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economic cost in the 2010-2015 time scale. This feasibility study resulted in a
project to design and de-risk a full scale direct drive HTS wind turbine genera-
tor. The project is scheduled to complete in 2010, and will be followed by a pro-
gram to prototype and industrialize a full size generator. It is partly supported by a
grant from the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry (now Technology Strategy
Board), and includes A.S. Scientifi c, a specialist cryogenic engineering company
in Abingdon, U.K. and the University of Warwick, U.K., for their expertise in
materials and volume manufacturing methods, as project partners.
6.1 Generator specifi cation
The generator specifi cation was based on the rating of the largest offshore turbines
expected to be in production in 5-10 years time. The rating was chosen to be
8 MW at 12 rpm, which would be used on a turbine with a rotor diameter of around
160 m, and a blade tip speed optimised for far offshore application. This gives
the generator a shaft torque of 6500 kNm, the largest torque of any HTS rotating
machine project to date.
6.2 Project aims
The project was originally planned to extend over a period of 3 years although this
was subsequently extended to 4 years to permit work on two other HTS projects
concurrently. It was divided into three principle tasks:
1.
The conceptual design of the full size generator during the fi rst year of the
project, followed by a gate review.
The detailed design, with cost and performance modelling, of the full size
2.
generator.
In parallel with the detailed design, a scaled model generator having a rated
3.
torque of up to 200 kNm, to be designed, manufactured and tested, employing
the technology that will be used in the full scale design.
6.3 Conceptual design
The fi rst stage of the project, involved the conceptual design of the full size gen-
erator, and was completed in November 2006. The resulting generator design was
5 m diameter with an overall length (excluding shaft extensions) of 2.2 m, and a
mass of just over 100 tonnes. This stage of the project examined the technical,
economic and market feasibility of the HTS generator, and aimed to provide a
baseline design and one or more solutions to the technical challenges that could be
used in the detailed design stages to follow. The completed concept design, with
the rotor shown separately is shown in Fig. 7.
A preliminary study examined many of the synchronous HTS machine topolo-
gies, in order to determine the optimum design basis for the HTS wind generator.
The design of HTS machines involves a broader range of skill than those that are
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