Conference set on wind turbine blades

When wind farm developers gather late in August for the 2018 Sandia Blade workshop, of course they will be discussing the growth of turbine blades.

The Department of Energy’s Sandia NationaL Laboratories Wind Energy Technologies Department workshop will be held Aug. 28-29 in Lubbock, Texas at Texas Tech University’s National Wind Institute. Wind energy professionals from the industry, universities and national laboratories will discuss challenges and issues related to wind turbine blades.

One of the speakers will be Josh Paquette, a principle member of the technical staff at the Wind Energy Technologies Department at Sandia National labs. He has worked there for 13 years and has been involved in blade design, manufacturing and testing. He also leads wind turbine blade design.

When the first Sandia Blade Workshop was held in 2004, the average diameter of a rotor was 74 meters or about 888 feet with just over 6 gigawatts of total installed wind capacity.

Today, the average rotor diameter is more than 108 meters or nearly 1,300 feet with 85 gigawatts installed.