TWI ltd (TWI)

Established in Cambridge, UK in 1946 and with several facilities across the globe, TWI Ltd is one of the world-leading not-for-profit research and technology organisations with a turnover in 2016 of £60m (€69.8million). From bases in the UK, South East Asia, India, the Middle East, Central Asia and the USA, nearly 800 staff provide expertise in joining and fabrication, material science and structural integrity. Services include generic research; contract R&D; technical information; engineering services and advice; standards development; and training and qualification services.

TWI is internationally renowned for its ability to employ multidisciplinary, impartial teams to implement both established and advanced joining technologies, or to solve problems arising at any stage of the product life cycle – from initial design, materials selection, production and quality assurance, through to in-service performance, repair and life extension. TWI also has representation on over 100 standards committees.

TWI therefore has the ideal credentials to deliver a successful project, on time and within budget with a higher than normal chance of product exploitation at the end of the project and particularly where the project developments are highly relevant to their members.

A large proportion of TWI’s activities (65%) are contract research, funded by a combination of TWI Industrial Members or UK and EU public funding bodies, and built around the development of advanced technologies. TWI is an experienced participant in collaborative research projects in Europe and the UK. In Europe and associated countries alone, TWI has worked with over 1,023 collaborators since FP7.  TWI has successfully coordinated a large number of these public funded projects (~75%) and has gained extensive expertise in being project or technical project leader.

For more than 60 years, TWI has added value to the power industry by providing technological solutions, advice and consultancy, all underpinned by world-class research. Our state-of-the-art research facilities provide a one-stop-shop to our Members, to help them enhance best practice and reduce their operating costs through the effective use of advanced technologies and techniques. TWI’s power industry experts help utility companies, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), research organisations, service companies, nuclear decommissioning agencies and regulators to ensure the safe, continuous and profitable operation of all kinds of energy generation and electrical power distribution plant and assets.

A key challenge across the renewable energy sector is to develop and deploy large numbers of cost-effective, energy-efficient devices. TWI provides impartial technical expertise on every aspect of renewable energy device, and has a track record in reducing the whole life costs of plant and devices through:

• Optimising fabrication
• Minimising operation and maintenance (O&M) requirements
• Improving performance
• Extending life and durability.

In all these areas TWI works with renewable energy system designers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), fabricators, operators, and maintenance companies on a one-to-one basis, where for publicly funded projects or closed project consortia.

Understanding how materials and components behave, degrade and relate to each other is a fundamental part of the research that takes place at TWI, and factors into much of the work we conduct. TWI has developed knowledge and testing of materials for over 40 years across all industries. Specific issues related to behaviour in harsh environments (hydrogen, temperature, corrosion, friction etc.) have been of particular interest. TWI has developed testing benches to study the behaviour of materials and parts under these specifically harsh conditions.

TWI brings over 60 years of experience in delivering energy technology networks worldwide. This expertise allows us to broker the most appropriate consortium for group projects.