Windkracht 13

The so-called 20/20/20 goals of the European Union are key measures in the context of the sustainable development policy of the EU. The highest potential for emission reductions is present in the electricity sector. Hitherto, the Flemish government mainly invested in photovoltaic panels and large (mainly offshore) wind turbines. However, studies prove that the use of small and medium size wind turbines may claim a part. Despite their potential, though, the market for wind turbines minus 100 kW is not yet developed. ‘Windkracht 13’ is a demonstration and dissemination project in the frame of the New Industrial Policy of the Flemish government and aims at opening the market for small and medium size wind turbines (SMWT) in Flanders. The project studies the current barriers by performing a focused LESTS (Legal, Economic, Spatial, Technical, Social) analysis. Based on this pentagonal mapping, recommendations are made for lowering the thresholds to install SMWT in Flanders. Starting from realistic and pragmatic criteria, new locations are explored. The (re)use of masts and towers is a study focus, as well as the potential of rural and industrial environments. Farm sites and business parks often have a high wind energy profile, combined with specific (renewable) energy requirements, thus offering perspective for SMWT. Active participation of the project stakeholders in the users committee is encouraged, leading to implementation of SMWT at strategic locations. These demonstrations are necessary to increase the social acceptance of SMWT. The project results and recommendations are bundled in a best practices manual for a successful implementation of SMWT in Flanders

JERTS-studie rond kleine en middelgrote windturbines

Het project Windkracht 13 is gericht op het openbreken van de markt voor kleine en middelgrote windturbines (KMWT). Dit wordt gefundeerd door het uitvoeren van een JERTS-studie (Juridisch, Economisch, Ruimtelijk, Technisch, Sociaal) die de bestaande barrières duidelijk in kaart brengt en aan de hand hiervan ook aanbevelingen doet voor het verlagen van drempels verbonden met deze barrières. Al dusdoende worden nieuwe opportuniteiten geformuleerd en worden ‘best-case’ opportuniteiten in verband met de installatie van KMWT’s duidelijk in kaart gebracht die leiden tot de installatie van de broodnodige demonstraties. Dit is dan ook het uiteindelijke doel van dit project. Naast het openbreken van de bestaande maar beperkte markt is het de bedoeling om uitgaande van realistische en pragmatische criteria nieuwe locaties in kaart te brengen en zodoende de marktintroductie van KMWT’s te versterken. Bij de uitvoering van deze studie wordt vertrokken van de bestaande regelgeving, ondersteuningsmechanismen en normen. Doch is het de bedoeling hier niet op vast te pinnen maar door een specifieke benadering hier van los te koppelen om het mogelijk te maken een nieuwe wind te laten blazen in het Vlaamse en lokale energiebeleid. Het project maakt deel uit van een oproep in het kader van het Nieuw Industrieel Beleid. De economische pijler van het NIB focust op de ‘Fabriek van de Toekomst’ als het knooppunt van het nieuwe productiviteitsoffensief

The small wind turbine field lab

The emerging market of small wind turbines (SWT) is characterised by a large variety of turbine types as well as turbine performance. The abundance of more ‘exotic’ types of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) next to the more traditional horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) shows that this market is still developing. However, some technologies have proven to possess the same potential typically only found in larger wind turbines. To study the (lack of) performance of current small wind turbine but also to demonstrate their potential, Ghent University decided to launch the Small Wind Turbine Field Lab (SWT Field Lab). This fully scientifically equipped field lab, funded by the Hercules Foundation, offers the possibility to not only monitor the energy yield of the turbine, but also collect information on how to optimise the grid integration, measure mechanical stress and structural strength of turbine components, assess the generator design and tower construction, perform acoustic measurements and finding ways to reduce noise production, even simulate siting of wind turbines, e.g. in rural areas or on industrial parks. All of these parameters are correlated with meteorological data measured on-site. The field lab, based in the inner port of Ostend, provides provisions for placement of up to ten small wind turbines, with seven turbines already partaking in the field trials. The project members aim to use the project results to identify and remove performance limiting factors in the design of small wind turbine, and to demonstrate the feasibility of using small wind turbines for decentralised renewable energy production. With this and similar research projects, the emerging market of small wind turbines can grow beyond its current state of infancy, comparable to the market evolution of large wind turbines

FLIAT, an object-relational GIS tool for flood impact assessment in Flanders, Belgium

Floods can cause damage to transportation and energy infrastructure, disrupt the delivery of services, and take a toll on public health, sometimes even causing significant loss of life. Although scientists widely stress the compelling need for resilience against extreme events under a changing climate, tools for dealing with expected hazards lag behind. Not only does the socio-economic, ecologic and cultural impact of floods need to be considered, but the potential disruption of a society with regard to priority adaptation guidelines, measures, and policy recommendations need to be considered as well. The main downfall of current impact assessment tools is the raster approach that cannot effectively handle multiple metadata of vital infrastructures, crucial buildings, and vulnerable land use (among other challenges). We have developed a powerful cross-platform flood impact assessment tool (FLIAT) that uses a vector approach linked to a relational database using open source program languages, which can perform parallel computation. As a result, FLIAT can manage multiple detailed datasets, whereby there is no loss of geometrical information. This paper describes the development of FLIAT and the performance of this tool

JERTS-studie rond kleine en middelgrote windturbines

Het project Windkracht 13 is gericht op het openbreken van de markt voor kleine en middelgrote windturbines (KMWT). Dit wordt gefundeerd door het uitvoeren van een JERTS-studie (Juridisch, Economisch, Ruimtelijk, Technisch, Sociaal) die de bestaande barrières duidelijk in kaart brengt en aan de hand hiervan ook aanbevelingen doet voor het verlagen van drempels verbonden met deze barrières. Al dusdoende worden nieuwe opportuniteiten geformuleerd en worden ‘best-case’ opportuniteiten in verband met de installatie van KMWT’s duidelijk in kaart gebracht die leiden tot de installatie van de broodnodige demonstraties. Dit is dan ook het uiteindelijke doel van dit project. Naast het openbreken van de bestaande maar beperkte markt is het de bedoeling om uitgaande van realistische en pragmatische criteria nieuwe locaties in kaart te brengen en zodoende de marktintroductie van KMWT’s te versterken. Bij de uitvoering van deze studie wordt vertrokken van de bestaande regelgeving, ondersteuningsmechanismen en normen. Doch is het de bedoeling hier niet op vast te pinnen maar door een specifieke benadering hier van los te koppelen om het mogelijk te maken een nieuwe wind te laten blazen in het Vlaamse en lokale energiebeleid. Het project maakt deel uit van een oproep in het kader van het Nieuw Industrieel Beleid. De economische pijler van het NIB focust op de ‘Fabriek van de Toekomst’ als het knooppunt van het nieuwe productiviteitsoffensief

Data extraction algorithm for Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) to estimate the maximum economic damage of buildings for economic impact assessment of floods in Flanders, Belgium

Floods cause major disruptions to energy supply and transportation facilities and lead to significant impacts on the society, economy, and environment. As a result, there is a compelling need for resilience and adaptation against extreme flood events under a changing climate. An accurate focal priority analysis of how societies can adapt to these changing events can provide insight into practical solutions. Besides the social, ecological, and cultural impact assessments of floods, an accurate economic impact analysis is required to define priority zones and priority measures. Unfortunately, studies show that economic impact assessments can be highly inaccurate because of the margin of error in economic value estimation of residential and industrial buildings, as they account for a large part of the total economic damage value. Therefore, tools that can accurately estimate the maximum economic damage value (or replacement value) of residential and industrial buildings are imperative. This paper outlines a methodology to estimate the maximum economic value of buildings by using a data extraction algorithm for Energy Performance Certificates (EPC), through which the replacement value can be calculated for all of the buildings in Flanders, and in addition, across Europe

DEVELOPMENT OF AN EFFICIENT APPROACH OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE IN THE INTERTIDAL ZONE OF THE BELGIAN NORTH SEA

[EN] The knowledge of the submerged cultural heritage in the North Sea is rather limited. The Belgian North Sea is being used for a lot of different purposes, such as fishing, aggregate extraction, wind farms, dredging, etc. Due to these increasing economic activities, the underwater archive is in danger. In the context of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage of 2001, gathering more information about the submerged cultural heritage in the intertidal zones of the North Sea is one of the main objectives of the Belgian scientific project ‘SeArch’. It will give a clearer picture of the broader cultural and archaeological heritage in the region and it can be used as a basis for a sustainable management by government agencies. The Department of Geography (Ghent University, Belgium) contributes to the SeArch project in two ways. First, an innovative survey methodology has been developed which allows an accurate and cost-efficient evaluation of the archaeological potential in the intertidal zones of the Belgian beaches. Secondly, the Department of Geography is developing an interactive webGIS platform, which makes it possible to share, integrate and visualize the gathered archaeological and environmental data and information in a user-friendly way. Hereby, the total potential of this project is fully exploited in a time-efficient manner. To create an interactive webGIS platform, a good structured spatial database is needed. It enables manipulation of a wide variety of georeferenced information in both raster and vector formats. This paper provides more information about the configuration and application of the spatial database. Moreover, it focusses on the development of a fully functional Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) using the most reliable, powerful and state-of-the-art technological components. Besides, a new way of collecting geomatic data in a fast and accurate manner will be discussed. Some processing results will show the possibilities for detecting and visualizing underground structures and archaeological objects.Decock, M.; Stal, C.; Van Ackere, S.; Vandenbulcke, A.; De Maeyer, P.; De Wulf, A. (2016). DEVELOPMENT OF AN EFFICIENT APPROACH OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE IN THE INTERTIDAL ZONE OF THE BELGIAN NORTH SEA. En 8th International congress on archaeology, computer graphics, cultural heritage and innovation. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 138-145. https://doi.org/10.4995/arqueologica8.2015.3554OCS13814

Development of a 3D dynamic flood WebGIS visualisation tool

Low elevation coastal areas are vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise and to an increase in the frequency and severity of storm surge events due to climate change. Coastal urban areas are at risk because coastal flooding causes extensive damage to energy and transportation infrastructure, disruptions to the delivery of services, devastating tolls on the public's health and, occasionally, significant loss of life. Although scientists widely stress the compelling need to mitigate and adapt to climate change, public awareness lags behind. Because WebGIS maps (web-based geographic information systems) quickly convey strong messages, condense complex information, engage people in issues of environmental change, and motivate personal actions, this paper focusses on searching the ideal flood assessment WebGIS method to encourage people to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Surveys demonstrated that 3D visualisations have an enormous added value because they are more vivid and therefore more understandable and make it easier to imagine the consequences of a flood than 2D visualisations. In this research, the WebGIS will be created using Ol3-Cesium and open layers to visualise a flood event by dynamic layers in a 2D/3D environment

A review of the internet of floods : near real-time detection of a flood event and its impact

Worldwide, flood events frequently have a dramatic impact on urban societies. Time is key during a flood event in order to evacuate vulnerable people at risk, minimize the socio-economic, ecologic and cultural impact of the event and restore a society from this hazard as quickly as possible. Therefore, detecting a flood in near real-time and assessing the risks relating to these flood events on the fly is of great importance. Therefore, there is a need to search for the optimal way to collect data in order to detect floods in real time. Internet of Things (IoT) is the ideal method to bring together data of sensing equipment or identifying tools with networking and processing capabilities, allow them to communicate with one another and with other devices and services over the Internet to accomplish the detection of floods in near real-time. The main objective of this paper is to report on the current state of research on the IoT in the domain of flood detection. Current trends in IoT are identified, and academic literature is examined. The integration of IoT would greatly enhance disaster management and, therefore, will be of greater importance into the future