Engineering news
A floating LiDAR (light detection and ranging) system has been deployed off the Aberdeen coast to provide wind data to the proposed Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm.
The “Forecast” system has been installed by Babcock as part of a 12 month contract to collect wind resource and metocean data, for Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm (AOWFL).
Moored to the seabed at the site of the proposed 11 wind turbines, 92.4MW capacity wind farm, five kilometres off the Aberdeen coast, FORECAST collects information by light detection and ranging on a variety of wind parameters across the rotor span, including minimum, maximum and average wind speed, turbulence intensity, temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure.
The data, collected by an array of on-board sensor systems, will provide valuable insight into the complex near-shore wind conditions and is cheaper than traditional “fixed” installations, said Babcock.
Providing a platform to host the LiDAR technology, the Babcock system’s low motion capability removes the need to compensate for wave motion or conduct post-processing of the data. This provides accurate data with reduced uncertainty, giving wind farm developers a high level of confidence in the data collected.
The deployment off the coast of Aberdeen is the second for the floating LiDAR. The system has also undergone a successful 18 month trial offshore at RWE’s Gwynt-y-Mor site in Liverpool Bay, during which it achieved a significant milestone on the Carbon Trust’s accreditation roadmap for this type of device.
Ian Lindsay managing director for Energy and Marine Technology at Babcock, said: “This is another key development for the renewable sector. The Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm deployment is another opportunity for our LiDAR system to demonstrate its industry leading capabilities and is an endorsement of the skills and capabilities of the Forecast team and the industry leading technology it has developed.”
Offshore works to build the Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm are due to start in the autumn of 2017.