Research which could transform worldwide production of large-scale wind turbines is being carried out at the University of Nottingham. Peter Schubel is leading a £1.4m project called Airpower which could make it eight per cent cheaper and 11% faster to manufacture the blades.

Using technology from the aerospace industry and Formula 1 racing, the three-year project aims to have a huge impact on how much renewable energy is created by offshore wind farms.

With a diameter of up to 120 metres and a tip speed of up to 160mph, each of the turbines could generate five megawatts of electricity - enough to power 3,000 homes.

"This research will have a major influence on the wind energy industry through reduced cost of manufacture, which will make wind energy more competitive against traditional methods of energy production," said Dr Schubel.

"Making offshore wind turbines a more cost viable and secure investment will increase demand and largely contribute to the government's renewable energies target."

Dr Schubel said large-scale blades were extremely labour intensive to produce under current methods - with up to 35 people at any one time working on a single blade.

This also means there can be high levels of waste because of human error.

"The ability to manufacture large scale rotor blades for the wind energy industry is inhibited by current manufacturing techniques, meaning that blades cannot be manufactured quickly enough to satisfy demand from this rapidly growing industry," he said.

"We are proposing to use automated robotic technology which can tailor reinforcement patterns to maximise strength.

"A large part of the research has included developing low-cost materials to go along with the automated technology.

"We are developing fibre optic sensors embedded in these blades which will allow us to determine the internal cure strain of the structure.

"The same sensors then get used in service by monitoring the blades so we can see if they are reaching critical force levels and shut them down before they break.

"What we anticipate from this work is to produce about an 11% decrease in the time to manufacture a blade from 510 man hours to 454 man hours per blade. We are also hoping to bring down the costs by about eight per cent per blade."

The research effort is a collaboration between the University of Nottingham, Technology Strategy Board and UK industry.

Partners include Gamesa - one of the worlds largest wind turbine manufacturers - BAE Systems and GE Aviation - two of the largest UK aerospace manufacturers - as well as a handful of key parties.

Dr Schubel, a senior research fellow, is leading the project and his team includes two PHD students Richard Crossley and Eric Boateng and an academic, Professor Nick Warrior.

The 29-year-old, originally from Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, said: "It is an exciting time for the research group and Nottingham as a whole, as this work is something that we can all be proud of. One of our partners Gamesa makes about 16% of the wind turbine blades in the world. If they take up this technology they will apply it to a large proportion of blades that get made in the world."