Integrated Environmental Data, LLC
Sodar, Lidar & Radar Boundary Layer Analyses
Integrated Environmental Data is developing an open-source package of scripts for analyzing SODAR and LIDAR profile data alone or in relation to tower anemometry. The package is called ATLAS (Analysis Tools for Lidar and Sodar). The scripts are written in "R", a free, open-source graphical and statistical analysis package available from The R Project. ATLAS will be available in mid-2009 by contacting Integrated Environmental Data, LLC.
Guidelines for the Use of Sodar in Wind Energy Resource Assessment
Sodar is a ground-based remote sensing technique that is gaining increasingly wide use in the wind energy industry. Bruce Bailey of AWS Truewind, LLC, and I drafted some guidelines for the effective use of sodar in wind energy resource assessment. The document has subsequently been modified in response to input from more than a dozen people representing manufacturers, consultants, and developers. Beginning in early 2007, a group of "Topical Experts" in SODAR used the original best practices document as a starting point for developing a set of "Recommended Practices for the Use of SODAR in Wind Resource Assessment" for the International Energy Agency (IEA). Kathleen Moore has been making the revisions and incorporating the contributions of these experts.
The latest version of the guidelines can be downloaded here: IEA Recommended Practices for SoDAR in Wind Energy Resource Assessment
A parallel IEA Recommended Practices document for LIDAR has been drafted by Dan Jaynes of Garrad Hassan and Michael Courtney of Riso DTU.
Here are some recent presentations about the use of sodar to produce bankable data sets:
AWEA Wind Resource Assessment Workshop, 2010
AWEA Wind Power 2010 Presentation in a Community Wind Panel
Presentation at AMS Boundary Layers and Turbulence Meeting, August 2010