Trusted providers of bankable wind data, Dulas, have confirmed plans to acquire ‘a fleet’ of ZephIR 300 and ZephIR DM’s to work as rental lidars to the UK and wider European market. This expansion adds to the company’s existing successful remote sensing business currently comprised of sodar measurement sensors.
“Dulas has always prided itself with delivering quality technical and engineering services to our customers, using our 30 years of renewables experience to innovate in all our business areas. We have built an exciting remote sensing business to support our customer’s wind measurement campaigns and now, with the introduction of lidar to our portfolio, we can help to deliver fully bankable, hub height wind measurements across the UK at very affordable prices.
Whether it’s supporting measurements during noise impact assessments and noise monitoring, through to full Energy Yield Assessments, or even operating on turbines for performance troubleshooting Dulas’ new ZephIR Lidars are available immediately,” commented Rhian Evans, account manager for Remote Sensing at Dulas.
Dulas has a team of remote sensing instrumentation engineers based across the UK and multiple crews operating in any one week, who are equipped to economically, and expertly manage client-owned remote sensing and associated power systems both in the UK but also wider into the European market. Engineers are fully trained and have extensive experience for the deployment of both ground-based ZephIR 300s as well as the turbine mounted installations of ZephIR DM. Further, Dulas are now confirmed as a ZephIR Trusted Service Provider in the UK capable of providing all the necessary lidar support services to customers.
ZephIR 300 is ground-based and provides Stage 3, finance-grade wind measurement onshore and offshore from just 10 metres above ground, up to 200 metres without the need for a met mast or planning permission. The continuous wave lidar technology emits an infra-red, eye-safe laser focussed at each height of interest in order to extract the maximum information, 50 points per second, about the wind flow at that height.
ZephIR DM is turbine-mounted and provides rotor equivalent wind speeds, an expected requirement of the new IEC standards for wind measurements, from just 10m in front of the turbine out to ranges of 300m. Measurements allow for accurate power curves independent from any turbine anemometry, performance troubleshooting and turbine optimisation through short-term temporary installations.
Alex Woodward, head of commercial marketing & products at ZephIR Lidar welcomed the announcement stating, “Behind the scenes, Dulas has been operating our customer’s ZephIR systems for many years now and their team are one of the most experienced in the industry for remote sensing deployments in the UK. This is very much a natural step forward for Dulas to add lidar to their remote sensing business stream. I am very excited now though at the prospect of customers being able to also rent our turbine-mounted product, ZephIR DM, from Dulas for short term campaigns to focus on key issues, such as yaw misalignment, to extract every last percent from their operating assets. Customers can even look to the potential of extending turbine life through more appropriate O&M strategies based on in-situ power curve measurements from ZephIR DM.”
