The University of Minnesota is set to unveil its new Wind Energy Research Station at UMore Park in Rosemount, Minn.
The facility, which consists of a 2.5 MW Clipper Liberty wind turbine and 420-foot-tall meteorological research tower, is located on the eastern edge of the UMore Park property, located approximately 25 miles southeast of the university's Twin Cities campus.
The Wind Energy Research Station will host active consortium research, as well as education and training of wind industry workers. The ongoing research projects deal with capturing more energy from the wind, improving wind farm design, minimizing turbine impact on radar, reducing turbine noise, preventing ice buildup on blades, monitoring turbine performance and improving turbine blade structure.
The facility is equipped with instruments and sensors designed to simultaneously measure the approach wind fields and the impact wind has on the turbine structural reliability and wind energy capturing ability, the university adds.
"This new Wind Energy Research Station is about promoting research collaboration between academia and industry to improve wind energy efficiency and reliability," says Fotis Sotiropoulos, director of the St. Anthony Falls Lab and consortium leader. "An impressive array of consortium partners have come together to make this happen. This is about helping the nation reach the goal of producing 20 percent electricity from wind by 2030 through cutting-edge research and workforce training."
The university was one of three university consortia to be awarded a wind energy research grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2009. The $7.9 million award to the university's St. Anthony Falls Laboratory in the College of Science and Engineering, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, supports an academy-industry consortium focused on wind energy research and education activities.
