WindIQ Knowledge Center

Through US-China Renewable Energy Partnership, US cleantech firms partner with Chinese wind industry leaders and government agencies to support China's renewable energy development goals

China's rapidly developing wind industry faces enormous challenges over the coming decade. The industry is targeted for expansion by the Chinese government as a Strategic Prioritized Industry and benefits from a number of government initiatives encouraging growth. Chinese businesses have responded energetically to these initatives, and the Chinese installed wind capacity has grown at a "breakneck pace," according to GWEC -- from 2 GW in 2005 to almost 45 GW in 2010. 

Remote sensing systems such as sodar and lidar are the new secret weapon of the greenfield prospecting stage, saving wind developers time and money before the wind resource assessment campaign even begins. Keeping the costs of the development process as low as possible can make the difference between profit and loss in wind energy development.

Why You Need To Measure

Prospecting involves an initial look at likely sites in a given region to see if they meet the five criteria outlined above. Mesoscale wind maps and site-specific historical wind data, such as data from met stations at nearby airports, are typically the first thing the developer consults.

A technology older than the modern wind industry, sodar (an acronym for Sonic Detection and Ranging) was invented in the early 1960s -- before the invention of weather radar.

When Hurricane Irene blew up the U.S. northeastern seaboard late this summer, she left devastation in her wake. She wreaked havoc in the Carolinas and Virginia, made a very light pass over Second Wind HQ in the Boston area, and washed out homes, roads, buildings, and bridges in Vermont and New York. 

If you work in the wind industry, you may have been asked the question, "My community wants to put up a turbine; what's my next step?"

• AEP: Annual energy production. Estimating how much energy a wind farm will produce is one of the drivers of wind project financing. Projecting a wind farm's AEP involves a thorough wind resource assessment.

• anemometer: An instrument used to measure wind speed. Shown is Second Wind's C3 anemometer. The cups catch the wind and cause the shaft to spin. The shaft is connected to a tiny electrical generator, and the wind speed is calculated as a function of the current produced by the spinning shaft.
• annual energy production: See AEP above.
• bistatic sodar: A sodar works by transmitting a pulse of acoustic energy, receiving the atmosphere echo of it, and calculating atmospheric measurements such as wind speed and direction from characteristics of the received echo. In a bistatic sodar, the transmitter (speakers) and receiver are separated from each other by a distance. In a monostatic sodar like Second Wind's Triton, the transmitters and receivers are the same speakers.

Industry Associations

Wind industry associations are the public voice of a region's wind generation businesses; their websites are full of educational information about all aspects of the wind industry, including current policy initiatives and recommendations.