WIND ENERGY. Latest granted patents 2016-2018. Blades and components thereof
Summary
Wind energy plays a significant role in the transition to green energy and has allowed a number of countries to significantly diversify their energy balance. However, it should be noted that today the maintenance, repair and replacement of parts for wind turbines are the most vulnerable technological aspects on the way to achieving their maximum workload, which still remains low. In addition, these activities account for a significant share of operating expenses. Therefore, ensuring the high reliability of all structural elements, especially the blades, is a paramount task in the development of the production of components of wind turbine and their operation. Noise and vibration from wind turbines often make it impossible to install them near settlements. In winter, icing of the blades can reduce the efficiency of the installation. Improvement of technology elements, the use of new materials such as carbon fibre and cost reduction are in the focus of engineers and researchers. Leading players in the wind energy market, such as Siemens, Vestas, Gamesa, and others are actively patenting technological solutions aimed at solving both the economic and environmental problems of the development of the industry. This bulletin provides up-to-date and detailed information on the latest patent developments in the field of wind turbine blades and allows you to track current technological trends.
A selection of patents related to wind blades and components thereof and published by patent offices around the globe in 2016-2018 is provided for review in the present bulletin. General research methodology can be found at Advanced Energy Technologies website. The present bulletin mentions: 1388 patent documents; 25 patent offices; 23 countries; 361 applicants; 615 subgroups of the International Patent Classification.
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 patents were EPO, CNIPA (CN) 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 Wobben Properties GmbH (Germany), Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Denmark), General Electric (USA), Siemens AG (Germany), LM WP Patent Holding (Denmark), Senvion Deutschland GmbH (Germany), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (Japan), Gamesa Innovation & Technology S.L. (Spain), Envision Energy (Denmark) APS, LmGlasfiber A/S (Germany). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of patent 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 patents with the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and the shortest patent pending time.
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 statistics bulletin under examination serves as one of the variants to monitor advanced technical achievements in the specified industrial sector. The statistical data, rating evaluations and carefully selected patent documents provided in the bulletin can be of interest for inventors, students and educators, engineers, as well as for businessmen and investors, who in one way or another are concerned with the problems of the development of wind energy production technologies.
