Did You Know?

In-depth articles about WETO-funded research previously featured in our twice-yearly R&D Newsletter will now come to you regularly through this Catch the Wind digital newsletter. This new format will help you stay up to date on important research efforts all year!

New Study Could Explain How Atmospheric Phenomena Affect Wind Power Plants

Mysterious atmospheric manipulations, like wakes, can impact how much energy a wind plant produces. Currently, wind energy models are too imprecise to explain exactly how these phenomena interact with wind turbines and wind plants. But now, the international, WETO-funded American WAKE experimeNt (or AWAKEN, for short) is launching a massive data collection effort that could help wind power plants increase their energy production with a few strategic moves.

Learn more about the study, which will capture detailed data on how winds shift as they travel from one wind turbine to another or from one wind plant to another. This atmospheric map could help developers adapt their wind plant designs to produce more energy from the same winds, increase profits, and, eventually, reduce electricity prices for consumers.

DOE Released Report Characterizing Wind Energy Industry Supply Chain Strengths, Weaknesses, and Opportunities

Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a series of 13 deep-dive assessments on American manufacturing supply chains, reviewing both the obstacles to a reliable supply of key materials and opportunities for improvement. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) developed seven of the assessments, each of which focuses on a different component of DOE’s clean-energy portfolio. The wind energy report covers components, processed and raw materials, recycling, digital products, and the wind energy industry workforce. It discusses U.S. wind energy industry competitiveness, includes a supply-chain risk assessment, and lists opportunities for private-sector collaboration to address vulnerabilities and enhance competitiveness.

DOE Released 2022 Technology Commercialization Fund Solicitations

DOE needs your help to commercialize national laboratory intellectual property faster to meet the major challenges we face as a nation and in the world today. Now you can have a direct impact on accelerating the path to market through DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund. Join WETO in partnering with the DOE Office of Technology Transitions and eight other DOE program offices on this solicitation, to see what our stakeholders can bring to the table. To learn more about the Fiscal Year 2022 Core Lab Infrastructure for Commercialization Lab Call, visit the DOE TCF Website.

Technology, Not Windier Weather, Enabled Last Decade’s Growth in Wind Power Plant Output

Over the past decade, the wind fleet’s average capacity factor has increased substantially. Capacity factor is the ratio of actual generation to total possible generation, where total possible generation assumes a plant generated its maximum possible output across all hours of the year. Researchers have been debating how much of the improvement should be credited to technology (new plants show improved capacity factors) versus increasing wind speeds (surface wind speeds measurements trended upward during that period). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory took a detailed look at generation records and surface wind speed observations across the last decade. They found that technology change and plant design/siting increased capacity factors of newer plants by 25% compared to older plants, an order of magnitude larger than improvements due to increasing wind speed. See more in the open access paper in the journal Wind Energy.

Two Wind Energy Productivity Software Programs Upgraded

Two WETO-funded wind energy software programs have received important upgrades.

Sandia National Laboratories has released a new version of Numerical Manufacturing and Design, or NuMAD, a software tool for the structural design and modeling of wind turbine blades. NuMAD version 3.0 simplifies the process of creating a 3D model of a wind turbine blade and manages all blade information, including aerodynamic properties, material properties, and material placement.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has released FLOw Redirection and Induction in Steady State (FLORIS) Version 3.0, a major redesign and enhancement of the FLORIS wind farm controls software. Improvements include faster computation speeds, improved models of wind farm wakes and control strategies for large offshore wind farms, and the ability to model up to three different kinds of wind turbines in the same graphic with a 3D representation of varied wind speeds and directions.