Laser Measurement Device Deployed for Europe Wind R&D

Windscanner (Risø DTU)

Denmark’s National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, known as Risø DTU, has developed a laser-based instrument package to measure conditions at wind power farms, and that device will now be used across Europe at European Energy Research Alliance research stations and commercial installations. Just one of the devices, called a WindScanner (pictured right) , can produce detailed maps of wind conditions at a wind farm covering several square kilometres.

The WindScanner is a mobile device that has laser-based wind measuring instruments, called Lidars, short for Light Detection and Ranging. A lidar system transmits laser beams into the air, where they hit particles and are reflected back. These reflections are then analyzed for wind conditions in the atmosphere at a wind farm site.

Lidars measure the the height of the boundary layer, to determine the vertical extent of surface winds in the atmosphere that affects wind turbine operation. Lidars are also used to determine the instantaneous wind speed and direction and turbulence remotely over terrain, e.g. in front of, within, and in the wakes of the wind turbines, which today have large rotor planes that extend well into the atmosphere.

A single wind scanner consists of three such wind lidar systems operated in concert, making it possible to create three-dimensional maps of local wind conditions and wind resources. These measurements are important to manufacturers of wind power systems, who can build turbines that match the conditions at the wind farm sites. The WindScanner can also be used at airports to measure wind turbulence and shear, a problem to commercial aviation.

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