The service will ensure that meteorological (met) masts, the cornerstone of bankable wind energy projects, are correctly calibrated and that their data is verified throughout the lifetime of the wind farm development. Once operational, meteorological masts can become a neglected asset, as production priorities and operations and maintenance activity on turbines take precedence. Over time, neglected masts can have the potential to lose data accuracy, thereby providing owners and secondary investors with incorrect data, which ultimately affects project returns, the investment grade of the development and client reporting.
The new service provided by Dulas will see the deployment on site of a remote sensing lidar – ZephIR 300, a finance-grade lidar system – which is able to detect many of the causes of inaccuracy in the met mast, and also provide an onsite validation of any wind shear model being used for wind speeds above the mast height.
The lidar is a fully calibrated system, verified against ‘gold-standard’ lidars in addition to a traditional, well-instrumented and calibrated met mast. The lidar is simply moved to site to test the data of the operating project masts, enabling project owners to save the significant cost of personnel lowering the mast to test and validate, or sending a team to the top of the tower to carry out the testing in situ.
“Meteorological masts are frequently a neglected or under-utilised asset on operational wind farms,” said Phil Horton, Managing Director, Dulas. “By deploying a ZephIR 300 wind lidar, we are able to offer the most sophisticated wind assessment and monitoring system available to our customers, providing a cost-effective alternative for asset owners who would otherwise be forced to temporarily decommission the mast, or send engineers up the structure itself.”
Alex Woodward, Head of Product Development at ZephIR Lidar, added that, as a remote sensing pioneer, ZephIR Lidar recognises the significant demand for highly accurate measurement solutions that enable wind energy investors to optimise the performance of their projects. The company’s ZephIR 300 is a bankable wind lidar that requires deployment for less than 4 weeks and is able to measure wind speeds and characteristics from as low as 10 metres to as high as 200 metres – ensuring correlations may be performed on even the shortest masts.
The ZephIR 300 is able to identify flow distortion at the anemometer caused by the mast itself, confirm any deterioration in anemometry calibration over time and discover misalignment of anemometry with respect to the mast. It can also detect anemometry failings during freezing temperatures.
A full whitepaper detailing instances of each of the above issues presented with traditional anemometry is available which also details the full methodology of verifying met masts with ZephIR 300.
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