COLORADO ANEMOMETER LOAN PROGRAM
 

PROGRAM INFORMATION

Frequently Asked Questions
Colorado Wind Resource Maps
ALP Sites and Data
Small Wind Electric Systems: A Colorado Consumer's Guide
Small Wind Applications Guide Video
Donations

APPLICATION INFORMATION

Program Goals
Selection Criteria
Lessee Responsibilities
Site Layout and Anchors
Tower Safety
Data Plug Replacement
Ideal Sites
Online Application
 

WIND TURBINE RESOURCES

Zoning
Equipment Information and Dealers
Financing
Links

ABOUT US

Current and Past Personnel
Student Positions
Contact Us

BRUSH - 10/4/2008 through 05/14/2009

LOCATION DETAILS
Latitude:
N 40° 8.814 ’ or N 40° 8’ 49"
Longitude:
W 103° 40.054’ or W 103° 40’ 3"
Township:
2 N
Range:
56 W
Section:
8
Elevation (ft.):
4,371
Tower Type:
NRG Tilt-Up
Tower Height (ft.):
98
Tower Height (m):
30
Vane Offset (deg):
205°
Direction Basis:
Magnetic North
Mag. Declination:
8° 39' E, changing by 8' W/yr
Wind Explorer S/N:
1375
Site No.:
4003

DATA DETAILS

October 4 , 2008 through May 14, 2009:

The anemometer tower was installed on October 4, 2008. The site is located west of the Kamp Ranch about 8 miles SSE of Brush in a field with scrub brush. The site has good access to wind from all directions.

All data is 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 30m. This equipment feeds into an NRG Wind Explorer data logger. All data plugs will be sent to the Colorado ALP at Colorado State University 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
Brush_4003_2008_1111_0109.A08 Brush_4003_2008_1111_0109.txt
Brush_4003_2009_0109_0207.A09 Brush_4003_2009_0109_0207.txt
Brush_4003_2009_0207_0514.A09 Brush_4003_2009_0207_0514.txt
Brush_4003_2009_0514_0804.A09 Brush_4003_2009_0514_0804.txt

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.

NOTE: The windspeed sensor failed on 1/19/09 at 17:10. It was replaced on 2/7/09 at 11:40. All windspeed data during this period was ignored during the analysis.

The certification for this replacement anemometer is as follows:

NRG #40C Calibrated Anemometer
Model No.
1900
Serial No.
1795000905643
Calibration Date
12/1/2008 5:23:53 a.m.
Slope
0.759 m/s per Hz
Offset
0.30 m/s

Using this data, an analysis of the wind resource report was developed using Windographer 1.32. For this data an offset of +205° was applied to the wind vane data. For this report, a validation analysis was performed on the data. This data was filtered two ways:

  1. Any wind speed data where the wind speed was less than 1 mph for 5 hours or more was deleted.
  2. Any wind direction data where the wind direction varied by less than 3 degrees over 6 hours was deleted

Windographer was then used to add in synthetic data to these intervals with suspect data. 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 to date at this site are shown below:

Data Properties
Variable
Data Set Starts:
10/04/2008 14:00 MST
Height above ground (m)
30
Data Set Ends:
05/014/2009 09:20
Mean wind speed (mph)
11.567
Data Set Duration:
7.3 months
Median wind speed (mph)
10.100
Length of Time Step:
10 minutes
Min wind speed (mph)
0.43
Elevation (ft.):
4,371
Max wind speed (mph)
54.40
Calm threshold (mph):
0
Mean power density (W/m²)
201
Wind Power Coefficients
Mean energy content (kWh/m²/yr)
1,762
Power Density at 50m:
238 W/m²
Energy pattern factor
2.703
Wind Power Class:
2 (Marginal)
Weibull k
1.511
Wind Shear Coefficients
Weibull c (mph)
12.822
Power Law Exponent:
0.121
1-hr autocorrelation coefficient
0.834
Surface Roughness:
0.01 m
Diurnal pattern strength
0.192
Roughness Class:
0.780
Hour of peak wind speed
17
Roughness Description:
Rough pasture
Mean turbulence intensity
0.1793
Note: The wind power density and wind power class at 50m are projections of the data from 20m. A surface roughness of 0.01 meters was assumed for this projection. This is equal to that of rough pasture. This value was then used this to calculate the roughness class and the power law exponent shown above.
Standard deviation (mph)
7.804
Frequency of calms (%)
0
Total data elements
95,820
Suspect/missing elements
3,908
Data completeness (%)
95.9

 

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
11.57
31.78
4.23
1.3
11,100
16.9
Bergey Excel-S
6.7
10
30
11.57
18.11
2.65
1.4
12,500
14.3
Bergey XL.1
2.5
1
30
11.57
8.82
6.35
0.2
1,700
19.5
Southwest Skystream 3.7
3.7
1.8
30
11.57
29.81
0
0.4
3,100
19.5
Southwest Whisper 500
4.5
3
30
11.57
31.73
5.25
0.6
5,400
20.7
Northern Power NW 100/20
20
100
30
11.57
43.02
0
11.6
101,700
11.6
Vestas V47 - 660 kW
47
660
65
12.89
26.44
1.04
113.1
990,600
17.1
GE 1.5s
70.5
1,500
80.5
13.28
32.40
5.19
235.4
2,062,100
15.7
Vestas V80 - 2.0 MW
80
2,000
100
13.69
31.07
3.15
379.7
3,326,200
19.0
GE 2.5xl
100
2,500
110
13.87
24.59
6.09
528.9
4,633,500
21.2

 

 


For more information Contact Us!

 



Disclaimer | Equal Opportunity | Contact CSU
© 2008 Mechanical Engineering,
Colorado State University. All Rights Reserved.
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA (970) 491-7709
Last updated: June 2009
Email questions & comments to: michael@engr.colostate.edu
This page is Javascript enabled. Turn on Javascript to view.