Current Applications of Scanning Coherent Doppler Lidar in Wind Energy Industry

Abstract

Scanning Doppler Lidars have become more prominent in the wind energy industry for a variety of applications. Scanning Lidar’s provide spatial variation of winds and direction over a large area, which can be used to assess the spatial uncertainty of winds and analyze complex flows. Due to the recent growth in wind energy, wind farms are being built in complex terrain areas and fine tuning of the existing wind farms for optimized performance have gained significant interest. Scanning Lidar is an ideal tool for improved assessment of flow over complex terrains and wake characterization of large wind farms. In this article, the various applications of Lidar in the wind industry are discussed and results from several campaigns conducted in US and Europe is presented. The conglomeration of results provided in this article would assist wind energy developers and researchers in making improved decisions about their wind farm operations and pre-construction analysis using scanning Lidar’s.