Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Alternative to met mast from AQSystem gets approval by ECN
A new report from the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands concludes that the SODAR “AQ500 Wind Finder” from Swedish AQSystem provides measuring data comparable to that from traditional met masts. This is an important step towards the AQ500 being approved as a stand alone system for measuring wind conditions. A transition that will help the energy industry be more efficient and cut costs when installing new wind turbines.
Swedish AQSystem is a world leading developer of SODAR (Sonic Detection And Ranging) that is used for measuring wind with the help of sound waves. Their system AQ500 is a mobile and self- sufficient solution with high availability that makes it easy to measure wind data up to a height of 200 meters with 5-meter intervals.
”Today the wind turbine hubs are getting higher and are often set up in remote areas. This is a trend that makes the usage of traditional met mast an insufficient and costly solution compared with our SODAR AQ500”, says Pelle Hurtig, General Manager at AQSystem.
The SODAR has just recently been developed as a measuring method for the wind energy industry and has therefore up to now only been used in combination with traditional met masts. But with the high correlation shown between the measuring methods in the ECN report Pelle Hurtig thinks that the AQ500 over time will replace today’s traditional met masts.
During the summer of 2010 the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) presented a conclusion of their independent testing of the AQ500 Wind Finder saying:
“In the analysis we performed, the AQ500 showed comparable uncertainty to conventional anemometry. Our initial conclusion is that the AQ500 can be considered as a valid stand alone system for wind resource assessments, especially given the industries tendency towards higher hub heights.”
Well-known industry operators including Garrad Hassan, Airtricity, Vattenfall and Nordex are today using the AQ500 Wind Finder with very good results. AQSystem can therefore provide the full ECN- report, as well as several other independent validation reports, upon request.
Press contact
Pelle Hurtig
+46 (0) 8 776 40 86
pelle.hurtig@aqs.se