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Energy Procedia 53 (2014) 156 – 161

EERA DeepWind’2014, 11th Deep Sea Offshore Wind R&D Conference

Results and conclusions of a floating-lidar offshore test

J. Gottschalla*, G. Wolken-Möhlmanna, T. Viergutza, B. Langea
a
Fraunhofer IWES, Am Seedeich 45, 27572 Bremerhaven, Germany

Abstract

In this contribution we introduce the Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy, a floating-lidar
prototype comprising a proven marine buoy design and a pulsed lidar device integrated in it. A
software correction algorithm was developed to remove the effects of sea conditions resulting in
system motions from the recorded lidar data. The final performance of the system was verified in
a measurement campaign next to the offshore meteorological mast FINO1 in the German North
Sea. Both the results of an accuracy assessment and a more detailed sensitivity analysis of the
floating-lidar performance with respect to different external parameters were performed.
For the recorded horizontal mean wind speeds a very good measurement performance with an
R2-value of 0.996 is achieved even when no motion correction is applied. To use the turbulence
intensity and wind direction data from the system, the application of a motion correction is
necessary. The overall System Availability for the nine-weeks-measurement period was derived
as 98%.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of SINTEF Energi AS.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of SINTEF Energi AS
Keywords: floating lidar; FINO1 met. mast; verification test; sensitivitiy analysis.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 471 14290 354

E-mail address: [email protected]

1876-6102 © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of SINTEF Energi AS
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2014.07.224
 J. Gottschall et al. / Energy Procedia 53 (2014) 156 – 161 157

1. Introduction

During the last years it was shown that floating-lidar systems, defined as a LiDAR (Light Detection And
Ranging) wind measuring device integrated in or placed on top of a buoy, offer a great potential to assess offshore
wind resources. In particular, these systems are a cost-effective and comparatively flexible alternative to fixed
offshore meteorological (met.) masts. The development of suitable, i.e. for an application in the offshore wind
industry optimized, floating-lidar systems has made considerable progress within the last few years. The
realisations, developed in different R&D projects and being partly commercially offered already today, vary not
only in the adapted lidar technology and buoy concepts but also in their strategies for data handling or power supply
as well as in the consideration of motion effects on the recorded data. A comprehensive overview of different
floating-lidar systems is e.g. given in [1], selected systems are introduced in more detail in [1a-c].
In this contribution we focus on our own development, the Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy that is introduced
in 2. Following the system introduction, we present the results and conclusions of the first offshore trial of the
system next to the FINO1 met. mast. The paper is concluded with a brief summary in 4.

2. Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy

The Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy was developed within the R&D project ‘Offshore Messboje’ (funded by
the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, with a duration of two years
from 2011 to 2013). The prototype was completed in spring 2013.
The developed floating-lidar system integrates a Windcube£ v2 lidar device in an adapted marine buoy, designed
according to the navigational-light buoy LT81. The complete buoy has a height of 7.2 m, a diameter of 2.55 m and
a weight of 4.7 t. The system is characterized by its encapsulated lidar device, placed in a custom-made housing to
ensure maximum protection against the offshore environment. An autonomous power system was designed and
assembled based on three micro-wind turbines, solar panels and AGM battery banks for energy storage. The motion-
correction algorithm, with respect to that the internal (motion-) measurement system was set up, was developed by
Fraunhofer IWES in preliminary studies to the project, and has been implemented as part of the post-processing of
the floating-lidar data. The algorithm utilizes high-frequency (10 Hz) yaw and tilt data from a motion-measurement
system that runs in parallel to the lidar device. Based on these data a coordinate transformation for the reference
system of the lidar measurements is performed, and the recorded lidar data are corrected considering a fixed refernce
system – cf. the description in [2].
Figure 1 shows the Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy before and during installation for its first offshore trial in
the German North Sea.

Figure 1: Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy (© Fraunhofer IWES / Photographs: Caspar Sessler)
158 J. Gottschall et al. / Energy Procedia 53 (2014) 156 – 161

3. Offshore test next to FINO1 met. mast

The offshore test of the Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy next to the FINO1 met. mast was arranged to
validate the functionality of the system and to verify its measurement performance. In this regard, both the system
availability and the accuracy of the recorded data in comparison to the FINO1 reference data were studied.

3.1 Setup of offshore test

The research platform FINO1 is located in the German North Sea about 45 km north of the East Frisian island
Borkum (exact coordinates of the platform are N 54° 00’ 53.5’’ E 6° 35’ 15.5’’). The water depth at the location is
approximately 30 m. The predominant wind direction is south-east with a yearly-averaged wind speed of 9.9 m/s at
100 m height. The direction of the sea currents is governed by the prevailing tide. The offshore wind farm and test
field alpha ventus is located to the east of FINO1 with a closest distance of 400 m.
The Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy was installed on 2 August 2013 at the location N 54° 01.00’ E 6° 34.89’,
i.e. north-west of the met. mast in a distance of about 450 m. A bottom-based AWAC system (for measuring the sea
conditions), that is part of the Fraunhofer IWES floating-lidar concept, was installed during the first visit for
inspection on 28 August 2013 at the location N 54° 00.99’ E 6° 34.63’. Both systems were recovered according to
plan on 6 October 2013.

3.2 Results
The overall measurement duration for the offshore verification test is defined by the installation and de-
installation of the floating-lidar system, which corresponds to 65 complete days or about nine weeks. According to
our pre-set lidar measurement heights (from 40 m to 260 m in steps of 20 m) and the heights of the cup
anemometers at the FINO1 met. mast, we identified as height levels for the verification of horizontal wind speeds
100 m, 80 m, 60 m and 40 m. The cup anemometers at the three lower heights are boom-mounted, the anemometer
at 100 m is top-mounted with a cage – for protection but leading also to further distortion – around it. Wind vanes
for reference wind direction measurements are not mounted at the same height levels as the cup anemometers. For
comparisons with the lidar measurements and for filtering purposes, we have used the vanes at one level below – i.e.
90 m, 70 m, 50 m and 33 m.
The availability of the floating-lidar system during the period of the offshore trial was evaluated by deriving the
respective Key Performance Indicator (KPI) defined in [2]. The System Availability is defined in that context as the
fraction of time, the lidar system is ready to function according to the specifications and deliver data, taking into
account all time-stamped data entries in the output data files including flagged data. The value of the KPI is then the
number of those time-stamped data entries relative to the maximum possible number of 10-min data entries
including periods of maintenance (regarded as 100%) within the considered period. The numbers we obtain for our
nine-weeks trial are listed in Table 1.

Table 1: Derived numbers for System Availability defined according to [2].

Monthly / Overall System (LIDAR system) Availability:

(02-31 August 2013) 4144 / 4257 = 97%
(01-30 September 2013) 4256 / 4320 = 99%
(overall) 9228 / 9405 = 98%

Figure 2 shows the correlation between measured horizontal mean wind speeds from the floating-lidar device and
the reference cup anemometer at 100 m measurement height together with the results of a two-parameter linear
regression. Before applying the regression analysis, the data were filtered according to the following criteria:
 A valid wind direction sector was defined by the wind directions between 280° and 350°, corresponding
to the directions where no wake effects affect the reference data;
 Only (reference) horizontal mean wind speeds larger or equal 2 m/s were considered – as specified in
[2];
 J. Gottschall et al. / Energy Procedia 53 (2014) 156 – 161 159

 Lidar data availability for each 10-min interval, defined as the corresponding parameter output by the
Windcube lidar device, was required to be 100%.
Both the correlation plot and the regression results (see Figure 2) demonstrate a very good agreement of the
measured mean wind speeds – and therewith a very good performance of the tested floating-lidar device for this
measurement variable. The obtained coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.996 is well within the best-practice
acceptance criteria of 0.98 in [2].

Figure 2: Correlation between measured 10-min-mean

(horizontal) wind speeds from floating-lidar device and
reference cup anemometer at 100 m measurement height.

In order to study the performance of the Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy in its first offshore trial in more
detail, we performed different sensibility analyses. The plots in Figure 3 show both the deviation in measured
horizontal mean wind speeds and the deviations in recorded turbulence intensity (TI) values – defined as wind speed
standard deviation divided by mean wind speed – versus the simultaneously recorded significant wave height at the
location of the deployment. Deviations in mean speed between floating-lidar and reference cup anemometer
measurements show no significant dependence on the prevailing wave heights. For the TI values, on the contrary, a
clear trend is visible characterized by larger deviations or larger floating-lidar values compared to the reference,
respectively, with increasing wave heights.

Figure 3: Deviations in measured 10-min (left) mean wind speeds and (right) turbulence intensity (TI) values from floating lidar and reference
cup anemometer at 100 m measurement height versus simultaneously recorded (30-min-mean) significant wave height.

To eliminate this trend in the TI values and obtain usable data, a motion correction needs to be applied to the
recorded data. Figure 4 shows both uncorrected and corrected data (in red and blue, respectively) for the three
measurement variables mean wind speed, turbulence intensity and wind direction – again as the correlation with
respect to the reference data from the met. mast. For the correction of the floating-lidar data, the motion-correction
160 J. Gottschall et al. / Energy Procedia 53 (2014) 156 – 161

algorithm developed by Fraunhofer IWES was applied.

For the wind speed data the influence of the correction is only marginal – mainly because the correlation between
the uncorrected floating-lidar data and the reference was already extremely good. For the turbulence intensity and
wind direction data, however, the application of the correction results in a significant improvement of the correlation
with the reference data.
20 0.35

18 no correction
full correction 0.3
16

0.25
14
lidar wind speed [m/s]

12

lidar TI [-]
0.2

10
0.15
8

6 0.1

no correction
4
0.05 full correction
2

0
0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
reference TI [-]
reference wind speed [m/s]

350

300 Figure 4: Uncorrected (red) and corrected (blue) floating-lidar data

versus reference data from met. mast – mean wind speed, turbulence
intensity (TI) and wind direction – from top left over top right to
lidar wind direction [°]

250
no correction
bottom left.
200 full correction

150

100

50

0
280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350
reference wind direction [°]

3.3 Conclusions from offshore test

The results of the first offshore test for the Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy are largely in line with the
acceptance criteria for the KPIs defined in [3]. For the recorded horizontal mean wind speeds a very good
measurement performance is even achieved when no motion correction is applied. To use the turbulence intensity
and wind direction data from the system, the application of a motion correction is necessary.
A further analysis of the test results – in terms of a sensibility study with respect to different external parameters
– is extremely helpful to assess the performance of the floating-lidar device under test in more detail, and is
necessary to estimate the complete uncertainty budget for the floating-lidar measurements in the final application –
cf. [4].
Further work on Recommended Practices for the use of floating-lidar systems – including procedures for a
verification and classification of the systems – is scheduled within the IEA Task 32 / Work Package 1.5. Our results
and conclusions will be an input to this work.
 J. Gottschall et al. / Energy Procedia 53 (2014) 156 – 161 161

4. Summary

The Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy has been introduced as a compact floating-lidar concept with an
encapsulated (well-protected) lidar device, a reliable power supply strategy, and an efficient (in-house developed)
motion-correction algorithm. Wind speed measurements, recorded in the first offshore trial of the system, show a
very good correlation with the reference data from the FINO1 met. mast. Wind direction and turbulence intensity
data require the application of a motion correction.
Further work on the Fraunhofer IWES Wind Lidar Buoy is in progress – a second offshore test with a modified
prototype is planned for the first half of 2014.

Acknowledgements

The project ‘Offshore Messboje’ was funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation
and Nuclear Safety / BMU, Germany (FKZ 032538).

References

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