Northern Arizona University's 2022 Collegiate Wind Competition Team
We are a team of highly motivated and skilled undergraduate students seeking to win first place at the 2022 Collegiate Wind Competition in San Antonio, TX. Through a great deal of teamwork and dedication, our team plans to create a project that will not only excel the expectations of our school and the US Department of Energy, but will leave future NAU CWC teams with a strong foundation for success and enhancement.
With climate change being one of the paramount issues of the 21st century, the need for renewable energy sources is high and dire. Although this industry is rapidly growing, the rate of growth needs to be sustained to correlate with the increasing need of fossil-free energy generation. In order to continue the development and advancement of renewable energy, young and upcoming engineers must be inspired to pursue careers in the renewable energy field. To do this, the US Department of Energy has hosted an annual Collegiate Wind Competition. Luckily for the WindJax, NAU has participated in this competition every year since its pilot in 2014.
The competition this year is broken up into three contest components: Turbine Prototyping/Testing, Project Development, and Connection Creation. The Turbine Design contest includes a team going through the full engineering process to design, manufacture, and eventually test their model wind turbine at the competition in May. This accounts for most of the points for the competition. For Project Development, the team will need to design an implementable wind farm while minimizing levelized cost of energy. Finally, the Connection Creation component focuses on getting our team in touch with industry professionals, recruiting underclassmen to get involved within our project, and further spreading the wonders of wind energy to local schools and our community. These sub-teams have smaller goals in mind, but all have the ultimate goal of winning first place at the 2022 Collegiate Wind Competition toward the advancement of future wind projects.
Keeping these contest components in mind, the team is faced with an additional challenge. The turbine prototype and developed wind farm will have to be designed for an offshore implementation. Although this will ultimately foster creative solutions within design, this complicates the process for both the Turbine Prototyping/Testing and Project Development Sub-Teams since offshore applications are scarce within the United States. However, the team looks forward to the challenging and engaging experience nonetheless, and will correlate their designs to the needs of this requirement accordingly.
Click here to learn more about our Mission, Background, and Strategy for Success at this year's competition!
Find out more about our club and our projects by clicking above!
Interested in how we test WindJax style? Click the video above to find out!
This project is advised by Senior Lecturer David Willy, and Associate Professor Venkata Yaramasu of Northern Arizona University. These professionals will advise the Mechanical and Electrical decisions of the project, respectively, but will not aid in any design decisions made by the team.
This competition-based project is sponsored and ran by the United States Department of Energy, who is the team's client for this project. The team will also be advised and work closely with professionals from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
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For project updates from our Electrical Engineering Team, please visit their webpage by clicking here!
Follow us and the progress we make throughout the year on Instagram and Tik Tok!
@nauenergyclub
Last Updated: 29 April 2022