Not far from the border between Wisconsin and Michigan, in the middle of Lake Michigan, a small bright yellow buoy lies anchored. It’s only about 200 square feet in size but it has an entire regional industry riding on it: offshore wind-powered electricity. 

A number of states are beginning to generate electricity from “wind farms” that are located where the wind is most consistently blowing – on land – in their state. Across the country more than 2 percent of our electrical needs is coming from those huge industrial turbines that are clustered on those farms. In one state, Iowa, a significant 15 percent of their electricity comes from wind.

Read more corpmagazine.com.

MUSKEGON, MI – Out of sight is out of mind, offshore wind proponents hope.

Two Michigan universities have joined forces with a Seattle-based design company to pursue offshore wind technology that could be a “game-changer” on the Great Lakes.

Grand Valley State University and Michigan Technological University are in a group seeking federal funding for initial engineering and design of new floating-turbine technology. The floating technology has the potential of moving turbines to the middle of the lakes.

The public-private partnership is seeking investors to cover the matching funds needed in a U.S. Department of Energy wind technology grant program, GVSU officials said.

By Rod Kackley | MiBiz | Monday, May 14th, 2012.

rkackley@mibiz.com

WEST MICHIGAN — A joint venture partnership that stretches from Middleville to Holland and Zeeland is happening because of the networking formed on Grand Rapids' Medical Mile.

It is the classic case of one company, LumenFlow Corp. in Middleville, having a great idea and finding a partner, Venntis Technology LLC in Holland, that could make it happen.

They were brought together by a third party organization that is all about helping move new ideas to market: the West Michigan Science and Technology Initiative at Grand Valley State University (WMSTI) and the West Michigan Medical Device Consortium.

LumenFlow and Venntis Technologies formed United Lumen LLC to develop patent-pending high-efficiency LED designs that all parties told MiBiz will surpass anything on the market and help the public get much more comfortable with LED technology to light homes and offices.

Read more on mibiz.com. 

Lumen Flow’s Paul Bourget, Brian Zatzke and Harold Brunt developed the company’s idea for a new LED technology, but realized they needed to seek partners to help produce and commercialize the new product. They found those partners in Venntis Technology and Ventura Manufacturing. Image originally published on mibiz.com

Arn Boezaart | GVSU.    Work crews prepare the GVSU wind research platform Monday for deployment in the middle of Lake Michigan. The platform was transported to its 2012 research location by Andrie, Inc. of Muskegon.

MUSKEGON, MI – The Grand Valley State University wind research buoy was deployed in the middle of Lake Michigan late Monday afternoon.



Scientists now are collecting wind measurements for the first time from the remote location.

The WindSentinel unit that was tested for two months last fall four miles into the lake off the Muskegon shoreline now sits on the “mid-lake plateau,” where it will be working until December. The floating buoy is 37 miles west of White Lake in a shallower part of Lake Michigan in 175 feet of water, university officials said.

MUSKEGON, MI – Not everybody followed the offshore wind energy debate two years ago as closely as they did in Oceana and Mason counties.

So a suggested technology that could put a wind farm in the middle of Lake Michigan raises questions for many.

MLive readers have renewed the pro-con debate on offshore wind farms and the overall concept of wind energy with the report on an investigation of floating turbine platform technology. Some questions as to just how much wind and energy is at stake in Michigan’s Great Lakes have been asked.

The bottomline is that the amount of quality wind – strong and consistent – is so large that it drives the wind industry’s interest in developing the Great Lakes. Offshore wind has not yet developed in the United States like it has in Europe and the first U.S. commercial offshore wind turbines are expected to be on the East Coast, but the Great Lakes is a player.

Read more on mlive.com.

This offshore wind turbine demonstration project is located off the shores of Belgium. Europe already has installed offshore wind turbines but offshore wind technology is being investigated in the United States. Image originally published on mlive.com.

http://gvsu.edu/gvnow/index.htm?articleId=EF0F298E-932A-8DE1-110501086F899704

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/michigan_joins_great_lakes_sta.html

Representatives from GVSU, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University join Snyder at Fraunhofer Institute

PFINTZAL, Germany – Gov. Rick Snyder today traveled to Pfintzal, Germany on the second day of his European investment mission, where he participated in the Partnership Forum at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology, Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization.

While at the forum, Snyder presided over the signing of a Letter of Intent between the University of Michigan and the Fraunhofer Institute to form the Clean Transportation Innovation Cluster, a research program focusing on developing advanced electrical storage systems for the automotive industry.

“Michigan is home to three Fraunhofer centers, noted partnerships of businesses and our universities, where our best talents are discovering new things, making things and making things work,” Snyder said. “Michigan is one of the top states in the nation for research and development with more than $16 billion in industrial research and development, and close to $2 billion in university research, and we’re always working to help our leading universities turn the latest developments into jobs.”

Fraunhofer USA currently has eight centers focused on sustainable energy, manufacturing innovation, biotechnology, medical devices, software engineering, lasers and coatings. The three Michigan centers include the headquarters in Plymouth, the Center for Laser Technology and the Center for Coatings & Laser Applications.

Click for full article at DBusiness

The Partnership Forum brought Snyder together with a select audience from Germany and Michigan to discuss its innovative cluster concept. Under the concept, leading universities and industries partner to accelerate product and process commercialization in advanced electrification storage technologies.

All three Michigan Fraunhofer centers are partnered with Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. Fraunhofer’s most recent partnership with U-M was started in 2009 and was funded through a seed program for Alternative Energy Technologies for Transportation. The success of the AETT partnership led to formation of the Clean Transportation Innovation Cluster which both U-M and Fraunhofer hope to expand to include industry partners.

Snyder participated in the forum with German and American executives in the advanced energy storage industry, Fraunhofer staff from Michigan and Germany, and representatives from Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University, University of Michigan and Wayne State University.

Posted on March 23, 2012

Renewable energy technologies and sustainable products that are produced by Michigan-based companies were highlighted at Grand Valley’s Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center’s second annual Made in Michigan Show on March 22 and 23.



Targeted for installers, dealers, distributors, contractors and other businesses as well as the general public, Made in Michigan sought to bridge the gap between vendors and customers. It also sought to raise awareness about Michigan’s growing role in building and supplying the “green” economy.

For questions about the event, contact Kim Walton, MAREC program director, at waltonk@gvsu.edu.

Originally published in GVNow