The Minnerota converter designed at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL) is a vertical axis in-stream hydropower generation system that generates clean electricity from renewable sources with no impact on the environment. The hydrokinetic energy technology, designed specifically for small to medium sized open channel systems in both warm and cold-weather regions, focuses on single thread (meandering) river channels common to the upper Midwest. The Minnerota blades are only partially exposed to the flow, and the gear box and generator are enclosed in a protective structure in the side bank above the water level. The Minnerota converter is designed to be neutrally buoyant to reduce bearing wear-out, frictional loads and increase power efficiency. It is also designed to mitigate environmental problems by protecting the bank from downstream erosion by reducing the stream velocity in the wake. The dual functionality ensures the Minnerota is a cost-competitive alternative to bank protection systems.

The vertical axis Minnerota can be placed at a prescribed depth in order to avoid both sediment transport, migrating bedform, and floating items such as ice, logs and debris. It can operate under varying flow depth and discharge, which classic water wheels cannot do. Furthermore, its water-sealed aluminum frame construction ensures neutral buoyancy when deployed in water, providing minimal frictional damping and weight loads and maximal bearing lifetime.

Preliminary results published here

Jiyong Lee, Mirko Musa, Chris Feist, Jinjin Gao, Lian Shen, and Michele Guala "Wake Characteristics and Power Performance of a Drag-Driven in-Bank Vertical Axis Hydrokinetic Turbine". Energies (2019) , 12, 3611; doi:10.3390/en12193611

 OTHER EFFORTS ON RENEWABLE  ENERGIES

Wind and MHK research: layout optimization and environmental impacts

• Evaluating wind farm performance under realistic thermal and complex terrain conditions: on going experimental investigartion in the SAFL atmospheric wind tunnel
• Offshore wind power plants: on going project with floating and oscillating wind turbines: experiments are performed in the SAFL main channel and in the SAFL atmospheric wind tunnel
• MHK research :   ongoing project studying the impact of single or multiple MHK device(s) on river geomorphology, bedforms evolution and sediment transport .
• EOLOS Research On going experiment at Umore Park, UMN; fully monitored 2.5MW turbine synchronized with Atmospheric and Micrometeorological data from a nearby Met Tower