COLORADO ANEMOMETER LOAN PROGRAM
 

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FLORISSANT - 11/17/2011 to 11/14/2013

LOCATION DETAILS
Latitude:
N 38° 49.860’ or N 38° 49’ 51.60"
Longitude:
W 105° 19.349’ or W 105° 19’ 20.96"
Survey Meridian:
Colorado, Sixth Principal Meridian
Township:
14 S
Range:
71 W
Section:
15
Elevation:
8,645 feet (2,635 m)
Datum:
WGS 84
Tower Type:
NRG tilt-up tower
Tower Height:
20 m (65.6 feet)
Vane Offset (deg):
+242°
Direction Basis:
True North
Mag. Declination:
8° 57' E, changing by 7' W/yr
Wind Explorer S/N:
1175
Site No.:
3855

 

Install Team: Ben Ebersole, Aron Seader, and Mike Kostrzewa.

DATA DETAILS

November 17, 2011 to November 14, 2013:

The anemometer tower was installed on November 17, 2011 and removed on November 14, 2013. The site is located west of Beasely Hills and about 8.miles SSW of Florissant. The site is located on a hilltop with good exposure to the wind from all sides except perhaps from the west.

All data was collected using an NRG #40 Calibrated Anemometer and NRG #200 Wind Vane. The certification for the anemometer is as follows:

NRG #40C Calibrated Anemometer
Model No.
1900
Serial No.
1795-00152534
Calibration Date
4/30/2010 4:28:35 p.m.
Slope
0.755 m/s per Hz
Offset
0.42 m/s

This equipment feeds into an NRG Wind Explorer data logger. All data plugs were sent to the Colorado ALP at Colorado State University for analysis. The data plug files and text versions of these files are given below.

Raw Wind Data Files
NRG Data Plug Files
Txt Files
Highest
2 sec
Gust
m/s
Gust
Date/Time
Florissant_3855_2011_1117_0101.A12 Florissant_3855_2011_1117_0101.txt
30
12/31/2011 10:45
Florissant_3855_2012_0101_0218.A12 Florissant_3855_2012_0101_0218.txt
28
1/18/2012 5:12
Florissant_3855_2012_0218_0414.A12 Florissant_3855_2012_0218_0414.txt
30
3/18/2012 19:58
Florissant_3855_2012_0218_0630.A12 Florissant_3855_2012_0218_0630.txt
27
6/27/2012 13:31
Florissant_3855_2012_0630_0815.A12 Florissant_3855_2012_0630_0815.txt
20
7/13/2012 15:07
Florissant_3855_2012_0815_0928.A12 Florissant_3855_2012_0815_0928.txt
19
8/15/2012 16:29
Florissant_3855_2012_0928_1201.A12 Florissant_3855_2012_0928_1201.txt
25
10/23/2012 8:43
Florissant_3855_2012_1201_0205.A12 Florissant_3855_2012_1201_0205.txt
25
1/11/2013 9:38
Florissant_3855_2013_0205_0525.A13 Florissant_3855_2013_0205_0525.txt
25
3/21/2013 13:50
Florissant_3855_2013_0525_0917.A13 Florissant_3855_2013_0525_0917.txt
28
6/15/2013 14:43
Florissant_3855_2013_0917_1114.A13 Florissant_3855_2013_0917_1114.txt
20
11/6/2013 13:30

It is important to note that these are the raw files without any compensation for offset.

Using this data, an analysis of the wind resource report was developed using Windographer 3.1.9. For this data an offset of +242° was applied to the wind vane data. This data was flagged for icing in two ways:

  1. Any wind speed data where the wind speed was less than 0.5 m/s at a temperature less than 0 °C for 3 hours or more was flagged and not included in the wind resource analysis calculations
  2. Any wind direction data where the wind direction varied by less than 4 degrees at a temperature less than 0 °C for 3 hours or more was flagged and not included in the wind resource analysis calculations

A summary report, the combined data files (with and without the validation analysis), and the Windographer files (with and without the validation analysis) are given below:

Final Wind Resource Summary

Highlights of the final wind resource assessment for the data collected during the entire data collection campaign are shown below:

Data Properties
Variable
Data Set Starts:
11/17/2011 14:50 MST
Height above ground (m)
20
Data Set Ends:
11/14/2013 10:50
10-min. mean wind speed (m/s)
4.004
Data Set Duration:
2 years
10-min median wind speed (m/s)
3.580
Length of Time Step:
10 minutes
10-min min. wind speed (m/s)
0.42
Elevation:
8,645 feet (2,635 m)
10-min max wind speed (m/s)
18.12
Mean air density (kg/m³):
0.913
10-min standard deviation (m/s)
2.487
Wind Power Coefficients
Weibull k
1.643
Power Density at 50m:
115 W/m²
Weibull c (m/s)
4.466
Wind Power Class:
1 (Poor)
Mean power density (W/m²)
69
Wind Shear Coefficients
Mean energy content (kWh/m²/yr)
606
Power Law Exponent:
0.187
Mean turbulence intensity
0.26
Surface Roughness:
0.1 m
Energy pattern factor
2.369
Roughness Class:
2.00
Total data elements
419,232
Roughness Description:
Few trees
Flagged wind speed data elements
226
Flagged direction data elements
2,847
Missing data elements
249
Data recovery rate (%)
100
Note: The wind power density and wind power class at 50m are projections of the data from 20m. A surface roughness of 0.1 meters was assumed for this projection. This is the surface roughness for an area with a few trees. This value was then used this to calculate the roughness class and the power law exponent shown above.

 

Vertical Wind Shear, Height (m) vs Mean Wind Speed (m/s)

 

Wind Frequency Rose at 20 meters

 

Wind Energy Rose at 20 meters

 

Daily Wind Speed Profile at 20m, Hourly Mean Wind Speed (m/s) vs. Hour of the Day

 

Seasonal Wind Speed Profile at 20m, Monthly Mean Wind Speed (m/s) vs. Month

 

Probability Distribution Function at 20m: Frequency (%) vs. Wind Speed (m/s)

Windographer was used to match up the wind at this site with the performance curves of some common turbines of various sizes and various heights. The table below shows the results. For the larger turbines, the tower height was increased to account for the larger turbine blades - the wind resource was extrapolated to these higher heights. Keep in mind that the larger and the higher the turbine, the better the wind and the greater the output. But of course, as the tower heights and turbine sizes increase so does the cost.

Keep in mind too that listing a particular turbine doesn't imply an endorsement - not does it imply that installing a particular turbine model is feasible or recommended for a particular site. For consistency, the larger turbines are included even at sites that where they would not be practical so that one can compare the relative production of different sites.

Turbine
Rotor
Diameter
meters
Rotor
Power
kW
Hub
Height
meters
Hub
Height
Wind
Speed
m/s
Time
At
Zero
Output
percent
Time
At
Rated
Output
percent
Average
Net
Power
Output
kW
Average
Net
Energy
Output
kWh/yr
Average
Net
Capacity
Factor
%
Southwest AIR X - 45 ft tower
1.5
0.4
13.7 3.72 53.8 0.0 0.0 93 2.7
Bergey XL.1 - 100 ft tower
2.5
1.0
30.0 4.31 10.0 1.3 0.1 1,200 13.2
Southwest Skystream 3.7 - 45 foot tower
3.7
1.8
13.7 3.72 43.4 0.3 0.2 1,500 9.3
Southwest Whisper 500 - 42 ft tower
4.5
3.0
12.8 3.67 50.4 0.3 0.3 2,600 9.7
Endurance S-250 - 100 ft tower
5.5
5.0
30.0 4.31 0.0 0.0 0.4 3,600 8.3
Bergey Excel-R - 100 ft tower
6.7
7.5
30.0 4.31 40.3 1.0 0.8 7,400 11.3
Bergey Excel-S - 100 ft tower
6.7
10.0
30.0 4.31 22.9 0.4 0.9 8,100 9.2
Endurance E-3120 - 100 ft tower
19.2
55.0
30.0 4.31 35.1 0.0 7.8 68,100 14.1
Northern Power 100-21 - 121 ft tower
21.0
100
37.0 4.47 19.6 0.0 10.5 91,900 10.5

IMPORTANT: No turbine losses are included in the power, energy, and capacity factor values in the table. Typically, turbine losses can be 5-20% to account for maintenance downtime, icing/soiling and losses from other turbines in a wind farm. Users wanting to be conservative in the performance projections should multiply the power, energy, and capacity values by (1- % losses) to account for these losses.


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Last updated: June 2009
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