Advancement in remote sensing of wind energy

Abstract In modern applications, wind turbines are gaining in height and becoming larger in size, as well as being installed in complex, mountainous, and hilly terrain to produce large amounts of energy for neighboring populations and industries. However, one must keep in mind that the efficiency of a wind farm is greatly affected by inaccurate wind resource assessment. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate wind resource potential to estimate how much energy is available at the site and how much power the wind turbine can produce, because the power output of a wind turbine scales cubically with the available wind speed. In this case, to achieve the highest possible efficiency from a wind farm and to install modern machines of even larger heights, it becomes necessary to study and precisely estimate wind resource potential and its economic feasibility. The investigation of wind resource at larger heights and at complex wind farms requires a more physical volume-based measurement. Ground-based remote-sensing techniques such as light detection and ranging and sound detection and ranging are becoming increasingly useful and popular in the wind energy sector for resource assessment as they help in reducing complexity, uncertainty, and technicality in modern wind farm development, because they provide volume measurement and measure the entire rotor field from top to bottom at each height, particularly at higher hub height, which is difficult to do using conventional techniques, traditional techniques, or meteorological mast techniques. The meteorological mast consists of a cup anemometer and other measuring instruments to measure wind speed and wind direction. Using meteorological mast is not a representative idea as it gives point and fixed measurements, and empirical equations such as power law and log law are used to convert wind speed measured at 10 m or 30 m to larger heights of 100 m, 120 m, or more. This chapter is focused on increasing confidence in the result of remote-sensing measurement. Most importantly, there is economic merit in determining the total amount of cash flowing on wind resource assessment using advance different techniques.