Two leading universities have recently purchased long range Galion Lidar devices from renewable energy consultancy, SgurrEnergy. The Centre for Advanced Condition Monitoring (CACM) at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and the Atmospheric Science Program of Indiana University (IU) in the USA, will use the Galion for cutting edge wind energy research projects.
Galion Lidar is a powerful wind measurement tool that is being used by a growing number of research institutions in wind energy related projects and is becoming of increasing interest to the wind energy research community.
Wind analysts at Strathclyde’s CACM will use its Galion Lidar to accurately quantify the impact of specific characteristics of the wind, such as turbulence and gust structure, on key turbine components and turbine life.
Dr Francis Quail, director of the CACM, said, “Using Galion Lidar offers exciting potential to assess how inflow conditions relate to the development of next generation condition monitoring solutions and ultimately total asset management strategies. It is envisaged that such developments will lead to improved design standards, increased operational performance and reduced levelised costs of energy for the wind industry sector.”
IU will deploy its Galion at the world-renowned National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) located in Boulder, Colorado. Galion will be used to implement a variety of scan geometries to explore key questions of interest to the wind industry. These include confirming the accuracy of “remote mast” configurations, which measure wind speeds in one location using a Galion installed in another location 1km away. This involves using “arc scan” methods, pioneered by the Galion, which has overcome the limitation of other devices which are restricted to measuring in the region immediately above them.
Other tests will exploit the Galion’s unique versatility to acquire vertical and horizontal cross sections of the wind, providing detailed visualisations of wind shear, veer and wind turbine wake phenomena.
Rebecca Barthelmie, Professor of Atmospheric Science and Sustainability at UI, said, “The Galion is an exciting tool for wind research combining the autonomy of wind profiling Lidars with the extended capabilities of scanning Lidars to provide an almost limitless range of potential study designs and hence much more flexibility in field research.”
The study of such a wide variety of wind flow parameters by these academic research campaigns is expected to illustrate the ability of SgurrEnergy’s Galion Lidar to go beyond the concepts and capabilities of conventional mast technologies to provide comprehensive and detailed datasets which will provide answers to key questions arising at every stage of wind energy projects.
SgurrEnergy is a leading engineering consultancy specialising in worldwide renewable energy projects. Founded 10 years ago by technical director Ian Irvine and implementation director Steve McDonald, the company has assessed more than 85,000MW of renewable energy projects in over 50 countries around the world.
Headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, SgurrEnergy has international offices in China (Beijing), Canada (Vancouver), India (Pune), France (Paris), Ireland (Wexford), the US (Portland), Brazil (São Paulo), Norway (Stavanger) and Germany (Hamburg).
SgurrEnergy is a subsidiary business of Wood Group.
www.sgurrenergy.com
Wood Group is an international energy services company with $6bn sales, employing more than 42,000 people worldwide and operating in 50 countries. The Group has three businesses – Engineering, Wood Group PSN and Wood Group GTS – providing a range of engineering, production support, maintenance management and industrial gas turbine overhaul and repair services to the oil & gas, and power generation industries worldwide. www.woodgroup.com
The Centre for Advanced Condition Monitoring (CACM), a partnership between the University, SgurrEnergy and David Brown Gear Systems (David Brown), was launched in 2011. Based at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, it is a leading research hub for academics and industry, developing new approaches in wind technology condition monitoring design.
For further information please contact:
Natalie McClure, Marketing Co-ordinator, SgurrEnergy
Phone: +44 (0) 141 227 1754
Email: natalie.mcclure@sgurrenergy.com
