Browsing by Subject "wind power"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Cologne Public Works Facility Wind Power Proposal
    (Resilient Communities Project (RCP), University of Minnesota, 2015) Katalinich, Lauren; Jiang, Kevin; Kartohandojo, Jessica; Lian, Yu; Horbal, Karissa
    This project was completed as part of a year-long partnership between Carver County and the University of Minnesota’s Resilient Communities Project (http://www.rcp.umn.edu). Carver County has been exploring opportunities for renewable energy and energy efficiency in county government buildings. The Carver County Public Works building in Cologne was a potential candidate for a renewable energy installation, specifically a wind turbine. The goal of this project was to determine the feasibility and potential payback time for a wind turbine at the site. In collaboration with the county project lead, Nick Koktavy, a team of students in BBE 5733: Renewable Energy Technologies, calculated the energy output needed to support building functions, addressed environmental and economic implications of a turbine installation, and developed payback timelines, ultimately concluding that wind power was not feasible for this location. A final report and PowerPoint slides from the project are available.
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    Community-Scale Energy Storage Guide: How Community Groups and Small Businesses Can Employ Energy Storage to Save Money and Contribute to Minnesota’s Clean Energy Transition
    Venning, Alex; Everett, Akisha; Kenney, Melissa A.; Institute on the Environment
    This guide is for people who have or are interested in investing in renewable energy batteries to power their homes, businesses, or community spaces. In it, we’ll walk you through how the US electricity grid operates, how renewable energy generated by homes and buildings works alongside it, and how investing in battery storage for renewable energy can optimize resources and help protect communities against power outages. We’ll also overview the different technologies available for storing renewable energy for future use and the partners, costs, and steps involved with installing an energy storage battery. Recent case studies from three sites in Minnesota, a state without fossil fuel reserves yet rich in renewable resources, illustrate how energy storage batteries help aid in the resilience of communities and the health of the planet by reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
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    The Sustainable Energy Solutions Guide for Minnesota Resorts
    (University of Minnesota Tourism Center, 2008) Schuweiler, Andrea
    The Sustainable Energy Solutions Guide for Minnesota Resorts is directed specifically towards Minnesota resorts. While there are a variety of information sources available for energy conservation, this is the first that provides specific information tailored towards a market such as Minnesota resort tourism. Minnesota’s approximately 900 resorts vary in size and provide a variety of accommodations and recreational opportunities. However, they are similar in that they usually provide nature-based recreational opportunities, especially boating and fishing, are located in secluded areas, feature cabin-like accommodations and are not open during the winter.
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    Wind in the Upper Midwest: Assessing Wind Resource Variability and Representation in Reanalyses
    (2020-08) Coburn, Jacob
    Wind has become an important element of climate for consideration due to the its growing presence as a renewable source of energy. Variations in wind create uncertainty which adversely impacts investment and planning decisions and can lead to structural damage to equipment when extreme events occur which are not able to be adequately planned for. Long-term wind variations are related to climate variability over periods ranging from months to years, with the so-called teleconnections possibly driving significant changes in power output. The goal of this study was to assess the potential impacts of modes of variability within the climate system on wind energy output in the Upper Midwest (UMW: 40-52°N, 87-105°W), a North American region rich in wind resources and experiencing rapid turbine deployment. First, to facilitate this goal, the representation of wind resources by reanalysis models was tested, as were methods of extrapolating 10-meter wind speeds to heights more common of wind turbines (hub-height, often around 80-100 meters). Reanalyzed wind fields were found to capture many of the mean, variational and distributional characteristics of wind speeds at 10-meters as measured by weather stations, though declining trends in the observations were not found to be accurately replicated in the reanalysis models. Next, four methods of wind speed extrapolation commonly used in the literature were tested for their capacity to capture the mean and variations in wind speeds from tall towers measuring at heights ranging from 39-100 meters above ground level. Each method was applied to four reanalyses and results compared against tall tower data. All of the method-reanalysis combinations produced wind speeds which were too slow than observed and less variable than those measured at the tall towers, though the variable exponent power rule applied to MERRA was able to achieve relatively close results with small mean biases. 80-meter wind fields were generated from MERRA using the variable exponent power rule for application in the final section of this study. The 80-meter wind fields were utilized to derive wind energy output. This power output data was then used in a multiple linear regression model to assess the influence of several teleconnections important to the UMW, as well as potential effects of solar forcing variations. This model was applied to each grid cell and season, allowing for spatial and temporal variations in the relationships between the modes of variability and power production to manifest. The magnitude and significance of the teleconnections and solar forcing vary throughout the year and across the region. These influences are shown to fit with expectations of flow set by sea level pressure anomaly patterns. Extreme monthly wind energy anomalies are explored, with the strongest extremes affecting most of the region simultaneously and negative power anomalies found to persist for periods of several months to a year. Negative power output episodes are shown to follow from a combination of synoptic and teleconnection-driven factors while strong, positive output episodes are mostly short-lived and the result of synoptic factors (favorable positions of high and low pressure and strong pressure gradients). These findings have important implications for long-term energy planning and have the potential to improve seasonal and interannual predictions for the industry.