GRIDABLE newsletter

Newsletter 5, June 16, 2021

Project closure

On 14th of June 2021, the GRIDABLE consortium held a one-day meeting a closure of the project. In the morning, the consortium met privately the European Commission project officers to present the results of the project and a final technical report.

In the afternoon, a public stakeholder meeting was broadcasted as webinar to showcase the results of the project. Around 40 external stakeholders attended. The meeting started with the video of the project that can be viewed at this link: https://youtu.be/FtEJmydvHUs. Then, authoritative keynote speakers set the stage by providing the broad context of the project in terms of research and innovation policies (Dr. Martin Kern from Swiss State Secretariat for Education), market (Dr. Jussi Rantanen from Finland’s transmission system operator), and technology (Prof. Giovanni Mazzanti from University of Bologna).

Finally, stakeholders were informed more in detail about the GRIDABLE outcomes related to new materials with insulating properties, their implementations in HVDC cables, thin films, and HVDC capacitors, and their potential business impact once they are on the market.

Presentations about the materials were given by Rafal Anyszka from Twente University and Ilkka Rytöluoto from VTT; they presented the project results related to tailoring the silica surface for nano dielectrics and the thermoplastic electrical insulation compounds developed and piloted within GRIDABLE.

Then, Paolo Seri from University of Bologna presented the research outcomes related to fundamental properties of dielectrics in extruded cables. Christelle Mazel from Nexans France S.A.S. then showed the promising pilot prototype for next generation of HVDC cables produced in their factories.

In the second part of the meeting, Vladimir Moncek from Terichem Tervakoski a.s. showed the results of industrial scale manufactured capacitor films made of nanocompound polypropylene, focusing on the biaxially-oriented films. The use of these films in capacitors has been then explained by Volker Geitner from ELECTRONICON Kondensatoren GmbH, who presented the electrical tests made on elements and capacitors for HVDC applications. The results related to dielectric characterization of capacitor insulation were then shown by Kari Lahti from Tampere University.

Finally, Fabiana Fantinel from InnoEXC GmbH showed the important business impact of GRIDABLE technologies, particularly stressing the environmental benefits of their use which are in line with the ambition of the European green transition.

The slides from the stakeholder meeting are available for download from the repository hosted on the project website.

A selection of other pictures can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/piiimhm1ku08kdg/Gridable-Selezione%20foto.zip?dl=0


Newsletter 4, November 23, 2020

First capacitor with GRIDABLE material

GRIDABLE project partners have met in Frankfurt, MovenPick Hotel on 4th and 5th February 2020. The meeting has marked an historical moment for GRIDABLE, since HVDC capacitors with the innovative compounds developed by the consortium have been produced at full scale for the very first time.

The project partners at Electronicon Kondensatoren GmbH used our second prototype of a capacitor film provided by Terichem Tervakoski Film and recorded promising performances in the preliminary tests. "We are satisfied by the results obtained so far", claimed Alexander Strauss, technology developer at Electronicon, "and we look forward to see the performances of the next compound prototype, which is expected to have better dielectric properties and overcome some of the shortcomings of the current material".

GRIDABLE innovation is moving toward industrial prototypes in 2020, thus enabling the demonstration of electrical properties observed at lab scale. This will pave the way to a new generation, high performing grid infrastructure (capacitors and cables) for renewable energies.



Prototype of full-scale HVDC capacitor.

Newsletter 3, March, 2019

100% Renewable Energy Needs Lots of Storage. This Polar Vortex Test Showed How Much. According to Inside climate news the key for the use of green energy supplied by wind and solar farms is energy storage, this has been shown in the cold January days when if renewable energy had to be used much more battery storage capacity would have been required. “Energy storage is a key piece of the power puzzle as cities, states and supporters of the Green New Deal talk about a transition to 100 percent carbon-free energy sources within a few decades. US would need to transform its grid in a way that could meet demand on the hottest and coldest days, a task that would involve a huge build-out of wind, solar and energy storage, plus interstate power lines.” https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20022019/100-percent-renewable-energy-battery-storage-need-worst-case-polar-vortex-wind-solar

“New data from Eurostat shows how many European Union member states have reached their 2020 renewable energy goals, as of 2017. The EU as a whole aims to get 20 percent of all its energy from renewable sources by next year. But its 28 member states all have different goals, ranging from 10 percent to nearly 50 percent of energy share. Thus far, 11 of the countries have already hit their goals, including Sweden (which now gets more than half its energy from renewables) and Finland (over 40 percent). A few other countries, such as Latvia, Austria, and Greece, are very close to hitting their marks, as well. Considering these are 2017 numbers, it’s possible a few of these nations have since reached their goals. But the majority of the EU member states have yet to meet their goals, and it’s not looking good for countries like France and The Netherlands. https://electrek.co/2019/02/20/egeb-eu-renewable-energy-targets-texas-solar-farms-china-solar-subsidies/


Newsletter 2, May, 2018 - [PDF]

Energy storage GRIDABLE technology, based on proprietary nanotechnology, has shown good performance of metallized film for capacitor applications. This result is very important for renewable energy production through wind and solar energy, where the storage of energy is essential for effective operations.

Plastic recycling GRIDABLE contributes to improve circularity for plastics application. it is very relevant that all plastics product will be designed to be recyclable at the end of their lifecycle. Therefore it is important to design for green energy projects plastics infrastructure that can be recycled at the end of its lifecycle. GRIDABLE technology enables achieving a step change by making available recyclable cable insulating layer formulations for the transport of green electricity from wind and solar farms. GRIDABLE material design concept has been validated and the cable formulations have shown to have the desired set of properties and electrical breakdown strength, achieved through a thermoplastic material technology especially developed and validated through Horizon 2020 fundings.

Network links GRIDABLE project network has been extended including the establishment of a platform in the project website www.gridable.eu/links.htm, for partnerships with other EC funded projects under Horizon2020 programmes especially active in the field of green energy and sustainable energy solutions. We believe that the cooperation and exchange of information between EC funded project teams is very important for the achievement of longer term objectives of successful implementation of renewable energy innovation.

Newsletter 1, October, 2017

GridAbleis progressing successfully to deliver value to the renewable energy space, including wind and solar energy.

GridAble is a EC funded four years project, which started on January 1st 2017, with value of 8.3 m EUR, including EC and private partner contribution, to support breakthrough innovation for boosting the growth of renewable energy sector thanks to more efficient energy storage and transportation, achieved through newly formulated, functionalized materials with low C-footprint.

The aim of GridAble is to develop PP/SiO2 nanocomposites with proper nanoparticle functionalization and dispersion, demonstrating the improvements this novel material can bring to the state of the art of HVDC cables and DC capacitors insulation. In HVDC cables PP/SiO2 are to replace current technology based on XLPE based manufacturing, thus significantly lowering the total energy consumption of the PP/SiO2 processing and meeting Circular Economy requirements. While in DC capacitors the benefit is to reduce the thickness of PP film by using the potentially more reliable nanocomposite film. This would allow to make smaller capacitors, which brings relevant savings and therefore facilitates greatly the penetration of renewable technology.

You Tube Video

GridAble received funding under EC Horizon 2020 programme.