DOE Awards Millions to Support Wind Energy Development

Sept. 22, 2010
The Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced it is awarding more than $5 million to support U.S. wind energy development

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced it is awarding more than $5 million to support U.S. wind energy development. Two projects receiving a total of $3.4 million over two years will improve short-term wind forecasting, which will accelerate the use of wind power in electricity transmission networks by allowing utilities and grid operators to more accurately forecast when and where electricity will be generated from wind power. Three additional projects are receiving a total of more than $1.8 million to boost the speed and scale of midsize wind turbine technology development and deployment. These grants will help reach the goal of doubling U.S. renewable energy generation capacity.

The two funding recipients — AWS Truepower LLC in Albany, N.Y., and WindLogics, Inc. in Saint Paul, Minn. — will lead teams of several partners and work with DOE and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to deploy advanced atmospheric measurement systems over a broad area, provide data that allow advanced weather prediction systems to improve short-term turbine-level wind forecasts, and demonstrate the value of these forecasting improvements for electric utility operations.

NOAA will provide project support in the areas of research instrument deployment and operation, data assimilation, advanced weather modeling, and meteorology expertise and analysis. A network of sophisticated atmospheric instrumentation will be deployed and operated in the regions identified and supported by the AWS Truepower and WindLogics teams. Data from these networks and other sources will be incorporated into an advanced weather forecast model by NOAA to provide more accurate wind forecasts.

In addition to the funding for short-term wind energy forecasting, DOE announced that three projects will receive approximately $620,000 each to accelerate the first phase of development, testing, and commercialization of domestically manufactured midsize wind turbines with rated generating capacities between 200kW and 500kW.

For additional detail on all of the selected projects, click here.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

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