Leading renewable energy consultancy group, Natural Power, has deployed a dual-mode ZephIR 300 wind lidar with the Centre for Wind Energy Technology (CWET) in Chennai, India. The dual-mode ZephIR can be used in a traditional ground based application pointing vertically for wind resource assessment, or directed in front or behind a wind turbine to study incident wind fields and resulting turbine wakes.
This new platform of wind lidar a dual-mode ZephIR 300 was designed and developed by Natural Power to meet CWETs requirements to assess a range of wind measurements. The ZephIR 300 is shown opposite mounted in its frame providing flexible operation. Two variations of ZephIR software are applied to the system so CWET can easily and seamlessly switch between the two modes – the standard ground based ZephIR Waltz platform, and a new platform which will ultimately be rolled out on ControlZephIR units later this year which offer this unique ability to provide full rotational scanning in front or behind a wind turbine.
With this one system CWET are able to undertake both horizontally orientated turbine wind measurements and traditional vertical resource assessments. CWET view the purchase of a ZephIR 300 as a leading edge research tool which will help them to develop more effective wind farms across India.
Mr Jayasurya, Head of Communications at India Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association was also present at the successful installation of CWETs ZephIR 300 and commented: By acquiring state of the art wind measurement devices such as ZephIR 300, CWET will help advise and progress the Indian Wind Market. We regard this acquisition as a significant milestone within the Indian market and our members shall be watching progress with great interest. There are many potential applications for ZephIR within our market here in India, at this stage our members are extremely interested with the potential for ZephIR to measure the in-situ power performance of turbines remotely from a ground based unit. Congratulations to both CWET and ZephIR for realising this important first step for adoption of Wind Lidar within the Indian wind industry.
Ian Locker, ZephIR MD within Natural Power commented: We are very pleased to see our first sale in to the Indian wind energy market. This is also quite a novel approach whereby ZephIR 300 can be used in various orientations from the ground and from the wind turbine. This provides both vertical and horizontal measurements to meet CWETs objective of capturing highly accurate wind speed measurements in front of an operational turbine.
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