Boulder Wind Power wins federal grant

BOULDER – Boulder Wind Power in Boulder and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden will receive $700,000 each from the Department of Energy for research to advance next-generation designs for wind-turbine drivetrains.

Drivetrains, which include a turbine’s gearbox and generator, are at the heart of the turbine and are responsible for producing electricity from the rotation of the blades.

Boulder Wind Power, headed by Sandy Butterfield, will test an innovative permanent magnet-based direct-drive generator to validate performance and reliability of a large utility-scale turbine. Design requirements and optimization will be documented for turbines up to 10 megawatts and for turbines deployed offshore. The proposed generator design may operate at higher efficiencies than other permanent magnet generators.

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NREL will test a hybrid design that combines the advantages of geared and direct-drives through a single-stage gearbox and a nonpermanent magnet generator that reduces the need for rare earth materials. The technology developed will be scalable to 10 megawatts, and may be used to retrofit currently deployed 1.5 megawatt turbines.

The grants are part of $7.5 million in federal funding that will be handed out over two years for six projects in four states – California, Colorado, Florida and New York.