Babcock Deploys FORECAST LiDAR off Aberdeen

UK-based engineering support services company Babcock has deployed its floating LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology to provide offshore wind data to the proposed Aberdeen offshore wind farm, also known as the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC).

Babcock’s floating LiDAR system, FORECAST, has been installed as part of a 12 month contract to collect wind resource and metocean data, for Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Ltd (AOWFL).

Moored to the seabed at the site of the proposed 11 wind turbines, 92.4MW capacity wind farm, five kilometres off the Aberdeen coast, FORECAST collects information by light detection and ranging on a variety of wind parameters across the rotor span, including minimum, maximum and average wind speed, turbulence intensity, temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure.

The data, collected by an array of on-board sensor systems, will provide insight into near-shore wind conditions at the site.

This is the second deployment of Babcock’s floating LiDAR, with the system having previously undergone an 18 month trial offshore at RWE’s Gwynt-y-Mor site in Liverpool Bay.

Babcock managing director for Energy & Marine Technology Ian Lindsay said: “The Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm deployment is another great opportunity for our LiDAR system to demonstrate its industry leading capabilities and is an endorsement of the skills and capabilities of the FORECAST team and the industry leading technology it has developed.”

Vattenfall, the sole owner of the wind farm, reached a final investment decision for the EUR 317 million project in July 2016.

Offshore construction works at the wind farm are due to start in the autumn of 2017.