The latest in the federal government’s efforts towards the push for renewable energy is the Department of Energy awarding a USD 17 million worth of grants to eight offshore wind project research and development programs.

According to DOE’s Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Daniel R Simmons, “These projects will be instrumental in driving down technology costs and increasing consumer options for wind across the United States as part of our comprehensive energy portfolio.” 

The federal grant will support two innovative offshore wind demonstration projects, which will receive a total of up to USD 10 million to “conduct additional project development activities that enable the demonstration of innovative technologies or methodologies to reduce risk and cost,” according to OffshoreWind.biz, as well as six national testing facilities. According to Recharge Wind, the programs that will receive funding are: 

• South Carolina’s Clemson University to improve offshore nacelle testing through a ‘hardware-in-the-loop’ system on the 7.5MW dynamometer on its drivetrain test rig;
• Lehigh University in Pennsylvania to upgrade its soil-foundation interaction laboratory to model impacts of wind, waves and currents on offshore wind turbine structures;
• The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center –which is about to start trials of a Haliade-X blade –to upgrade its technology testing facility to handle structural trials of up-to-120-metre-long rotor blades;
• Oregon State University to develop wave-basin numerical models to simulate the impact of wind and waves on floating turbines;
• Massachusetts’ Tufts University to quantify the effects of fatigue on the various marine concrete mixtures for turbine foundations; and
• The University of Massachusetts–Lowell to develop a novel autonomous method of using measured acoustic pressure to detect degradation and damage to rotor blades.

This move follows the series of grants from the DOE’s Atlantis (Aerodynamic Turbines Lighter and Afloat with Nautical Technologies and Integrated Servo-control) R&D program.