Speaker: Dr. Yuanlong Hu
Affiliation: Terra-Gen, LLC
Abstract:
Over the past two decades, wind energy has seen tremendous growth. The worldwide wind installation capacity rises from 24 gigawatts in 2001 to 743 gigawatts in 2020. As a wind project developer/meteorologist working in the industry for more than 15 years, I have witnessed how the advancements of technology and policymaking have helped the wind industry to drive down the cost while raising the efficiency, performance, and reliability persistently. I will present an overview of the wind project development process focusing on the wind resource assessment (WRA) and wind farm design (WFD), and an example of how an unconventional WFD approach helped us to build the largest wind farm in US – the Alta Wind Energy Center in Tehachapi, CA. I will also touch upon the challenges ahead of us, and some recent research to understand the impacts of utility-scale onshore wind farms on weather and climate in the academic community.
Dr. Yuanlong Hu – Vice President of Resource Analytics at Terra-Gen, LLC.
Prior to joining Terra-Gen in 2011, Dr. Hu served as manager of wind farm design at NextEra Energy (Fortune #166 in 2021) since 2006. At Terra-Gen, Dr. Hu’s group is responsible for utility-scale wind project development/acquisition/finance focusing on wind resource assessment and design. Dr. Hu is currently a voting member of International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Standards Committee appointed by US National Committee, and American Clean Power Association Wind Standards Committee. Dr. Hu has more than 28 years of experience in meteorological fields and held various positions including the deputy director of Shanghai Typhoon Institute, China; and visiting scientist in Germany and Hong Kong. Dr. Hu holds a Ph.D. degree in Atmospheric Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.