University launches new Wind Energy Research Station at UMore Park
Contacts:
Julie Bodurtha, UMore Park, jgb@umn.edu, (612) 626-8431
Rhonda Zurn, College of Science and Engineering, rzurn@umn.edu, (612) 626-7959
Preston Smith, University News Services, smith@umn.edu, (612) 625-0552
Media note: A special media tour of the wind turbine is available upon request on Monday, Oct. 24, 11 a.m.-noon. Contact Julie Bodurtha at jgb@umn.edu or Rhonda Zurn at rzurn@umn.edu to make arrangements.
A time-lapse video of the wind turbine construction is available at http://z.umn.edu/ turbinetimelapse.
Wind energy consortium is one of only three in the nation
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (10/19/11) – U.S. Department of Energy officials, energy industry partners, wind energy researchers, political leaders, University administrators, and hundreds of local school children will watch the ceremonial “flip of the switch” to start up a wind turbine at the University of Minnesota’s new Wind Energy Research Station at UMore Park. The turbine tower is 263 feet tall. The height of the turbine from the base of the tower to the tip of the blade is about 415 feet.
The public commissioning ceremony is Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2:30-4:30 p.m. at the Wind Energy Research Station on the eastern edge of the UMore Park property in Rosemount, Minn., a 5,000-acre University-owned property in Dakota County (approximately 25 miles southeast of the Twin Cities campus). The event is free and open to the public, but registration is recommended. To register and for directions to the site, visit www.eolos.umn.edu/rsvp.
Following the formal ceremony, guests will be invited to take a self-guided walking tour of the facilities, including the new wind turbine and a 426-foot meteorological research tower. On display will be a wide range of exhibits on University wind research, local educational opportunities in renewable energy careers, state-of-the art research technology, and plans for a sustainable community at UMore Park.
The University of Minnesota was one of three university consortia to be awarded a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) wind energy research grant 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 (ARRA), supports an academy-industry consortium focused on wind energy research and education activities. It also includes construction of the U.S.-made 2.5 megawatt Clipper Liberty wind turbine. The Wind Energy Research Station will host not only active consortium research, but also education and training of next generation wind industry workers.
“This new Wind Energy Research Station is about promoting research collaborations between academia and industry to improve wind energy efficiency and reliability,” said 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 work force training.”
The consortium has stimulated new educational initiatives and helped establish collaborative research projects that are leading to acceleration of new wind power technologies. 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 build-up on blades, monitoring turbine performance, and improving turbine blade structure. The facility is equipped with state-of-the-art instruments and sensors to simultaneously measure the approach wind fields and the impact they have on the turbine structural reliability and wind energy capturing ability.
Consortium partners include the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power, Syracuse University, Dakota County Technical College, Mesabi Range Community and Technical College, 3M, Barr Engineering, Clipper Windpower LLC., United Technologies Research Center, Lockheed Martin, Micron Optics, Ryan Companies, WindLogics, Xcel Energy, Sandia National Laboratories, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The University of Minnesota’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE) and UMore Park provided early-stage research funding to support consortium collaborations.
For more information about the Wind Energy Research Consortium, visit www.eolos.umn.edu.