MeteoPole, a consultancy firm engaged in promotion of Europe’s best wind technologies and providing dedicated services, training programs and expert support to clients in emerging markets with the support of the French government and the European Union, recently announced the launch of its first project in India using the breakthrough nacelle-mounted Wind Iris LiDAR, a tool for performance optimization of operating wind farms, in partnership with the Singapore-based Continuum Wind Energy.

MeteoPole has presence in France, Morocco, China and India. Continuum Wind Energy, an Independent Power Producer, has operations in India.

The LiDAR technology is already being used by several global industry leaders including Siemens, Areva, GDF-Suez, Nordex and Enercon GmbH.

Under the project launched, three wind turbines among the twenty operating turbines in the Surajbari wind farm in Gujarat would be identified and selected for power performance optimization. The farm was developed by Vestas and currently operated by Continuum Wind Energy.

During the pilot project, the Wind Iris technology would be showcased before the Indian market. The technological capabilities to be explored in the process include Yaw Corrections aimed at substantially increasing annual energy production and annual revenue of wind farms, Power Curve Measurements for quick and accurate IEC compliant alternative to the traditional met mast approach, Nacelle Anemometry Calibration for savings in time and budget and Wind Sector Management to extensively map turbulence.

“This is MeteoPole’s first wind power performance optimization project in India,” said the firm’s CEO Karim Fahssis.

“We will keep our partners in the Indian industry updated on a regular basis of the results of our ambitious project and will issue in the upcoming months white papers and business cases. We believe this project will once and for all demonstrate that such a technology can definitely be implemented in the Indian context with high profitability, as it is already the case in the US, Europe, China, Thailand, Korea and Morocco. There was a need for more pragmatic, service-focused providers who were willing to partner and grow with top IPPs like Continuum Wind Energy and take on a role of a trusted technical advisor as well as a technology provider,” he added.

Considering that the profitability of a wind farm rests upon reducing the uncertainty associated with wind resource assessment and wind turbine optimization, more and more developers are turning to the Light Detection and Ranging technique. In conjunction with traditional meteorological masts measuring for 12 to 18 months, a mobile LiDAR remote sensor can be used to gather reliable wind resource data, which is vital for reducing project risks. Wind LiDAR relies on measurement of Doppler shifted laser light backscattered by particles in the atmosphere such as dust and aerosols. LiDAR is the only remote sensor technology for measuring the absolute speed of wind and meets the industry’s high accuracy requirements.


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