Wind power research gets funding surge

The University of Victoria is the only BC university involved in a wind energy network that received a surge of federal monies March 19 as part of a funding announcement involving seven strategic research networks. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) will provide approximately $5 million over five years to the national Wind Energy Strategic Network (WESNet).

WESNet is a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary research network involving 16 Canadian university partners from six provinces and 14 supporting partners from government, wind energy industry sector, power companies, wind energy institutes and associations. Its mission is to identify made-in-Canada applications for wind energy, develop innovative solutions to technical problems facing the wind industry, and assist Canada in gaining international status as a wind energy centre of excellence.

UVic researchers—including mechanical engineering professors associated with UVic’s Institute for Integrated Energy Systems (IESVic) Drs. Andrew Rowe, Peter Wild, Curran Crawford, and Ned Djilali (Canada Research Chair in Energy Systems) as well as UVic environmental economist Dr. G. Cornelis van Kooten (Canada Research Chair in Environmental Studies and Climate)—will play a major role in the network by modeling the technical and economic aspects of feeding wind energy into Canada’s utility grid system.

WESNet is led by Dr. Liuchen Chang, a professor of electrical engineering from the University of New Brunswick. Information about the network is available at www.wesnet.ca/.