With its wind research buoy securely anchored in Lake Michigan off the coast of Muskegon, Grand Valley State University officials will be in Chicago next week promoting its efforts to the national wind energy industry.

Andrie Inc.’s Specialized Division anchored the wind research platform six miles off the Muskegon County shoreline between Muskegon and White Lakes. The GVSU Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center’s third year of a three-year Lake Michigan wind study began Saturday, April 27.

The buoy is transmitting to shore real-time wind data from a sophisticated “floating laser pulse technology” device on the 10-foot-by-19-foot bright yellow platform that sits in 210 feet of water. It is located about 10 miles northwest of the Muskegon Channel, according to MAREC Director Arn Boezaart.

The buoy will continue collecting wind speed and direction information at various heights above the lake surface through early December depending on weather conditions. The AXYS Technology buoy built in British Columbia, Canada, can withstand the winter storms and ice on Lake Michigan, but the sensitive measuring equipment could be destroyed if left on Lake Michigan through the winter, Boezaart said.

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The Grand Valley State University wind buoy will be staying closer to home this season as the sophisticated wind instrumentation platform completes the last of its three-year mission.

In the next two weeks, Andrie Inc. crews will be moving the unique yellow buoy form the Muskegon Channel, where it has been stored this winter, according to GVSU Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center Arn Boezaart.

The research platform will be places 10 miles southwest of the Muskegon Channel in 200 feet of water in Lake Michigan. The third year location is about seven miles due west of the Nugent Sand property in Norton Shores, Boezaart said.

Where the AXYS Technology buoy built in British Columbia will be next year is anybody's guess. The U.S. Department of Energy funded testing of the "floating laser pulse technology" that measures wind speed and direction at various heights above the lake surface is over at the end of this season.

The GVSU-owned buoy will be removed in December to protect the research equipment from ice damage over the course of the winter, Boezaart said. The buoy can then be deployed to other locations on Lake Michigan or throughout the Great Lakes, but further research will depend upon partners providing the funding, he said.

"We have found that the laser technology we have been using has been superb," Boezaart said. "It has been very reliable."

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But on Election Day, 62 percent of the state’s voters rejected Proposal 3, stunning renewable energy advocates and forcing them back to the drawing board.

By Dave Alexander

October 24th, 2012

Story originally published on mlive.com

MUSKEGON, MI – When the proponents and opponents of Proposal 3 to mandate 25 percent renewable energy in Michigan by 2025 gathered for a public forum, renewable energy was not debated.

The panel at Monday's forum on Proposal 3 sponsored by the Muskegon Area Sustainability Coalition represented both sides of the debate over the constitutional provision mandating 25 percent renewable energy in Michigan by 2025. Photo originally published on mlive.com

The panel at Monday's forum on Proposal 3 sponsored by the Muskegon Area Sustainability Coalition represented both sides of the debate over the constitutional provision mandating 25 percent renewable energy in Michigan by 2025. The two sides of the “25-by-25” proposal divided over methods and tactics. The actual renewable energy technologies and the public policies to support them were pretty much agreed upon at a public forum Monday evening at the Grand Valley State University Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center in Muskegon.

Read more at http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2012/10/debate_over_proposal_3_not_abo.html

By Emily Fox

October 22nd, 2012

Story originally published on Michigan Radio.

Voters in West Michigan can learn more about Prop 3 this week

"People living in West Michigan will have two opportunities early this week to learn about and discuss the so-called 25 by 25 ballot proposal. If voters pass Proposal 3, utility companies in Michigan would have to get 25-percent of their energy from renewable sources like wind and solar. There’s a panel discussion tonight with people for and against Proposal 3. It’s at the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center in Muskegon. Tomorrow morning in Grand Rapids the President of the Union of Concerned Scientists will travel from Massachusetts to join west Michigan business leaders in favor of Proposal 3," Lindsey Smith reports.

GVSU Lake Michigan wind buoy collecting data for potential offshore wind farm developments.

MUSKEGON, MI – As a public controversy and a viable alternative energy source, Lake Michigan offshore wind farms have disappeared from West Michigan radar screens.

But the Grand Valley State University Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center continues to directly study the wind patterns in the middle of Lake Michigan, gathering a tremendous volume of data for future scientists and wind energy developers.

The bottom line of the initial GVSU research data: There is plenty of wind in the middle of Lake Michigan for commercial wind energy production. The steady and consistent winds are closer to the surface of the water than expected. And when the issue of commercial offshore wind farms again surfaces as a public debate in West Michigan, it will be a completely different conversation than when Scandia Offshore Wind proposed hundreds of wind turbines for the near-shore waters of Lake Michigan from Ludington to Grand Haven.

GVSU has a research platform in the middle of Lake Michigan that uses laser technology to gain wind data. Image originally published on mlive.com.

Read more on mlive.com.

Consumers Energy President and CEO John Russell caused a stir last month when he marked the dedication of the utility’s first wind farm near Ludington by declaring that renewable energy is “clean, reliable and affordable for Michigan.”

Russell’s comments added fuel to the debate over Proposal 3, a proposed constitutional amendment that would require Michigan’s utilities to obtain 25 percent of the electricity they sell from renewable sources — which it identifies as wind, solar, biomass and hydropower — by 2025. The ballot initiative would limit utilities to rate increases of 1 percent annually to comply with the 25 percent renewable energy mandate.

Russell’s comments were curious because Consumers Energy is spending $600 million to build wind farms, while also spending $2.9 million to fight Proposal 3, which would require more renewable energy.

Proposal 3 supporters called Russell’s comments hypocritical.

Consumers Energy spokesman Jeff Holyfield said the Jackson-based utility supports renewable energy, but noted the Michigan Constitution directs the Legislature to handle energy policy. He said a 2008 law requiring Michigan to obtain 10 percent of its energy from renewables by 2015 should run its course before any changes are made.

“Michigan already has a renewable energy standard,” Holyfield said. “We think that standard is reasonable and affordable.” A recent state report said most utilities would meet the 2015 clean energy mandate.

The flap over Russell’s comments highlighted fundamental disagreements over how much of Michigan’s energy should come from renewable sources, how quickly the state should transition to cleaner sources of energy and who should make those decisions — voters directly or through the Legislature.

The 25 percent renewable energy standard contained in Proposal 3 would give Michigan one of the nation’s most aggressive clean energy mandates. Eleven other states have renewable energy mandates of 25 percent or higher.