Characterization of winds through the rotor plane using a phased array SODAR and recommendations for future work
Abstract
Portable remote sensing devices are increasingly needed to cost effectively characterize the meteorology at a potential wind energy site as the size of modern wind turbines increase. A short term project co-locating a Sound Detection and Ranging System (SODAR) with a 200 meter instrumented meteorological tower at the Texas Tech Wind Technology Field Site was performed to collect and summarize wind information through an atmospheric layer typical of utility scale rotor plane depths. Data collected identified large speed shears and directional shears that may lead to unbalanced loads on the rotors. This report identifies suggestions for incorporation of additional data in wind resource assessments and a few thoughts on the potential for using a SODAR or SODAR data to quantify or investigate other parameters that may be significant to the wind industry.