Root River Energy Installs 80 Meter Tower in Fillmore County to Measure Data for 300 MW Wind Project
Preston, Minnesota – Root River Energy LLC, a community-based wind energy development company in Fillmore County, announces today that it has installed an 80-meter meteorological tower (met tower). A met tower is a multi-instrument device which records wind speeds, wind direction, temperature, and air density over time, leading to a complete characterization of the wind attributes of a project site. This information is needed to calculate how productive a wind farm will be, and is thus crucial to every wind development.
Eighty meter towers are the cutting edge of met tower technology. While most met towers installed today are typically 50 to 60 meters in height, most wind turbines are being erected on 80 meter or taller towers. Data collected at these lower heights must be mathematically transformed to provide an estimation of wind speeds at the turbine height. These mathematical estimations always include some error. Project energy estimates are very sensitive to wind speed, and as little as a 3% error in wind speed estimation can result in up to a 9% error in estimated energy output, and thus project revenue. By collecting data at 80 meters, Root River Energy is able to eliminate this source of error in predicting its wind resource.
“The data collected by this new met tower will give us the detailed information that we need to generate the optimized turbine layouts for Root River Energy’s wind developments,” says Kevin Romuld, President of National Wind Assessments. “Currently available data indicate that the general area has a good wind regime, but the data from the 80-meter met tower will be invaluable. In addition to providing data specific to Root River Energy’s project footprint, the taller tower will allow us to more accurately calculate the project’s production capacity and potential revenue.”
National Wind Assessments, the wind resource analysis unit of National Wind, installed the met tower for Root River Energy, and will manage data collection, project energy estimations and turbine microsite layout. Due to seasonal differences, the new met tower will have to collect wind data for at least one year before any energy generation estimates can be considered accurate. The information gathered by the met tower will be confidential to Root River Energy.
“The increased accuracy of the wind data from the 80-meter met tower will be a significant asset to Root River Energy’s developments,” says Ron Gehling, Root River Energy Advisory Board Member. “We’re committed to using the best resources to get the most accurate results because we want to build the best wind farm we can for our community.”
Visit www.rootriverenergy.com to view more pictures of the met tower and to find out more about the company’s community wind development in Fillmore County.
