter method of building offshore wind turbines.

‘The market needs a quiet method for offshore pile-driving’

Increasing demand for renewable energy will lead to the large-scale construction of offshore wind farms in the coming decades. This will result in increased environmental damage for marine life, because anchoring wind turbines in the seabed is currently still a source of noise disruption. GBM Works, a TU Delft spin-off company, has developed a much quieter method of building offshore wind turbines

Collection Climate Action

reading time: 4 min

Using smart technology to make fuel out of CO2

Too much CO2 in the air is currently causing a major problem: climate change. If it were up to Peyman Taheri, researcher at Materials Science and Engineering at TU Delft, we would be making smart use of surplus CO2 by converting it into a new fuel. A fuel that could power factories and send cars hurtling down the motorway.

reading time: min

‘I woke up in the middle of the night and just knew: we would build this platform’

What do you do when the coronavirus crisis brings your student project to a halt?
For Eco-Runner Team Manager Antonios Kouzelis it was an easy decision:
arrange an alternative! Besides which he and two friends also set up the website
kiezeninquarantaine.nl (choosing while in quarantine), just like that.

reading time: 8 min

Firm ground for cloud datacentre planning

Just like the roads that provide access to them and the dikes that protect them, cloud datacentres have become an essential part of our national, and worldwide, infrastructure. Thanks to capacity planning research by TU Delft master’s student Georgios Andreadis, these datacentres may continue to meet the ever-growing computational demands while reducing their operational costs and increasing their efficiency and environmental sustainability.

reading time: 5 min

Sand on the horizon

viewing time: 11 min

How to Print a Dinosaur

Anchoring Power: Ensuring Control and Stability in Offshore Energy Hubs

Energy hub als krachtig concept in de energietransitie

reading time: 8 min

Puzzling over behavioural models for sustainable greenhouse horticulture

reading time: 5 min

Battling the data hunger of Big Tech

reading time: 5 min

Cybersecurity | Story of Team Science | Technische Universiteit Delft

reading time: 4 min

Heating your home with lake water: the 'magic' of aquathermal energy

reading time: min

Protecting vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks with physics-inspired AI

leestijd: 5 min

How do we keep our cities clean and accessible? | TU Delft
Mahnam Saeednia sits on a bench at the train station. Next to her is a package that points a megaphone at her.

reading time: 10 min

Giving freight a voice

reading time: 4 min

Our concrete inheritance: not always desired but definitely important

reading time: 2 min

How to design the train stations of tomorrow

reading time: min

Rethinking transport in cities

reading time: 8 min

Hassle as a limiting factor for using energy when the sun shines

reading time: 10 min

Damping waves with 50,000 rubber grass blades

Solar panels, solar systems, photovoltaics, energy transition

From waves to shadows: Optimizing solar systems by modelling their energy output

Social skills for digital humans

reading time: 3, 5 min

From industrial heat to a social glow(-up)

Story

Open data is taking off in aviation – thanks to BlueSky

reading time: 5 min

Supercharged sustainability: designing circular solar panels

reading time: 6 min

Critical raw materials, from our own European backyard
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