The Renewable Energy Research Laboratory (RERL) at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst (UMass) has released an assessment report on ZephIR, Natural Power's laser anemometer based on light detection and ranging technology. UMass performed a data validation experiment that found ZephIR achieves correlation of 0.98 up to the tested height of 118 meters in comparison to traditional cup anemometers.
In addition, the system was shown to perform well in an uncertainty analysis, with approximately 50% less overall wind speed measurement error than that of the in-situ cup anemometer. Based on six months of wind resource assessment, UMass reported that the system is acceptable for use in wind resource assessment applications.
In addition, ZephIR has been added to the RERL suite of wind speed measurement devices.
