Testbeds for Wind Resource Characterization: Needs and Potential Facilities
Abstract
With the emergence of wind as a significant source of alternative energy, it is becoming increasingly clear that some problems associated with the installation and operation of wind plants arise because of continuing gaps in our knowledge of fundamental physical processes in the lower atmospheric boundary layer. Over the years, a number of well-designed intensive field campaigns have yielded significant insight into boundary layer structure and turbulence under targeted conditions. However, to be able to usefully simulate the atmosphere for applications of wind power, it is important to evaluate the resulting parameterizations under a realistic spectrum of atmospheric conditions. To do this, facilities - testbeds - are required that operate continually over long periods. Such facilities could also be used, among other things, to establish long-term statistics of mean wind and low-level shear, to explore the representativeness of shorter-period (e.g. one year) statistics, to explore techniques for extrapolating wind statistics in space, and to serve as host infrastructure for boundary layer campaigns targeted to wind energy applications. During the last half of the 20th century, a number of tall instrumented towers were installed at locations around the United States for studies of atmospheric dispersion and other purposes. Many of these are no longer in service, but some have operated continuously for decades and continue to collect calibrated wind and temperature information from multiple heights extending to hub height or higher for many current operational wind turbines. This talk will review the status of tall towers in the U.S. that could anchor testbeds for research related wind power production and will use data from the 120-m meteorological tower on the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State to illustrate the kind of information is available.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFM.A21E0246S
- Keywords:
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- 3307 Boundary layer processes