With a core purpose of speeding innovation to market in the field of wind energy, award-winning Clemson University’s SCE&G Energy Innovation Center is the first construction within the 27 acre Energy Systems Campus of the Clemson University Restoration Institute. Completed by Choate Construction, the facility houses the world’s most sophisticated and most powerful wind turbine drivetrain testing equipment. The LEED Gold certified facility is the result of the largest cost share grant ever awarded by the Department of Energy ($45 million) and over $60 million in public and private funding.
Located within a decommissioned U.S. Navy warehouse atop a rehabilitated brownfield site, the 82,264-SF facility is designed by AEC and will support the critical testing of next generation off-shore wind turbines by allowing businesses to simulate in mere months over 20 years of rigors faced by the turbine systems at sea. The facility is also home to the Duke Energy eGRID, a 15-megawatt hardware-in-the-loop grid simulator capable of testing and validating the impact of wind energy on the nation’s aging electrical grid without the real-world risks to the existing grid.
