Akselos Physic-Based Predictive Digital Twin, a mechanical simulation of the wind turbine that can be continually analysed, and re-analysed, throughout the life of the asset. Combined with sensor data from real turbine, the Digital Twin provides Top Predictive Power.

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DIGITAL TWINS FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE WIND SYSTEM ENGINEERING AND EXASCALE DEPLOYMENT

Offshore wind provides around 0.3% of global power generation today. Yet it has the potential to power annual global demand 18 times over, supplying clean, affordable and secure energy. Against a backdrop of limited progress on emission targets, Akselos proposes to shift the Offshore Wind Power industry to a new innovation curve. The company helps drive industry conversation as a member of the leading energy & economic forums. Speed of innovation in the offshore wind industry is key to win the race to the energy transition. Current impediments are the long and complex design processes, lack of an optimal system design workflow with full accuracy, and poor predictive power in operations. In response to these challenges, Akselos proposes a revolutionary new software that brings a drastic acceleration of the wind turbine system design, drives adoption of cross industry innovation, and augments predictive power over the full life cycle of wind turbines

from design through operation and life extension. The disruptive underlying engineering simulation technology is under license from MIT and EPFL. Akselos has a track record implementing similar digital threads in the offshore O&G industry, transforming low accuracy workflows that used to take months into higher accuracy Real-Time Digital Twins of critical assets. Our products cover the full cycle of wind turbines, they enable predictive power for optimal system design while providing a high level of support for remote, unmanned operations and enables predictive maintenance at low costs. With our solution, and a strong commitment to industry alignment with major partners, the industry will be able to reduce LCOE a further 60%, necessary for offshore wind power to reach the energy transition tipping point.

REACHING THE ENERGY TRANSITION TIPPING POINT

THE LEGACY APPROACH IS RUNNING OUT OF STEAM Offshore wind energy is one of the most abundant sources of renewable energy. Vast offshore areas can potentially provide up to 40% higher output than onshore areas, mainly due to higher wind velocities. Tapping this potential requires large complex infrastructure projects involving many different companies.

Nevertheless, the added complexity of offshore wind energy leads to higher costs, resulting in 50% higher levelized cost of energy (LCOE) relative to onshore.

The engineering solutions deployed so far have followed incremental innovation rules. The industry relied mostly on scale to lower LCOE. This is particularly true when it comes to wind turbines & foundations mechanical engineering.

Wind Power engineers use software for mechanical engineering simulations which core technology dates from the 1970s - Finite Element Analysis. This forces engineers to operate ‘within a small box’ when it comes to innovating on the design of 3D mechanical parts. Even worse, the system design tools are so constrained, due to the large system size, that they rely mostly on a 1D version of FEA, in order to accomodate slow calculation time.

Problem 1 - This makes global optimisation of the system a Chimera, whereby not only every part is under-optimised but also the global optimisation of the system includes large & unwanted over conservatism to compensate for the lack of accuracy of the simulation tools. The legacy innovation curve is running out of steam, leading to much higher LCOE than necessary for offshore wind and delaying the energy transition tipping point by a decade or more.

This is showing up, as a striking example, in the difficulties to develop & optimise:

• Larger turbines, 12MW and more, which have different failure modes not captured yet by the return on experience (REX).

• Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWT) are not cost competitive based on current prototypes.

Problem 2 - Add to this first problem the poorly mastered operational maintenance and servicing costs (OPEX), with low REX for large turbines and for floating installations. Today’s tools for predicting failure during operations lack sophistication and accuracy, relying overwhelmingly on sensor data which capture a very thin sliver of the mechanical asset DNA. The alternative is overly frequent inspections with associated downtime and direct cost. This cost is compounded for offshore wind farms, due to their remote location.

A new innovation curve exists for mechanical engineering system design, underpinned by RB-FEA, a technology extensively developed since 2001 in the best Institutes (MIT,Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Paris VI, etc.), and adopted in the Offshore O&G industry by the most advanced Owner Operators (OOs) and certification companies (e.g. Shell, American Bureau of Shipping).

RB-FEA makes large FEA calculations 1000x faster. This powerful technology is proven in the offshore O&G industry with the following benefits:

• 10x accuracy, leading to leaner design / longer life.

• 10x workflow speed, leading to much faster development cycles & real-time operational decisions.

• 10x scale, for applications to the largest infrastructures.

Akselos is now briniging this game changing technology to Offshore Wind in order to lower the LCOE of offshore wind projects, racing to the Energy Transition tipping point.

The resulting Akselos Wind software for Offshore Wind Turbines systems is composed of:

• Akselos Innovate: 3D mechanical engineering simulations for optimal system design.

• Akselos Integra: Physics-based Predictive Digital Twins for structural assessment of asset condition.

• Akselos Digital Guardian: Physics-based Predictive Digital Twins for Real Time Operation condition.

This product line enables a step change in predictive power at the design stage, then carry this predictive power over to operations.

A POWERFUL NEW INNOVATION CURVE

Key System Features

• Design Optimisation: parameterized 3D models, where components can be reconfigured in seconds.

• System Integration: augment predictive power in current system design tools.

• Condition-based monitoring: digital thread to import condition data into 3D physics-based models.

• Cloud-based applications to run thousands of fast simulations with little in-house IT overhead.

The combination of these features will make the development and deployment process much more agile, accurate and scalable, and enable a significantly lower LCOE for offshore wind.

There are a number of integrations that makes RB-FEA a powerful tool to support a collaborative platform throughout the entire lifetime of the asset:

• Integration with System Engineering

• Integration with Machine Learning

• Integration with Sensor Data from Operations

A HOLISTIC AND ACCURATE MODEL FOR BEST-IN-CLASS SYSTEM

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN • Akselos and Lamprell’s webinar - Offshore Wind:

Smart Design and Fabrication with Digital Twins

• A powerful new innovation curve to align with society’s goals

• How Akselos plans on accelerating the Energy Transition

• Lamprell offers ‘digital twins’ for offshore projects - Akselos technology enables simulations for ‘optimised design, delivery and maintenance’ of turbine foundations

Our Phyisics-based DIgital Twins are geared towards reaching the tipping point in the energy transition while delivering business value to owner-operators worldwide:

• Reduced CAPEX - 30% reduction on foundations, estimated minimum 10% saving on overall CAPEX.

• Reduced OPEX - 40% saving, fewer site visits, lower cost and risk, predictive maintenance.

• Increased Operational Efficiency – better designs, feedback-supported process, 25% longer asset life.

• Shorter time to market - reduced by 15%, lower engineering costs, collaboration tool.

• Cost and Revenue Improvements throughout lifespan (design, install, operate, life extension & decommissioning).

DELIVERING VALUE FROM DESIGN TO OPERATIONS

AKSELOS INNOVATE

ASSET BASED SaaSPlanning, development

Financing Assembly, Installation

Manufacturing Operation/Maintenance

ASSET LIFE EXTENSION• Remaining lifetime • Additional revenue

OPTIMAL DESIGN• Scenarios • Parameter

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE• Reduce Opex • Reduce inspection level

Repowering, delay decom.

TOKEN BASED SaaS

ASSET BASED SaaS

AKSELOS INTEGRA

AKSELOS DIGITAL GUARDIAN

POWERING THE WORLD’S FIRST FLOATING OFFSHORE WIND FARM

READ MORE ABOUT THE ATLANTIS PROGRAM • Akselos and partners awarded $3.6M by US DoE for digital

wind project of floating offshore wind farm

• ABS classes world’s biggest floating wind turbine

• The ATLANTIS program

• The first floating wind farm in continental Europe is now fully operational

THE ATLANTIS PROGRAM

• Develop, build and deploy new generation computer tool to facilitate Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWT); and collect real data from full and lab-scale experiments to validate the FOWT designs.

Next generation simulation technology

• Powerful simulation technology to create holistic, real-time digital twins of large complex assets.

• Sensor-enabled digital twin reflecting asset’s current condition.

Closing the design feedback loop - decreasing costs while augmenting scale

• Akselos digital twins help validate prototypes, and lower cost for the next generation of design, lowering cost by 50%

• Insights from the digital twin will give designers and operators the capability to win bids and deploy at a pace and scale compatible with the energy transition.

DESIGN OPTIMISATION OF FIXED OFFSHORE WIND FARM

THE CONTEXT

Lowering the cost of energy for consumers is the main barrier the wind industry needs to overcome. According to European Wind Energy Association, wind farm foundations represent 25-30% of CAPEX for wind farms. With the fastest and most predictive simulation technology, we can reduce CAPEX by powering fast, optimal designs for wind farm foundations.

THE PROJECT

GODESS aims at enabling large-scale deployment & monitoring of offshore wind farms at a reduced cost to enable the energy transition. GODESS brings a step-change in the design of offshore wind farm foundations, by integrating best-of-breed software packages for: structural design, asset monitoring, cost models, optimizers. GODESS leverages the fastest predictive technology based on Akselos software, used today to create the largest digital twin in the world, to power a digital feedback loop linking operations and design.

OBJECTIVES – OFFSHORE WIND FARM DEPLOYMENTS

• Reduce overall design costs

• Optimize materials usage in the support structure of the wind turbine

• Optimize the geometry of the support structure of the wind turbine

• Optimize potential scenarios and topology

• Increased speed of the design process

• Simplified and shorter workflows for Offshore Wind Farm assessments

READ MORE ABOUT GODESS • GODESS gets EU funds

• EU backs Offshore Wind innovation project to slash materials cost by up to 25%

GLOBAL OPTIMAL DESIGN OF SUPPORT STRUCTURES GODESS

WIN BIDS FOR OFFSHORE WIND • 30% LOWER CAPEX ON OFFSHORE FOUNDATIONS • REDUCE COST OF MATERIALS BY UP TO 25% • SUCCESSFUL ENERGY TRANSITION

OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHMS, DESIGN PARAMETERS, MANUFACTURING COSTS, ADVANCED SIMULATION

TOTAL PROGRAM 3M

MAJOR INTEGRATED

ENERGY COMPANY

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European Headquarters

LausanneUS Headquarters

BostonOperations

Ho Chi Minh CitySales Hub

HoustonSales Hub

London

akselos.com

Entire visibility of the condition

of an asset

Understand structural capacity

to support Asset Life Extension

Virtual scenario planning

Optimised maintenance schedules enabling

a move towards zero unplanned downtime

Data that helps businesses make

smarter, informed decisions