Return on Investment of a Lidar Remote Sensing Device

The Annual Energy Production (AEP) is the quantity of energy delivered per year by a wind farm. During the project study, a Wind Resource Assessment Program (WRAP) is designed to estimate the mean expected AEP (P50) and the uncertainty on the AEP (σAEP). These two decisive numbers drive the financing of the project. Small derivations in the calculated level of uncertainty can have a significant effect on project financing. The WRAP enumerates a quantity of independent uncertain­ ties, some of which can strongly influence the global AEP uncertainty. Among the uncertainty related to the wind resource estimation (σWS) are the wind profile vertical extrapolation from mast height to hub height and horizontal extrapolation from measurement location(s) to turbine loca­ tions. At the same time, the emergence of commercially available Lidars, very portable and accurate remote sensing devices based on Laser technology (see Fig. 1), offers new possibili­ ties for wind experts when setting up a wind measurement strategy. We study the use of a Lidar system in addition to traditional met mast measurements to achieve a reduction of AEP uncertainty. This leads to optimized financing of a wind farm project by reducing the equity investment and increasing the Return on Equity (RoE) of the investor. The Return on Investment (RoI) of a Lidar system is eventually extremely positive through the financial gain of uncertainty reduction minus the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the Lidar.