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PARK COUNTY SITE 2209 - COMO VICINITY

7/25/2008 through 8/17/2009

LOCATION DETAILS
Latitude:
N 39° 18.663' or N 39° 18' 39.78"
Longitude:
W 105° 50.668' or W 105° 50' 40.08"
Map Datum:
WGS 84
Basis:
Colorado, Sixth Principal Meridian
Township:
8 S
Range:
76 W
Section:
36
Elevation:
2,886 m (9,469 feet)
Tower Type:
NRG 60n XHD
Tower Height:
60 m (197 feet)
Vane Offset (deg):
165
Direction Basis:
Magnetic North
Mag. Declination:
9° 41' E changing by 0° 7' W/year
Site Number:
2209
Symphonie S/N:
309018287

DATA DETAILS

This tower was one of five included in a fleet of 60m towers that were installed by E.ON Climate & Renewables for a commercial wind study in Park County. The tower was installed on July 25, 2008 and removed on August 17, 2009. The site is located in an open field about 2.6 miles E of Como and about 0.9 miles NE of the intersection of Elkhorn Road and County Road 15. With the exception of a N/S ridge that starts about one mile SSW and across Elkhorn Road from the site, there is good access to the wind from all directions.

The following commissioning and decommissioning files were available from Park County:

In summary, data was collected initially using using three (3) NRG #40 Anemometers, three (3) Second Wind #C3 anemometers, and two (2) NRG #200P Wind Vanes, as follows:

  • Anemometers
    1. NRG #40 (S/N 68518) at 58.5 meters heading 165° on a 68" boom
    2. NRG #40 (S/N 68516) at 40 meters heading 165° on a 68" boom
    3. NRG #40 (S/N 68357) at 20 meters heading 165° on a 90" boom
    4. Second Wind #C3 (S/N 5419) at 58.5 meters heading 345° on a 68" boom
    5. Second Wind #C3 (S/N 5421) at 40 meters heading 345° on a 68" boom
    6. Second Wind #C3 (S/N 5416) at 20 meters heading 345° on a 90 " boom
  • Wind Vanes
    1. NRG #200 P at 56.5 meters heading 345° on a 68" boom with the null point facing toward the tower
    2. NRG #200 P at 18.5 meters heading 345° on a 90 " boom with the null point facing toward the tower

There was also an NRG 110S temperature sensor and an NRG BP-20 pressure sensor (S/N 18055258) at a height of 3 meters and voltmeter in the data logger box..

All sensors fed into an NRG Symphonie data logger. The certifications for the anemometers are as follows:

NRG #40C Calibrated Anemometers
Anem. No.
58.5A
40A
20A
Height
58.5 m
40 m
20 m
Model No.
1900
1900
1900
Serial No.
68518
68516
68357
Calibration Date
6/14/08 2:55 PM
6/14/08 2:35 PM
6/12/08 5:52 PM
Slope
0.762 m/s per Hz
0.760 m/s per Hz
0.760 m/s per Hz
Offset
0.31 m/s
0.36 m/s
0.36 m/s

 

Original Second Wind Anemometers
Anem. No.
58.5B
40B
20B
Height
58.5 m
40 m
20 m
Model No.
C3
C3
C3
Serial No.
5419
5421
5416
Slope
0.766 m/s per Hz
0.766 m/s per Hz
0.766 m/s per Hz
Offset
0.324 m/s
0.324 m/s
0.324 m/s

After about eight months, the three NRG anemometers were replaced on March 14, 2009 by three Second Wind #C3 anemometers. The existing Second Wind anemometers were also replaced. The replacement anemometer serial numbers and certifications are given in the tables below:

Second Wind Anemometer Replacements for Original NRG
Anem. No.
58.5A
40A
20A
Height
58.5 m
40 m
20 m
Model No.
C3
C3
C3
Serial No.
8575
8573
8563
Slope
0.766 m/s per Hz
0.766 m/s per Hz
0.766 m/s per Hz
Offset
0.324 m/s
0.324 m/s
0.324 m/s
Second Wind Anemometer Replacements for Original
Anem. No.
58.5B
40B
20B
Height
58.5 m
40 m
20 m
Model No.
C3
C3
C3
Serial No.
8577
8574
8564
Slope
0.766 m/s per Hz
0.766 m/s per Hz
0.766 m/s per Hz
Offset
0.324 m/s
0.324 m/s
0.324 m/s

The data logger generated wind reports for each day. Using the Symphonie Data Retriever software, each day's data was complied into one large data file, using the appropriate anemometer slope and offset before and after replacement. A zipped file that contains all of the NRG data files and a text version of the aggregate data for all days are given below.

Raw Wind Data Files
NRG Data Card Files
Txt Files
Como_Vicinity_2209_2008_0725_to_2009_0817.zip Como_Vicinity_2209_2008_0725_to_2009_0817_NRG_2nd.txt

It is important to note that these are the raw files DO NOT include the offsets for the wind vanes so some compensation is required.

Experienced users may also wish to download the site file used to process the raw data with the Symphonie Data Retriever software. You can find the site file for the first period with the NRG and Second Wind anemometers here and the site file for the second period with just Second Wind anemometers here.

Using this data, an analysis of the wind resource report was developed using Windographer 1.45. For this data an offset of +165° was applied to both wind vane data. fields. Since the data set contains data for two or more wind speed sensors at different heights above the ground, Windographer considered the wind shear relationship between different wind speed sensors to synthesize missing data for those wind speed sensors. A best fit using the power law profile was chosen to synthesize the data. Once the wind shear relation was chosen, a daily influence on the wind shear profile was considered so that in each time step where the wind speed is known at one height but not at a different height, Windographer estimated the unknown wind speed based on the best-fit wind shear profile for the appropriate hour of the day.

Using this data, an analysis of the wind resource report was developed using Windographer 1.45. For this report, a data quality analysis was performed on the data. This data was filtered two ways:

  1. Any wind speed data (from any anemometer) where the wind speed was less than 1 m/s at a temperature less than 2°C for 4 hours or more was deleted.
  2. Any wind direction data (from any wind vane) where the wind direction varied by less than 2 degrees at a temperature less than 2°C for 4 hours or more was deleted.

Windographer was then used to add in synthetic data to these intervals with suspect data.

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

Final Wind Resource Summary

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

Data Properties
Data Set Starts:
7/25/2008 14:20 MST
Data Set Ends:
8/17/2009 8:00
Data Set Duration:
13 months
Length of Time Step:
10 minutes
Elevation:
2,886 m (9,469 ft)
Mean air density (kg/m³):
0.893
Wind Power Coefficients
Power Density at 50m:
235 W/m²
Wind Power Class:
2 (Marginal)
Calculated Wind Shear Coefficients
Power Law Exponent:
0.0960
Surface Roughness:
0.000945 m
Roughness Class:
0.31
Roughness Description:
Rough seas

 

Variable
58.5m A
58.5m B
40m A
40m B
30m A
30m B
Height above ground
58.5 m (92 ft) 58.5 m (92 ft) 40 m (131 ft) 40 m (131 ft) 20 m (66 ft) 20 m (66 ft)
Mean 10 min avg. wind speed (m/s)
5.209 5.272 5.054 5.230 4.714 4.770
Median 10 min avg. wind speed (m/s)
4.200 4.350 4.030 4.290 3.770 3.930
Standard Deviation (m/s)
4.238 4.174 4.028 4.020 3.650 3.724
Min 10 min avg. wind speed (m/s)
0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06
Max 10 min avg. wind speed (m/s)
33.99 33.38 32.09 32.16 29.68 29.73
Mean power density (W/m²)
237 232 209 216 163 168
Mean energy content (kWh/m²/yr)
2,075 2,036 1,832 1,889 1,426 1,469
Weibull k
1.234 1.263 1.282 1.319 1.333 1.283
Weibull c (m/s)
5.579 5.675 5.466 5.685 5.139 5.151
Energy pattern factor
3.744 3.546 3.622 3.371 3.475 3.458
1-hr autocorrelation coefficient
0.799 0.800 0.793 0.792 0.786 0.780
Diurnal pattern strength
0.385 0.379 0.385 0.375 0.373 0.386
Hour of peak wind speed
15 15 15 15 15 15
Mean turbulence intensity
0.2518 0.2433 0.2500 0.2420 0.2536 0.2708
Possible records
55,834 55,834 55,834 55,834 55,834 55,834
Valid records
54,958 55,051 55,011 55,130 55,075 55,037
Missing records
876 783 823 704 759 797
Data Recovery Rate (%)
98.43 98.6 98.53 98.74 98.64 98.57
Total data elements
2,456,696
Suspect/missing elements
6,265
Data completeness (%)
99.7

 

Wind Shear

 

Probability Distribution Function for the 58.5m Anemometer - A

 

Probability Distribution Function for the 58.5m Anemometer - B

 

Probability Distribution Function for the 40m Anemometer - A

 

Probability Distribution Function for the 40m Anemometer - B

 

Probability Distribution Function for the 20m Anemometer - A

 

Probability Distribution Function for the 20m Anemometer - B

 

Wind Rose at 56.5m

 

Wind Rose at 18.5m

 

Daily Wind Speed Profile

 

Seasonal Wind Speed Profile

 

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
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
%
Bergey Excel-R
6.7
7.5
30 4.93 43.62 3.51 1.3 11,600 17.7
Bergey Excel-S
6.7
10
30 4.93 29.58 1.98 1.5 13,000 14.8
Bergey XL.1
2.5
1
30 4.93 14.64 5.10 0.2 1,800 20.4
Southwest Skystream 3.7
3.7
1.8
30 4.93 39.63 0 0.3 3,000 18.8
Southwest Whisper 500
4.5
3
30 4.93 43.36 4.29 0.6 5,700 21.6
Northern Power NW 100/21
21
100
37 5.03 39.13 0 14.7 128,600 14.7
Vestas V47 - 660 kW
47
660
65 5.32 40.85 0.86 112.5 985,700 17.0
GE 1.5s
70.5
1,500
80.5 5.43 46.00 3.61 230.0 2,014,500 15.3
Vestas V80 - 2.0 MW
80
2,000
100 5.56 45.33 2.12 368.6 3,228,700 18.4
GE 2.5xl
100
2,500
110 5.61 39.92 4.17 513.5 4,498,100 20.5

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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Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA (970) 491-7709
Last updated: June 2009
Email questions & comments to: michael@engr.colostate.edu
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