INFORMATION A CLICK AWAY - Atlas that tells where it's best to set up windmills
U Tejonmayam
Map By NIWE Provides Data On Wind Speed, Utilisation Possibilities Assessed From 100m Above The Ground
Now setting up a wind farm to generate electricity any where in the country is just a mouse click away.
Scientists at the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) have released a high-resolution `Indian Wind Atlas 2015' that will provide all the information wind farm developers require to know before installing wind turbines in any location in the country .
The atlas, available on the NIWE website, will provide information like wind speed, wind power density and capacity utilisation factor value (wind that can be utlised to generate power) assessed at about 100m above ground level.
What makes the wind atlas different from the previous one launched in 2010 is that it has a spatial resolution of 500m, which is 10 times finer than the old atlas that had a 5km resolution. The new atlas will have wind data for every 0.5km. Further, it will also help the investor to de cide on a suitable location for the wind farm, a new option.
NIWE direc tor general S Gomathinayagam said the new Indian Wind Atlas is an online geographic information system (GIS) tool to identify regional and local wind energy potential in the country . To obtain high quality global wind climate at different resolutions, a mathematical model was used to downscale climate wind conditions up to 100m from the ground.In 2010, the institute released a wind atlas at 50m above ground level after conducting a potential estimation study by corroborating meso-scale (model used for weather predictions) wind maps and microscale measurements. It was released with a 5km resolution, meaning data was available every 5km of the area covered. Scientists subsequently launched a map at 80m above ground level with indicative values. It was done in collaboration with a laboratory in Denmark.
For the latest atlas, NIWE scientists have chosen advanced modeling techniques and have come up with a potential assessment by corroborating advanced wind flow models with almost 1,300 actual measurements taken from stations across the country . Superimposed on the maps is actual land avail ability data obtained from the National Remote Sensing Centre, one of the centres of Indian Space Research Organisation.
However, land features that are not suitable for wind farming have been excluded from the potential map apart from the areas for infrastructure development like roads, railway lines, protected areas and airports. “Unlike solar panels, wind mills can be installed even in paddy fields because they do not take a lot of space Gomathinayagam said.
The already existing solar radiation atlas has also been mapped with the wind atlas. Scientists are working to include more information to the atlas including location of existing wind mills and potential to install solar plants along with wind turbines.
