Wind Power Testing Facility Planned for Texas

By Pam Radtke Russell

While the days of the superconducting supercollider and its multi-million dollar contracts may be long gone, the wind industry hopes that a new Department of Energy program in Texas will have a much longer, albeit smaller, impact in the state.

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Last summer, the DOE selected Texas and Massachusetts to receive up to $2 million in test equipment to develop large-scale wind blade test facilities. The Lone Star Wind Alliance, a consortium of universities, state agencies and industry representatives, plans to build a $24 million facility on 23 acres in Ingleside. The project is in its infancy, with construction scheduled to start in the fall of this year, says Donald Birx, the vice chancellor for the University of Houston System and vice president for research for the University of Houston. The university is the general manager of the Alliance.

When the facility is completed, it will be capable of testing blades up to 100-meters long, a blade size typically used in offshore wind projects. And the Alliance hopes the site will be eventually will become a campus of innovation for all components of wind power including turbines, gearing systems, housing and materials, Birx says.

"It will be taking wind power to the next level.” The initial facility, Birx adds, will be the "trigger of a bigger vision."

Within seven years, the Alliance's goal is to be designing and deploying the next generation of onshore and offshore wind turbine systems.

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The projects in Texas and Massachusetts were needed to supplement the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, which has run out of room for the testing the growing wind turbines, says DOE spokesman Tom Welch. NREL is the only lab in North America capable of full scale testing of megawatt turbines and has a backlog of testing. Also, Welch says, the blades are so large they are difficult to be moved over land for testing in Colorado.

Blade testing is required to meet wind turbine design standards, reduce machine cost and reduce the technical and financial risk of deploying mass-produced wind turbine models, according to DOE.

In addition to the $2 million from DOE, the Alliance pledged $18 million toward the facility. Founding members, including BP Alternative Energy, Shell WindEnergy (cq) and Dow Chemical all contributed to the effort.

"We think the Alliance's purpose of trying to get this testing facility and get this indigenous wind infrastructure in Texas has got to be good," says Shell spokesman Tim O'Leary.

The lack of testing facilities in North America puts North American wind farms at a competitive disadvantage, because U.S. companies don't have scheduling priority in the testing, according to the Alliance.

The complex that is planned for Ingleside will consist of two to three bays and mountings for the blades.

"It will be a sophisticated testing and evaluation center," Birx says. "It's quite a facility that you have to put together."

The Alliance hopes to achieve LEED silver rating in the facilities construction. The project should be let for bid by early summer, Birx says. The Alliance has been evaluating and talking with some design firms earlier this year, and planned to pick one at press time.