Carbon Trust has announced the completion of its trial of floating LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) systems. During the four year trial a range of floating LiDAR devices were deployed alongside existing offshore met-masts to enable the comparison of wind speed and direction measurements.
Over the course of the campaign five systems were tested at six different sites across Europe:
- Babcock at Gwynt y Mor;
- FLiDAR at Gwynt y Mor, Narec (now ORE Catapult Blyth), and Neart na Gaoithe;
- EOLOS FLS200 at IJmuiden Met Mast;
- Fugro Oceanor Seawatch Floating LiDAR at East Anglia ONE; and
- Fraunhofer IWES Wind LiDAR Buoy at FINO1 Met Mast.
Following the trials, many of the devices tested are now being deployed by offshore wind farm developers in commercial campaigns reducing the need for traditional offshore met-masts which will lower pre-development and development costs significantly. In addition to direct cost reduction, the validation trials also provided valuable hands-on operational experience of the devices for developers and floating LiDAR suppliers to streamline operations and maintenance activities, including improved HSE. Through the process of the trials the systems were validated against the Carbon Trust OWA roadmap for commercial acceptance of floating LiDAR technology. To help developers effectively deploy floating LiDAR systems the Carbon Trust also released the OWA Floating LiDAR Recommended Practice last year.