Reimagining Wind Energy with Lidar Technology

Our world is in a transitionary phase, with climate change and the need for sustainable energy production surfacing as two of the most critical issues in our lifetime. As we grapple with this new reality, renewable energy – such as wind power – has moved from the outskirts to the front lines as countries strive to achieve net-zero emissions and expand their renewable energy capacity. By revolutionising wind measurement, lidar technology has become the go-to option for overcoming the limitations of traditional wind measurement. Lidar helps to address modern wind measurement challenges and opens up new opportunities by changing how the industry builds and operates wind energy projects.

 

 

2022 experienced another leap in wind energy production – an extra 75GW, totalling a 9% increase compared with 2021. As the wind energy industry evolves, unique obstacles and opportunities for innovation are created, and with wind energy projects increasingly built on land and offshore, lidar technology helps solve some of these challenges.

 

With wind turbines getting taller and wind farm locations residing in more rugged environments, measuring the wind using traditional tools like meteorological (met) masts is getting harder and more expensive. Recognising the obstacles that wind energy innovation faces, industry leaders are searching for safer, more accurate and cost-effective alternatives to wind measurements.

 

By revolutionising wind measurement, lidar technology is quickly becoming the go-to option for overcoming the limitations of traditional wind measurement. Changing how the industry builds and operates wind energy projects, lidar helps address modern wind measurement challenges and opens up new opportunities.

 

Let us examine the adoption and application of lidar technology by three major players in the wind energy industry – General Electric (GE), Green Power Investment (GPI) (Japan), and RES – to see how the technology has empowered them to navigate their unique challenges.

 

General Electric: Power Performance Testing Improved Through Nacelle-Mounted Lidar
When considering alternatives to met masts for power curve verification of its wind turbines, GE recognised the benefits of nacelle-mounted lidar for performance warranty tests. These lidar systems – fixed directly on the turbine’s nacelle – offer reliable wind measurements, bypassing the constraint of installing a met mast, which can lead to difficulties due to cost, siting and scheduling.

 

2022’s release of IEC 61400-50-3, which defines the use of nacelle-mounted lidar for power performance testing, opened new doors for the wind industry. GE collaborated with entities like Vaisala, its customers and external consultants to establish confidence in nacelle-mounted lidars that matched its initial trust in ground-based lidar systems following the release of IEC 61400-12-1 edition 2. Field tests across the USA and Europe evaluated the nacelle lidar’s accuracy, reliability and sturdiness. The data-driven campaign by GE paid particular attention to wind speed measurements, performance type A uncertainty and environmental variables, including shear and turbulence intensity.

 

The WindCube Nacelle lidar offered precise wind speed and direction measurements in field tests, facilitating power curve verification and enhancing energy output. The results closely compared the wind speed measurements from the nacelle lidar and the met mast. Additionally, GE observed lower type A scatter, strong overall shear characterisation and high-quality turbulence intensity measurements. The test results underscored GE’s confidence in the use of nacelle lidars to measure hub-height wind speeds.

 

Given the successful field tests, GE concludes that nacelle-based lidar is a legitimate method for measuring wind conditions when conducting performance warranty tests.

 

Green Power Investment: Achieving Bankability with Dual Scanning Lidar
Turning its focus to dual scanning lidar systems, GPI leverages this technology to enhance its wind resource assessment (WRA), primarily due to its unique ability to accurately measure wind speed and wind direction at various heights and at long distances – approximately 10 kilometres from the coast.

 

Utilising dual scanning lidar systems gives more detailed design mapping and reduces the uncertainties often found in horizontal wind modelling. The ability to provide broader, more consistent and reliable data decreases the chances of errors and ultimately saves time and money for developers.

 

GPI tested the effectiveness of dual scanning lidar by comparing its results with a single met-mast set-up. The single met mast saw an error margin of 6%. On the other hand, GPI found that dual scanning lidar provided more accurate wind assessments – showcasing that the unique lidar configuration could increase the number of virtual met masts, further reducing the uncertainty in offshore WRA.

 

RES: Experience Prioritising Safety and Efficiency with Stand-Alone Lidar
In the renewable energy sector, safety takes precedence over everything else, serving as the foundation of RES’s strategy to minimise risk while garnering crucial data to secure financing for future projects. Traditional met masts can present unforeseen dangers from erratic environmental factors, engineering faults and mechanical breakdowns, but lidar sidesteps many of these hazards, offering a safer, more efficient alternative while delivering accurate, reliable wind data even for the tallest of turbines.

 

RES employed lidar technology to support its Corlacky Hill Wind Farm project in Northern Ireland. A single Vaisala WindCube lidar, situated within 2 kilometres of all turbines, capably captured the non-complex wind flow throughout the measurement campaign. The year-long data-gathering effort concluded with a bankable energy production assessment.

 

This lidar-focused approach offered a 40% cost saving compared with conventional measurement campaigns, and the valuable data collected enabled RES to optimise the wind farm layout for maximum energy production. Significantly, this approach removed the need for hazardous activities such as lifting and climbing met masts, leading to a year with zero safety incidents. The 11-turbine project at Corlacky Hill achieved market-standard uncertainty levels solely through lidar, demonstrating its effectiveness and reliability.

 

Lidar at the Helm of a Wind Revolution
With lidar technology continuing to reshape wind energy measurement practices worldwide, its applications have become the new industry standard for onshore and offshore campaigns, ranging from stand-alone lidar campaigns and dual scanning lidar for offshore WRAs to nacelle-mounted lidars for power performance testing.

 

With wind lidar, industry leaders like RES, GPI and GE are optimising wind farm layouts, maximising energy yield and conducting accurate power curve verifications. Lidar technology offers a road map for safer, more efficient and profitable renewable energy projects.

 

Biography of the Author
Matthieu Boquet is Head of Strategy and Market Development at Vaisala. In this role, he drives Vaisala’s renewable energy offerings to meet the industry’s high-level expectations while helping customers continually generate value from their projects.