University lab linked to wind and solar power

Jun 10 2009 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

A PIONEERING lab plans to boost the efficiency of wind and solar power when it opens on Tyneside today. The lab at Northumbria University is directly linked to two wind turbines and solar systems on the university’s Newcastle city centre campus.

This will allow researchers to monitor the quantity and quality of the renewable power which is generated, and the aim is to increase the performance of turbines and solar panels in harvesting power from the wind and the sun.

Dr Ghanim Putrus, reader in Electrical Power Engineering at Northumbria’s School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences, said: “At the moment they are not very efficient because of the technology used.

“We need to improve their efficiency in capturing power and make them more cost effective.”

He said that fewer turbines would be needed to generate the same power as that produced by less efficient machines.

Research will also focus on how to better the performance of small urban turbines.

The lab will also look at how to solve problems surrounding the feeding of renewable energy into the national grid.

At present the national grid is designed in such a way that a core number of central power stations transmit power through the grid via a recognised distribution network, giving a consistent quality.

Problems which need to be tackled are those of variable quality of power from smaller scale generating sources like turbines, solar and combined heat and power plants.