NREL Research Puts the Wind at an Industry's Back

The National Wind Technology Center (NWTC), located at the base of the foothills just south of Boulder, Colorado, is the nation's premier wind energy technology research facility. Since the earliest days of wind energy, the center has provided an ideal environment for the research and development of advanced technologies.

Now, more than ever, as wind is expected to meet an ever-larger portion of our nation's energy needs, these efforts are critically important to meeting our future clean energy goals. Researchers at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are working with industry partners toward an energy future that features significant levels of reliable, affordable, and sustainable wind energy.

"The combination of our broad-based technical expertise along with our world-class capabilities and facilities has made us an indispensable resource for the wind industry," NWTC Director Daniel Laird said. "We are able to leverage this expertise and capability at the NWTC along with the depth of other technical experts at NREL and throughout the Energy Department's laboratory system to provide the wind industry with the fundamental physics-based understanding, high-performance computing enabled simulation tools, and physical validation necessary to significantly lower the cost of wind energy."