Development of Coil Winding and Magnet Assembly Manufacturing Processes for a Ferrite Based Permanent Magnet Generator

The UK has set an ambitious target to increase its offshore wind capacity to 30GW by 2030\. However, to achieve this target, it is reliant on imported wind turbines. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted this dependency and vulnerability to disruption, particularly in terms of the supply of critical raw materials, such as rare-earth magnets.

For these reasons, it is of strategic importance that the UK develops its own wind turbine supply chain to meet its renewable energy targets. This would significantly reduce exposure to market risks, whist simultaneously supporting the development of its own manufacturing sector. GreenSpur believes it has a solution that will catalyse the development of a new UK wind turbine generator supply chain.

All wind turbine Permanent Magnet Generators (PMGs) use conventional designs that rely on one key material, rare-earth magnets. GreenSpur, a Time To Act subsidiary, has invented and patented a new and highly innovative approach, with a PMG that substitutes scarce and expensive rare earth magnets for cheap and abundant ferrite magnets. The global wind turbine market currently uses large volumes of rare-earth magnets, materials almost exclusively sourced from China (\>80%), with supply shortages forecast from the mid-2020s onwards (Roskill).

GreenSpur's innovation can eliminate this supply chain risk, which will prove crucial in the coming years and decades.

The long-term vision of GreenSpur's project is to stimulate the development of a UK supply chain and manufacturing network that can build multi-MW generators for the UK wind market. This project follows on from two successful projects; (i) a 250kW prototype testing at Blyth in August 2019 validating the technology and manufacturing processes and (ii) a 'Business-led innovation in response to Covid' project, to identify potential UK based manufacturing and engineering partners to support the commercialisation of GreenSpur's technology.

GreenSpur has now successfully identified several UK manufacturers. This project aims to develop: (i) the manufacturing processes to pre-production rates for: a.the unique aluminium strip coils, b.the magnetization of large magnet assemblies supporting multi-MW generator configurations (up to 5MW), and

(ii) a production line monitoring system to verify key coil design specifications.

This project is in collaboration with established partner, Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) and will be supported by specialist manufacturing subcontractors. The project will improve GreenSpur's manufacturing readiness level in support of supplying rare-earth free generators to the UK wind turbine market by the mid-2020s.