Operational since 2004, the National Centre for Wind Turbines at Høvsøre, Denmark has become a reference research site for wind-power meteorology. In this study, we review the site, its instrumentation, observations, and main research programs. The programs comprise activities on, inter alia, remote sensing, where measurements from lidars have been compared extensively with those from traditional instrumentation on masts. In addition, with regard to wind-power meteorology, wind-resource methodologies for wind climate extrapolation have been evaluated and improved. Further, special attention has been given to research on boundary-layer flow, where parametrizations of the length scale and wind profile have been developed and evaluated. Atmospheric turbulence studies are continuously conducted at Høvsøre, where spectral tensor models have been evaluated and extended to account for atmospheric stability, and experiments using microscale and mesoscale numerical modelling.

Wind-speed observations from tall towers are used in combination with observations up to 600 m in altitude from a Doppler wind lidar to study the long-term conditions over suburban (Hamburg), rural coastal (Høvsøre) and marine (FINO3) sites. The variability in the wind field among the sites is expressed in terms of mean wind speed and Weibull distribution shape-parameter profiles. The consequences of the carrier-to-noise-ratio (CNR) threshold-value choice on the wind-lidar observations are revealed as follows. When the wind-lidar CNR is lower than a prescribed threshold value, the observations are often filtered out as the uncertainty in the wind-speed measurements increases. For a pulsed heterodyne Doppler lidar, use of the traditional -22 dB CNR threshold value at all measuring levels up to 600 m results in a ≈7 % overestimation in the long-term mean wind speed over land, and a ≈12 % overestimation in coastal and marine environments. In addition, the height of the profile maximum of the shape parameter of the Weibull distribution (so-called reversal height) is found to depend on the applied CNR threshold; it is found to be lower at small CNR threshold values. The reversal height is greater in the suburban (high roughness) than in the rural (low roughness) area. In coastal areas the reversal height is lower than that over land and relates to the internal boundary layer that develops downwind from the coastline. Over the sea the shape parameter increases towards the sea surface. A parametrization of the vertical profile of the shape parameter fits well with observations over land, coastal regions and over the sea. An applied model for the dependence of the reversal height on the surface roughness is in good agreement with the observations over land.

No abstract

Abstract:We present a comprehensive database of near-shore wind observations that were carried out during the experimental campaign of the RUNE project. RUNE aims at reducing the uncertainty of the near-shore wind resource estimates from model outputs by using lidar, ocean, and satellite observations. Here, we concentrate on describing the lidar measurements. The campaign was conducted from November 2015 to February 2016 on the west coast of Denmark and comprises measurements from eight lidars, an ocean buoy and three types of satellites. The wind speed was estimated based on measurements from a scanning lidar performing PPIs, two scanning lidars performing dual synchronized scans, and five vertical profiling lidars, of which one was operating offshore on a floating platform. The availability of measurements is highest for the profiling lidars, followed by the lidar performing PPIs, those performing the dual setup, and the lidar buoy. Analysis of the lidar measurements reveals good agreement between the estimated 10-min wind speeds, although the instruments used different scanning strategies and measured different volumes in the atmosphere. The campaign is characterized by strong westerlies with occasional storms.

No abstract