ALP No. 65 - Black Hawk

Install Team (Left to Right): Jim Erdman, A.J. Lyle, Larry Sterling, Mike Kostrzewa, Stephen Hill, Todd MacDonald, and Irene Shonle (taking picture)

DATA DETAILS

The anemometer tower was installed on December 11, 2008 and removed on November 6, 2010. The site was located NW of the Gilpin county fairgrounds on a flat elevated fill, with small aspens to the SW and the fairgrounds to the E and SE. The site had good access to wind from all directions except perhaps the SW, but the predominate winds were expected to be from the N and NW.

All data was collected using an NRG #40 Anemometer and NRG #200 Wind Vane mounted on a tilt-up tower located on the landowner's property at a height of 20m. This equipment fed 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.

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.

Using this data, an analysis of the wind resource report was developed using Windographer 1.45. For this data an offset of +18° was applied to the wind vane data. For this report, a validation analysis was performed on the data. This data was filtered two ways:

Windographer was then used to add in synthetic data to these intervals with suspect data. A summary wind resource assessment report, the combined data files (with and without the validation analysis), and the Windographer files (with and without the validation analysis) are given below:

Highlights of the wind resource for the entire recording period from December 11, 2008 through November 6, 2010 are given below:

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..

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	20	8.34	51.31	0.8	0.6	5,600	8.6
Bergey Excel-S	6.7	10	20	8.34	31.37	0.38	0.7	6,200	7.1
Bergey XL.1	2.5	1	20	8.34	13.71	1.14	0.1	900	10.2
Southwest Skystream 3.7	3.7	1.8	20	8.34	46.70	0	0.2	1,700	10.5
Southwest Whisper 500	4.5	3	20	8.34	51.31	1	0.3	3,000	11.3
Northern Power NW 100/21	21	100	37	9.28	41.03	0	9.4	82,600	9.4
Vestas V47 - 660 kW	47	660	65	9.95	41.90	0.15	67.6	592,300	10.2
GE 1.5s	70.5	1,500	80.5	10.63	46.71	1.49	146.8	1,285,900	9.8
Vestas V80 - 2.0 MW	80	2,000	100	11.04	45.02	0.81	262.2	2,297,000	13.1
GE 2.5xl	100	2,500	110	11.22	35.96	2.02	375.6	3,290,100	15.0
Mariah Windspire VAWT - Mfg's Spec	1.2	1.2	20	8.34	38.57	0	0.1	700	6.4
Mariah Windspire VAWT - NWTC Normal Test	1.2	1.2	20	8.34	55.84	0	0.1	500	4.9

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.

For Gilpin County Residents:

County zoning codes limit the height of a wind turbine tower to 40 feet unless a variance to the code is accepted. Using the surface roughness and power law exponent given above, Windographer was used to project the wind speed at 40 feet (12.2m). At this height, the average wind speed is 7.65 mph and the wind power density is about 51 W per square meter of wind swept area. For residents looking to install small scale wind turbines, the table below provides the expected performance of typical home-scale wind turbines at 40 feet, WITHOUT ACCOUNTING FOR ANY TURBINE LOSSES:

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	12.2	7.65	56.56	0.47	0.5	4,400	6.7
Bergey Excel-S	6.7	10	12.2	7.65	35.07	0.22	0.6	4,900	5.6
Bergey XL.1	2.5	1	12.2	7.65	15.54	0.68	0.1	700	8.1
Southwest Skystream 3.7	3.7	1.8	12.2	7.65	51.31	0	0.2	1,300	8.6
Southwest Whisper 500	4.5	3	12.2	7.65	56.56	0.58	0.3	2,400	9.1
Mariah Windspire VAWT - Mfg's Spec	1.2	1.2	12.2	7.65	42.34	0	0.1	500	5.2
Mariah Windspire VAWT - NWTC Normal Test	1.2	1.2	12.2	7.65	60.47	0	0.0	400	3.7

Note that the table includes the expected performance from the Mariah Power Windspire vertical axis turbine using specification available from the manufacturer and from the results of a partial test that was conducted at the National Wind Technology Center near Boulder.

BLACK HAWK - 12/11/2008 - 11/6/2010

DATA DETAILS