Valle Scholarship Blog 3
1 December 2009
The month of December has arrived! All the Christmas decorations, trees, and lights are now up and they bring charm and joy to Denmark. December has also brought with it some cold weather and a diminished amount of sunlight. However, I have noticed as I walk through Copenhagen that most people are not affected by the elements. They are still their happy, Danish selves. I will take this attitude into the next winter months.
There is some exciting news about the month of December in Denmark this year; the United Nations Climate Change Conference (also known as COP15 or Hopenhagen) starts on Monday, December 7th, and lasts until December 18th in Copenhagen, and I have the opportunity to participate in the conference as an observer on behalf of DTU and the University of Washington. The COP15 conference has brought worldwide attention to serious environmental concerns the world shares by bringing 192 nations together to solve the most pressing issues of our time. Hopenhagen is being held at the Bella Center, which is a convention center that can accommodate around 15,000 people. I have already ventured to the Bella Center to pick up my ID badge for the two-week conference and upon entering the convention center’s doors, I was searched by the tremendous amount of security and had to walk through metal detectors just like going through an international airport. I saw works of ethereal art inspired by climate change along with displayed wind turbine blades, informational posters, and exhibits on a variety of environmental and global issues. The city has a series of eye-catching Earth sculptures that were created by different artists. One exhibit that particularly stands out is a gigantic Earth hologram that is projected onto a three-dimensional sphere in a city square called Radhuspladsen. When I walked up to the huge Earth, I could not believe my eyes because I saw a massive ball, taller than the 5-story buildings, rotating. From a distance I thought my mind was playing games with me. The agenda for the COP15 is packed with things to do, so I am excited to report about this upcoming experience in my next blog. Copenhagen is busier that I have ever seen it as it feels like the whole world is converging for this global event.
Sculpture outside the Bella Center at COP15
The last lectures for the fall semester at DTU finished this last week. The library and “databars” are always packed these days with students wrapping up their studies. The Wind Turbine Technology and Aerodynamics course is now into the last part of the course – the structural part of the course. The main tool that we use is the Beam Element Momentum code or BEM code I have chose to write in Matlab. The BEM code is used calculate the structural loads that are utilized to quantify the deflections, eigenfrequencies, etc. of the blades in steady conditions. The next step would be to write the BEM code for unsteady conditions. The electrical part of the course was a bit difficult as I am not an electrical engineer, but the homework project gave us the basic knowledge of the complex electrical system of wind turbines and electrical grid systems. The Integration of Wind Power to the Power System course mainly deals with integration of wind energy from an electrical point-of-view. The lectures are about power electronics, reactive and active power, harmonics and flicker issues, and electrical system financial markets. Learning about regulating and spot markets has been the most interesting part of the course to me. I signed up for a three-week intensive course called Planning and Development of Wind Farms being held in January 2010. The first part of the course will be held at Risø DTU in Rockslide, Denmark and scientists and researchers from Risø will give the lectures. This course will be most helpful in supplementing knowledge and tools that will aid me in my Special Projects course.
My Special Projects course called Wind Farm Siting in the Northwest United States has developed more over the past month. The tutorials I been following appear to be identical to the standard program of the official WAsP courses held at DTU Risø and other parts of the world. These courses are usually followed by a WAsP certification test that assures that the user of WAsP has reached “a certain level of using WAsP”. Along with the tutorials, I have been trying to obtain the main data input needed for a proper wind analysis – wind data for as many years as possible near or at desired wind farm locations. Finding suitable wind data is definitely one of the hardest parts in actually conducting a realistic wind study. The wind data should be 10-minute averaged wind speeds with a direction associated with each of the wind speeds. WAsP uses this information to make Weibull distributions for 12 different sectors of 30 degrees around the given anemometer data point. WAsP recognizes the orographic affects in each 30-degree direction as well as any obstacles such as trees and buildings in each sector. After some emails in searching for valid wind data, I was pointed towards the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) website that has some user-friendly wind integration data sets (http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/data_resources.html). There are also other data sets available.
In my special project, I have decided to tackle a huge environmental issue in the Pacific Northwest that deals with energy. I came across a publication called Bright Future, which is one of the papers of the Light in a River series (www.lightintheriver.org), on the NW Energy Coalition website (http://www.nwenergy.org/). Bright Future‘s message is about “how to keep the Northwest's lights on, jobs growing, goods moving and salmon swimming in the era of climate change." The paper proposes that it is possible to replace the four lower Snake River dams with energy efficiency and renewable energy resources. In my special project, I am interested in looking into how wind power can replace the four lower Snake River dams technically—in light of energy, capacity, flexibility, and reliability. Additionally, I want to access the environmental and economical trade-offs of producing wind power and hydropower.
Brandenburg Gate in Berlin
During the month of November, I made two weekend trips with one to Berlin, Germany and the other to the Netherlands. The Berlin trip was within a few weeks of the twenty-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This history of the city is thick and still very relevant. To think that a wall dividing West Berlin from East Germany was still erect in my lifetime is unbelievable because Berlin today is so sophisticated, green, and peaceful. I traveled to Berlin with Caroline and we stayed in a hostel in East Berlin. We walked all through the city and came upon many Christmas Markets. We also ate at delicious restaurants, toured museums, saw Brandenburg Gate and Check Point Charlie, and enjoyed the city’s young, punk feel. A part of American history I have heard about on a few encounters in Europe is the “Berlin Airlift”, where the Allies airdropped supplies into West Berlin when the Soviet Union blocked any supplies from entering in 1948-49. The city’s history and old buildings juxtaposed with the modern architecture makes Berlin a special place.
The second weekend trip was to Den Haag (“The Hague”) and Amsterdam, Netherlands to visit Caroline and her sister, Jacqueline, during the Holland Dance Festival. Besides exploring the canals of the cities, we attended a performance of Jacqueline’s (who is a dancer in Hubbard Street Dance from Chicago). Needless to say, the trips were a blast.
December brings the winter solstice, the end of the semester, and the COP15 to my time in Denmark! Things are going very well. Keep warm over on that side of the pond. Take care.
Sincerely,
Hiram
