UK: Oldbaum Services to Provide LiDAR for Offshore Wind Accelerator Wakes Measurement Campaign

Oldbaum Services, a leading wind energy consultancy have been selected to provide the LiDAR (Light Detecting And Ranging) instrumentation solution for the Offshore Wind Accelerator Wakes Measurement Campaign.

Hosted and managed by E.On Climate and Renewables on behalf of the Carbon Trust and Offshore Wind Accelerator Partners, this project represents a major effort to fully understand the complex issue of offshore wakes and their impact on wind park yield.

Andy Oldroyd, technical Director of Oldbaum said: “This project is at the forefront of the scientific effort to understand the highly complex issue of offshore wakes, their formation, propagation and interaction within wind farms and their subsequent impact on energy production.

“Oldbaum are delighted to have been selected for this prestigious project, calling on our experience and expertise to provide vital data in the effort to understand this complex flow issue.”

Stephen Wyatt, Head of Technology Acceleration at the Carbon Trust, added: “Wake effects has long been recognised as a vital area of research to the OWA Partners. The Offshore Wind Accelerator Wakes Measurement Campaign being carried out on E.ON’s Rødsand II site will both increase understanding of the physics behind wake effects as well as improve prediction accuracy which will reduce financing costs.”

For this project Oldbaum teamed up with LEOSPHERE and Avent Lidar Technology to provide two Scanning LiDAR stations (WINDCUBE 200S from LEOSPHERE) and four Nacelle LiDAR systems (two Fore and two Aft looking WIND IRIS from Avent).

“This is a really pioneering project,” said Alexandre Sauvage,President of LEOSPHERE. “Thanks to the combination of the WIND IRIS nacelle-mounted LiDAR measuring capabilities with the WINDCUBE 200S 3D long range LiDAR ones, OWA will get for the first time a comprehensive characterisation of wake effects, at short and long distances. This represents a key leverage to increase offshore wind farm efficiencies and to reduce costs of wind energy.”

“Building on the measurement programme defined by the Offshore Wind Accelerator Technical Lead, Frazer-Nash Consultancy, and E.On Climate and Renewables requirements, Oldbaum felt that a common instrument approach using similar pulsed LiDAR technology would present the best technical solution to the measurement campaign whilst reducing measurement uncertainty,” stated Andy.

The LiDAR systems are currently undergoing pre-deployment certification according to industry best practice, and will be installed and operational before year end.

Andy added: “All involved have worked hard to ensure a compressed timeline can be met to start data acquisition this year. This is a very challenging, exciting programme, and we look forward to receiving the first data streams and interrogating them to see what information they contain.” 

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Press release, November 1, 2012; Image: LEOSPHERE