PNNL has paired one of its offshore wind research buoys with its ThermalTracker-3D technology to correlate avian activity with ocean and weather conditions off the California coast.
Study says planners need to account for climate impacts on renewable energy during capacity development planning to fully understand investment implications to the power sector.
A new study projects that electricity demand tied to cooling U.S. buildings will grow as peak temperatures rise, and so too would the need for an expanded power sector.
A special issue of the Marine Technology Society Journal, titled “Utilizing Offshore Resources for Renewable Energy Development,” focuses on research and development efforts including those at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
PNNL researchers say that offshore wind energy can add value to the electric grid, beyond just the power it can produce, if locations and strategies are optimized.
PNNL deployed two research buoys in waters off the West Coast for the first time in deep water, supporting a DOE and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management effort to gather measurements that support offshore wind locations and technologies.
PNNL ocean engineer Alicia Gorton was invited to serve on the advisory board of the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Ocean Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
PNNL scientists Larry Berg, Susannah Burrows, Nicholas Ward, and Yun Qian were named among the most outstanding journal reviewers by the American Geophysical Union.
Research buoys managed by PNNL underwent a $1.3-million upgrade that included more powerful lidar that reaches heights of today’s taller wind turbines.
PNNL is managing the Data Archive and Portal, which provides the wind research community with secure, timely, easy, and open access to all data brought in from research under DOE’s Atmosphere to Electrons program.
Alicia Gorton, marine scientist and project manager in the PNNL’s Coastal Sciences Division, has joined the editorial board of the Marine Technology Society Journal.
PNNL researchers are developing and evaluating bat tagging and tracking tools that will help design solutions to protect the bat population from wind turbines.
Mama and calf humpback whales—considered a vulnerable species that might be entangled in underwater equipment—star in a new animation video that depicts the marine mammals’ scale and movements relative to floating offshore wind farms.