Boulder County gets a super-sized wind turbine

August 21, 2009 · Posted by in Energy 
Workers install the second half of a new wind turbine tower at the National Wind Technology Center in south Boulder County. Look carefully and you'll see little people on the rim of the lower tower section. Photo by Marty Caivano.

Workers install the second half of a new wind turbine tower at the National Wind Technology Center in south Boulder County. Look carefully and you'll see little people on the rim of the lower tower section. Photo by Marty Caivano.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has added the first of two super-sized wind turbines to its research center in southern Boulder County.

Already, more than a dozen wind turbines — from graceful lattice-mounted units with 2-kilowatt capacities to hulking white turbines from the mid-1980s that can crank out 600 kilowatts — stand facing into the wind gusting off the foothills at the National Wind Technology Center.

The new turbine, which is rated at 1.5 megawatts, will allow reserachers to tinker with a type of turbine that is becoming widely used at wind farms across the country. The second turbine, which will be added later this fall, will be even bigger at 2.3 megawatts.

Read more about the National Wind Technology Center’s new turbines at dailycamera.com or learn about Center for Research and Education in Wind, a new collaboration betwen researchers at the Universtiy of Colorado, Colorado State University, the Colorado School of Mines and NREL.

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10 Responses to “Boulder County gets a super-sized wind turbine”

  1. Green Judge » Blog Archive » Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? on August 24th, 2009 7:25 am

    [...] | alternative energy, boulder, colorado, united states, wind power | TreeHugger | Image credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy Laboratory They might not be quite the scale of the 6MW wind turbine [...]

  2. nachhaltiger.net » Blog Archive » Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? on August 24th, 2009 7:26 am

    [...] by Carl Jonas in english, news. Image credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy Laboratory They might not be quite the scale of the 6MW wind turbine [...]

  3. Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? | InfoFork.com on August 24th, 2009 7:26 am

    [...] Turbines: Are Those People!? August 24th, 2009 Goto comments Leave a comment Image credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy Laboratory They might not be quite the scale of the 6MW wind turbine [...]

  4. Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? on August 24th, 2009 7:27 am

    [...] TreeHugger • August 24, 2009 Image credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy Laboratory They might not be quite the scale of the 6MW wind turbine [...]

  5. ecofollower.com » Blog Archive » Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? on August 24th, 2009 7:27 am

    [...] 24th, 2009 by TreeHugger Image credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy Laboratory They might not be quite the scale of the 6MW wind turbine [...]

  6. Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? - Zidee.com on August 24th, 2009 8:03 am

    [...] credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy [...]

  7. Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? « CleanTechnologies.ca on August 24th, 2009 10:09 am

    [...] credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy Laboratory They might not be quite the scale of the 6MW wind turbine [...]

  8. Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? : Green Resouces on August 24th, 2009 5:17 pm

    [...] credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy [...]

  9. Boulder’s Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? | Eco Friendly Mag on October 5th, 2009 7:26 pm

    [...] Gigantic Wind Turbines: Are Those People!? Image credit: Big Green Boulder and National Renewable Energy [...]

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