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Identification of tower-wake distortions using sonic anemometer and lidar measurements

Journal Article · · Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (Online)
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [5];  [5];  [5];  [6]
  1. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); Earth Systems Research Lab., Boulder, CO (United States)
  2. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  3. Earth Systems Research Lab., Boulder, CO (United States)
  4. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
  5. Univ. of Texas, Dallas, TX (United States)
  6. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

The eXperimental Planetary boundary layer Instrumentation Assessment (XPIA) field campaign took place in March through May 2015 at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory, utilizing its 300 m meteorological tower, instrumented with two sonic anemometers mounted on opposite sides of the tower at six heights. This allowed for at least one sonic anemometer at each level to be upstream of the tower at all times and for identification of the times when a sonic anemometer is in the wake of the tower frame. Other instrumentation, including profiling and scanning lidars aided in the identification of the tower wake. Here we compare pairs of sonic anemometers at the same heights to identify the range of directions that are affected by the tower for each of the opposing booms. The mean velocity and turbulent kinetic energy are used to quantify the wake impact on these first- and second-order wind measurements, showing up to a 50% reduction in wind speed and an order of magnitude increase in turbulent kinetic energy. Comparisons of wind speeds from profiling and scanning lidars confirmed the extent of the tower wake, with the same reduction in wind speed observed in the tower wake, and a speed-up effect around the wake boundaries. Wind direction differences between pairs of sonic anemometers and between sonic anemometers and lidars can also be significant, as the flow is deflected by the tower structure. Comparisons of lengths of averaging intervals showed a decrease in wind speed deficit with longer averages, but the flow deflection remains constant over longer averages. Furthermore, asymmetry exists in the tower effects due to the geometry and placement of the booms on the triangular tower. An analysis of the percentage of observations in the wake that must be removed from 2 min mean wind speed and 20 min turbulent values showed that removing even small portions of the time interval due to wakes impacts these two quantities. Furthermorew, a vast majority of intervals have no observations in the tower wake, so removing the full 2 or 20 min intervals does not diminish the XPIA dataset.

Research Organization:
NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States))
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Wind and Water Technologies Office (EE-4W); Atmospheres to Electrons (A2E) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1345113
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA--5000-68031
Journal Information:
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (Online), Journal Name: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (Online) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 10; ISSN 1867-8548
Publisher:
European Geosciences UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (12)

Internet of Things for Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change book December 2019
Østerild: A natural laboratory for atmospheric turbulence journal November 2019
Spatial and temporal variability of turbulence dissipation rate in complex terrain journal January 2019
Assessment of virtual towers performed with scanning wind lidars and Ka-band radars during the XPIA experiment journal January 2017
Validating precision estimates in horizontal wind measurements from a Doppler lidar journal January 2017
Evaluation of single and multiple Doppler lidar techniques to measure complex flow during the XPIA field campaign journal January 2017
Improved observations of turbulence dissipation rates from wind profiling radars journal January 2017
Evaluation of turbulence measurement techniques from a single Doppler lidar journal January 2017
Estimation of turbulence dissipation rate and its variability from sonic anemometer and wind Doppler lidar during the XPIA field campaign journal January 2018
A method to assess the accuracy of sonic anemometer measurements journal January 2019
Assessment of virtual towers performed with scanning wind lidars and Ka-band radars during the XPIA experiment posted_content October 2016
A method to assess the accuracy of sonic anemometer measurements journal September 2018

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Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
scanning lidars
sonic anemometers
wake impact