MegaAWE

Project: MegaAWE
Timescale: 2020-2023
Funder: Interreg North-West Europe
Funding: EU FUNDING – € 6.84 m / TOTAL BUDGET – € 12.29 m

Project Overview:

MegaAWE is a 3 year project funded by Interreg NWE aiming to bring utility-scale Airborne Wind Energy Systems (“MW-AWES”) closer to the market and readying SMEs for it’s roll out. It shall achieve this by:

• Endurance demonstration, to improve investability and secure interest of utilities;
• Demonstration of key enabling modules at MW-scale, to de-risk planning of commercial prototype demo;
• Developing an execution plan for MW-AWES commercial prototype demo, to ensure relevant innovation focus (incl. site & user requirements, design guidelines, system sizing & costing), validated by regions & users.

MegaAWE investment and outputs address the recommendations of the EU-commissioned 2018 Ecorys study on AWES. MegaAWE contributes with:

• AWES test hub in Mayo, IE;
• Precommercial AWES architecture demonstrated at 150kW in on-field pilot;
• Three key enabling AWES modules at >1MW, demonstrated in-lab;
• 20 Enterprises supported;
• “MegaAWE” Platform, supporting MW-AWES development and future roll-out, matching needs & opportunities of regions & users with solutions of developers.

MegaAWE shall raise MW-AWES from TRL 5 to 7, strengthen innovation capacity of 12 SMEs and secure supply chain and investment towards the next step, commercial demonstration. By 2033, 50 AWES installed (150MW capacity) could then provide RE to 150,000 additional households in NWE.

Project partners:

Lead Partner:

• Mayo County Council

Project Partners:

• Airborne Wind Europe AISBL
• Ampyx Power B.V.
• Parkburn Precision Handling Systems
• Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult
• EMEC Ireland Ltd
• BlueWise Marine
• RWE Renewables GmbH
• RWE Renewables Ireland Ltd
• Société Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aéronautiques – Limburg
• European Marine Energy Center
• Europaeisches Institut fuer Innovation – Technologie e.V.
• Bretagne Développement Innovation