WHERE THE WIND IS

Location, location, location. The key to business success. In the energy business, it's pretty easy to figure what makes a good location: It’s where the energy source is.

Greg Adams, technical consultant, Chermac Energy Corp.: "Make no mistake, this is all about the production and the money…I can build a wind farm anywhere in the state of Oklahoma. To make it profitable is another story. None of these wind farms get built unless they have a return on investment. That's what investors are looking for.”

Just as the oil industry has cut down on the number of dry holes it drills with geologic surveys, so the solar and wind industries can evaluate with precise meteorological surveys the energy production potential of the sites they consider.

The 3 key factors for choosing a wind installation site: Raw wind, topographic profile, elevation.

Wind installations require tens of millions of dollars of investment. They won’t get backing without adequate documentation of potential that take into consideration the 3 key factors.

Wind documentation is done using meteorological towers (anemometers) that measure wind speeds and wind shear at heights from 33-feet (the standard height at which weather is monitored) to as high as 180-feet. Potential sites are mapped to such detail that every 50-square-foot area can be evaluated. Data is also verified by an established independent meteorological authority.

Greg Adams, technical consultant, Chermac Energy Corp.: "…[U]ntil you can document it and prove you have that wind, no one is going to invest $20 (million) or $50 million on you saying, ‘Yeah, the wind blows out here.'”

Those who know how to look for it can find plenty of wind in Oklahoma. (click to enlarge)

Geography, locationplay role in helping wind energy projects become profitable
Jack Money, September 6, 2008 (The Oklahoman)

WHO
Greg Adams, technical consultant, Chermac Energy Corp.; Jim Roberts, senior project manager, Horizon Wind Energy

WHAT
Wind energy industry professionals reveal some of the details involved in choosing a wind installation location.

click to enlarge

WHEN
- Horizon’s Blue Canyon wind project first considered about a decade ago.
- At present: Adams is using more than 20 meteorological towers to evaluate muiltiple sites for possible installations.
- 2009: Expansion planned for Blue Canyon, for which siting data is presently being gathered.

WHERE
- Chermac Energy Corp. is based in Edmond, OK
- The Blue Canyon wind project was located on a Wichita Mountains ridge north of the Wichita Wildlife National Refuge in southwestern Oklahoma.

WHY
- Sometimes something else becomes more important than the 3 key considerations for choosing a site (raw wind, topographic profile, elevation). The initial site for the Blue Canyon project was on the ancient granite peaks of the Wichita Mountains but granite was too hard to sink towers into and a limestone ridge to the north was therefore selected.
- Advantages to the Blue Canyon final site: Limestone instead of granite, a low valley between the ridge and the mountains that heats up quickly so wind blowing through picks up speed (hot air rises) as it passes through and bursts over the ridge.
- Without meteorological tower data, sites are not decided and leases with land owners are not negotiated.
- Wind decisions include wind speed at various heights above the surface as well as wind shear, the aspect of wind that gives it its “kick.”

An anemometer in the field. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Jim Roberts, senior project manager, Horizon Wind Energy: "Absolutely, geography helps enhance the wind we have here…It gives you a gigantic acceleration factor.”
- Greg Adams, technical consultant, Chermac Energy Corp.: "I try to put four or five of these on a 200 megawatt development and spread them across the project…Then I use that data to develop a wind map that tells me how the wind is blowing on any 50-square-foot area within the entire project.”