Energy producers need to innovate, drive efficiencies and cut emissions and mainstream new, more sustainable energy sources if we’re to meet global decarbonisation goals. Only high-strength, low weight, design-friendly composites can unlock this greener future, playing an enabling role at every stage of the energy transition, from power generation to distribution and storage.
Composites play a crucial role in the decarbonisation of the energy system for a net zero future. There are 8,000 miles of pipeline under the North Sea, supplying energy to the UK. Strong, durable and lightweight composites reduce the risk of leaks and cut maintenance costs.
The UK's ambition is to power all homes using renewable offshore wind by 2030. New, sustainable composite wind turbines will make this a reality.
Our roadmap plots a course to the key applications of composites that will empower the energy transition. We’re driving towards next generation 20+MW floating wind turbines, highly modular and lower impact subsea infrastructure and non-corrosive pipe networks to connect production to demand. All these innovations will be showcasing sustainable materials, embedded intelligence and cutting-edge, digitally enabled design to maximise benefit for the environment, the communities in which they operate and their economic bottom line.
Hydrogen means cleaner, more sustainable energy and transport. This new economy will depend upon high strength, high value storage tanks. Composites are by far the best engineering solution - creating a new opportunity for the UK's world-class composites sector. At the National Composites Centre, we are part of the Hydrogen Innovation initiative, which is accelerating end-to-end innovation for the hydrogen economy.
We work with organisations across the product development lifecycle. From small specific design tools through to full-scale design, build and test programmes, we can tailor our scope to best support your critical milestones.
The National Composites Centres gives customers open-access to a world-leading composites testbed designing solutions that can be scaled and accelerated to market quickly and cost-effectively. We work with industry to trial, test and prove to ensure there is a clear path to industrialisation using the right technologies for the right job.
We work with organisations and regulatory bodies to assess composite designs against standards for each industry sector, so that NCC experts, our customers and regulators can work collaboratively to assess new composite solutions.
SusWIND is demonstrating viable ways to recycle composite wind turbine blades, exploring the use of sustainable materials and processes in developing composite blades.
Joule Challenge Phase 2 is a flagship £5m, 20-month programme, funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through its Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP). It will set out a detailed roadmap for incorporating radically new composite-based components in the next-generation of offshore wind turbines.
Focused on turbine blade production with zero waste, TURBO will reduce defect formation for composite wind turbine blades through better process simulation, monitoring and control, improve defect identification with new methods of non-destructive testing (NDT) and introduce novel repair strategies in composites and coatings.
The European project EoLO HUBS “Wind turbine blades End of Life through Open HUBs for circular materials in sustainable business models” has the ambition to recover glass and carbon fibre from wind turbine blades at the end of their useful lives and create a knowledge hub to facilitate the recycling.
