BOONE, N.C.—Brent Summerville, practitioner-in-residence in Appalachian State University’s Department of Sustainable Technology and Built Environment, received $18,290 in funding from Sonsight Wind to prototype test their new three-kilowatt small wind turbine.
Sonsight Wind, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, was awarded a Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) grant from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to fund the prototype testing.
Appalachian State University will perform the prototype testing at its Beech Mountain Small Wind Research and Demonstration Site in Banner Elk; the testing began Monday, Nov. 6, 2017.
The winter winds blowing through the test site will help test the performance, function and durability of the prototype wind turbine. Students in the sustainable technology program helped install the turbine, instrumented a tower to measure the wind and weather, and programmed a data logger to log and analyze wind speed, wind direction, rotor speed, turbine power and other data.
https://today.appstate.edu/2017/11/29/wind-turbine