ZephIR Lidar has announced that its vertical-profiling wind Lidar has successfully met the full conditions for the IEC 61400-12-1: 2017 Ed. 2 standard. The analysis demonstrates very low uncertainties and that Lidar is an acceptable technology for inclusion in a wide variety of wind campaigns and applications. This includes resource assessment, site calibration, and power-curve measurements.
The concluding analysis of ground-based vertical profiling wind Lidar validates again that Lidar is an acceptable technology for inclusion in the wide variety of wind campaigns and applications.
“This really is a significant step for Lidar technology and our industry as a whole,” said Ian Locker, Managing Director at ZephIR Lidar. “Consultants, developers, and turbine manufacturers within the wind sector can take further confidence in the technology’s absolute ability to measure across a range of environmental conditions.”
Before the release of the Edition 2 standard in March 2017, ZephIR Lidar had been preparing its classification campaigns and the results released demonstrate industry-leading compliance, highlighting the highest accuracy of its ground-based Lidar with very low uncertainties on measurement data.
The IEC standard involves the classification of a remote-sensing device types by assessing the accuracy of that device in the context of the environmental conditions experienced from two separate test sites. The same unit is deployed at each site over a period of three months or more and an additional unit is also deployed at one of the same test sites.
“The results are independently verified, making any compliant Lidar technology appropriate and accepted for a wide variety of wind measurement use cases including resource assessment and site calibration through to formal power curve tests,” said Locker. “So long as your Lidar is IEC compliant, customers can now select their measurement device based on reliability, affordability, flexibility, warranty, customer support, user experience and preference. The accuracy and performance box for Lidar is now ticked as default if classified!”
The results feature campaigns from a DNV GL Remote Sensing Test Site, in addition to the UK Remote Sensing Test Site which is also assessed for IEC compliance by DNV GL.
Test results
The classifications covered deployments in Autumn, Winter, and Spring, 2017 through to early 2018 meaning a wide range of environmental conditions were experienced. The environmental variables considered in the classification included: Air Density; Local Shear Coefficient; Pressure; Rain; Temperature; Temperature Gradient; Turbulence Intensity; Veer Coefficient; Wind Direction.
By way of summary, accuracy classes of 1.5 to 3.7 were calculated for ZephIR. As an example, an accuracy class of 1.5 represents a standard uncertainty of just 0.8%.
In addition to this classification work, more than 300 Performance Verifications of ZephIR have been conducted to date demonstrating repeatability in achieving these very low uncertainties.
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