I just returned from a two-day workshop on wind resource assessment. The global wind energy community does not seem to be ready to face the difficult challenges posed by wind. In this context, the wind energy community should go beyond the current practices of just wanting to measure wind. Afterall, wind is the net effect and the wind forces are the underlying causes. Should one just ingore all the causes and expect to do well by focusing on the effect alone? Unfortunately, that is exactly what the wind industry has been doing, i.e., focusing on the effect, so far.
This discussion elaborates on what is beyond our current horizon (wind forces) and why these forces are paramount to the global wind energy community’s successful deployment of wind projects.
Wind resource assessment is just one of many pieces of the wind project development puzzle. However, it is understandably one of the most important aspects of wind project development.
As mentioned above, the global wind energy community has focused on measuring wind at potential wind sites. It is from this type of wind information, other energy and financial analyses are made to ascertain wind project viability.
Unless one is developing a single-turbine wind project with the measurement height matching the hub height, has enough time to measure (a year or longer), and has the appetite to assume significant risk involved in long-term energy projections, wind measurements made at a location for a year are limiting.
The above limitations do not result from any inaccuracies of the measurements…click here to read the rest of the article.
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