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Apr 7, 2014

Wind Energy Center gets $2.2M grant to develop tech in Gulf of Mexico

Wind-farm turbine set against the sky

Gov. Rick Perry announced on April 5 that the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF) is awarding $2.2 million to the Texas A&M University Wind Energy Center for a collaborative project that brings together researchers from universities across the state to develop and increase the capacity of offshore wind energy technology in the Gulf of Mexico, and help bring it to market.

Texas A&M  is working with the Texas Tech University National Wind Resource Center, a national leader in the wind energy industry, as well as the University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics and Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s Conrad Blucher Institute and the University of Texas at Brownsville School of Business and Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences.

The TETF award will support the development of new offshore wind farms, turbine and platform technologies in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Offshore Wind Advanced Technology Demonstration Project. The state’s award will be matched with a $50 million award from the DOE, an initial $13.3 million investment from industry members of the GoWind consortium and a $1 million total investment from the participating Texas universities.

Subject to the outcome of environmental and feasibility assessments, a future phase of the project would see a three-turbine, 18 megawatt installment at the GoWind offshore wind farm in the Gulf of Mexico.

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