The optimisation of wind farms and the analysis of the wake effect have always been important topics in the wind energy industry. Therefore, the Chair of Wind Energy Technology at the University of Rostock decided to conduct experimental research in a wind farm together with the company WIND-projekt and to investigate the wake effect in more detail using Lidar measurement technology.
In May 2020, the IWEN Institute, as a partner in this project, installed a lidar system on the nacelle of a SWT-DD-142 wind turbine. The measurement system comprises an optical head (OH), a processing unit (PU), a UPS power supply and an LTE router. The OH is mounted on the roof of the nacelle (against the wind) and other parts are safely located inside the nacelle. The lidar system has 4 laser beams that measure the wind speed every second in front of the rotor plane at ten different distances simultaneously from 50m to 450m. Thanks to the LTE router, the recorded data is available at any time and can be analysed in the office at the institute.