Wind energy experts part of Globe series on northern infrastructure projects

Members of the University of Waterloo's Wind Energy Research Group are featured in a Globe and Mail article entitled Can wind power cut northern dependence on diesel?, which is part of a series looking at projects designed to create economic opportunities in the North.  

Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Professor David Johnson, who leads the research group, and several engineering graduate students have been regularly testing and modifying a turbine located 10 minutes away from the University to make it more quiet and capable of generating power with minimal oversight.  It's identical to the one that started producing clean energy in July for the Kasabonika Lake First Nation, a remote diesel-powered community in northern Ontario.

"We're throwing everything that's state-of-the-art at the turbine to understand its behaviour," says Johnson in the article. 

Johnson is participating in the Expert Panel on Wind Turbine Noise and Human Health funded by Health Canada under the guidance of the Council of Canadian Academies.  The high-profile panel, which includes 10 top international researchers in occupational health, neuroscience, environmental medicine and engineering, met for the first time in Ottawa last month and will continue meeting until the end of 2014.