Prof. Dr. Lucy Pao 

To combat climate change, many countries are decarbonizing their electric power grids by significantly increasing power generated from wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources. To further decrease the cost of wind energy in order to accelerate the deployment of wind farms, wind turbines are being designed at ever larger scales, which is challenging due to greater structural loads and deflections. Large-scale systems such as modern wind turbines increasingly require a control co-design approach, where the system design and control design are performed in a more integrated fashion. I propose to investigate the control co-design of extreme-scale wind turbines (with blade lengths greater than 150 meters), floating wind turbines, and wind farms. With 80% of offshore wind resources over waters deeper than 60 meters, floating wind turbines are needed to harness this vast energy source offshore, as it becomes cost prohibitive to install fixed-bottom wind turbines in such deep waters. With floating wind farms, there are additional degrees of freedom such as being able to move each floating turbine to continuously optimize the wind farm layout as wind speeds and directions change. Hence, there are opportunities to reduce the cost of floating wind energy to be competitive with fixed-bottom offshore wind energy. Both conceptual and simulation studies as well as experimental campaigns will be pursued collaboratively with fellows at HWK and colleagues at nearby institutions.