COLORADO ANEMOMETER LOAN PROGRAM
 

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WEST WALSENBURG

11/03/2004 through 08/17/2005

LOCATION DETAILS
Latitude:
N 37.7105°
Longitude:
W 104.92818°
Township:
27 S
Range:
67 W
Section:
7
Elevation (ft.):
6,499
Tower Type:
NRG Tilt-Up
Tower Height:
30 m (98.4 ft)
Vane Offset (deg):
+262°
Direction Basis:
Unknown
Site Number:
0839
Wind Explorer S/N:
0839

DATA DETAILS

November 3, 2004 through August 17, 2005:

This anemometer tower was installed on Novmber 2, 2004. The site was located approximately 10 miles northwest of the town of Walsenburg. Two miles to the north is the Huerfano River which is oriented in a west-to-east direction. The vegetation around the site is primarily grassland and brush.

All data was collected using an NRG #40 Anemometer and NRG #200P Wind Vane mounted on a tilt-up tower located on the landowner's property at a height of 30m. This equipment fed into an NRG Wind Explorer data logger. Data plugs were sent into the Governor's Energy Office and then to the University of North Dakota 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
West_Walsenburg_0839_2005_0613_0707.A05 West_Walsenburg_0839_2005_0613_0707.txt

Note that the last data plug file for the period from 7/7/2005 through 8/17/2005 was not available from UND for this site. It is important to note that these are the raw files without any compensation for offset. It is also important to note that the temperature was not recorded during this period.

For this data, UND applied an offset of +262° to the wind vane data. The file includes suspect data and when that data occurs, there is also a flag field that indicates these suspect data values. A version of this wind data with blanks where the data is suspect, along with the corrected data and the UND wind resource summary report are available here:

Note also that the wind vane appears to have failed on November 9, 2004, so wind direction data after then should be disregarded.

CSU was chosen as the contractor for the program on September 14, 2007. Using the raw data from all data plugs for this site, an analysis of the wind resource was developed using Windographer 1.21. No data quality analysis was performed for this data other than what was available from the flag data fields included in the data. The suspect data was first removed from the collected data. Windographer was then used to add in synthetic data to these intervals with suspect data. The suspect data was first removed from the collected data. Windographer was then used to add in synthetic data to these intervals with suspect data. The Windographer files are given below:

Wind Resource Summary

Highlights of the wind resource at this site for the entire data collection period are shown below:

Data Properties
Variable
Data Set Starts:
11/03/2004 0:00
Height above ground (m)
30
Data Set Ends:
8/18/2005 11:10
Mean wind speed (mph)
15.71
Data Set Duration:
9.5 months
Median wind speed (mph)
14.02
Length of Time Step:
10 minutes
Min wind speed (mph)
0
Elevation (ft.):
6,499
Max wind speed (mph)
67.69
Calm threshold (mph):
0
Mean power density (W/m²)
420
Wind Power Coefficients
Mean energy content (kWh/m²/yr)
3,681
Power Density at 50m:
506 W/m²
Energy pattern factor
2.404
Wind Power Class:
5 (Excellent)
Weibull k
1.618
Wind Shear Coefficients
Weibull c (mph)
17.52
Power Law Exponent:
0.121
1-hr autocorrelation coefficient
0.793
Surface Roughness:
0.01 m
Diurnal pattern strength
0.814
Roughness Class:
0.780
Hour of peak wind speed
6
Roughness Description:
Rough Pasture
Mean turbulence intensity
0.180
Note: The wind power density and wind power class at 50m are projections of the data from 30m. A surface roughness of 0.01 meters was assumed for this projection. This is equal to that of a rough pasture. This value was then used this to calculate the roughness class and the power law exponent shown above.
Standard deviation (mph)
9.88
Coefficient of variation (%)
62.9
Frequency of calms (%)
0.95
Possible records
41,472
Vaild records
40,089
Missing records
1,383
Data completeness (%)
96.7

 

No wind rose included since the wind vane failed after recording for 6 days

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, allowing for losses of about 13%. 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.

Turbine
Rotor
Diameter
meters
Rotor
Power
kW
Hub
Height
meters
Hub
Height
Wind
Speed
mph
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
%
Bergey Excel-R
6.7
7.5
30
15.71
21.05
10.10
2.19
19,200
29.2
Bergey Excel-S
6.7
10
30
15.71
11.69
6.49
2.55
22,400
25.5
Bergey XL.1
2.5
1
30
15.71
5.35
14.97
0.34
3,000
33.8
Southwest Skystream 3.7
3.7
1.8
30
15.71
18.18
0
0.56
4,900
30.9
Southwest Whisper 500
4.5
3
30
15.71
20.45
12.43
1.04
9,100
34.6
Northern Power NW 100/20
20
100
30
15.71
28.20
0
21.1
185,200
21.1
Vestas V47 - 660 kW
47
660
65
17.51
17.28
3.23
199
1,739,500
30.1
GE 1.5s
70.5
1,500
80.5
18.04
21.2
13.28
434
3,800,800
28.9
Vestas V80 - 2.0 MW
80
2,000
100
18.6
20.23
8.28
652
5,708,600
32.6
GE 2.5xl
100
2,500
110
18.85
15.71
15.10
886
7,764,400
35.5

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Last updated: June 2009
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