NYSERDA Webinar: Scaling Offshore Wind Turbines

About the Speaker: Walt Musial, Chief Engineer for Offshore Wind, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Walt Musial is the Chief Engineer for Offshore Wind at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where he has worked for 36 years. In 2003, he initiated the offshore wind energy research program at NREL which focuses on a wide range of industry needs and critical technology challenges. He chairs the ACP Offshore Wind Standards Subcommittee and helped originate the National Offshore Wind R&D Consortium as their senior technical advisor. Through the U.S. Department of Energy and with NREL’s strategic partnerships, Walt has led multiple research activities to push the offshore wind energy frontiers including the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Maine, and the Pacific Ocean. Previously, Walt developed and ran NREL’s full scale blade and drivetrain testing facilities for 15 years. Earlier, Walt worked five years as a field test engineer in the commercial wind energy industry in California. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, specializing in energy conversion with a focus on wind energy engineering. He has over 120 publications and three patents.