Second Wind announces the introduction of a suite of wind farm operations services based on the company’s Triton® Sonic Wind Profiler and SkyServe® Wind Data Service. Triton, a remote sensing system using sodar technology to provide wind measurements across the turbine rotor sweep, and SkyServe, a cloud-based data delivery tool, have already been widely adopted by wind farm developers for use in wind resource assessment.
“2011 was a big year for Second Wind as Triton and SkyServe continued to lead the global wind power development market for remote sensing,” says Larry Letteney, CEO. “In addition, working in partnership with several large wind farm operators and utilities, we deployed a large number of Triton in support of wind farm operations.”
Wind farms have a number of operating issues that can be explained and resolved based on thorough understanding of the wind conditions onsite. With the rapid global growth of wind energy and improvements in turbine technology, advanced wind information systems are needed to provide more comprehensive information about wind conditions. The applications for Triton on operating wind farms include:
• Complementing or replacing expensive hub height reference towers for operational support, compliance, power marketing, and improved wind forecasting;
• Mobile applications providing turbine performance, wake, and sector analysis;
• Complete wind farm assessment for warranty and financial purposes.
Second Wind recently expanded into a new 25,000 square-foot manufacturing facility near Boston to support the wind industry’s growing demand for Triton.
Matt Hendrickson, senior director of energy assessment at 3TIER, says that “A well-qualified remote sensing system such as the Triton can be extremely valuable in assessing wind farm performance. Measuring the vertical structure of the wind profile and relating it to turbine efficiencies goes a long way in explaining varying production patterns. Used properly, this technology will ultimately increase the skill of one’s predictive models.”
Second Wind has been a global innovator in advanced technology for wind measurement since 1980. For more information visit www.secondwind.com.
