Leading renewable energy service provider Dulas has launched a wind farm meteorological (met) mast data verification and testing service, utilising the wind lidar system, ZephIR 300.
The service will ensure that 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, met 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 will see the deployment on site of a remote sensing lidar ZephIR 300, a finance-grade lidar system that 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, 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 considerable 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.
