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.
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 |
![](ALP_Sites/West_Walsenburg_(42)/West_Walsenburg_Wind_Shear_300.png) |
No wind rose included since the wind vane failed after recording for 6 days |
![](ALP_Sites/West_Walsenburg_(42)/West_Walsenburg_Seasonal_Wind_Speed_Profile_300.png) |
![](ALP_Sites/West_Walsenburg_(42)/West_Walsenburg_Daily_Wind_Speed_Profile_300.png) |
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 |
|