Hinesburg, Vt.-based Renewable NRG Systems recently sold a pair of WINDCUBE 200S 3D Scanning Doppler LIDARs to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Renewable NRG Systems says that NOAA's chemical sciences division will use the LIDARs for a field campaign that aims to quantify uncertainties in Doppler LIDAR measurements of wind conditions. The project is being conducted with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, the company notes.Â
Later this year, the LIDARs will be deployed for the Wind Forecast Improvement Project, another research campaign aiming to improve NOAA's short-term weather forecast models with regards to wind condition predictions that impact wind energy generation.
According to Renewable NRG Systems, which distributes the units in North America for French LIDAR provider Leosphere, the remote sensing technology incorporates 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. LIDARs are also able to perform three-dimensional mapping of the atmosphere to provide remote measurements of wind speed, direction, turbulence and boundary layer height.
