VALIDATION OF SODAR MEASUREMENTS FOR WIND POWER ASSESSMENT

A ground-based SODAR has been tested for 1Ω years together with a traditional measurement set-up consisting of cups and vanes for measuring wind data for wind power assessment at a remote location. Many problems associated to the operation of a remote located SODAR have been solved during the project and a new remote power system has been designed. A direct comparison between SODAR and cup measurements revealed a limitation for the SODAR measurements during different weather conditions, especially since the SODAR was not able to measure wind speeds above 15 m/s due to an increasing back-ground noise. Instead, using the SODAR as a profiler to establish representative wind speed profiles was successful. These wind speed profiles are combined with low height reference measurements to establish reliable hub height wind speed distributions. Representative wind speed profiles can be establish by use of a SODAR during short term campaigns taking into account the local topography and stratification distributions.