INNOVATION AND ECONOMIC PROSPERITY UNIVERSITIES CICEP AWARDS PROGRAM

CASE STUDY National Institute 2014 Tech’s National Wind Institute (NWI)1 represents the nation’s leading university wind- focused research and education enterprise and serves as the hub for multi-disciplinary research, commercialization, and education.

Capitalizing on the strength of its location in the South Plains, has been studying the wind for more than 40 years. Comprised of engineers, atmospheric scientists, economists, and policy and legal experts, the multi-disciplinary group of researchers began their work in 1970 in the wake of a devastating in the university’s home city, Lubbock. Their work has always focused on one key question: “How do we save lives and reduce damage when the are violent?”

Now the group has extended its focus to look at how to harness the wind to create more efficient energy sources and train workers for the wind energy industry. NWI accounted for 19 percent of the commercialization efforts at TTU last fiscal year.2

SOCIETAL IMPACT NWI transforms knowledge and research into services and equipment3 that broadly impact Texas Tech Students deploy an atmospheric monitoring station as part of “StickNet”—a storm data collection network. Texas Tech offers the only communities by saving human lives and wind energy bachelor’s degree and created the first doctorate wind science protecting resources. Advances developed at and engineering. Texas Tech include:

• The first in-home, aboveground storm shelter4 that can survive the strongest winds. The plans are approved by and available through FEMA.

• StickNet,5 an array of two dozen atmospheric monitoring stations, allows researchers to deploy instruments in the path of hurricanes at landfall. Researchers can measure the low-level wind field and relate those findings to damage patterns. Results include recommendations to coastal municipalities for stronger and more appropriate building codes. StickNet is now used by researchers all over the world.

• The West Texas Mesonet,6 a series of 84 meteorological observation stations, provides comprehensive, real-time, atmospheric data to assist weather forecasters and atmospheric

1. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/index.php 2. Data obtained from the Office of Technology Commercialization’s annual report. 3. ttp://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/facilities/index.php 4. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/research/shelters.php 5. http://www.atmo.ttu.edu/TTUHRT/WEMITE/sticknet.htm 6. http://www.mesonet.ttu.edu

CICEP 2014 CASE STUDY | TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY | 2 scientists. The network is distributed across 53 counties throughout Texas and parts of Eastern New Mexico. The system also provides current agricultural data to farmers, aiding with planting, irrigation, and other crop-related decisions.7

• The Debris Impact Facility8 contains a pneumatic cannon9 capable of producing simulated wind speeds of more than 250 mph. The cannon is used to develop standards for safe above ground shelters, and continues to be in demand for testing new shelter materials and constructions.10 The facility earned recognition as one of Popular Science’s “10 Most Awesome College Labs of 2013.” 11

WIND ENERGY ADVANCES

The federal government has set a goal of meeting 20 percent of the nation’s energy Dr. Ernst Keisling examines an aboveground in-home shelter that survived demands with wind power by 2030.12 Texas the 2003 Moore, Oklahoma tornado. Tech has accepted the challenge by assisting the wind power industry to improve wind farm efficiency and to develop the work force. NWI’s advancements in the wind energy field are possible through partnerships with national laboratories and major wind industry companies. An agreement signed in 2011 with Sandia National Laboratories;13 Vestas,14 a leading turbine manufacturer; and Group NIRE,15 a renewable energy development company, allowed Texas Tech to establish and manage the Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) facility.16 The SWiFT facility relocated Sandia’s wind energy test facility to Texas Tech. This facility enables rapid, cost-efficient testing and development of transformative wind energy technology. It also houses the wind energy battery storage system that allows researchers to work on integrating wind energy into the Texas power grid. Revenue generated from the SWiFT turbines benefits NWI’s research and educational programs. The U.S. Department of Energy expects the SWiFT facility to become a cornerstone of its wind research program.

7. According to Google analytics, web hits on Mesonet servers average around 72,000 (2000 unique visitors) per day. On rainy or windy days, web hits average around 175,000 to 200,000 with 6000 unique visitors. 8. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/research/DebrisImpact/ 9. Video of cannon in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pot7UI5SLb8 10. Since 2011, the DIF has seen a 147 percent increase in revenue. 11. http://www.popsci.com/science/gallery/2013-08/awesome-labs?image=3 12. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy08osti/41869.pdf 13. http://www.sandia.gov/ 14. http://www.vestas.com/ 15. http://www.groupnire.com/ 16. http://energy.sandia.gov/?page_id=7942

CICEP 2014 CASE STUDY | TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY | 3 Researchers at the SWiFT facility are developing solutions to a number of major industry challenges through collaborative and highly proprietary projects with industrial, governmental and academic partners. For instance, Doppler radar technologies and techniques developed at Texas Tech have the potential to revolutionize the wind energy community. These technologies evaluate how wind flows from one turbine to the next, thereby enhancing wind farm design, wind plant reliability, and operation. Documenting the structure and evolution of complex flows within and surrounding wind farms will lead to increased efficiency. Researchers also use NWI’s expertise to examine the use of wind power to reduce the cost of desalinating groundwater, a process vitally important to communities dependent on the declining Ogallala Aquifer.

Another partnership, the Pantex Renewable Energy Project,17 gives researchers access from an industrial facility directly using utility scale wind energy. The project provides real world examples for developing TTU’s next generation coursework in wind energy.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT Ensuring the growth of this clean energy source is largely dependent upon creating a competent, well-educated workforce. Using its multidisciplinary approach, Texas Tech equips the industry with a skilled workforce18 who understands how to solve NWI research at the SWiFT facility will focus on the investigation of turbine-to-turbine interaction and innovative rotor technologies, as problems related to the detrimental effects of demonstrated in this representational graphic, as well as aero-acoustics 19 windstorms and how to take advantage of and structural health monitoring of turbines using embedded sensor the wind’s potential to meet energy needs.20 systems.

Key approaches:

• Run on the Wind Summer Camp21 provides young scholars (grades 7–11) an introduction to the field of wind science and an opportunity to consider wind science as a future academic pursuit.

• NWI offers the nation’s only Bachelor of Science in wind energy.22

• NWI created the first Ph.D. program23 in wind science and engineering in the U.S.

17. http://today.ttu.edu/2014/05/u-s-energy-project-to-give-national-wind-institute-access-to-research-data/ 18. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/education/index.php 19. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/research/windmitigation.php 20. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/research/windenergy.php 21. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/diversity/ideal/run_on_wind.php 22. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/education/bs-program.php 23. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/education/phd-program.php

CICEP 2014 CASE STUDY | TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY | 4 • The wind energy graduate certificate program24 is tailored for non-technical professionals who wish to assume managerial responsibilities in the wind energy industry.

• The wind energy graduate credential program25 enables access to cutting edge instruction based on real-life, up-to-the minute case studies from DNV GL,26 a global provider of risk management and certification services with more than 30 years’ experience in the wind industry.

• Two-year colleges can license TTU’s lower division core curriculum27 to provide a seamless transfer into the B.S. in Wind Energy degree.

NWI’s focus on all things wind allows researchers to expand on four decades of studies to protect lives and structures. This work translates into a highly advanced workforce, innovations, and technology-based economic development that are actively and substantially improving the wind energy industry.

24. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/education/wind_energy_certificate.php 25. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/education/Grad_cert_DNV_GL_program.php 26. http://www.dnvgl.com/ 27. http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/education/transfer-curriculum.php

CICEP 2014 CASE STUDY | TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY | 5