After accurately recording wind speeds, water temperature, barometric pressure and other natural factors over Lake Michigan for 58 days, Grand Valley State University’s wind research buoy was retrieved Dec. 30.

Through this new method of research devised by GVSU’s Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center, researchers at both GVSU and other state universities analyzed information that has never previously been recorded, said Arn Boezaart, director of MAREC.

“Our information is sent to the Padnos College of Engineering, where it is then passed on to other universities, like the University of Michigan and Michigan State,” said Boezaart.

University of Michigan has expertise in analyzing data related to kinetic energy, while Michigan State will take recordings from the platform’s on-site microphones to help with its avian studies.

Unlike wind speed data, which is sent to the Padnos College of Engineering every ten minutes, recordings of birds and bats from the microphones must be removed from the buoy manually.

“We got involved because someone needed to collect real data that tells us exactly what is happening over the Lake,” Boezaart said.

First placed in the waters of Muskegon Lake, the buoy was moved four miles out onto the surface of Lake Michigan on Nov. 4.

The information was collected using state-of-the-art equipment from different engineering companies, which provided the platform and the data-collecting lasers.

The platform, engineered by a Vancouver based company called Axys, was designed to withstand the extreme conditions present on the waters of Lake Michigan. Data-collecting lasers were designed by Catch the Wind, a group from Virginia.

Lasers allow for the accurate collection of wind speed data over Lake Michigan, which until now has not been accurately recorded.

“Our buoy was placed to record the first serious offshore wind measurements,” Boezaart said.

Conventional wind measurements used sensors with spinning cups, which through extrapolation could reasonably determine the wind speeds over Lake Michigan.

Now accuracy is provided by lasers, which record 1,000 measurements per second. Previous measurements were taken from meteor towers, which combined formulas to determine wind speed through averages.

Until now, modeling and averaging data provided the best way to predict what is happening out on the lake.

The project, valued at $3.3 million, will be of key interest to many research groups like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. government.

The buoy is set to return to the waters of Lake Michigan this spring to continue taking measurements of crucial data.

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