‘We see Triton as a valid stand-alone system for wind measurement studies,’ says Dennis Elliot, principal scientist with NREL. ‘In addition, Triton was reliable, with an uptime of over 98 percent.’
Triton is a ground-based remote sensing system that uses sonic detection and ranging (SODAR) to measure wind up to and above the 140-meter blade tip height of current utility-grade wind turbines.
‘Any new technology faces an acceptance curve,’ says Larry Letteney, CEO of Second Wind. ‘This important study shows that Triton correlates well with the earlier technology, and is a sign of growing acceptance of Triton as a valid wind measurement technology.’
In the NREL study, conducted under a cooperative research and development agreement, Second Wind provided NREL with more than six months of data from a measurement program conducted by a wind farm developer near an operating wind farm in Texas. The study collected data from Triton and from an 80-meter met tower located nearby.
A copy of the final study may be viewed at nrel.gov.
SOURCE: Second Wind
