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Category: Software

Natural Power launches sofware for forecasting wind farm output

January 13th, 2010 | Posted in Wind

ForeSite

Natural Power announced the launch of a new product which should help wind farm operators forecast the power output of their wind farms. The software leverages local weather forecasts of meteoblue© (independent meterological forecaster) which provides forecasts for local areas on five continents. Along with Natural Power's consulting services, the combination results in a source of knowledge "from the ground up" which improves accuracy, accessibility and usefulness of energy forecasts for particular wind farms.

Operators are given hourly forecasts of wind potential, and energy generation values for up to six days ahead. Hourly forecasts give operators instantaneous production parameters ranging from 6 hours to 6 days ahead. Daily forecasts give total daily ouput values for the forecast date, and up to 7 days ahead. Other features are planned wind turbine curtailment and downtimes. Additionally, the company uses another of its products, Ventos, to introduce and combine CFD data based on local topography and roughness in order to further refine forecasts.

[source: Natural Power]

WindLogics to work on advanced computational framework for wind turbine performance improvement

December 21st, 2009 | Posted in Wind

WindLogics announced it is going to work with a consortium lead by the University of Minnesota, selected by the US DoE, on a advanced computational framework for high-resolution simulations of wind turbulence and its effect on wind turbine performance.

Severe weather and wake turbulence are a major issue which seriously impairs the wind turbines' ability to generate electrical power efficiently. An improvement in these complex phenomena and their management can lead to an overal fleetwide increase in efficiency and amount of generated power. The research program will feature a new Siemens 2.3 MW wind turbine to be installed at the University of Minnesota Outreach Research and Education (UMore) Park in Rosemount, Minnesota.

The consostium will receive about USD 8 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The program includes a total of eleven research areas. The research partners in this program include, apart from WindLogics, companies such as Barr Engineering, Eaton Corporation, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Luna Innovations, Siemens Energy, and 3M. Academic partners include Syracuse University and the Dakota County Technical College.

[source: WindLogics]

Vestas gets lightning protection from LDSS through partnership agreement

December 19th, 2009 | Posted in Wind

Vestas and Lightning Decision Support System (LDSS) have signed an agreement under which Vestas is to get lightning protection for its fleet of wind turbines across the US from LDSS, Weather Decision Technologies, a leader in global weather decision support systems.

Forty wind farm customers are already using LDSS to optimize safety at their sites across the Central Plains, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and Iowa. The software is expected to be spread out further over the next months, as wind farm development continues.

LPA In short, LDSS allows users to prepare ahead of a lightning storm with site-specific lightning alerts. According to the company, it's easy to install, provides an interactive GIS viewer allowing site managers to view lightning strikes in real time.

One of the greatest benefits for Vestas from this partnership is better safety conditions for the company's service and maintenance workers who sometime spend hours inside a wind turbine tower, in the most difficult atmopsheric conditions. A lightning strike during a service or maintenance session could seriously hurt these workers, or even cause fatal injury. Apart from human safety, the wind turbines themselves are prone to serious damage resulting from lightning strikes, which can be quite costly for the operator, not to mention the dead period during which the machine is not generating power, and is thus not cost effective.

One of the more advanced features of the software is its ability to track lightning strikes in real-time but also the ability to alert about strike occurences within a predefined radius. This, and many other parameters, help the operators decide when and which protective measures to take.

[source: Weather Decision Technologies, image: Weather Decision Technologies]

UK NATS awards Raytheon with contract to develop technology that minimizes effects of wind turbines on radar signals

December 10th, 2009 | Posted in General Wind

Raytheon has been awarded a contract by UK's NATS (National Air Traffic Services) to develop the technology that will minimize the impact of wind turbines on radar signals. The issues has been significant enough in the past months to have caused many offshore wind energy projects to be put on hold until a solution has been found. The UK is not the only country that has identified the problem, as Germany has also had the same problem a while back, as we reported.

Raytheon is to conduct software modeling and field trials of the technology. The core of the problem is that turbines at wind farms create a Doppler effect as their rotors spin. This causes a "black out" zone on the radar screens, which degrades the usefulness of the system.

The amount awarded to the company is USD 6.5 million, and will result in development and testing of advanced mitigation algorithms within Raytheon's S-band approach and L-band en route primary surveillance radars. The company will also develop additional components that will allow easier improvement to the system in the future. Testing will be done in the UK and the Netherlands.

[source: Raytheon]

Invenergy will use SmartSignal's predictive diagnostic software to protect its wind turbines

December 9th, 2009 | Posted in Wind

SmartSignal Corporation announced it has been chosen by Invenergy to supply its EPI Center predictive diagnostic software. Invenergy will use the software to protect its GE wind turbines, installed at various wind farms across the United States. SmartSignal will deploy, maintain and provide support for EPI Center.

What's being monitored and analyzed in EPI Center.

This deal follows a successful period of research and development collaboration between the two companies, resulting in software that's optimized for the needs of wind energy operators. The software monitors and controls load balancing, efficiency and provides diganostics for turbine failures. SmartSignal develops empirical models of all turbines. Each of these models is composed of a combination of related sensors which provide data about the many parameters that define wind turbine operation. Every ten minutes, the software performs an analysis of thousands of data points across a fleet of wind farms, and informs a wind farm if there are problems in its unit operation. This allows the operator to address any problems that arise quickly and more efficiently.

[source: SmartSignal]

Remote thermostat regulation using your iPhone or iPod Touch

November 19th, 2009 | Posted in General

ecobee So, you've installed wind generators and solar cells at your place of residence, but you are not home all the time. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to remotely set and regulate the desired temperature for heating? Now we can using the iPhone or iPod Touch through a newly released app made by ecobee.

ecobee Smart Thermostat users can remotely adjust the thermostat's temperature, schedule or update vacation events, change the system and fan operating settings and receive any alerts about the status of the system. The app actually converts the iPhone or iPod screen into the ecobee Smart Thermostat interface.

ecobee emphasizes that app users can now easily conserve energy without sacrificing comfort. The application itself is a result of collaboration with Five Mobile app developers, a firm specialized in content development for smartphones. For all who are interested, the Smart Thermostat app for iPhone or iPod Touch is available on the iTunes Store.

[source: ecobee]

SMA America opens Sunny Portal site for mobile phones – performance data on the go

September 2nd, 2009 | Posted in Solar

Image: SMA America

If you're a solar power system owner or operator, this may be good news for you – SMA America has launched their Sunny Portal site optimized for access through mobile phones, and other mobile devices. The new mobile interface for the service is available here.

The Sunny Portal is a web-based service that provides users with data storage and visual display of solar (PV) power system performance. Data is available for access anytime from anywhere, which makes monitoring much easier.

SMA recognizes that performance monitoring is a crucial component in any solar power system… The new Sunny Portal mobile Web site now allows solar system managers and owners to conveniently access important system information while on the go.

Jurgen Krehnke, president/general manager of SMA America

Constant measuring and monitoring of solar power systems is a necessity for achieving optimal production at all times. Discovery of otherwise unnoticed performance disturbances can greatly increase the power system's payback.

Applied Materials released SmartMove System – a wafer management solution

July 14th, 2009 | Posted in General

appliedmaterials

Applied Materials released a software management system for managing solar wafers in non-automated solar power plants. One of the biggest problems with solar power plants is reaching maximum efficiency, which usually involves wafer adjustment for optimal position during the day. Non-automated plants require constant laborous monitoring and adjusting, which can be costly and time consuming. With the introduction of SmartMove, operators of non-automated solar power plants should find it much easier to operate their solar power generation systems with optimal results.

According to the company, the technology integrates with existing solar facilities in an "unintrusive" way, without requiring any changes in the existing MES code. SmartMove integrates Applied Materials' Activity Manager workflow automation software with LotTrack (Intellion technology; radio frequency and ultrasound wafer carrier tracking system). A plant operator's MES is continuously updated with exact location of every wafer carrier, which enables the MES to optimize operator efficiency by sending out warning and informational messages. This releaves the operator from data entry and reduced cycle time.

WindSim and AXYS from partnership to help offshore wind developers

May 20th, 2009 | Posted in Wind

Buoy collects wind data on different heights. (Image credit: AXYS Technologies)

Wind farm developers are constantly challenged to design the most efficient arrays of wind turbines to harness maximum wind power on a wind farm site. Software is probably the most valuable tool for optimizing wind farm performance, and is the key to achieving higher efficiency in the future, regarding both individual wind turbine design and wind farm design.

WindSim's wind farm design software will be bundled with every sale of AXYS Technologies Inc's WindSentinel offshore wind resource assessment buoy. The two technologies are complementary – developers will now not only have wind energy data, but also the software to use that data to create models for designing more efficient wind farms.

The Wind Sentinnel is capable of measuring wind at hub height but also at higher altitudes using a next generation laser wind sensor. The company currently employs CFD (computational fluid dynamics) to identify and create wake-effect models and other atmospheric forces, for optimizing wind turbine placement on a wind farm.

SunPower announced iPhone monitoring application for – another way to monitor solar electricity information

May 18th, 2009 | Posted in Solar

Image credit: SunPower

The new iPhone/iPod Touch monitoring application is part of SunPower's existing Monitoring Services, offered to their customers as a tool for keeping track of information related to electricity generated by the installed SunPower solar modules at the user's location – yard, rooftop, etc. A user can easily see energy savings on an hourly, monthly and annual basis.

SunPower already supplied their customers with in-home wall-mounted wireless enabled LCD monitor systems which provide power production and cumulative energy information. The fact that is accessible over the internet from just about anywhere makes it quite useful. Now, with the addition of the iPhone application, customers will truly be able to access all the solar energy info they need while on the go.

The application is available for download from Apple's App Store. Existing and new customers can use it immediately, while prospective customers can download a demo to try it out and see how it works.