The biannual U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Research and Development (R&D) Newsletter provides recent news about the DOE Wind Energy Technologies Office's R&D projects, news, accomplishments, and recent publications.

Letter from the Wind Energy Technologies Office Director, Robert C. Marlay

As the new director of the Wind Energy Technologies Office, I am pleased to join a superb team of professionals at DOE and our National Laboratories in working to advance the prospects of wind energy—on land, offshore, and distributed throughout the country. There are huge opportunities for wind energy, as well as challenges, and we have exciting plans for the future to address them. I am eager to get out and about and meet with many of you who are joining with us in this bold endeavor.

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Current Research & Development

National Consortium Poised To Make a Splash
Momentum builds for partnership advancing R&D for the U.S. offshore wind industry

With a host of new partners and an open call for research proposals, the National Offshore Wind R&D Consortium—established with $41 million initial funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)—is ready to make a splash.

Data on the potential offshore wind resource suggest more than 2,000 gigawatts (GW) could be accessed along the coasts of the United States and the Great Lakes. In New York State alone, leaders have committed to 9,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind energy development by 2035—enough energy to power up to six million homes.

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Bigger Equals Better When It Comes to Wind Energy Potential
Researchers do the math on innovative blade configurations

DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) are searching for ways to maximize the advantages of large-scale rotors and their potential for increased energy generation. Their work as part of DOE’s Big Adaptive Rotor (BAR) project aims to develop 5-MW land-based turbines with 206-meter (m) rotors.

Basic math can easily explain the benefits of larger turbines. To sum it up, bigger equals better.

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SpiderFLOAT Innovation Puts a New Spin on Offshore Wind
A new scalable offshore floating wind system provides novel solutions to cut costs and overcome challenges of deepwater offshore environments.
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Portal Makes Secure Access to Validated Data a Breeze
A2e initiative addresses the need to have reliable, applicable wind data by establishing and funding the Data Archive and Portal (DAP).
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New Tool Keeps Wind Power On Course
System operators have a new tool for bringing intuition to the deluge of wind data—a visualizer for wind power forecasts called WindView.
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Offshore Wind Workshop Addresses Industry Challenges
Offshore wind representatives met this spring to discuss meteorology and oceanography research to support offshore wind projects in the U.S.
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Penn State took home first place in the 2019 Collegiate Wind Competition (CWC), and the program has remained in the news. Stories have looked at how participation helped prepare one student for career success, how Team Juracán from Puerto Rico survived Hurricane Maria, how the Chico State team competed despite the California wildfires that closed their campus, and how KidWind students benefit from CWC student involvement. The 2020 Collegiate Wind Competition will be held at the AWEA WINDPOWER Conference in Denver, Colorado, June 1-4, 2020, and NREL issued a request for proposals from 2021 CWC teams this September.

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2018 Offshore Wind Technologies Market Report
Offshore wind market, technology, and cost trends in the United States and worldwide.
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Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Offshore Wind Energy
Learn more about efforts to develop America's vast offshore wind resources.
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Top Trends in Offshore Wind
Top trends leading the offshore wind market into a decade of unprecedented growth.
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Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About Wind Power
Brush up on your knowledge of wind! Get the details on a few of the lesser-known wind energy facts.
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DOE’s EERE Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has awarded grants to two wind energy projects for their first phase of research:

  • An energy-saving process to repurpose waste from end-of-life wind turbine blades (Carbon Rivers)
  • A system for offshore wind plant operators to monitor turbines and diagnose problems remotely (Qualtech Systems).

Three more SBIR grants were awarded to wind energy projects that demonstrated commercial feasibility for the second phase of research:

  • A new blade coating that will reduce damage to wind turbine blades caused by lightning (Aquanis)
  • A low-cost marine atmospheric boundary layer measurement system (Helios Remote Sensing Systems)
  • A profiling microwave radiometer for offshore wind farms (Boulder Environmental Sciences & Technology).

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National Offshore Wind R&D Consortium Request for Proposals
The National Offshore Wind R&D Consortium has announced the availability of funding for additional offshore wind R&D topics.
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Department of Energy Announces 2019 Technology Commercialization Fund Projects
Projects will strengthen partnerships between National Laboratories and private sector companies to deploy promising technologies to the marketplace.
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DOE Awards $6.8 Million in Wind Energy Research Projects
DOE selected ten projects totaling $6.8 million that will reduce the impacts of land-based and offshore wind energy on bats and other wildlife.
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DOE Selects Advanced Wind Turbine Generator Projects
Awards will help researchers develop lightweight, efficient turbine drivetrain systems for tall wind and offshore applications.
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Featured Publications

Visit the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE’s) Wind Technology Resource Center for research reports, publications, data sets, and online tools developed by National Laboratories and their facilities.

Explore previous editions of the Wind R&D Newsletter or browse articles by topic:

This newsletter is also available for download: