An Up Close Laboratory Experience

Integrated Science and Technology Professor Dr. Jonathan Miles engages his ISAT 301 (Instrumentation and Measurement in Energy) students in lab exercises that involve the acquisition and analysis of wind data.  He recently took his class to a ridge top site that is being evaluated for commercial wind development.

“My students have the opportunity to see up close the kinds of sensors and instruments that are critical to the development of the wind industry,” Miles says. A part of their laboratory experience involved downloading real data from one of the instruments via satellite uplink.  By visiting the site they could see firsthand how important it is to consider very carefully the placement of the instrument in order to avoid faulty readings from trees and other structures. The wind data they collected and analyzed describes the speed of the wind, the direction in which it is blowing, and the frequency with which a particular wind speed occurs.  “This is precisely the kind of information that is addressed by professional meteorologists and wind developers as they conduct a proper assessment of a site to determine its viability for wind power production,” says Miles.

The site also hosts a 60-m meteorological tower equipped with sensors and data logging.  The instrument we are hovering around uses a SOnic Detection and RAnging (SODAR) technique to profile the wind resource overhead (up to 200 m).  The SODAR is owned by JMU and was deployed at this site last spring in order to examine an area with complex terrain (and wind resource) that was close by while simultaneously providing support to the three companies considering large wind development in that area, Solaya (which installed the tower we visited), BP, and Dominion.