Presentations

Abstract

Floating Lidar Systems (FLS) are the de-facto standard technology for offshore wind resource measurements in the wind industry today. While a technical specification by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC 61400-50-4) is still under development, the "Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Accelerator Roadmap for the Commercial Acceptance of Floating LiDAR Technology" (short: "Carbon Trust Roadmap") is considered the most relevant guideline for the application of FLS in the industry. Besides general guidance, the "Carbon Trust Roadmap" suggests three maturity stages for FLS - i.e., stage 1—3 - the achieving of which may have implications on how a specific FLS type can be applied and with which impact on the measurement uncertainties of its recordings. Each stage comes with certain requirements, in terms of trials to be performed and acceptance criteria for key performance criteria (KPI) to be met; and system providers aim for the highest stage in order to promote their technology as being most reliable and accurate. In this contribution we review if the requirements outlined in the "Carbon Trust Roadmap" are really suited to evaluate a specific FLS technology with respect to its reliability and accuracy for future applications. We link the specified KPI and acceptance criteria to reasonable and expected uncertainties in the final wind resource assessment and discuss inconsistencies. In particular, the requirements linked to stage 3 are compared and contrasted with the guidance as outlined in the draft version of the technical specification IEC 61400-50-4.