Offshore wind partnership receives DOE research grant

The award was part of over $43 million of grants recently announced by DOE to lower the cost of energy and shorten the timeline for deploying offshore wind energy systems in the United States by speeding technology innovations and removing current market barriers.

The Alstom research project will be conducted in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Lab National Wind Technology Center (NREL NWTC), Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Ships and Platforms Flow (MIT LSPF), and Texas Tech University Wind Science and Engineering Research Center (TTU -WISE).  It will take place over a five-year period at Alstom offices in Richmond, VA, NWTC’s facility in Boulder, CO, MIT’s laboratory in Cambridge, MA, and TTU’s research facility in Lubbock, TX.

The research will be focused on development and integration of new paradigms in offshore wind turbine control strategies and the integration of innovative technologies in an advanced floating foundation.  As such, it will support the development of an optimized, robust and reliable offshore system for a 6MW class wind turbine tailored to the specifics conditions of the United States deep waters. The project includes an intensive validation at Alstom’s existing ECO 86 - 1.67MW and ECO 100 - 3MW units in the US as well as of the first units of the Haliade 150 - 6 MW offshore wind turbine to be installed in 2011 and 2012 in Europe.  In doing so, it will help support DOE’s scenario of developing 54GW of offshore wind power by 2030 at a cost of $0.07 per kWh.