Windurance and the National Institute for Renewable Energy Enter into Strategic Relationship

Windurance, headquartered in Coraopolis, PA and The National Institute for Renewable Energy (NIRE), headquartered in Lubbock, TX have established a long-term mutually beneficial relationship to exchange knowledge and equipment with the ultimate goal of improving the technologies employed in future utility scale wind turbines. The research and technologies will then be integrated into the designs of wind turbines to optimize the entire system from the concrete base to the tips of the blades, to improve availability and reliability, which are essential for minimizing generation expenses and maximizing generation output. Turbine OEM’s are becoming more and more aware of the role that the pitch control system plays in the overall performance, safety and long-term reliability of the system.

Windurance has committed to utilizing existing and prototype products to be used in NIRE’s wind projects. Specifically, Windurance will customize their highly modular blade pitch control systems for use in wind turbines constructed by various wind turbine manufacturers. NIRE will develop wind energy projects to build wind turbine equipment and wind farms. NIRE will also work in partnership with Texas Tech University and other research entities to further their collaborative research and education missions.

NIRE, a non-profit public-private partnership which was formed in December of 2009, is designed to provide services to industry partners including new forecasting tools, prototype testing and certification, development of maintenance, operations and surveillance best practices, transmission and load flow studies, use of mobile research equipment to enhance wind farm performance and interconnection design and analysis. Their focus also includes building and operating research wind farms, developing other renewable energy research facilities, creating an industry-wide renewable energy consortium and providing commercial services to industry partners.

Windurance engages in engineering, manufacturing, and supplying wind turbine electronic blade pitch control systems. The company offers Servo Pitch, i-PITCH and mini-PITCH system platforms for varying sizes of wind turbines. These interconnected and interoperable, processor and network based systems are closed loop servo power conversion controls, motors, and auxiliary power technologies for the blade pitch applications in multi-megawatt wind turbines.

Contact Information

George Karg

Marketing Manager

Windurance

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