Wind: Energy measurement and analysis services
in FMI
by Jenni Latikka, Jani Gustafsson
Email: jenni.latikka@fmi.fi, jani.gustafsson@fmi.fi
Introduction
Observation technology
The Finnish Meteorological Institute has long-
standing and internationally recognized
experience in studies related to wind energy,
e.g. definition of local windiness and icing and
effects of global climate change to wind energy
production.
The Finnish Meteorological Institute performs wind
measurement and analysis services from the
clients' desired sites. Measurements and analyses
draw from the vast research & development
expertise of the FMI. The FMI has holistic know-
how on wind studies, thus enabling turnkey
projects.
Production system
A typical delivery contains the inspection of
technical and meteorological properties of
the measurement site, delivery of
measurement equipment with installation
including support structures, commissioning
of the measurement system, quality control
of measurements, maintenance, wind
observation data relay and analysis to the
customer and disassembly of the equipment
at the end of the measurement campaign
Data correction
Wind measurements
The standard measurement system for wind
energy predictions are for example 90 m high
measuring mast. The mast is equipped with
five ore more wind sensors installed in three
different heights (30m-60m-90m) on the mast.
Temperature, pressure and humidity
measurements are also needed when
calculating wind energy predictions.
Measurement data is recorded for each sensor
with a ten minute averaging period.
The system measures:
•Mean wind speed, direction and deviation
•Wind gust
•Air Temperature and pressure
•Relative humidity
•The measurement data is collected from data
logger in 10 min using GPRS connection.
•The quality of the data is controlled with FMI´s
quality control system.
•Data logger: Vaisala QML201L
•Temperature sensor: Pentronic Pt-100
•Humidity sensor:Vaisala HMP35/45
humidity probes
•Pressure sensor: Vaisala PTB220
barometers
•Cup anemometer: Vaisala WAA151, 251
and 252
•Vind Vane: Vaisala WAV151, 251 and 252
•Thies Ultrasonic 2D wind sensors
•Data transfer: TC543 telecontroller
GSM/GPRS
Analysis
Local wind field analyses can be derived
from wind measurements, from Finnish
Wind Atlas (2009), from numerical weather
prediction models or wind measurements
from the upper atmosphere. The height of
the boundary layer and stability of the air
mass is taken into consideration in the
wind analyses.
Measured data have to check before local
wind field analysis to minimize errors due
to used raw data. Data checking and
correction includes e.g. accuracy
definition, inacccuraties removing, time-
series unifying, calculation of basic
quantities and filling in the missing values.
Representativeness of measuring period
can be rated by wind index which based
on correlation of short and long time
series.
Comparison to Wind Atlas
Measured wind speed and direction as well
as results of local wind analyses can be
compared to Finnish Wind Atlas (2009).
In Finnish Wind Atlas (2009) you can find
amog others annual mean wind speed for
grid point with 2.5 km horizontal resolution.
Wind Atlas results can be focused with
micro-scale model and produced detailed
wind resource map.