Panels, Presentations, & Posters: NREL Plays Key Role at Premier Wind Energy Conference

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NREL’s Wind Experience Highlighted at Biannual TORQUE Convention

In Might 2024, amidst historical marble statues and sweeping centuries-old frescoes, a bunch of researchers got here collectively to speak about one thing decidedly extra fashionable: wind power applied sciences.

The biannual TORQUE Conferenceorganized by the European Academy of Wind Vitality and held this 12 months in Florence, Italy, brings collectively the world’s preeminent wind power scientists to share their breakthrough analysis and be taught from one another.

Greater than 730 researchers attended this 12 months’s convention, together with 26 Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory (NREL) researchers who have been both presenting their analysis, chairing a session, serving on a dialogue panel, or—within the case of Offshore Wind Vitality Group Supervisor Amy Robertson—delivering the keynote deal with.

“Offshore wind energy has not been a large focus of previous TORQUE conferences,” mentioned Robertson, whose analysis facilities round floating offshore wind applied sciences. “But with the growing interest in offshore wind—along with the increased complexity of floating offshore systems—conference organizers wanted to highlight this area to inform the broader wind community.”

Throughout her keynote, Robertson outlined the variations within the physics of floating wind techniques in comparison with extra mainstream land-based wind techniques and highlighted a few of the challenges that have to be addressed to advance the sector. Her aim was to assist others within the trade perceive key analysis wants.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for research on floating wind to make a significant impact,” Robertson mentioned. Whereas her speech targeted on technical challenges, the dialogue broadened throughout a follow-on panel. Right here, the technical challenges have been thought of alongside industrialization wants and methods for integrating the expertise with different ocean customers, all whereas minimizing environmental impression. “We can only really advance floating wind if we get broad social acceptance, which will mean showing that these technologies have a valuable role to play in the energy market,” Robertson added.

Robertson additionally served on a panel targeted on variety, fairness, inclusion, and accessibility points in wind power. As colead of this effort on the wind crew at NREL, Robertson introduced on the necessity to create “psychological safety” within the office.

“It’s important to recognize that in order for someone to be able to fully contribute in their job, they need to feel that they can share freely,” Robertson mentioned. “This comfort may not come easily in the workplace for someone who’s not part of the majority, and it may be hard for those in the majority to recognize this and understand what those individuals need.”

Revisiting Analysis and Celebrating Accomplishments

Throughout one other panel dialogue, entitled “Wind Energy Grand Challenges Revisited,” NREL Senior Analysis Fellow Paul Veers and colleagues spoke to the progress being made on the grand challenges of wind power science—together with challenges across the design, improvement, and deployment of wind power that should be addressed rapidly for america to fulfill its wind power deployment objectives.

“The panel communicated how, when working on the grand challenges, it’s important we have deep expertise in specific topics—like atmospheric science, turbine design, or wind plant control—but we also need to have an overarching understanding of how all the disciplines work together,” mentioned Veers, who delivered the keynote deal with on the 2022 TORQUE convention on the grand challenges. “Researchers have to understand how their work relates to the other topics, like the environment, social issues, or the grid. And you have to go to conferences like TORQUE to get a broader view of all of these issues.”

The convention was additionally a time for awards. In his position as chief editor of the journal Wind Energy ScienceVeers acknowledged fellow NREL wind power researcher Pietro Bortolotti, who was nominated as an impressive reviewer for the journal. Bortolotti was one in every of seven reviewers acknowledged for notably useful and constructive feedback on the quite a few articles he has reviewed.

Maximizing Collaboration

NREL researchers additionally performed a key position in conferences held the day previous to the convention targeted on numerous “tasks” of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Technology Collaboration Programme. Duties concentrate on quite a lot of wind power challenges, starting from analysis on floating wind arrays to optimizing wind plant management to the event of hybrid wind energy crops.

“The IEA Wind Tasks are a way to bring people together from different countries to work on the same problem—problems that we can either not solve alone or that really benefit from a collaborative approach to solving,” mentioned NREL wind power analysis scientist Paula Doubrawa, who leads IEA Wind Task 57which goals to enhance computational modeling of wind power techniques.

The conferences held previous to the convention coated seven completely different duties, six of which have been led by NREL researchers who lead or colead these duties. And the conferences have been held concurrently on the similar venue—a primary for members of IEA Wind Job groups.

“We coordinated the agendas so that it was possible for people that work on multiple tasks to come and go from one room to the other,” Doubrawa mentioned. “And having these meetings in person is a million times more productive and efficient, leading to insights and partnerships that are much harder to come by in virtual meetings.”

Robertson agrees. “The biggest value of a conference like this is understanding the other research that’s going on and what advancements are being made so that you can try to align and build off of what others are doing,” she mentioned. “It’s amazing to have the opportunity for so many of our researchers to be able to do this. It’s really going to make a big impact on our research portfolio.”

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Courtesy of NREL.