The autonomous region of Navarra, home to some of the major Spanish international wind companies, is at the forefront of renewable-energy implementation and research. The region can at times meet up to 70 percent of its inhabitants' electricity needs with renewable energy, the largest portion of it coming from wind. Wind turbines dot the low mountains that extend throughout the region, a skyline of gracefully rotating white blades.

Navarra is also home to the Center for Renewable Energy Research (CENER), which opened in 2002 to conduct research and provide testing and services for client companies. (Though it focuses on wind power, CENER also investigates biomass, solar thermal, and photovoltaic power.) Services might include testing blades to assess their field performance, or mapping wind resources and forecasting. Thirty percent of the funding comes from national and local government grants; the rest is raised from services and testing for business clients.

Says CENER director Juan Ormazabal, “We wanted to provide companies the services that they required. And sometimes we moved ahead faster than they themselves did, because if we didn't put ourselves ahead of their needs, we wouldn't be able to offer value as a research center.”

In the spirit of anticipating client needs, in early 2008 CENER opened the doors to its new wind research center, the largest facility of its kind in the world. It is equipped to test the performance of machines up to eight megawatts, which are currently on the drawing board.

The massive facilities, located about 30 miles outside the Pamplona headquarters, allow researchers to test blade fatigue, gear-box functions, and grid connections. They can simulate conditions to age the machines the equivalent of 20 years in only six months. The site also includes outdoor space where companies can test full turbine assemblies.

At this facility, Gamesa and Ecotécnia partner in the project Windlider 2015, which aims to analyze blade performance and a variety of components for cutting-edge larger machines. Their goals include cutting the development time for new turbines nearly in half and reducing the energy required to produce them by 30 percent. By 2009 the companies plan to be testing 4.5-megawatt machines.

Companies don't have on-site facilities to perform this type of testing or assembly, says CENER business manager Jerónimo Camacho. “So they have to go to the wind farms, and that can cause several problems,” he says. “The wind farms are very far, and they're usually not in a very friendly environment. And you need to set up many components, and you have to wait for the wind. So the tests can take a lot of time.”

To help address that problem, CENER is now constructing a 30-megawatt experimental wind farm in Navarra.

In addition, CENER works across five continents in emerging markets such as Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, helping set up regulations to facilitate investment in wind farms and then assisting in their development.

“I think that renewable energy is going to have an extremely important growth,” says Ormazabal, “and emerging countries see this as the opportunity to put themselves on the same level as other countries.”

The autonomous region of Navarra, home to some of the major Spanish international wind companies, is at the forefront of renewable-energy implementation and research. The region can at times meet up to 70 percent of its inhabitants' electricity needs with renewable energy, the largest portion of it coming from wind. Wind turbines dot the low mountains that extend throughout the region, a skyline of gracefully rotating white blades.

Navarra is also home to the Center for Renewable Energy Research (CENER), which opened in 2002 to conduct research and provide testing and services for client companies. (Though it focuses on wind power, CENER also investigates biomass, solar thermal, and photovoltaic power.) Services might include testing blades to assess their field performance, or mapping wind resources and forecasting. Thirty percent of the funding comes from national and local government grants; the rest is raised from services and testing for business clients.

Says CENER director Juan Ormazabal, “We wanted to provide companies the services that they required. And sometimes we moved ahead faster than they themselves did, because if we didn't put ourselves ahead of their needs, we wouldn't be able to offer value as a research center.”

In the spirit of anticipating client needs, in early 2008 CENER opened the doors to its new wind research center, the largest facility of its kind in the world. It is equipped to test the performance of machines up to eight megawatts, which are currently on the drawing board.

The massive facilities, located about 30 miles outside the Pamplona headquarters, allow researchers to test blade fatigue, gear-box functions, and grid connections. They can simulate conditions to age the machines the equivalent of 20 years in only six months. The site also includes outdoor space where companies can test full turbine assemblies.

At this facility, Gamesa and Ecotécnia partner in the project Windlider 2015, which aims to analyze blade performance and a variety of components for cutting-edge larger machines. Their goals include cutting the development time for new turbines nearly in half and reducing the energy required to produce them by 30 percent. By 2009 the companies plan to be testing 4.5-megawatt machines.

Companies don't have on-site facilities to perform this type of testing or assembly, says CENER business manager Jerónimo Camacho. “So they have to go to the wind farms, and that can cause several problems,” he says. “The wind farms are very far, and they're usually not in a very friendly environment. And you need to set up many components, and you have to wait for the wind. So the tests can take a lot of time.”

To help address that problem, CENER is now constructing a 30-megawatt experimental wind farm in Navarra.

In addition, CENER works across five continents in emerging markets such as Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, helping set up regulations to facilitate investment in wind farms and then assisting in their development.

“I think that renewable energy is going to have an extremely important growth,” says Ormazabal, “and emerging countries see this as the opportunity to put themselves on the same level as other countries.”