Abstract
Remote sensing devices such as lidars are currently being investigated as alternatives to cup anemometers on meteorological towers. Although lidars can measure mean wind speeds at heights spanning an entire turbine rotor disk and can be easily moved from one location to another, they measure different values of turbulence than an instrument on a tower. Current methods for improving lidar turbulence estimates include the use of analytical turbulence models and expensive scanning lidars. While these methods provide accurate results in a research setting, they cannot be easily applied to smaller, commercially available lidars in locations where high-resolution sonic anemometer data are not available. Thus, there is clearly a need for a turbulence error reduction model that is simpler and more easily applicable to lidars that are used in the wind energy industry. In this work, a new turbulence error reduction algorithm for lidars is described. The algorithm, L-TERRA, can be applied using only data from a stand-alone commercially available lidar and requires minimal training with meteorological tower data. The basis of L-TERRA is a series of corrections that are applied to the lidar data to mitigate errors from instrument noise, volume averaging, and variance contamination. These corrections are applied in conjunction with a trained machine-learning model to improve turbulence estimates from a vertically profiling WINDCUBE v2 lidar. L-TERRA was tested on data from three sites -- two in flat terrain and one in semicomplex terrain. L-TERRA significantly reduced errors in lidar turbulence at all three sites, even when the machine-learning portion of the model was trained on one site and applied to a different site. Errors in turbulence were then related to errors in power through the use of a power prediction model for a simulated 1.5 MW turbine. L-TERRA also reduced errors in power significantly at all three sites, although moderate power errors remained for periods when the mean wind speed was close to the rated wind speed of the turbine and periods when variance contamination had a large effect on the lidar turbulence error. Future work will include the use of a lidar simulator to better understand how different factors affect lidar turbulence error and to determine how these errors can be reduced using information from a stand-alone lidar.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 77-95 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Wind Energy Science |
Volume | 2 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2017 |
Bibliographical note
See NREL/JA-5000-72628 for article as published in Wind Energy Science DiscussionsNREL Publication Number
- NREL/JA-5000-66374
Keywords
- lidar
- machine learning
- power prediction
- turbulence