Building 251 and High Bay
The Building 251 high bay includes a special environmental chamber to test components at temperatures as low as -40°F.
Building 251 is the hub of the National Wind Technology Center. In addition to housing administrative and research support offices, the facility's conference rooms enable NREL to host international wind power specialists, conferences, and meetings. In the research support offices, engineers develop state-of-the-art computer modeling software to analyze next-generation turbine designs, as well as the data collected from tests and experiments. Researchers in the support offices also conduct design review and analysis, resource assessment, and utility integration studies.
The high bay in Building 251 houses a 225-kW dynamometer for testing small wind turbine components and subsystems. The high bay is also used for static and dynamic load testing of small wind turbine blades, as well as testing of blade components. As part of the component testing, the high bay also houses an environmental chamber. This chamber exposes turbine components to extreme ambient temperatures like those found in Arctic environments or hot, humid climates.
