Sidney firm deploys world’s first wind buoy :
Times Colonist,October 28, 2009
http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Sidney+firm+deploys+world+first+wind+buoy/2153639/story.html
| Sidney’s AXYS Technologies has deployed the world’s first offshore wind resource assessment buoy near Race Rocks in order to test the machine prior to its commercial launch.
The WindSentinel was launched this week to compare wind data collected on the moving buoy to wind data collected from a station on Race Rocks about a half kilometre away.
The WindSentinel is designed to assist offshore wind farm developers in determining the available wind resource at potential wind farm sites. It is the world’s first wind resource assessment buoy capable of accurately measuring wind data at heights of conventional offshore wind turbines.
AXYS said wind farm developers have had to construct permanent offshore meteorological towers to do that work at an estimated cost of about $10 million. By contrast, a basic WindSentinel model is approximately $1 million.
The test site was chosen to thoroughly assess the buoy’s capabilities as the waters at Race Rocks see currents of between five and six knots, waves measuring between two and four metres high and winds up to 50 knots.
The results of the study are to be released in early 2010.
“The WindSentinel allows developers to collect crucial wind resource assessment data more accurately, more quickly and less expensively than every other available option,” said AXYS spokesman Dennis Stacey.
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