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Wind Flow Modeling and Resource Mapping
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The measurement from a couple of met-masts represents the wind characteristics at those specific locations. However, a wind farm consisting of several turbines will be spread over several hector of land area. It is hence important to know which are those specific points / pockets that can have high winds. It is here that numerical tools come to our help.
Though the flow of wind is a natural phenomenon, it is guided by certain scientific parameters and flow principles. These are made into complex mathematical equations with logical controls in a computer program / tool. If the required inputs are provided, these tools are capable of calculating the
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wind characteristic at any point within the wind farm area. Using these tools it is possible to prepare maps of the entire wind farm area clearly identifying the area / pockets that would have high winds where if turbines are placed would yield high energy production levels.
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There are few two dimensional models which can operate on a desktop computer with reasonable processing power and memory resource. These models are most widely used worldwide by the wind energy community. Further there are few three dimensional models (CFD models) which are more advanced but need very high computing power. Till recently these models were run on super-computers. With the advances in computers it was then able to run on a multi-processor platform. Today certain simplified versions of these models can also run on today’s high-end computers. The accuracy of the outputs from these models depends highly on the accuracy of the input data. These inputs include (i) accurate and quality wind data and (ii) topographical data. While the wind data are taken care off by proper wind monitoring as detailed above, it is not easy to have accurate topographical data.
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These data can be obtained from topographical maps and/or physical survey of the site. However, almost all topographical maps available to the public are over two decades old making the information available on these maps incorrect to a great extent. Moreover the resolution of the terrain data in these maps are so coarse that it does not give the model the real representation of the actual
terrain. In order for the model to give accurate results, it is not sufficient to provide terrain data of just the windfarm area, but also the data of the surrounding area extending over an additional (minimum) five kilometers. For such large area (over several square kilometers) it is practically impossible to carry out a physical survey with standard surveying instruments like total-station.
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EIL hence, has adopted the latest GIS technology to overcome this hurdle. EIl uses a combination of (i) topographical maps (ii) latest satellite image – high resolution pan and multi-spectral (iii) GPS based field survey (iv) total station based survey of turbine areas backed by back-office integration of all data on an advanced GIS platform. This ensures the closest possible real world topographical data while covering a large area - more than the minimum requirement of the model and within a reasonable time.
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Enercon India Limited
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We are maintaining a very cordial relationship with Enercon ever since our first project in Wind energy. They have a dynamic, dedicated and professional team to take care of the investors...
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