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Use Cases
Tried and tested
The Use Cases presented here have been tried and tested over the last decade. Lidar users help to inform standards which in turn help to drive change. New Use Cases are being developed all of the time. Benefits are gained throughout a project lifecycle.
Entirely replace the need for a met mast within an Energy Yield Analysis wind / measurement campaign.
Classification of ZX 300 confirms extremely low uncertainty wind measurement comparable to, or in some cases better than, Class 1 mechanical cup anemometers.
Remove uncertainties associated with met masts including flow distortion, cup calibration and seasonal issues.
Remove certain planning permits required for tall mast structures.
Remove Working at Height considerations by actively working towards industry best practice.
Complement and go beyond your met mast measurements
ZX 300 provides remote wind measurements from 10 to 200m+, going beyond traditional tall met masts but complementing their long-term reference data.
ZX 300 is fully IEC Classified and accepted by Banks Engineers such as DNV GL so that data can be used as part of your formal energy assessment.
Reduce shear uncertainty by measuring to turbine hub height, top tip and beyond.
Reduce horizontal uncertainty by moving around the wind farm site.
Improve the accuracy of flow modeling by measuring at multiple nodes in the wind farm.
Operate seamlessly throughout the winter when icing may be a challenge for cup anemometers.
Enable a short met mast methodology easily and cost effectively, progressing multiple sites across your wind portfolio.
Progressing multiple sites with a roaming ZX 300 and a fixed short mast has been used to support the financing of portfolios of wind farms and is a methodology accepted by leading consultants, financiers and their engineers.
Reduce shear uncertainty by measuring to turbine hub height, top tip and beyond.
Reduce horizontal uncertainty by moving around the wind farm site.
Improve the accuracy of flow modeling by measuring at multiple nodes in the wind farm.
Use CFD conversion to provide a traceable, auditable comparison of ZX 300 data to expected mast data.
CFD conversion of ZX 300 data is extensively validated, independently accepted and makes the use of stand-alone Lidar in complex flow possible.
Entirely replace the need for a met mast within an Energy Yield Analysis campaign in complex flow conditions.
Overcome logistical and practical issues of siting met masts in complex terrain or forestry.
Work with industry leaders in CFD such as Deutsche WindGuard, DNV, Meteodyn, Natural Power, RES and windsim for your data conversions.
In areas of complex flow any comparisons between measurement devices will be biased by the non-laminar flow.
Significantly reduce the costs and risks associated with offshore wind resource assessment by using the industry’s choice for floating wind campaigns - ZX 300M.
Deployed on 100% of buoy types commercially available.
Continuous Wave Lidar technology at the heart of ZX 300M is robust against motion-induced errors.
3 year warranty as standard, keeping your through-life costs to a minimum with no need to service or calibrate during this period - no other Lidar comes close.
Collecting wind data offshore can be prohibitively expensive with tall mast structures.
Floating Lidar has been used to collect data for the purpose of financing offshore wind farms.
Support an offshore met mast during maintenance or in replacement should the mast need removing.
ZX 300M provides low 10m measurements through to tip height and above, and can be SCADA / grid integrated providing a new standard in operational wind measurements.
Remove the need to work at height actively working towards industry Health & Safety best practice.
Measurements from 10m to 200m provide correlations to existing anemometry at all heights.
More accurately apply curtailment strategies / wind sector management.
Undertake measurements in the case of either turbine / turbine component or power loss on site in support of any insurance claims.
Improve the accuracy of the forecasting model may be used for energy trading, access / egress or planned maintenance forecasting used to reduce Waiting on Weather downtime.
With 1-second Quality Controlled data, a live feed from a permanently installed Lidar may be used to inform transport movements, for example helicopter lifts and craning.
With an almost real-time, accurate shear profile, any airborne movements around site can be conducted more efficiently and allow operators to work with a higher level of certainty within their internally approved safety windows for these operations.
Verify neglected or old met masts with industry reference Lidar, ZX 300.
ZX 300 can be deployed for less than 4 weeks to verify your met mast measuring wind speeds and characteristics from as low as 10 metres to as high as 200 metres – ensuring correlations may be performed on even the shortest masts.
Identify flow distortion at the anemometer caused by the mast itself.
Confirm any deterioration in anemometry calibration that can occur over time.
Discover misalignment of anemometry with respect to the mast.
Detect anemometry failings during freezing temperatures or other extreme wind events.
Validate wind shear model used for wind speeds above met mast while on site.
Determine the wind conditions on site to inform accurate decision making during wind farm construction, acceptance, operations and maintenance. Lidar improves the accuracy of planning access / egress or planned maintenance, and can be used to reduce Waiting on Weather downtime.
ZX 300 provides wind speed and direction measurements up to crane heights and above.
Real-time wind information during crane operations giving the greatest level of site wind data available.
Safe and efficient crane lifts are driven through more complete Health & Safety and financial consideration of independent wind information.
Live wind shear profile is directly accessible via a User Interface direct to your local or remote site teams.
Entirely replace the need for a Permanent Met Mast with a Permanent Met Lidar.
ZX 300 provides low 10m measurements through to tip height and above, and can be SCADA / grid integrated providing a new standard in operational wind measurements.
Remove certain planning permits and changes to planning required for tall mast structure.
Remove the need to work at height actively working towards industry Health & Safety best practice. Remove annual met mast calibration requirements and safety / insurance walkdowns.
Limit ground-work costs and timescales by installing a simple Lidar compound only.
More accurately apply curtailment strategies / wind sector management.
Undertake measurements in the case of either turbine failure / turbine component failure or power loss on site in support of any insurance claims.
Improve the accuracy of the forecasting model may be used for energy trading, access / egress or planned maintenance forecasting (to reduce Waiting on Weather downtime).
With an almost real-time, accurate shear profile, any movements around site can be conducted more efficiently and allow operations, for example craning, to work with a higher level of certainty within their internally approved safety windows for these operations.
Independently test a wind turbine’s power curve with a more flexible, mobile measurement device.
ZX 300 provides accurate, accepted wind turbine power curve measurements.
IEC 61400-12-1:2017 measurements can be adhered to ensuring turbine manufacturers can accept data gathered.
Efficiently measure all turbine power curves previously not possible with traditional anemometry alone.
Include power curve measurements in End of Warranty Inspections ensuring all issues can be rectified within the warranty period.
Power Performance Testing (PPT) compares the actual power curve of a wind turbine to the warranted power curve provided by the wind turbine manufacturer.
Understand a turbine’s true potential with a nacelle based power curve measurement.
ZX TM provides full rotor wind measurements and turbine motion-compensated true Hub Height measurement and can be used to follow IEC 61400-50-3:2022 Standard | Wind energy generation systems - Part 50-3: Use of nacelle-mounted lidars for wind measurements.
Remove uncertainties with flow distortion around nacelle anemometry by measuring ahead of the turbine in free wind flow.
Benchmark turbine-to-turbine performance to identify any early underperformance from blade erosion, forestry effects or other mechanical issues.
See the full rotor equivalent wind approaching the turbine to identify wakes, ground-effects and yaw misalignment.
Measurements can be made according to industry-standard procedures that are accepted by turbine manufacturers, when included in Turbine Supply Agreements.
Power Performance Testing (PPT) compares the actual power curve of a wind turbine to the warranted power curve provided by the wind turbine manufacturer.
ZX 300 wind Lidar weather station provides remote autonomous wind speed and direction measurements for all meteorological applications.
The ability to quickly and accurately measure the wind allows for a wide range of meteorological applications. ZX 300 has been extensively tested and verified in the strictest of industries – wind energy – where fractions of a percent count.
Measure wind speed and wind direction remotely with a proven and accurate light detection and ranging system – a Lidar.
Reduce equipment setup time as ZX 300 can be deployed and measuring wind within just a few minutes.
Calibrated and certified, ZX 300 is traceable to IEC standards for accuracy and repeatability.
Stream real-time wind data from easy to use software installed on your PC.
Wind turbine / wind farm optimisation and due diligence
Accurately measure power performance of wind turbines from the nacelle.
ZX TM has been installed on a Lidar-per-turbine basis to provide site optimisation to wind farm owners. Working in collaboration with site owners, turbine manufacturers and independent wind and economic consultants a Total Wind Farm Optimisation plan can be defined and implemented cost efficiently and with known paybacks.
Reduce uncertainty in P90, P50 and post-construction energy assessments and provide options for re-financing a wind farm with better-understood rates of return.
Feed machine-learning / condition monitoring performance analysis with more accurate wind data.
Calibrate nacelle instrumentation / transfer functions with free stream wind speed measurements and wind direction vs. yaw alignment.
More accurately apply wind sector management and optimise operational limits such as cut-out wind speeds.
Identify and quantify wake losses and provide options for better wake management throughout the wind farm.
Perform a site calibration prior to wind farm construction with a short met mast combined with a more flexible, mobile measurement device.
This measurement is required prior to performing a Power Performance Measurement to remove any terrain induced complexity in the flow that might cause a deviation in the free stream flow between mast and turbine location.
Conduct your site calibration according to IEC 61400-12-1:2017 Annex C.
Use site calibrations to inform Power Performance Measurements to ensure turbine manufacturers can accept data gathered.
A site calibration is a pre-construction measurement campaign to quantify the wind speed relationship between an upwind location (reference mast / Lidar location) and a to-be-constructed turbine location, using a short met mast and roaming Lidar.
With 1-second QC’d data, a live feed from a permanently installed Lidar may be used to inform transport movements, for example helicopter lifts and craning around site.
With an almost real-time, accurate shear profile any airborne movements around site can be conducted more efficiently and allow operators to work with a higher level of certainty within their internally approved safety windows for these operations.
Accurate measurement of the vertical profile of wind offshore supports the planning, design, and operations of offshore oil and gas platforms.
Combined with other sensors such as wave radar, a full range of meteorological and oceanographic conditions can be monitored and any effects on platforms quantified.
Extreme events can be monitored and any results fed in to the design of new platforms.
Determine the wind conditions on site to inform accurate decision making during wind farm construction, acceptance, operations and maintenance. Lidar improves the accuracy of planning access / egress or planned maintenance, and can be used to reduce Waiting on Weather downtime.
ZX 300M provides wind speed and direction measurements up to crane heights and above.
With 1-second Quality Controlled data, a live feed from a permanently-installed Lidar may be used to inform transport movements, for example helicopter lifts and craning around site.
With an almost real-time, accurate shear profile, any airborne movements around site can be conducted more efficiently and allow operators to work with a higher level of certainty within their internally approved safety windows for these operations.
Publications
See all publicationsTurning the Tides on Wind Measurements: The Use of Lidar to Verify the Performance of a Meteorological Mast test
The use of Computational Fluid Dynamics to Post-Process ZephIR 300 Wind Speed Data in Complex Terrain
Repeatability of ZephIR performance demonstrated across sample of 240 IEC compliant ZephIR 300 performance verifications
Validation of measurements from a ZephIR Lidar
Videos
Video Page ExcerptZX Measurement Services deploy wind Lidar
A ZX 300 wind Lidar deployed by ZX Measurement Services for measuring wind speed remotely, to support the development of onshore wind farms.
