New Lesson Plans Teach Openwind® Siting Software to College Students

Jan. 8, 2018

In collaboration with DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, renewable energy consultants AWS Truepower developed an educational package to teach the basic functionality of the siting software Openwind®, a tool used to design and assess utility-scale wind farms. Published in December, the four lesson plans in the package are best suited for college students and guide users through increasingly complex software functionality and wind energy concepts. No previous geographic information system data knowledge is required. The package includes 19 pre-configured workbooks and a demo version of the software, limited to a single geographic region. The workbooks are intended to teach students the basics of wind farm siting and introduce elements of the landscape that affect wind flow and turbine performance. DOE provides funding support for the Wind for Schools project, and 12 Wind Application Centers located at universities participating in the program are using the lesson plans. The KidWind Project is working to develop an adaptation for middle school and high school students.