Clemson University receives $45 million grant for wind-energy testing facility

News release: The Clemson University Restoration Institute in North Charleston, S.C., and its partners have received a $45 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help build and operate a large-scale wind turbine drive train testing facility at the institute’s research campus. Planning and construction of the facility will begin in the first quarter of 2010 with a targeted operational date in the third quarter of 2012. The testing facility will be housed in Building 69, a former Navy warehouse adjacent to existing rail and ship-handling infrastructure, and will be capable of full-scale highly accelerated testing of advanced drive train systems for wind turbines in the 5-megawatt to 15-megawatt range.