Tour of NREL Wind Energy Test Site

Last Friday before the Boulder UCI race weekend, several CLIF BAR team members took a fascinating tour of the National Renewable Energy Lab's Wind Energy Test Site, located up on a windy mesa between Golden and Boulder.

Team member Andrew Simms' dad works at the site, and gave us an extensive tour of some test wind turbines, and showed us how they test new blade designs and motors. Highlights were getting to go up on top of an older turbine (fortunately only half as tall as the latest models), and seeing the incredible size of the blades and motors up close. The scale of the testing equipment and the procedures used to test are pretty incredible.