Wherever in the world they are produced, wind turbines have to meet certain technical requirements which are laid down in standards formulated by IEC's wind turbine technical committee. One of the committee's working groups has 40 experts from the industry, universities and measuring laboratories, representing such different countries as Japan, Korea, USA, Canada as well as several European countries. Troels Friis Pedersen from Risø DTU's Wind Energy Division has been chairman of the group since it was established in 1992.
Complicated wind expressed in one figure
For the past 18 years, the wind turbines have increased enormously in size and so have the challenges of measuring the wind to which the turbine blades are exposed.
"What is the wind? How do you express it in one figure? This is indeed a big question," Troels Friis Pedersen says, reminding us that while the wind is not a constant quantity which hits all parts of the enormous blades with equal intensity, you still have to express it in one figure on an x-axis to be able to calculate power, load and safety.
"We are currently conducting a second revision of a new power measurement standardisation and here it is important to incorporate the latest measuring technology, the LIDAR wind scanner, as it is capable of accurately measuring the wind in three dimensions from the ground. LIDAR simply equals better measurements and thus better model verification – and ultimately better wind turbines."
Risø DTU actively involved
Risø has contributed immensely to the LIDAR project and several Risø employees are also actively involved in the standardisation work which is funded by the Danish Energy Agency.
"I encourage my colleagues to take an interest in the standardisation work as it constitutes an important link to the industry," Troels Friis Pedersen says. "The industry lends its foremost experts to the working groups so it is a great venue for networking."
Peter Hauge Madsen, Head of Risø's Wind Energy Division, has for many years been chairman of the Danish international committee in IEC, and last year, he received the same award as Troels Friis Pedersen did recently