​Wind
Our very first project, beginning in December of 2006, was to assess the wind resource on campus by installing industry-standard anemometers on Xanadu House and Quillen Apartments. Finding very little wind resource, our group decided to expand our horizons to areas throughout the Bay Area, as well as to other renewable energy resources.

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SWEP is also very active in wind energy resource assessment. After conducting a high-resolution 3D wind modeling study of the Bay Area, our group decided to focus on two primary regions: the Port of Redwood City and the town of Soledad, CA in the Salinas Valley. Members of our group constructed a 14 foot y-frame to support instruments measuring wind speed and wind direction, which we then installed on top of the 150 foot concrete silos owned by Cemex at the port. Our other wind energy resource assessment project is a partnership between SWEP and the City of Soledad. With financial assistance from a variety of internal and external sources, SWEP erected a 50 meter tower with anemometers at 50, 40, and 30 meter heights. These wind measurements will be used to gauge the wind energy potential in a valley which has been previously unexploited, but has good wind potential according to our modeling studies. An article about this project was published on the SOE website:

http://soe.stanford.edu/current_students/windtower.html

In the spring of 2009, students also completed a San Francisco Bay Wind Resource Assessment, commissioned by the City of San Francisco. The final report has been used to advise the city of the potential to incorporate local wind power to achieve their renewable energy standards.



The Redwood City wind project at the Cemex Cement Company completed it's wind measurement campaign during the 2011-2012 academic year.  The wind meteorological tower, which was installed in November 2009, was dismounted and removed (except for the main pole, which will need to picked up with a truck later) during February 2012.  Cemex electric bill information was also gathered for this same time period in order to help assess the economic value of the wind resource.  Discussions were also initiated with Continental Wind Power, a California-based turbine manufacturer, regarding the feasibility of installing their soon-to-be-released 400kW turbine, which is optimized for lower-wind speed regimes, such as that at the Cemex location.  After reviewing site details and financing options, it was decided that project would be put on-hold indefinitely due to the difficulty in permitting.  Meanwhile, discussions with Google (which had begun in 2008) were re-established.  During the original conversation in 2008, Google had expressed interest in wind power and in possibly partnering on a future wind turbine phase of a SWEP wind project.  Google, Continental Wind Power, and SWEP are now investigating the possibility of installing the 400kW turbine as a pilot-type project on a Google-owned property (the Cemex site may be considered as a last option).  If a suitable site is found, SWEP would assist with the project as an educational experience.



We have also ran a 1 credit hour wind class in the past and are looking forward to incorporating a wind project development class into the Stanford curriculum this coming year.



Past Projects:

- San Francisco Offshore Wind Energy Study (Completed report, January 2009)
- Determine the WIND resource on campus
- Use computer modeling program to identify ideal wind speed locations in Bay Area
- Site 10m and 50m towers near campus to measure wind potential