DOE offers funding for larger-scale turbine blades

March 19, 2015 | By Jaclyn Brandt

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has announced plans to fund $1.8 million toward development of a larger-scale wind turbine blade. According to DOE, the goal of the financing is to create a new blade that will increase the power captured from wind energy, and increase the efficiency of wind systems.

Wind turbine blade on Interstate 35 near Elm Mott, Texas. Credit: Teratornis/Wikimedia Commons

The funding is earmarked for both research and development of new technology for turbine blades longer than 60 meters. According to DOE, the project "is intended to be forward-looking in addressing U.S. market dynamics and domestic manufacturing opportunities through innovative solutions to constructing and assembling larger blades directly applicable to mitigating U.S. transportation constraints."

The funds awarded under the program are meant to promote partnerships between DOE and the research and development teams, which includes manufacturers.

DOE has been working to promote technologies to better utilize wind, and in December 2014, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and DOE's Wind Program and AWS Truepower released a series of wind resource maps showing how a different sized wind turbine could help utilize more land in the United States.

The maps showed the potential wind capacity for turbines at both 110 and 140 meter (361 and 459 feet). According to DOE, increasing the size to 140 meters will provide opportunity to utilize 1,137,565 square miles of the United States that had not previously been suitable for wind. That number would nearly triple the amount of land capacity with the potential to be developed in the United States -- when compared with turbine technology in 2008.

The funding available by DOE has three goals: to help reduce the "levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of land-based wind power through the new designs, increase the wind turbine deployment opportunities in lower wind speed regions across the country where wind energy has previously been more expensive to deploy, and increase U.S. competitiveness in alignment with the EERE Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI)."

For more:
- view the application
- visit this website
- visit this website

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/doe-offers-funding-larger-scale-turbine-blades/2015-03-19