New 'industrial revolution' improves wind energy

Colorado State University and the start-up Spirae Inc. have partnered with the country of Denmark — the world's most advanced wind-powered nation — to establish intermittent wind power as a stable and reliable renewable resource.

CSU and the Colorado-based Spirae jointly developed InteGrid Laboratory, one of the largest facilities of its type in the world, to provide innovative solutions for renewable and distributed power integration. As renewable energy use increases throughout the world, "smart grid" systems are critical for consistent grid management. Denmark's power system operator, EnergyNet.dk, was one of the earliest users of the InteGrid Laboratory to test and improve renewable energy sources and optimal connectivity of the power grid.

Carbon-footprint responsibility

In addition to its global research efforts, CSU is committed to eliminating its own carbon footprint at home. Colorado State is one of the few U.S. universities to develop a wind farm. Known as the CSU Green Power Project, the farm is expected to provide more than four times the power the University currently consumes — part of CSU's goal to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2015.

"Colorado State University serves as an important example for universities with their ambitious green strategy of going 100 percent green," says Lykke Friis, prorector at the University of Copenhagen.

The CSU initiative is a model for other leading universities throughout the world, notes Hans Christian Ugilt Hansen of Zurich, Switzerland, who structured and financed 11 major Danish wind projects in California. "We can use [CSU's] model to establish a world-wide network between universities, with the aim of motivating students and university management to go renewable in their energy consumption."

"Colorado State's wind project also provides opportunities for cooperation among Colorado's major electric utilities to bring university-owned wind to communities, says Ron Lehr, former chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission and Western representative to the American Wind Energy Association. "CSU's wind project testifies to its leadership in a consortium of Colorado's most prominent colleges and universities that require 100 percent carbon-free electric power to meet their carbon-reduction commitments."