11/3/2026
A new research platform at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will help researchers test emerging wind-energy technologies under real-world conditions while creating hands-on learning opportunities for students across disciplines.
From a cornfield to a living laboratory: Illinois opens new Wind Turbine Research Facility
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From a cornfield to a living laboratory: Illinois opens new Wind Turbine Research Facility
A new research platform at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will help researchers test emerging wind-energy technologies under real-world conditions while creating hands-on learning opportunities for students across disciplines.
Written by Megan Altmyer
Video by Nic Morse
Photos by Heather Coit and Megan Altmyer
Drone Photos by Darrell Hoemann Photography
Design by Callie Clinch
The new Illinois Wind Turbine Research Facility is designed to take wind-energy innovation beyond the laboratory. The 20-kilowatt turbine, located at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Monticello Road Field Station, provides researchers with a platform to test new technologies under real operating conditions, bridging the gap between laboratory experiments and real-world deployment.
Led by Associate Professor Arijit Banerjee of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, the facility grew out of a research effort that began in 2017 with a simple experiment and has since developed into a federally funded, multi-year project.
One discarded motor, one big idea
The story began in 2017, shortly after Banerjee joined Illinois as an assistant professor. Working with his first doctoral student, Phuc Huynh, he began investigating a different way to integrate electric machines and power electronics in wind-energy conversion systems.
The earliest experiment was modest: the team repurposed a discarded washing-machine motor to test the underlying concept. With early support from the Grainger Center for Electric Machinery and Electromechanics, the researchers presented initial results in 2018, establishing a foundation for further development.
“Looking back on the work Professor Banerjee and I began in 2017, I am continually amazed by the long road it has traveled,” said Huynh. “We recognized that offshore wind energy was abundant, but that the methods to harvest it at low cost and make it a truly competitive energy source, were still lacking. The challenge seemed enormous, yet we began with a big vision and a modest first step.”
In 2019, the university received support through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) OPEN 2018 program for a project titled Megawatt-Scale Power-Electronic-Integrated Generator with Controlled DC Output. The original award was approximately $2.06 million.
Over the following years, the team developed and refined the system through modeling, simulation, and laboratory prototypes, eventually progressing to demonstrations at power levels exceeding 100 kilowatts. These experiments helped establish the feasibility of the approach and provided a basis for advancing the technology toward field testing.
The next step required a different kind of research environment. Laboratory testing could demonstrate that the system worked under controlled conditions, but a field demonstration would reveal how it performed amid changing wind speeds, mechanical loads, temperatures and grid conditions.
In June 2024, the Department of Energy approved an additional $3 million in funding to extend the project and support its transition toward wind-turbine testing. The expanded effort created a path to demonstrate the technology in a 20-kilowatt direct-drive wind turbine and advance it from laboratory validation toward a more mature stage of technological readiness.
From concept to fruition
Developing the facility involved more than simply installing a turbine. The site at the Monticello Road Field Station required supporting infrastructure, electrical interconnection, instrumentation, environmental review and coordination across university units and external organizations.
The university’s Student Sustainability Committee provided $160,000 in November 2024 for infrastructure not covered by the federal research award. The funding supported work including the access road, fencing, civil construction, electrical interconnection and ecological restoration. The committee also provided an additional $48,220 for research into the turbine’s effects on the surrounding wildlife ecosystem including birds and bats.
Photo Credit: Darrell Hoemann/Darrell Hoemann Photography
During 2025, the team advanced site preparation and turbine installation while addressing environmental considerations, utility requirements and the development of the facility’s data-acquisition capabilities. By 2026, the turbine had been commissioned as an operational research platform, with the necessary state and federal environmental clearances in place.
The facility’s development required extensive collaboration across the university and beyond. Ryse Energy served as the wind-turbine industry partner, providing the turbine and technical expertise.
“Ryse Energy is working closely with the University’s engineering team to provide support and increase both parties’ knowledge base,” said Richard Caldow, the Group Chief Operating Officer with Ryse Energy.
Establishing the facility also involved close coordination with Illinois Facilities & Services, the Office of Facilities, Projects and Safety within The Grainger College of Engineering, university IT teams and faculty from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. Collaboration extended to faculty from the United States Naval Academy, Farnsworth Group, Satellite Shelters, Inc., Tower Engineering Professionals (TEP), Duce Construction, Remco Electric, Ameren, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“When we started, this was an open field, and parts of the site were not even accessible by road,” Banerjee said. “Building a research facility from the ground up turned out to be as much a coordination challenge as a research challenge. Beyond the research itself, much of my effort went into bringing different teams together, navigating challenges and keeping the project on track amid time and budget constraints. What you see today is the result of an extraordinary collective effort. It was also a tremendous learning experience for me.”
The resulting facility is designed for experimentation rather than simply electricity generation. Its instrumentation records more than 100 operating parameters, allowing researchers to observe system performance as conditions change. A research trailer and control room provide space for monitoring, data collection and system operation.
Photo Credit: Heather Coit
Two features are particularly valuable for research. First, the turbine’s 20-kW capacity offers a useful middle ground between laboratory prototypes and the much larger turbines used in commercial wind-energy installations. It is large enough to reproduce important aerodynamic, mechanical, electrical, thermal, control and grid-interconnection behaviors while remaining accessible for hands-on investigation.
Second, a hydraulic lowering system allows the nacelle and rotor assembly to be brought down to ground level. Researchers can more readily inspect components, install sensors, modify equipment, make repairs and replace parts without relying on cranes or repeatedly working at height.
Together, these capabilities support a recurring cycle of experimentation: develop a technology, test it in the laboratory, implement it on the turbine, collect field data, refine the design and test it again.
“That combination — realistic operating scale, physical accessibility and the ability to repeatedly modify and test the system — is what makes the facility especially valuable as a living laboratory,” Banerjee said.
Celebrating the facility's inauguration
On September 11, 2026, an inauguration marked an important milestone in the transition from laboratory development to field-scale research.
Provost John Coleman opened the program, followed by remarks from ECE Department Head Jennifer Bernhard. Banerjee, the project’s principal investigator, then discussed the research effort behind the facility. Mario Garcia-Sanz, professor and former ARPA-E Program Director, also addressed attendees.
“Watching this ARPA-E project evolve from an ambitious concept into a reality has been incredibly rewarding,” Garcia-Sanz said. “While commercial, utility-scale turbines are often too rigid or inaccessible for testing breakthrough ideas, the U. of I. system changes the game. Its unique flexibility, accessibility and inherent safety allow us to seamlessly pioneer and validate new concepts. Ultimately, the innovations developed here will scale across the entire industry.”
The program concluded with a ribbon-cutting, followed by tours of the facility and its control room. Graduate students who played central roles in developing the facility led the tours, offering visitors a firsthand look at the turbine, instrumentation, and research capabilities that will support future experiments. The event recognized years of research and infrastructure development while looking ahead to the work the facility will make possible. The inauguration marked not the completion of the broader research effort, but the establishment of a new experimental capability through which emerging technologies can be evaluated under real operating conditions.
“This is another crowning achievement for our university,” Coleman said. “One that is interdisciplinary. One that is an embodiment of partnership, innovation, and purpose. And one that truly reflects the THINK BIG mindset that we try to strive to foster here at Illinois.”
A living laboratory for students and interdisciplinary research
The facility’s value extends well beyond the project that led to its creation.
A wind turbine is much more than an electrical machine. Its operation depends on the interplay of aerodynamics, structural and mechanical systems, electric machines, power electronics, controls, sensing, and data science, all working together within a broader energy system. The Illinois Wind Turbine Research Facility creates a shared platform for researchers across electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, civil and environmental engineering and other fields to study these interconnected systems under real-world conditions.
Its reach extends beyond engineering as well. By enabling research into wildlife interactions, land use, environmental monitoring and ecological impacts, the facility creates opportunities to examine how renewable-energy technologies can be developed and deployed responsibly. Bringing these perspectives together allows researchers to consider not only how wind-energy systems can perform better but also how they can operate effectively and coexist with the natural environment.
“Ultimately, the goal is to give students experience working on the kinds of complex, multidisciplinary systems they will encounter in industry, research and the energy sector, while giving them the opportunity to contribute to technologies with real societal impact,” Banerjee said.
Photo Credit: Heather Coit
The facility can support undergraduate research, graduate theses, class projects, senior design activities, tours and interdisciplinary student teams. Students can encounter the full process of technology development, from theory and simulation through laboratory testing, field installation, data collection and design refinement.
Students are also provided the opportunity to learn about the practical considerations that accompany engineering beyond the laboratory, including manufacturing, safety, permitting, utility interconnection, environmental review and collaboration with industry partners.
“This project has a key highlight,” said Steven Pekarek, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. “It is moving university research out of the laboratory and into pilot instantiation where one encounters and must overcome the many challenges associated with practical instantiation. Here, this is being done on both a technical level and an ecological level by considering the impact of the technology on the biodiversity of the pilot site.”
By working with a real operating system, students can see how individual components interact within a complex energy technology and learn to navigate the trade-offs that shape real-world engineering decisions.
The next generation of wind-energy technology
Photo Credit: Heather Coit
The Illinois Wind Turbine Research Facility builds on the university’s strengths in electric machines, power electronics, power and energy systems, controls and renewable-energy integration. It adds a field-testing capability to existing laboratory research and high-power testing infrastructure, creating a more direct path from fundamental research to real-world evaluation.
Beyond the initial ARPA-E project, the facility offers opportunities to investigate a broader range of scientific and engineering questions. These include how integrated electric-machine and power-electronics systems respond to variable wind conditions, how mechanical dynamics interact with electrical controls, and how emerging technologies perform over extended periods of operation. The ability to repeatedly access, instrument, modify and test the turbine makes it possible to investigate these questions in ways that are difficult to achieve through laboratory experiments alone.
Perhaps most importantly, the facility represents a long-term research and educational investment. Its experimental infrastructure can support successive generations of technologies, research projects and students — extending its impact well beyond the effort that originally brought it into existence.
What began as a small experiment with a repurposed motor has grown into a platform for asking much bigger questions: how wind-energy systems can become more efficient and reliable, how emerging technologies can be validated under real operating conditions, and how research can move more effectively from an initial idea toward practical deployment.
Grainger Engineering Affiliations
Arijit Banerjee is an Illinois Grainger Engineering associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and is affiliated with the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering.