Sen. Franken Praises U of M Project

If we are going to reach President Barack Obama's goal of 20 percent of our nation's energy coming from wind power by 2030, it's projects like Eolos that are going to get us there.

That was the message delivered by Senator Al Franken when he visited the Eolos Wind Energy Research Consortium site in Rosemount on Friday.

“This is a perfect example of exactly what we should be doing,” Franken said.

Franken praised the University of Minnesota for how it had taken a relatively small government grant—$7.9 million through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—and paired it with public sector funding to build a research turbine that is already paying dividends, both in energy produced and in data generated.

“The stuff we heard today about what this is going to do to increase the efficiency of wind turbines … they figured out that it isn't best to put these things in rows, it's better to stagger them, and that increases the efficiency,” said Franken, a member of the Senate Energy Committee, who toured the facility Friday with Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman, as well as University of Minnesota officials.

Franken said he was also impressed with the potential of a film produced by 3M that will improve the performance of wind turbines nationwide.

“Something that 3M does, a film that 3M produces, makes them 2 percent or so more efficient,” Franken said.

The University of Minnesota was one of just three universities to receive wind energy research grants in 2009. The turbine, which cost $5.5 million to build, went online in October 2011. The energy it produces is sold to Xcel Energy.

In remarks following Friday's tour, Poneman said Minnesota already gets about 10 percent of its energy from wind power, and that the state is "already a leader" in terms of harnessing the wind.