Producing ’environmentally friendly’ energy has become a widespread topic nowadays. When it comes to the production of electricity, wind power has proved to be among the viable solutions. It has been studied since the end of the 1800s (Price, 2005) and it is now used in many countries. By stimulating research in that field and thereby reduce the risks for commercial exploration of wind power, many countries may help to reduce CO2 emissions. In Norway, as an added incentive, new research centers connected with wind power studies have been created.
In Bergen, Norway, the Norwegian Centre for Offshore Wind Energy (NORCOWE) aims at assisting the industry in challenging aspects regarding offshore, deep water wind parks. In NORCOWE, the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research will work on all aspects of wind resources and optimization.
The research work will be focused on high-resolution numerical modeling of the atmosphere coupled with a wave and on computational fluid dynamics models. In This way, a better understanding of the potential and optimisation of offshore wind energy will be achieved.
Governments may promote environmentally friendly conditions by stimulating reaseach in alternative energy systems. The hope is that the new center for wind power studies contribute to that. For more information on the center, please, contact Idar Barstad at: Idar.Barstad@bjerknes.uib.no
References
Price, Trevor J (3 May 2005). "James Blyth - Britain's first modern wind power engineer". Wind Engineering 29 (3): 191–200. doi:10.1260/030952405774354921.
Read also: Supercomputers Going Green? by Michel dos Santos Mesquita