Archive
WIND ENERGY.Latest published applications 2017-2019. Control and power production units
Summary
Wind power is the fastest growing renewable energy industry. This growth has been driven by technical innovations in the monitoring of the condition of equipment elements and the efficient management of wind turbines. Modern, highly sensitive equipment improves the efficiency of the plant while simultaneously reducing the operating costs of repairing expensive parts. Such equipment includes, for example, yaw systems, anemometers, and pitch systems. These systems make it possible for adjustments to be made in adverse weather conditions, allowing for the station’s operation up to its complete stop. Power production units, which modern wind farms are equipped with, control electricity production depending on natural conditions and demand. Together with control elements, they protect the wind turbine from wear and increase its service life, which today averages 20 to 25 years. However, more recent innovative solutions in the field of control and power production can be significantly increase the current life span of wind plants, making them more attractive to investors.
The present bulletin reviews patent applications granted by patent offices around the globe in 2017-2019 in the field related to control and power production elements of wind farms. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 2526 patent documents from 26 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 463 applicants from 24 countries and 746 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 USPTO (US).
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 (DK), Wobben Properties GmbH (DE), General Electric (USA), Beijing Goldwind Science & Creation Windpower Equipment Co Ltd (CN), Hitachi, Ltd. (JP), Siemens AG (DE), Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy A/S (DK), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (JP), Senvion Deutschland GmbH (DE), Gamesa Innovation & Technology S.L. (ES). 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.
