Wind turbine OEM milestone advances adoption of Lidar for wind energy projects
ZX Lidars welcomes the release of a positioning statement from Nordex Group confirming acceptance of ZX ground-based Lidars for standalone use in wind turbine site suitability assessments across a wide range of terrains.
The positioning statement represents a significant milestone in the wider acceptance of Lidar technology by a turbine manufacturer and marks another major step forward in the adoption of Lidar across the wind industry.
For more than a decade, the wind industry has worked to establish Lidar as a bankable alternative to traditional meteorological masts. Independent engineers, lenders and technical advisors now widely support the use of Lidar-based measurements for wind energy assessment and project financing. OEM acceptance for turbine site suitability and loading assessments has, until recent announcements, also been a required further step for wider adoption of standalone Lidar deployments.
Nordex’s statement confirms that ZX Lidar products, using ZX’s free-to-use METICE (Multi-Site Ensemble Turbulence Intensity Cup Equivalent) turbulence intensity conversion methodology, are accepted for use in flat, hilly and slightly complex terrain. The ZX METICE approach uses readily available data already collected on ZX 300 and ZX 300e to provide cup-equivalent turbulence intensity derived from the Lidar measurements. The approach has been developed through extensive collaborative validation work between ZX Lidars and the wind community across a broad range of countries and terrain conditions.
“This is a hugely important step for the industry,” said Alex Woodward, Managing Director at ZX Lidars. “For years, the sector has been proving that Lidar can deliver bankable wind measurements. The next challenge has been ensuring turbine OEMs can also accept Lidar data, specifically turbulence intensity. Nordex’s announcement demonstrates the progress that has been made through deep technical efforts across the industry, through collaboration. It is another step forward in Lidar being a fully mainstream measurement technology throughout the wind energy sector.”
Read Nordex Positioning statement here.
About ZX Lidars (formerly ZephIR Lidar)
ZX Lidars provides industry-leading wind lidar products ZX 300e, ZX 300M and ZX TM for wind energy and meteorological applications. These Lidars deliver accurate wind measurements in both onshore and offshore applications at measurement heights / ranges across the full swept area of the blades of modern wind turbines, and beyond. With more than 30 million hours of operation in the field and over 15,000 deployments (and counting), ZX Lidars has pioneered the use of Lidar in the wind industry. The company is proud of the many world firsts it has achieved with customers including: upwind measurements from a turbine nacelle, turbine wake studies, offshore deployments of both fixed and floating wind lidar, an industry-accepted validation process, re-financing and re-powering of a wind farm, successful demonstration of measurement accuracy in a wind tunnel and total wind project financing from a lidar without need for a met mast.
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