Wind TERPines to Battle Rivals in DOE’s Wind Competition

The Energy Department selected twelve collegiate teams to participate in the Department's second Collegiate Wind Competition. The Collegiate Wind Competition challenges teams of undergraduate students to design and build a model wind turbine based on market research and siting considerations, develop a business plan to market their products, and test their turbines against a set of rigorous performance criteria.

Students from Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, the Business School, and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences are joining forces to compete in the Department of Energy’s 2016 Collegiate Wind Competition. Based on the first round of proposals, The University of Maryland team, "Wind TERPines", has been accepted as a participant in the competition. The primary adviser of the Wind TERPines is Dr. James Baeder (baeder@umd.edu), Department of Aerospace Engineering professor and member of the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center. The team will consist of around 15 undergraduate students, with Andrew Dallas, a current sophomore in Aerospace Engineering, as project manager. As part of the competition, the team will attend the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Windpower Conference in New Orleans in May 2016. The team will present their business plan and deployment strategy as well as test their prototype wind turbine in an on-site wind tunnel. The theme of the 2016 competition is to design and construct a wind-driven power system to supply electricity to non-grid connected device(s) for off-grid applications.

More information can be found at the DOE Wind website (https://www4.eere.energy.gov/wind/windcompetition).

Published February 24, 2015