Harald Hohlen, Senior Wind Measurement Specialist at ROMO Wind, caught up with PES to talk to us about the improvements in the iSpin technology and the Performance Transparency Project, which will provide data to the whole of the wind industry.
PES: Welcome back to PES Wind magazine. Thanks for talking with us. For the benefit of our new readers, would you like to begin by explaining a little about the background of your organisation and how you currently serve the wind industry?
Harald Hohlen: Thank you for this opportunity. ROMO Wind is a service provider with the focus on performance transparency and improvement. Our services are built around the unique iSpin spinner anemometer technology, which measures key performance. This is where the wind flow is predictable and can be reliably corrected by the spinner.
Our initial services were based around the detection and correction of yaw misalignment. Now more and more, the iSpin system is being used as a precise and accurate measurement tool, for evaluating site conditions and turbine performance behaviour.
PES: We have been hearing about your Performance Transparency Project, can you tell us what this is?
HH: The Performance Transparency Project which we call PTP aims to demonstrate the ability of the iSpin spinner anemometer to measure and compare wind turbine performance, everywhere and all the time. In other words; provide transparency on performance.
Technically speaking we want to show the high robustness of the iSpin measurement regardless of terrain and wake effects. This means the nacelle transfer function (NTF), maps the free wind speed, to the wind speed measured with the iSpin system, when the spinner is stable.
Given this high robustness we think that the iSpin technology can function as a cost effective, universal tool for verifying and monitoring power curves of the wind turbines. Once there has been one wind turbine type calibration, on flat terrain, there is no need for further site calibration A tool that can be used for verifying and monitoring power curves, from all turbines in a wind farm and on all terrains, including offshore.
PTP is one of the largest and most systematic demonstration projects for a wind measurement system so far. The plan is to install iSpin systems, on a total of around 90 wind turbines, in 9 different wind farms. 3 different turbine types will be installed on 3 different terrain types, such as flat, semi-complex, complex or offshore. They will then be evaluated.
At each of the wind farms one met mast, or lidar system, will be used for at least 12 months. IN doing this it will be possible to evaluate the nacelle transfer function stability and the power performance measurement capabilities over a period of time. In total about 90 wind turbines will have their power curves measured, according to IEC standard IEC61400-12-2 , using iSpin anemometry.
What is unique about PTP is that the results will be validated by renowned independent technical consultants and the anonymised data, reports and data analysis will be made freely available. The data will be available for downloading from ROMO Wind’s website, by anyone in the wind industry. We hope this will inspire more research into wind turbine performance.
