Why Tall Towers?
Wind resource data is available from public and private sources, but is inadequate to meet the information needs of ISOs, wind farm operators and developers, power traders, resource analysts and government. These data sources are designed for aviation and consumer weather markets. They do not meet the need for actual wind speed data at the hub height and above the boundary layer of 80 meters. WindPole has secured the only national tower set capable of measuring above the boundary layer.
Typically, surface data from 10 meter towers at an airport in a valley is used to “guesstimate” UP to the hub height of today’s utility scale wind turbines. Or satellite data is used to project DOWN to land based wind farm projects. Both are inaccurate and inadequate to meet investor due diligence and to support wind power integration into the grid. All parties are focused on satisfying investor need for de-risked projects recognizing capital as the top barrier to wind power deployment.
WindPole’s plan instruments 580 existing tall towers that extend above the boundary layer of 80 meters to collect real-time wind speed and direction data.
Need for Realistic Data
A WindPole tower in Minnesota
Commercial scale turbines spin on a hub located approximately 260′ (80m) (“hub height”) above ground level. In contrast, most wind speed monitoring data is currently collected from either satellite data or instruments located lower than 100′ (30 m) high. Wind analysts, developers, manufacturers and other parties have developed analytic models that attempt to project the actual wind speed up to hub height from ground observation points or down from satellite “observation” points. Their goal is to provide rigorous financial due diligence for investors on the likely lifetime wind speed (and thus power output) at the hub-height of today’s turbines.
These “guesstimates” are subject to error, with actual wind plan output falling 10% below forecast. This margin of error wipes out all returns to the wind farm developer, or part of the returns to investors, depending on the project’s capital structure.
Historically, wind speed forecasting in the US has been designed to serve two constituencies: media/entertainment and aviation, not wind power development and operation. Five firms are prominent in interpreting existing data and offering solutions to the wind power sector’s information needs: Garrad-Hassan, WindLogics, AWS Truewind, 3Tier Group and Global Energy Concepts. For the investment and development communities, the current analytics are inadequate. Repurposed data from towers at airports located in low wind locations like a valley does not provide an accurate basis for projection to wind turbine output. And as wind power penetration rises from the current <2% to the forecast of 20% by 2030, the financial impact of wind speed forecasting will move from marginal to having substantial impact. In ten states, wind power penetration already exceeds 3%, and the shortfall in real time operating data has already impaired reliability in Texas.