The Spanish Wind Energy Association awards the Eolo 2020 awards
The Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE) today publishes the winners of the Eolo 2020 Awards in the different categories: Innovation, Photography, Rural Integration of wind power and Wind Microcounts.
For another year, AEE awards the Eolo Awards as a recognition of wind energy in Spain, with the participation of more than 500 candidates in the different categories. From AEE, we want to thank all the participants of the Eolo Awards for their collaboration and enthusiasm towards wind energy.
The different categories with the corresponding winners are available on the Association’s website.
Eolo Prize for Rural Integration of Wind Energy 2020
The Montes Torozos Comarca, divided between the provinces of Valladolid and Palencia, has won the Eolo Prize for Rural Integration of Wind Power in its ninth edition as it is a model region in terms of wind development. The jury, meeting in Madrid on June 17, assessed that the Montes Torozos region has a great development of technology with different wind projects, which has had a positive socio-economic impact in terms of income and employment, at the same time which has favored productive diversification without altering the cultural essence of the environment, thus helping to contain depopulation.
Specifically, the candidacy of the Montes Torozos Region presented for the Eolo Prize has been made up of 12 towns in the region located in the area of ??the province of Valladolid with an area of ??322.1 km2 and 1,753 inhabitants in total, corresponding to Barruelo del Valle, Berceruelo, Castrodeza, Castromonte, La Mudarra, La Santa Espina, Torrecilla de la Torre, Torrelobatón, Valdenebro de los Valles, Velilla, Villasexmir and Velliza.
The installed wind power in these 12 Valladolid municipalities is about 500 MW spread over 12 wind farms developed by the companies Naturgy, Iberdrola, Vapat and WPD. The total wind power in the province of Valladolid is represented by 580 MW with 16 wind farms, and in Castilla y León it is 6,056 MW, being the autonomous community with the most installed wind power in Spain.
The candidacy of the Comarca de los Montes Torozos represented by the 12 municipalities mentioned above, has been promoted by the company Naturgy that developed in 2019 seven of the twelve wind farms built in those localities, with a total wind power of 256.50 MW and an investment of 263 million euros.
These wind farm facilities reflect the important wind development in the area, which has always had the involvement and collaboration of municipal authorities and neighbors, defending and supporting the projects during their development and establishing a relationship of mutual trust with the promoter company.
The implementation of wind turbines in this area has meant an important economic and social development for the municipalities, as well as the integration of a sustainable energy model in the area with the use of natural resources within the framework of a local sustainable development policy. . These towns are a clear example of the complementarity of traditional economic activities in the region, dedicated to livestock activities and extensive agriculture, with the development of renewable energy in the area, and the coexistence of its historical heritage with the present and future. of a new energy model.
Wind farm projects have favored the promotion and creation of employment in this depopulated region within the so-called ‘Spain emptied’, thanks to activities that, in addition to contributing to productive diversification, help to establish population in the territory, as well as capitalization of local resources (catering, accommodation, tourism, etc.). Much of the employment generated around the construction and operation of these wind farms has benefited these towns. Specifically, the employment figure generated in the 7 Naturgy wind farms project is 2,975 jobs (1,653 direct jobs).
The implementation of wind power in the region has meant an increase in resources to face projects that allow generating new income for its inhabitants and, in this way, providing future alternatives to its inhabitants. Such is the case, that in terms of promoting tourism in Montes Torozos, since this area has already been developed as a rural and landscape tourism, as well as cultural and gastronomic area, it is being promoted in one of the municipalities of the region, Castromonte, the construction of a center for the interpretation of wind energy as a tourist attraction to explain the production and distribution process to the public in a didactic and informative way, through original pieces, models, videos, photographs and panels. An educational and tourist impact is expected from this project and in which a working group linked to the Chair of Foreign Trade of the University of Valladolid is collaborating, within the Timmis project of entrepreneurship with funds from the European Union.
Tápiz eólico, de Javier Domínguez, 1º Premio Eolo de Fotografía 2020
The Eolo Prize for Rural Integration consists of the production of a video on life in the awarded municipalities and the integration of wind power in the region. This video, as well as the delivery of the award, will be made in the coming months due to the situation caused by the current pandemic of COVID-19 with the presence of authorities, representatives of PREPA and companies, and open to all residents of the Montes Torozos region.
Cómplices marinos al son del viento, de Eva Topham, 2º Premio Eolo de Fotografía 2020
2020 Eolo Innovation Award
The LIFEX project of the Altran company, which aims to create and develop a novel model capable of analyzing, controlling and calculating the remaining life of any type of wind turbine adjusting to the characteristics and operating conditions of each of them, has been awarded with the Eolo Innovation Award 2020. The jury, made up of the Management Body of the REOLTEC technological platform, has considered the LIFEX project novel and therefore deserving of this award, since it develops a system that representatively characterizes the influence of the operating and design parameters of wind turbines in the expected useful life of equipment and main components, which allows us to obtain generic models capable of estimating the life of structural elements through analysis of fatigue, wear and the effect of machine availability factor, in addition to presenting a dynamic maintenance plan using algorithms of prediction of failures that optimize the costs of operation and maintenance. LIFEX proposes as its main objective an objectively more advanced solution with respect to what currently exists, based on a model that can be used for each type of wind turbine in a simple way and not being limited by the design information provided by the manufacturer.
Buscando el viento, de José Tomás Rojas, 3º Premio Eolo de Fotografía 2020
The creator of the LIFEX project, Altran, is a world leader in engineering and R&D services. The company offers its clients a unique value proposition to face their transformation and innovation challenges. Altran has been working for more than 35 years with the main actors in many sectors such as aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, finance, health sciences, rail and telecommunications, among others. Altran, which has more than 50,000 employees and operates in more than 30 countries, is part of Capgemini, a global leader in consulting, digital transformation, technology and engineering services. The Group is at the forefront of innovation to address all customer opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital and platform. Drawing on its strong heritage of over 50 years and its deep industry-specific experience, Capgemini enables organizations to carry out their business projects through a range of services ranging from strategy to operations. Today, it is a multicultural company made up of a team of 270,000 members in nearly 50 countries.
The other finalist projects for the 2020 Eolo Innovation Award, presented by different representatives of Spanish companies and universities, have also raised some relevant issues in the innovation of the wind sector: design of anchoring systems on floating wind platforms; generation scheduling models that consider the uncertainty of intra-hourly variability of net demand; development, construction, installation and operation of the first prototype of a floating wind turbine in open water; design and implementation of a grid-forming control system that allows autogenous starting of full-converter wind generation systems; feasibility analysis of the implementation of wind and solar photovoltaic technology in distribution networks; as well as feasibility studies of a wind-solar device by vorticity for the production of electricity and / or desalination of sea water.
The initiative of the Eolo Innovation Award is framed within the lines of action of AEE and the technological platform of the wind sector, REOLTEC, to support innovation and national technological development in a context of strong international competition, globalization of markets and optimization of costs.
Eolo Prize for Microcounts 2020
The story ‘El rondador de veletas’ by Manuel Domínguez Marín has won the ninth AEE Wind Microcounting Contest.
Manuel, originally from San Fernando (Cádiz), is an ONCE Coupon Selling Agent and says of himself that he is a “bankrupt.” He loves to write and participate in contests that test his inventiveness and imagination. Lover of renewable energies, wind specifically is fascinating for its own indigenous and renewable nature and for the geographical location of where it is the author. As a joke he always says that he is the son of two mothers … “Of the mother who gave birth to the east wind and the mother who gave birth to the west wind”. He studied automotive so when he began to document wind energy, its mechanisms, its turbines, its parameters and all the engineering at the service of clean, alternative and practical energy, all this caused the sentences to flow alone in the creation of the micro-story. winner. “Or perhaps it was the inspiration of a muse sent by the same god, Aeolus,” jokes Manuel.
This year, AEE has received more than 220 micro stories, all of them with enormous literary quality and originality. The Association, with the collaboration of the magazine Energías Renovables, annually convenes this contest whose prize is the visit to a wind farm with the possibility of getting on a wind turbine. Both the winning story and the finalists are published in the magazine Energías Renovables and on its website, as well as on the AEE website.
The winning micro-story of this edition is as follows:
The Weather Vane Prowler
The inventiveness spills, placid, swaying magically between wind vane anemometers, ultrasound. The Michelangelo of heaven, the Dopler, draws three-dimensional images at two hundred meters high, everything is magic between cycles, between microcirculations.
The blades rotate, impregnating the kilowatt turbines, with no expiration date. From above everything is clean, pure. Winds that advance from land to sea, from sea to land. Winds of mills with giants, immortals, free winds. Prowlers for wind vanes, vapor skirts, blades, rotors … gondolas and generators.
It was so easy to get it right, it’s always there, promises carried by the wind.
Eolo Photography Prize 2020
In the edition of the 2020 Eolo Photography Prize, AEE has received more than 170 photographs with wind energy as the main theme, all of them of great quality and sensitivity. The jury for the award was made up of journalists specialized in energy and representatives of companies in the wind sector, as well as part of the AEE team.
The first place went to Javier Domínguez, for the photograph ‘Eolic Tapestry’. Javier is known as ‘Jadoga’ in the world of photography. Graduated in Nursing and settled in Jerez de la Frontera, for years he has combined his work as a DUE collaborating as a photography trainer in numerous national non-profit entities, universities and photographic collectives, and sharing his particular vision of this way of making art, trying at all times to transmit its values ??and making it become a true passion for those attending its workshops and conferences. Since 2015 he is part of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Photography Confederation (CEF), as head of International Photographic Biennials. Regarding his award-winning work in this edition of the Eolo Awards, Jadoga indicates that he has taken advantage of the benefits that aerial photography offers us when providing a totally new perspective of that reality that surrounds us, taking maximum care of the composition, and always with an eye on the geometric beauty that these scenarios offer us from the air and that make up these tapestries of great visual interest.
The second place went to Eva Topham for the photograph titled ‘Marine accomplices to the sound of the wind’. Our winner is a Canarian industrial engineer passionate about renewable energy, and with a special interest in offshore wind. Amateur in photography, whenever a wind turbine crosses its path, it is distracted by its greatness. The photograph was taken of the first offshore wind turbine installed in Spain, in Gran Canaria. It is inevitable that the author, every time she passes in front of him, has to stop and take a photo.
And the third prize went to the work ‘Looking for the wind’ by José Tomás Rojas. José was born in Granada and is a nurse by profession, although he started photography from the late 80s at the hands of established photographers, dedicating himself especially to portraiture, documentary and social photography, and without being closed to new techniques and trends. He has held exhibitions in relevant rooms in different parts of the Spanish geography and even abroad, and has been awarded both in national and international competitions. Regarding his photography awarded in this contest, he indicates that he has always been impressed by the size of the wind turbines, but even more so when he has found them on the road in the process of transportation and imagining them already mounted breathing the open air.
