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Energy Markets at Luna Innovations
Luna Innovations' technologies and products have a number of applications in the power generation and energy markets:
Wind Turbine Structural Health Monitoring:
Fiber optics is particularly attractive as a sensing solution for wind turbines over conventional electrical techniques due to the sensors inherent light weight, immunity to electromagnetic interference and embeddability of the sensor directly into the blade composite without compromising the composite’s integrity. With Luna’s solution, strain can be measured along the full length of wind turbine blade (WTB) at every point and direct measurement of the blade’s shape can be made which allows for real-time pitch control. Luna Distributed Sensing System allows thousands of sensors to be multiplexed providing strain and temperature information with high spatial resolution. This exclusive technology can provide early detection of cracks, disjoints and dislocations on a wind turbine blade. Luna is developing a wind turbine health monitoring platform, which includes turbine blade structural testing through distributed strain measurements, with various government agencies.
Power Generator Health Monitoring:
As electrical generators age, they become increasingly prone to failure. The failure of a single generator can greatly reduce the output of a power plant while the unit is down for evaluation and repair. Failure from overheating can result from operating the machines beyond their specifications or by problems such as ventilation blockage due to excessively dirty environments. To extend operational life, power plants often intentionally run their electrical generators at less than optimal efficiencies during non-peak usage times. Applying Luna's distributed sensing technology allow numerous sensors to be multiplexed along the length of a single optical fiber allowing for inexpensive, detailed real-time temperature monitoring of the generator.
Photovoltaics:
Organic solar cells are an experimental, low-cost, lightweight alternative to the silicon-based solar panels in wide use today. Significant improvements in performance are required before organic solar cells will be a commercial success. Luna's scientists have made significant progress in using their proprietary carbon-nanomaterials to increase the efficiency of organic photovoltaic (OPV) materials.Luna is currently in negotiations for an award in the Photovoltaic (PV) Technology Pre-Incubator program of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
