Installing a prototype wind turbine to produce energy in Antarctica to allow a permanent Colombian scientific base to be established

• Main Author: Jimenez, Cesar Lozano
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Polar Research Institute of China - PRIC 2020
• Subjects: Atmosphere; Energy; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Seymour; Seymour Island; Marambio; Marambio Station; Advances in Polar Science; Antarc*; Antarctica; Polar Science
• Online Access: http://library.arcticportal.org/2736/; http://library.arcticportal.org/2736/1/A202004004.pdf

This study was performed to support an expeditionary team of Colombian scientists seeking to promote and undertake research in various scientific fields in Antarctica. The work was part of the Colombian Antarctic Program, which comprises various projects intended to lead to a permanent Colombian scientific base being established in the Antarctic. The first step involved installing a Colombian-made wind turbine to produce electricity at a permanent base. The aeolian turbine was designed to provide sufficient electricity to illuminate and heat a small base. The turbine was constructed using readily accessible materials but taking the Madrid Protocol environmental regulations into consideration. The project was performed at the Argentinian Antarctic Marambio Station on Seymour Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula. An initial field study performed in 2015 was the first of three phases of the project. In the initial phase, local meteorological data were gathered to support development of a prototype turbine and to allow a design to be selected that was robust enough for the extreme environmental conditions. The wind turbine was then constructed in Colombia. The second phase involved transporting the turbine to Antarctica and installing it at the Marambio Station in 2018. Finally, the physical conditions of structural and electronic components of the turbine were carefully inspected at the beginning of 2020 (after the turbine had operated continually for ~2 years) to allow repairs to be made and any necessary re-engineering to be performed.