Page 20 - North American Clean Energy January February 2018 Issue

wind power
The Cold Realities
©VTT 2010 (Photo by A. Vignaroli)
of Wind Development
in Harsh Climates
by Lee Alnes
Imagine that your team of wind technicians departed this morning to spend a few days addressing a series of met tower issues at a green eld site in North Dakota. It’s January, and when they arrive they will face eight-foot snow drifts, and minus 30 degree Fahrenheit temperatures - not even factoring in wind chill. Sending them out there for multiple days of eld work will take a toll on your measurement campaign budget. An even bigger concern is the dangerous working environment.
19 “Wind Energy in Cold Climates,” the cold weather market reached 127 GW
at the end of 2015, and is projected to grow at a rate of 12 GW annually through 2020. is not only represents a market segment three times that of o shore wind power, but also an important mandate for the industry to resolve the logistical, safety, and cost challenges posed by these environments.
Innovations for Cold Weather Measurement
e problems associated with the industry’s traditional methods of wind measurement in winter conditions are well known. Met towers collapse. Anemometers freeze and create data gaps, and must
be replaced if damaged. Heated sensors withstand extreme weather better, but require more energy to operate. Trenching in power at remote sites is costly, and adds complexity to your measurement campaign. Next-generation measurement devices like remote sensors can help overcome many of these challenges.
Remote sensing technologies calculate atmospheric conditions by measuring the Doppler shift of returning waves. e most
e team will have to climb icy, 80- or 100-meter met masts, in high winds, to sort out problems with frozen anemometers and other equipment at the top of each tower. It’s
not easy work and you wish you didn’t have to send them out there, but what alternative
do you have? Data collection stopped weeks ago due to enduring arctic conditions; your development team has lost valuable time, and must now cope with measurement gaps when calculating wind estimates and evaluating whether or not to invest further in the site.
Your campaign already faced one major casualty this season - a met tower simply collapsed under the weight of heavy ice buildup, and the frozen ground and deep snow makes it prohibitively expensive to replace it. You know how essential these wind measurements are for reducing project uncertainty and making informed decisions. Understanding wind behavior during these stormy, peak winter months is critical; the conditions that make it dangerous for your team today are the same ones that could be powering the project at full capacity in a few short years.
Cold climates pose unique challenges to wind development, and the extreme conditions they bring are increasingly becoming more common. With many of the most favorable project locations already built, more developers are looking closely at areas like central Canada and the northern United States. Although challenging, these locations o er
the dual advantages of low population density (and thus lower impact on neighboring communities) and some of the world’s highest quality wind resources.
Wind power in cold, icy climates is a fast-growing area of the industry. According to research by international expert group International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Task
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