Wind Lidar Technology for Wind Resource Assessment

This case study documents the deployment of wind lidar technology by RES to enhance wind resource assessment (WRA) campaigns. Over the past 30 years, RES has installed approximately 2,000 wind measurement systems, including 1,700 met masts, with a 2% collapse rate posing safety risks. To address these challenges, RES replaced met masts with remote sensing lidar technology, aiming for safer, more cost-effective, and faster measurement campaigns. The study involved a 12-month standalone lidar measurement at the Corlacky Hill wind farm in Northern Ireland, utilizing the Vaisala WindCube vertical profiling lidar. The results demonstrated that the lidar provided a measurement uncertainty of 2.4%, aligning with IEC standards and achieving market-standard uncertainty levels. The lidar data was accepted as bankable by all parties involved, leading to successful energy production assessments. The findings indicate that lidar offers significant advantages over traditional met masts, including enhanced safety, reduced bias, lower uncertainty, and cost savings of 37%.