Inside Green Innovation: Progress Report - Third Edition highlights:
- New patent applications within the wind turbine sector have, overall, plateaued over the last decade, but the number of them remains relatively high.
- This growing pool of existing patent rights is consolidating among a small group of major players.
- The European Patent Office (EPO) has overtaken the United States (US) Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the largest number of new filings since 2019, with the German and Danish patent offices also in the top five.
- While the number of new annual patent applications has levelled out across the sector, various sub-sectors appear to be gathering momentum, particularly floating turbines.
- Other emerging sub-categories include robots and drones for maintenance and inspection of wind turbines, along with innovations that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI).
Wind power provides a clean, sustainable source of energy to power our planet. Developing technologies and increasing the production of clean and sustainable power sources are particularly important given the imperative, highlighted at COP27, to ensure the global average temperature does not increase by more than 1.5 degrees C.
According to the International Energy Agency's Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Roadmap, “Wind and solar are the predominant sources of power generation in a Net Zero pathway. Reaching the levels of annual wind electricity generation foreseen in the Net Zero Scenario will require increased support for both onshore and offshore farms”.
Funding and activity
Investment in clean energy such as wind power has varied year-on-year, generally in response to changing policy. According to the IEA world energy outlook 2023 report, the trend in global investment is moving away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy sources.
According to the Global Wind Energy Council’s Global Wind Energy Report 2023, total installed global capacity will reach one terawatt (TW) this year; the report projects this to reach two TW by the end of 2030, showing the evident increase in demand for wind energy.
Looking at the UK, electricity generation from wind power increased by 715 percent from 2009 to 2020, with turnover from wind energy exceeding GBP 6 bn. The UK is also home to the world's largest offshore wind farm, Hornsea Wind Farm, which has a capacity of 1218 MW.
It’s clear that demand for wind generation is growing, as is the amount of energy produced by wind-related technologies. But has this led to an upward trend in wind-related innovation, or is the technology already firmly established?
Innovation growth in wind turbines
Figure 1: Twenty-year trend - global priority filings – wind turbines
(Priority filing = the first time a patent application for a unique invention has been filed (the first filing))
As wind innovation is so varied, it is not surprising that – over the past twenty years – there has been more innovation in some technologies than others. However, overall, the number of new patent applications relating to turbines has been relatively flat since its peak in 2010-2011. This uptick in filing activity at the time may have been due to a large push in research and development. For example, industry titans such as Vestas reportedly spent 1.4 percent of their revenue on R&D in 2009.
Figure 2: Twenty year trend - top filers - wind turbines
Other heavy hitters in the industry include General Electric (GE) and Siemens Gamesa, both filing consistently high numbers of patents in this area. Meanwhile, other companies began filing patents relatively recently. For example, LM Wind Power appears to have filed patents in 2002 and 2011, but not picked up filing in earnest until 2018, despite supplying its first set of blades to the Windmatic turbine in the Orkney Islands during the 1970s (GE Renewable Energy’s 2017 acquisition of the company may have sparked a focus on intellectual property rights).
Filing data also shows that the largest companies in the market are asserting their dominance. From 2018 – 2021, most filings came from three companies – GE, Siemens Gamesa and Vestas. Indeed, just focussing on the filers shows a gradual increase in their number of filings since 2009, which is indicative of the fact that many smaller players in the market have been acquired by these leading companies.
Conversely, many other companies have in recent years stopped filing patent applications in this area. Senvion stopped filing in 2019, due to insolvency, and their wind turbine service fleet was acquired by Siemens Gamesa. Meanwhile, Makani Technologies stopped filing in 2017, likely as a result of their acquisition by Google (Alphabet) and subsequent closure.
Filings by territory
The proportion of new patent applications filed by territory appears to be steady over recent years. While the US is clearly a big market for new filings, Germany and Denmark are also key jurisdictions along with filing at the EPO. Since 2019, the EPO has overtaken the USPTO with the highest number of filings. This is unsurprising, considering the headquarters of the three biggest filers – GE (the US), Siemens Gamesa (Germany/Spain) and Vestas (Denmark).
Figure 3: Twenty year trend - priority filings by territory - wind turbines
Particular technologies
If new patent applications as a whole in wind turbine technology have plateaued over the last decade, are there certain related areas of technology on the rise?
Floating wind turbines
Traditional, monopile wind turbines must be installed in waters with depths of less than 65m. These shallower areas are relatively scarce – making up approximately 20 percent of the world’s maritime waters – and often are unsuitable for turbines. Somehow using the remaining 80 percent of waters could significantly increase the amount of wind energy produced by turbines.
Floating wind turbines are one solution. Unlike traditional wind turbines, floating wind turbines do not need to be buried in the ocean bed.
Figure 4: Twenty-year trend - global priority filings - floating wind turbines
The number of new applications related to floating technology has steeply increased, albeit starting from a low baseline, versus the plateau in those related to wind turbine technology (Figure 4). This may signal companies turning to innovation in the lucrative and potentially energy-rich alternative of floating wind turbines.
According to Houlder, engineering and consultancy firm for the maritime and offshore sectors - as reported in the industry journal Offshore Wind Biz – and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), overcoming floating wind challenges will be key to the global energy transition to clean and sustainable energy. While the global offshore wind market enjoyed its best year ever in 2021 with 21.1 GW of capacity commissioned (and despite a forecast for massive growth in offshore wind energy supply) only 57 MW of that was created through floating wind technology. Though significant barriers to full commercialisation of the technologies still exist, this type of benefit/challenge scenario often results in a sustained increase in new patent applications in an area of innovation.
Repair and maintenance of wind turbines (in particular, methods that do not require people on site, i.e. at sea or at height)
Technology related to the remote or automatic repair/monitoring of wind turbines is evolving. This is hardly surprising, given the health and safety issues around wind farms and machines, including height and moving parts of turbines, plus remote sites with high winds and rough waters.
Filings that specifically relate to the use of drones, robots or autonomous methods appear to be on the rise. Again, this growth is from a low baseline, once more suggesting that this on-going problem presents opportunities for innovation. We may see a move away from people working directly on wind turbines, with robots or drones used to perform maintenance and repair tasks instead.
Figure 5: Twenty-year trend - global priority filings - automatic repair/monitoring of wind turbines
Artificial intelligence and wind energy technology
As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is starting to feature in almost every aspect of life, the wind energy sector is no different (Figure 6). In 2021, the World Economic Forum published a paper discussing how AI could be used to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.
Figure 6: Twenty-year trend - priority filings - AI-related technologies
The methods employed range from automatic adjusting of blades and power distribution to methods of construction and determining location. We can assume that the application of AI will continue to further advance the wind energy sector, and push companies to innovate within this field.
