COLORADO ANEMOMETER LOAN PROGRAM
 

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HORSEFLY MESA - 9/20/2011 to 3/14/2012

LOCATION DETAILS
Latitude:
N 38° 13.566’ or N 38° 13’ 33.96"
Longitude:
W 107° 55.492’ or W 107° 55’ 29.52"
Survey Meridian:
Colorado, New Mexico Meridian
Township:
46 N
Range:
10 W
Section:
24
Elevation:
9,009 feet (2,746 m)
Datum:
WGS 84
Tower Type:
NRG tilt-up tower
Tower Height:
20 m (65.6 feet)
Vane Offset (deg):
+80°
Direction Basis:
True North
Mag. Declination:
10° 7' E, changing by 7' W/yr
Wind Explorer S/N:
0665
Site No.:
3800

Install Team (from right): Andrew Costinett (CSU), Will Clapsadl (Ouray County Facilities), and Mike Kostrzewa (taking picture).

DATA DETAILS

September 20, 2011 through March 14, 2012:

The anemometer tower was installed on September 20, 2011. The site is located on Horsefly Mesa in the Cornerstone development overlooking the Uncomphagre Valley. The site is located in a pasture on a saddle between two hills to the NW and the SE. This spot has good access to wind, particularly from the SW.

All data is collected using an NRG #40 Calibrated Anemometer and NRG #200 Wind Vane. The certification for the anemometer is as follows:

NRG #40C Calibrated Anemometer
Model No.
1900
Serial No.
1795-00088445
Calibration Date
11/6/08 8:00 a.m.
Slope
0.760 m/s per Hz
Offset
0.36 m/s

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. This equipment feeds into an NRG Wind Explorer data logger. All data plugs are 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
Highest
2 sec
Gust
m/s
Gust
Date/Time
Horsefly_Mesa_3800_2011_0920_1207.A11 Horsefly_Mesa_3800_2011_0920_1207.txt
30.4
11/13/2011 1:57
Horsefly_Mesa_3800_2011_1207_0314.a11 Horsefly_Mesa_3800_2011_1207_0314.txt
28.0
12/31/2011 6:26

It is important to note that these are the raw files without any compensation for offset.

Using this data, an analysis of the wind resource report was developed using Windographer 2.49. For this data an offset of +80° was applied to the wind vane data. This data was flagged for icing in two ways:

  1. Any wind speed data where the wind speed was less than 0.5 m/s for 3 hours or more was flagged and not included in the wind resource analysis calculations
  2. Any wind direction data where the wind direction varied by less than 3 degrees for 8 hours or more was flagged and not included in the wind resource analysis calculations

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

Interim Wind Resource Summary

Highlights of the wind resource to date at this site are shown below:

Data Properties
Variable
Data Set Starts:
11/17/2011 14:50 MST
Height above ground (m)
20
Data Set Ends:
3/14/2012 09:50
10-min. mean wind speed (m/s)
4.626
Data Set Duration:
5.8 months
10-min median wind speed (m/s)
3.690
Length of Time Step:
10 minutes
10-min min. wind speed (m/s)
0.360
Elevation:
9,009 feet (2,746 m)
10-min max wind speed (m/s)
23.160
Mean air density (kg/m³):
0.933
10-min standard deviation (m/s)
3.850
Wind Power Coefficients
Weibull k
1.076
Power Density at 50m:
236 W/m²
Weibull c (m/s)
4.736
Wind Power Class:
2 (Marginal)
Mean power density (W/m²)
167
Wind Shear Coefficients
Mean energy content (kWh/m²/yr)
1,465
Power Law Exponent:
0.128
Mean turbulence intensity
0.221
Surface Roughness:
0.01 m
Energy pattern factor
3.620
Roughness Class:
0.78
Total data elements
75,915
Roughness Description:
Rough pasture
Flagged wind speed data elements
446
Flagged direction data elements
1,930
Missing data elements
6
Data recovery rate (%)
98.23%
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 the surface roughness for a rough pasture. This value was then used this to calculate the roughness class and the power law exponent shown above.

 

Vertical Wind Shear, Height (m) vs Mean Wind Speed (m/s)

 

Wind Frequency Rose at 20 meters

 

Wind Energy Rose at 20 meters

 

Daily Wind Speed Profile at 20m, Hourly Mean Wind Speed (m/s) vs. Hour of the Day

 

Seasonal Wind Speed Profile at 20m, Monthly Mean Wind Speed (m/s) vs. Month

 

 

Probability Distribution Function at 20m: Frequency (%) vs. Wind Speed (m/s)

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.

Keep in mind too that listing a particular turbine doesn't imply an endorsement - not does it imply that installing a particular turbine model is feasible or recommended for a particular site. For consistency, the larger turbines are included even at sites that where they may not be practical so that one can compare the relative production of different sites.

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
20 4.63 46.8 3.8 1.4 12,300 18.7
Bergey Excel-S
6.7
10
20 4.63 35.8 2.1 1.5 13,400 15.3
Bergey XL.1
2.5
1
20 4.63 22.8 5.6 0.2 1,900 21.1
Southwest Skystream 3.7
3.7
1.8
20 4.63 44.2 0.0 0.4 3,100 19.7
Southwest Whisper 500
4.5
3
20 4.63 46.8 4.8 0.7 5,800 22.2
Northern Power NW 100/21
21
100
37 5.00 41.8 0.0 16.9 147,800 16.9
GE 1.5s
70.5
1,500
64.7 5.36 47.0 4.4 265.0 2,321,500 17.7
GE 2.5xl
100
2,500
75 5.46 42.1 4.8 560.5 4,909,900 22.4
GE 3.0s
90
3,000
70 5.42 47.8 1.5 451.9 3,958,600 15.1
Vestas V90 - 1.8 MW
90
1,800
80 5.51 41.8 5.2 451.8 3,957,900 25.1
Vestas V90 - 2.0 MW
90
2,000
80 5.51 41.8 5.0 479.8 4,203,100 24.0
Vestas V90 - 3.0 MW 109.4 dB(A)
90
3,000
80 5.51 39.6 0.9 548.2 4,802,000 18.3
Vestas V100 - 1.8 MW
100
1,800
80 5.51 40.1 6.7 511.6 4,481,200 28.4
Vestas V100 - 2.0 MW
100
2,000
80 5.51 41.0 1.7 531.5 4,656,100 26.6
Vestas V100 - 2.6 MW
100
2,600
75 5.46 41.1 2.2 581.7 5,096,000 22.4
Vestas V112 - 3.0 MW
112
3,075
84 5.54 41.3 5.2 765.9 6,709,000 24.9

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.


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Last updated: June 2009
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