To help figure out how the Great Lakes can be used for energy production, the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC) has teamed with CENER, the national renewable energy center based in Pamplona, Spain.

Arn Boezaart, director of MAREC, said the Muskegon-based energy center decided to partner with CENER because they share similar interests.

“CENER is a national research organization in Spain that has a lot of experience in the area of renewable energy and they have specific interest in wind energy and advanced storage or battery technology, and they are interested in establishing a presence in the Great Lakes area, and their interest matches up very well with the interest of MAREC,” he said.

In a GVSU press release, Javier San-Miguel Armendariz, the product manager for CENER, said the partnership is a good opportunity to connect efforts between the U.S. and Europe when it comes to renewable energy.

“The main goal of this partnership is to promote the knowledge-sharing of the best experts in this field across the Atlantic Ocean,” he said.

The two organizations will research a couple of different areas as they relate to wind energy, one of which being advanced offshore wind research on Lake Michigan, which ties into the offshore wind study that MAREC is currently undertaking. The other area that is being explored is advanced energy storage, which has to do with battery technology that is being developed.

Data collected from the research will be combined with the data from other offshore wind projects and will be available to the public once the research is completed. It will need to be analyzed and evaluated before its release.

Boezaart said the federal government has shown interest in the Great Lakes as a source of energy production.

“There is a lot of interest in the Great Lakes as a potential source of wind energy and the offshore environment, and the federal government, our Department of Energy, has committed to spending the next four to five years learning more and developing possible strategies for developing offshore wind off of our East Coast, the Atlantic Coast region of the U.S., the Great Lakes as well as perhaps the West Coast region,” he said.

In Michigan, onshore wind energy production is growing rapidly. A new wind farm will be built south of Ludington, Mich., in the Oceana County area this year. Other onshore wind farms, such as the one in Cadillac, Mich., are doubling in size.

Boezaart said renewable energy is important to Michigan and to the development of new jobs in the state.

“MAREC, by definition, is committed to advancing all forms of renewable energy, including wind, solar, geothermal, energy efficiencies, all of that,” he said. “And certainly wind energy is of great interest to the state of Michigan overall, and West Michigan in particular. Not only is this about looking at the generation of energy but, maybe most importantly, the economic development aspects of renewable energy technology and wind energy in particular because it can result in new jobs in manufacturing. Expansion of the wind industry in Michigan would offer lots of benefits to our economy, to the people who are looking for new employment opportunities.”

[email protected]