NOAA buys WINDCUBE Scanning Lidars from Renewable NRG systems

WINDCUBE 200S Lidars incorporate advanced techniques to measure the wind components on a large scale for short term campaigns or long term operations to reduce wind flow modeling uncertainties, understand physical phenomena such as wakes, and improve wind forecasting. They are able to perform a full 3D mapping of the atmosphere to provide remote measurements of wind speed, direction, turbulence, and boundary layer height.

The two machines will be utilized by NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Division for a variety of measurement purposes, starting with the XPIA experiment at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory (BAO) taking place in April 2015. The XPIA Experiment is a field campaign that aims to quantify uncertainties in Doppler Lidar measurements of wind conditions. The project is being conducted with funding from the Department of Energy (DOE). For this experiment, multiple Doppler Lidar systems are being deployed in close proximity to the BAO’s heavily instrumented 300 m meteorological tower. Measurements of wind speed, wind direction, and velocity variance from well-calibrated sonic anemometers at six levels on the tower will be compared to measurements from the Doppler Lidars in order to assess the level of Lidar measurement bias and uncertainty.

Later this year, The WINDCUBE Lidars will be deployed for the Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP 2), another research campaign aiming to improve NOAA's short-term weather forecast models with regards to wind condition predictions that impact wind energy generation.

NOAA intends to take advantage of the flexibility in configuration of the Lidars for future use in a diverse range of applications, including air quality studies and offshore wind resource assessment.  “The WINDCUBE scanning Lidar Series was designed with the twin goals of robustness and versatility in mind,” said David Hurwitt, VP of global marketing & product management at Renewable NRG Systems. “This means that a single system can be adapted to a variety of research and operational uses in the fields of meteorology, air quality, and renewable energy.”

Renewable NRG Systems is the exclusive distributor, for North America, of the WINDCUBE Lidar technology manufactured by French Lidar specialist Leosphere. For more information, please visit https://www.renewablenrgsystems.com/products/lidar.