For accredited measurements, such as power curve measurements on wind turbines, all deployed sensors have to be calibrated, including wind direction sensors. Until now, there was no provider of this kind of calibration on the market.
"Historically, the importance of wind vane calibration has been underestimated," says Dieter Westermann, Managing Director of Deutsche WindGuard Wind Tunnel Services, "even though we depend on the high accuracy of wind vanes in many areas. The calculation of flow models, for example or the planning of wind farm layouts. Also, turbines need a wind vane signal so that they can align themselves into the wind. With an inaccurate signal, the alignment will be inaccurate, resulting in an inevitable loss in energy output."
Now however, the national accreditation body of Germany, DAkkS, has accredited WindGuard enabling it to calibrate wind vanes according to a new standard: DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005, which joins existing accreditation for the calibration of anemometers.
"We are very proud to be the first to take this important step in raising the overall accuracy of wind measurements, benefitting the entire wind energy industry," explains Dr. Knud Rehfeldt, Managing Director of Deutsche WindGuard.
The company won the accreditation for its Wind Tunnel Centre, which can guarantee the highest calibration accuracies with an uncertainty of 0.8° (k=2).
Deutsche WindGuard offers its customers engineering services of the highest standards in all areas of wind energy utilisation, and combines years of practical experience and scientific know-how in all areas of wind energy utilisation- ranging from site assessment issues via technical management of wind farms to the complete surveying of wind turbines.
For additional information:
