14 / 56
Annual Report 2015
14
NOWITECH
Norwegian Research Centre for Offshore Wind Technology
COMMITTEE FOR INNOVATION
AND COMMERCIALIZATION
The Committee for Innovation and Commercialisation (CIC) is enhancing the industry
involvement and assures that results from NOWITECH are communicated to the
industry parties and that the possibilities for establishing new projects, products,
services or processes with one or more partners are pursued. Commercialisation is by
transfer of knowledge to the industry parties and their use of this in developing their
business, and through spin-off projects and the creation of new industry. The committee is industry focused
and chaired by Per Arne Wilson, NTNU. CIC cooperates with NTNU’s Entrepreneurship School (NEC) and
NTNU TTO in commercialisation of ideas created in NOWITECH, while Innovation Norway and Enova assist
CIC in project development, also between NOWITECH partners and SMEs outside NOWITECH.
Activities by CIC in 2015 included preparation of the NOWITECH Innovation Award, support towards
commercialization of selected NOWITECH results, and in cooperation with the NOWITECH management,
assisting in applying the Technology Readiness Level for communicating progress in innovations, and giving
support to external parties in developing new business ideas.
NOWITECH Innovation Award
The NOWITECH Innovation Award was established in 2015 with the aim to stimulate and reward knowledge-based
innovation and / or entrepreneurship within the field of offshore wind energy. The criteria for the award are
potential for reducing the cost of offshore wind energy, degree of novelty and commercial viability.
Following an open call for all affiliated with NOWITECH, six nominations for the NOWITECH Innovation Award
2015 were received and assessed by a committee of experts from industry and research, namely: Oddbjørn
Malmo, Kongsberg Maritime, Daniel Zwick, Fedem Technology, Per Arne Wilson, NTNU/chair NOWITECH CIC, and
John Olav Tande, SINTEF/director NOWITECH. All nominees satisfied the criteria for the award and were strong
candidates; still the committee agreed unanimously on the winner:
The winning innovation represents, when fully developed, a step change in offshore wind turbine
technology, enabling the power from large offshore wind turbines to be transported to shore without the
use of any expensive offshore substation. The two award winners Sverre Gjerde and Pål Keim Olsen have
carried out critical work in bringing this innovation forward as part of their PhD work at NTNU on high
voltage DC generator technology for offshore wind turbines. They have demonstrated the technology in
laboratory scale, and their work is well documented.
Their work has been inspired and carried out with support mainly from NTNU, SINTEF Energi, SmartMotor and
the Research Council of Norway. The support to their work is greatly acknowledged.
Figure 6: Laboratory set-up at NTNU/SINTEF for validating control of a modular series connected
converter for a transformerless offshore wind turbine connection (left). Pål Keim Olsen and Sverre Gjerde
received the award during the NOWITECH Innovation Day18 June 2015 (right).
Per Arne Wilson,
NTNU, CIC Chair