Details of 500 individual Performance Verifications of ground-based, vertical-profiling Lidar released from the UK Remote Sensing Test Site
The largest body of evidence of any Remote Sensing Device, comparing the device’s performance to an IEC met mast, has been released by ZX Lidars. The evidence summarises 500 individual ZX 300 ground-based vertically-profiling wind Lidar unit Performance Verifications undertaken at the UK Remote Sensing Test Site against an IEC compliant met mast. Based on a sample of Lidar deployments between 2017 and 2021, horizontal wind speeds, directions and turbulence intensity comparisons against the installed cup anemometry where conducted.
ZX 300 uniquely measures these wind characteristics from just 10 metres and up to 300 metres above ground level. These wind measurements are the cornerstone of wind farm development onshore and offshore, globally. The results show that ‘out-of-the-box’, a ZX Lidar’s performance demonstrates very high availability across all heights measured (Figure 1), very high accuracy when compared to an IEC compliant met mast (Figure 2) and a robust, consistent measure of Turbulence Intensity (Figure 3).
Figure 1: Summary of data availability with height across 500 ZX 300 wind Lidar deployments
Figure 2: Summary of wind speed correlations of 500 ZX 300 wind Lidars with an IEC compliant met mast
Figure 3: Summary of turbulence intensity correlations of 500 ZX 300 wind Lidars win an IEC compliant met mast
This vast sample of validations – the largest proof book of its kind – clearly demonstrate the reliability and repeatability of ZX Lidars’ standard Lidar calibration and quality control process. It can be stated that the generated Key Performance Indicator values are also well within the industry best practice criteria.
A further validation – the highest height Lidar / mast validation believed to be on record – was released in 2021 from the 213-metre research meteorological mast at the Cabauw Experimental Site for Atmospheric Research (CESAR), Netherlands. Covering a 2-year campaign, comparative accuracy between a ZX 300 Lidar and the met mast was demonstrated to be 0.99 to 1.00, and an R2 greater than 0.995 was achieved. System uptime of 99.4 % and QC’d data availability of 96.8 % – 98.4 % was also demonstrated.
ZX 300 is believed to be the world’s most validated ground-based Lidar. ZX Lidars have been deployed more than 10,000 times in over 90 countries globally. Offshore, ZX 300M – the Marine variant of the ZX 300 product – is responsible for more than 90% of all new offshore wind development projects’ wind measurement needs.
About ZX Lidars (formerly ZephIR Lidar)
ZX Lidars provides industry-leading wind lidar products, ZX 300, ZX 300M and ZX TM for wind energy and meteorological applications. These Lidars deliver accurate wind measurements in both onshore and offshore applications at measurement heights / ranges across the full swept area of the blades of modern wind turbines, and beyond. With more than 30 million hours of operation in the field and over 10,000 deployments (and counting), ZX Lidars has pioneered the use of Lidar in the wind industry in more than 90 countries globally. The company is proud of the many world firsts it has achieved with customers including: upwind measurements from a turbine nacelle, turbine wake studies, offshore deployments of both fixed and floating wind lidar, an industry-accepted validation process, re-financing and re-powering of a wind farm, successful demonstration of measurement accuracy in a wind tunnel and total wind project financing from a lidar without need for a met mast.
