Wind turbines mounted on existing structures in windy areas
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- Don R. Smith Consulting, Oakland, CA (United States)
Mel Manalis and Jim Davidson of the Environmental Studies Program at UCSB have done a wind energy study for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Caltrans has control of large areas in California and uses significant amounts of electricity for industrial, commercial, and highway illumination uses, and would like to use as much environmentally sustainable energy as possible. A particularly promising result of the study was the wind resource found to exist under the Antioch Highway Bridge from Solano to Contra Costa counties over the Sacramento River, just downwind (east) of the wind power plants built by Kenetech Windpower for PG&E and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Meteorological monitoring has shown the existing bridge structure tends to concentrate the wind flow just under the bridge. In addition, if small wind turbines (in the range of 10 kW) could be suspended from the bridge, the savings in tower costs could result in competitive costs of energy with a short payback time to Caltrans.
- Research Organization:
- American Wind Energy Association, Washington, DC (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 269392
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950309-; ON: DE96011159; TRN: 96:003988-0057
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 25. annual conference and exhibition on wind power, Washington, DC (United States), 26-30 Mar 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Windpower `95 - Proceedings of the American Wind Energy Association; PB: 624 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
The effects of vehicular exhaust buoyancy during worst case pollution scenarios near roadways
Standard metrics and methods for conducting Avian/wind energy interaction studies