Archive
WIND ENERGY. Latest published applications 2017-2019. Offshore Wind Turbine
Summary
One of the main barriers to the development of wind energy is low capacity factor, which in real practice rarely exceeds 30%. This is largely related to the limitations of wind turbines due to low wind speeds. One of the main ways of increasing the capacity factor is to locate wind farms in offshore zones, where there are greater wind resources compared to onshore sites. Currently, the total capacity of offshore wind turbines is relatively low and amounts to about 28 GW, or slightly more than 4% of the total capacity. However, according to experts, by 2050 it may exceed 500 GW. The restrained development of offshore wind energy is primarily associated with high capital costs for the construction of wind turbines, which are 3-4 times higher than offshore ones, as well as with the operating difficulties in offshore conditions, especially in terms of maintenance, repair and replacement of parts. This Patent Bulletin compiles recent offshore wind power patent applications, provides key breakdowns of leading applicants, and a list of prominent patent applications to pay attention to. This patent bulletin will be useful both for professionals working in the field of wind energy, as well as students and investors.
The present bulletin reviews patent applications granted by patent offices around the globe in 2015-2017 in the field related to offshore wind turbines. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 1141 patent documents from 30 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 291 applicants from 23 countries and 521 subgroups of the International Patent Classification are mentioned.
Key Highlights
The bulletin contains statistical data on the distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The top three patent offices that granted the largest number of patent applications were CNIPA (CN), EPO and WIPO.
For each of the patent documents selected for the examination in the present bulletin the characteristics of unified indicators were preliminary defined, they include: technical problems, types of inventive solutions employed, belonging to one or other technological segment. This allows the internal content for each of the indicators in the aggregate array of documents to be visualized, for instance, to define the sequence and proportional correlation of technical problems the inventive solutions disclosed in the texts aim to solve. A list of the top 10 groups consisting of patent documents with identical unified indicators contains ID numbers and applicant names of respective documents; the groups are sorted by the number of patent documents.
A list of the top 10 applicants by the number of patent documents includes Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Denmark), MHI Vestas Offshore Wind (Denmark), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (Japan), Siemens AG (Germany), Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy A/S (Denmark), Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan), Adwen GmbH (Germany), Envision Energy (Denmark) APS, Principle Power Inc (USA), DLUT Dalian University of Technology (China). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of documents by problems, IPC sections, patent offices is provided in the form of tables and diagrams for them.
The prominent documents pages contain the top 10 patent applications with the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and top prominent single applications.
The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the granted patents.
Who needs this bulletin?
The proposed patent statistics bulletin allows the existing trends in the intellectual property market of the specified industrial sector to be timely traced, as well as the possibility of acquiring a carefully selected list of patent documents fully corresponding to the specified subject. The bulletin can be useful for inventors, engineers, scientific workers, and business representatives, who are focused on the development of wind power.
