GIST Becomes First Korean Team Selected for Horizon Europe Wind Energy Project, to Lead Key Technology Development

International collaborative research involving 14 institutions from 8 countries, with total funding of 5.2 million euros
Developing technology to predict and control wind turbine icing... targeting a 2% increase in power generation

A research team at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) has been selected for a wind energy research project under Horizon Europe, the European Union's (EU) major research and development (R&D) program, marking the first time a Korean team has been chosen for one of its projects. The team will work with overseas research institutions and companies, including global wind turbine manufacturer Vestas, to develop technology to address ice buildup on wind turbine blades in winter.

GIST said on November 9 that a research team led by Professor Kim Taeseong of the Department of Mechanical and Robotics Engineering will take part in OptimICE, an international collaborative research project under Horizon Europe. The project proposal submitted by the team received a perfect score of 15 out of 15 in the Horizon Europe evaluation.

GIST Professor Kim Taeseong poses in front of a chart showing the composition of the Horizon Europe OPTIM-ICE consortium. Provided by GIST.

Horizon Europe is an EU research and innovation program with a budget of approximately 95.5 billion euros for 2021 through 2027. In 2025, South Korea became the first Asian country to secure associate-country status, allowing Korean researchers to participate in related projects on equal terms with European researchers.

The selected OptimICE project is an international collaborative research effort with total funding of approximately 5.2 million euros and a duration of 42 months. The University of Kent in the United Kingdom is leading the project, which involves 14 institutions from eight countries, including GIST and institutions in Denmark, Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria. Vestas, the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and Finland's VTT Technical Research Centre are also participating in the research.

The research aims to address icing, a phenomenon that reduces the efficiency of wind turbines in cold regions. Icing occurs when ice accumulates on the surface of a wind turbine blade, altering the airflow around it and reducing power generation or causing the turbine to shut down. An estimated 300 gigawatts (GW), equivalent to about 25% of the world's onshore wind power capacity, operates in cold regions, increasing the importance of anti-icing technologies.

The GIST team will lead the development of numerical analysis models and the comparison and validation of their performance within the consortium. It plans to use computer simulations to reproduce the processes by which ice accumulates on and melts from blade surfaces, and to develop technology for predicting changes in power generation performance caused by icing.

To do this, the team will build a model that accounts for changes in blade surface roughness as ice accumulates, and calculates airflow and reductions in power generation. It will also conduct detailed analyses of how ice melts when the blades are heated and how it may freeze again.

The researchers also plan to use physics-based artificial intelligence (AI) models that combine wind turbine operating data with weather and sensor information. The technology will be validated through wind tunnel tests that recreate ice-forming conditions and by using operating data from actual wind farms. It is then expected to be used to improve Vestas's aerodynamics and thermodynamics models.

The consortium expects that, if the research is completed successfully, it could reduce annual wintertime wind turbine downtime by 100 to 150 hours and increase annual net power generation by at least 2%. It also aims to cut the time spent on icing-related inspections by at least 15%.

"I am delighted, but also feel a great sense of responsibility, that we have become the first Korean team selected for a Horizon Europe project in the field of wind energy research," said GIST Professor Kim Taeseong. "By working with world-class research institutions and companies to solve the challenge of icing on wind turbines, GIST will play a key role in strengthening the competitiveness of Korea's wind energy industry."

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