Blog
Blog
Strong winds
Project details
Project name:
Optimiser LIDAR
Client name:
Various
Location:
Sweden
Brad Mizell
Vice President, Growth & Development, Renewable Energy & Power
Key facts
LIDAR range:
4km
Exclusive product:
Only available through Wood
:
Wind farms are the front line of clean energy. But many of them aren’t performing to the highest level they could be, meaning they are missing out on valuable clean energy.
Wood has been applying advanced LIDAR technology and performance improvement measures which have already optimised the production of over 50 wind farms around the world whilst also extending their operating life.
How did we do it?
Wood has developed Optimiser, a system that uses revolutionary LIDAR technology to visualise airflow, along with state-of-the-art computational models and real data from turbines to extract greater performance from wind farm assets.
Working with a set of wind farms in Sweden, our optimiser technology made the visualisation of complex airflows possible. This valuable data clearly showed that forests that surrounded the wind farms were disrupting the airflow. Therefore, the turbines were not operating at an optimal performance.
The Optimiser data then used state-of-the-art computational modelling to suggest felling plans that would maximise wind farm production while remaining commercially and environmentally acceptable to the forestry operators.
Any felled areas are typically replanted to modern forestry and environmental standards, bringing valuable benefits to biodiversity, whilst removing wind flow impacts on the turbines during the 30 years or more required for the new trees to approach maturity.
"The value to the customer is considerable and in one example created around $25 million benefit which has not only made the project an environmental success, but a commercial one, making this a genuine win-win situation."
Today, Wood is managing the forestry restructuring activity on behalf of the operator.
Wood has also assisted a customer in their bid to acquire a large wind farm portfolio of approximately $1 billion value. In addition to detailed risk analysis, we identified ways to increase returns through performance optimisation by extending the lifetime of assets. This innovative way of thinking has delivered value enhancements totaling tens of millions of dollars, adding to a successful bid and these results are now stimulating strong interest across the wind sector as a whole.
We’re excited to be at the forefront of developments in this field.
