Technical

The development of wind farms that can generate electricity at the most competitive prices crucially depends on the ability to accurately predict the long term wind regime at the site and the energy production for the expected life of the wind farm. RES has developed techniques for long term wind speed & energy yield prediction and turbine layout optimisation over the last 20 years and applied these to more then 1000MW of projects installed.

Long term wind climate predictions are carried out by RES by measuring wind speed and direction on site and correlating with a long term record of wind speeds. The energy yield prediction takes into account the site climatic conditions, local terrain and roughness changes, in order to calculate wind speed-up effects, obstacle effects such as due to forestry, wake effects due to interaction between turbines, and the power curves of the turbines considered. Any additional losses and the uncertainty of the energy yield prediction are estimated.

The turbine layout is then optimised for energy yield, using software developed in house, taking into account all environmental constraints and considering any constructional limitations. During the layout design process RES makes use of its expert knowledge in the assessment of noise levels and possible television interference at nearby habitations and of the visual impact locally, to protect the quality of the local environment.