Topic: Building-Integrated Wind Systems – The Realities of System Potential, Design, and Implementation
When: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 @ 12:00PM
Presenters: John Breshears, AIA, EIT, LEED AP, Principal; Craig Brisco, LEED AP
ZGF Architects
Where: NW Natural's Headquarters - 4th Floor

To judge from the pages of any recent architectural magazine, incorporating small-scale wind turbines into buildings has become, at least on paper, very fashionable. Yet wind behavior in an urban environment is immensely complex and almost universally over-simplified in these attempts. The scarcity of actual, built urban wind examples is attributable to a lack both of practical knowledge and of mature, proven equipment. The implementation of a small-scale wind turbine system on the 12West building in Portland, new home of ZGF Architects, was deliberately undertaken to further the understanding of the technical challenges, realistic energy production potential, and actual costs of urban wind systems, and to share this knowledge in the public realm.

In a presentation which is part technical brief and part story telling, the team from ZGF Architects will describe the challenges, false starts, serendipitous meetings and minor victories in creating the project. The process included: work with an expert from the Netherlands to assess measured wind data and transform it onto an estimate the wind resource at the actual turbine site; time in a wind tunnel with aeronautical engineers from Aerovironment –inventors of some of the greatest ‘cleanovation’ icons of this century – to determine turbine placement in relationship to local wind behavior over the top of the building; and consultation with the Director and technical staff of the National Wind Technology Center at NREL, the turbine manufacturer in Arizona, a custom manufacturer of vibration dampeners in New Jersey, and a host of other technical experts and policy makers.

The system of four 2 kW turbines, including a comprehensive performance monitoring system, has been funded by ODOE and the ETO and was placed into operation in August of this year.
 
Registration Deadline: Monday, November 16, 2009

TO REGISTER:

All that enrolled members need to do to register for this event is to click on the link (http://www.energytrust.org/bsug), enter their email address, preferences and finally click on register.