News

August 16, 2024: Our recent paper was selected as the cover article for Wind Energy! In this study, we performed a field experiment at a utility-scale wind farm in collaboration with Siemens Gamesa and ReNew, finding that wind speed and direction shear impact wind power production by -19% to +34% relative to the turbine’s mean power curve, depending on the magnitude and sign of the shear. 

July 24, 2023: Prof. Howland went on the Energy Environment Economy podcast, produced by the Environmental Business Council of New England (EBC), to discuss our lab’s research, climate change, environment-energy system interactions, renewable energy, wind farm optimization through collective control, education, and the critical need to get more students involved in climate and sustainability research and careers.
Episode 6: Breezing into the Future with Dr. Mike Howland

Podcast website: https://ebcne.org/energy-environment-economy-podcast/  

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2aSM2zcNPcuQr9Ity3PciC?si=28f37610321a47d2 

Collective control of wind farms: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01085-8 

April 24, 2023: Congratulations to Ph.D. student in our lab Kirby Heck on receiving the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF-GRFP).

Kirby is studying Coriolis, wind shear, and stability effects on wind turbine wakes in order to develop improved engineering models for wind farm design and control optimization.

January 26, 2023: Thanks to the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) for describing our research and teaching efforts to advance renewable energy and to confront climate change in their biannual MITEI Energy Futures magazine.

Link: https://energy.mit.edu/news/michael-howland-gives-wind-energy-a-lift/

September 22, 2022: Our paper was selected as the cover article for Nature Energy!  Our study demonstrates a significant energy gain at a utility-scale wind farm through collective control, based on a new predictive model. Collective control can increase energy, without cost, for existing farms and can enable future designs with higher energy density.

September 15, 2022: Our Nature Energy paper, which developed, validated, and implemented a new predictive wind farm flow model at a utility-scale farm to significantly increase energy production was covered by The Boston Globe and Wired.

July 14, 2022: Our group has been awarded a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study and model the impacts of Coriolis and stability effects on wind turbine wakes. Thanks to Dr. Ron Joslin, NSF-CBET, and the Fluid Dynamics program for the support (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2226053&HistoricalAwards=false). 

June 27, 2022: Congratulations to Ph.D. student in our lab Storm Mata on receiving the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE-CSGF).

Storm will develop improved models for wind energy accounting for atmospheric flows and will use the models to assess potential impacts from climate change on wind energy. More information about Storm and his work are highlighted in this MIT CEE article.

October 25, 2021: Prof. Howland was interviewed for the BBC documentary 39 Ways to Save the Planet. The full discussion can be read here.  The podcast aired on BBC Radio 4.

We discussed the potential of wind farm control to increase mean wind farm energy production and also to enable wind farms to more actively control their power and reduce intermittency, which has important benefits for the broader energy system.  

December 21, 2020: Our recent field experiment characterizing the impact of atmospheric stability and yaw misalignment on utility-scale wind turbines has been published in JRSE. 

A short summary of the paper is highlighted in Scilight: https://doi.org/10.1063/10.0002969

The full article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0023746