Wind Lidar company announces new turbine-mounted Lidar and formation of Measurement Services business

Following a three-year development and test programme, ZX Lidars (formerly ZephIR Lidar) has revealed a new Turbine-Mounted wind Lidar – ‘ZX TM’. The device has already been deployed in volume on independent power producer Fred. Olsen Renewables’ UK wind farm portfolio to optimise the installed turbines and wind farms as a whole.

ZX Lidars has also formed ZX Measurement Services to provide the industry with ‘Data as a Service’, primarily focused on delivering turnkey wind measurements with Lidar. The company sees wind veteran Ian Ravey, formerly of RES, join as Managing Director and comprises a team of highly experienced instrumentation technicians and engineers. The subsidiary company, based south-west of Glasgow and operating across the UK and Europe initially, has already secured key contracts and framework agreements with wind farm developers and operators through 2018 and 2019.

“‘ZephIR Lidar’ has rebranded” announced Ian Locker, Managing Director of Zephir Ltd. “The company and products now fall under the ‘ZX Lidars’ brand. But more than this we have invested heavily in a new turbine-mounted wind Lidar, we have gained IEC Classification for our vertical profiling Lidars, and in response to industry’s need for outsourced wind measurements we have established ZX Measurement Services. ‘ZX Lidars’, which comes from Zephir (Z), now 10 (X) years on, is an exciting business and our new brand is a new chapter in our ongoing development.”

ZX TM is a new turbine-mounted wind Lidar that is deployed to optimise wind turbine and wind farm performance. The Lidar remotely measures the wind ahead of the turbine in order to accurately compare energy production from the site to the available wind resource through accepted power curve measurements. Turbines can be individually and collectively tuned to the actual site conditions, overcoming shortfalls in original site modelling or wind conditions encountered that were not considered during the design of the wind farm. ZX TM has already been installed on a Lidar-per-turbine basis with one leading UK developer, Fred. Olsen Renewables, and identified possible production increases, including the unique ability to identify and mitigate wake losses, and corrected for turbine yaw misalignment. More accurate wind measurements over existing cup anemometry also improved Big Data algorithms deployed on the portfolio and reduced the wind measurement uncertainty in the Post Construction Yield Assessments undertaken.

ZX Measurement Services has been established in response to the growing industry requirement for outsourced wind data provision. The company provide full wind measurement campaign management and execution including rental of Lidars, campaign design, field support (installation, management, operation and decommissioning), ancillary equipment such as power supplies, technical training and fleet support / storage. Additional data services such as water quality monitoring are also provided for a one-stop-shop in project data. Projects undertaken can be onshore or offshore and include the nacelle-based installation and operation of ZX TM for Power Plant Optimisation. The company has a fleet of new Lidars available for long and short-term rental campaigns.

Ian Ravey, Managing Director of ZX Measurement Services commented: “High quality and high availability of data are the cornerstones of a modern wind energy project and so the need for low cost, accurate and reliable measurements has never been more important. ZX Measurement Services is extremely well placed, and our team’s experience is second to none, to deliver on our promise to our customers – excellence in measurements and project data.”