By Carter Jones – Senior Reporter
August 19th, 2022 – Brandon Ennis, an offshore wind technical lead at Sandia Labs, designed a drastically new concept for offshore wind turbines.
Ennis’ design, which Albuquerque-based Sandia National Laboratories filed a patent application for in 2020, allows a wind turbine’s generator to be placed on a floating platform, rather than on the top of a 500-foot tower.
But in order to make that design work, Sandia Labs’ wind power group also had to develop a software tool that allows engineers to certify offshore wind turbines to the right design standards, factoring in the changing wind and sea conditions.
Ennis said in a statement, the floating, vertical-axis wind turbine industry can’t exist without the vertical-axis wind turbine design tool software.
