Proposal Number: 1143990 Principal Investigator: Castillo
This award will provide support for the workshop titled "Wind Farms Underperformance & the National Wind Resource Center." The National Wind Resource Center (NWRC), in collaboration with its partners in the United States, Europe and Australia, will offer the two-day workshop at Texas Tech University in February of 2012.
The underperformance of wind energy farms can be addressed by fundamental understanding of the role of turbulence on wind turbine arrays at different scales, including the performance of single blades in an array, as well as their wake-to-wake interactions. In order to advance fundamental understanding of these issues, the objectives of the workshop are to 1) Promote international collaborations between the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia in wind energy underperformance; 2) Identify major pressing questions on wind farm underperformance; 3) Promote technology transfer by means of collaborations with industry and national laboratories, 4) Demonstrate the connection between fundamental knowledge and performance issues faced by the wind energy industry; 5) Provide metrics for in-flow characterization that plays a role in wind farm underperformance.
Broader Impacts
It is expected that contacts established between participants from US and international institutions, industry, and US national laboratories will lead to student/faculty visits, and ultimately, collaborative research projects.
The future of wind energy will depend in part on graduate students trained with the multi-disciplinary knowledge and leadership skills needed to be successful in this emerging field. To address this challenge, an international team of leaders in the wind energy field will conduct a series of educational activities on wind energy underperformance. The workshop will aim to have more than 50% of student participants from underrepresented groups. Key activities will consist of lectures, panel discussions, informal group discussions, and poster sessions. Topics to be covered include wind energy design and layout optimization, economics of wind energy, offshore wind energy, wind energy arrays, and the effect of advanced blade design on wind energy performance. This information will also be made available to develop wind energy course materials in order to improve the quality of instruction in this field.
The level and content of the lectures will be designed to serve as a permanent record. The presentations and video recordings from the lectures will be available on the website of the NWRC, and will also be disseminated through an article addressing key outcomes from workshops in USA and Europe.
The National Wind Resource Center (NWRC) a wind energy center located at Texas Tech University in collaboration with its partners in USA, Europe hosted a successful workshop "On Wind Farms Underperformance & Partnerships". An informal setting and relax atmosphere along with poster sessions by students and junior faculty provided an environment for discussions. Major Outcomes: (1) The symposium was held March 28-30, 2012. (2) It was attended by 205+ people from academia (including students), economic development, and industry. (3) Memorandums of Understanding have been approved / executed with 13 institutions in the US and Europe and an additional Memorandums of Understanding are currently being negotiated with 13 institutions across the globe. (4) A follow up meeting was held in May, 2012, with academia and industry to discuss potential sponsored research projects and forming an industry consortium. (5) A forum was planned and successfully executed for December 10, 2012 among the Texas institutions to establish state-wide wind energy leadership goals and discuss collaborations for future projects. (6) 8 collaborative research projects have been submitted for funding consideration totaling about $7M including the recently awarded grants from NSF-PIRE (Johns Hopkins University & Texas Tech) and DOE (Texas A&M, and others partners including Texas Tech).
