The presentation was given by Nikolaos Kouris from Windar Photonics, DTU Alumni. NIkolaos gave a very detailed presentation on the company and Lidar-based wind measurements. It was very inspiring to see Windar’s continuous R&D collaboration with DTU, from inception till today. The company was born out of a DTU-OPDI research initiated in 2005 on Cost Efficient Lidar Systems and was officially established in 2008. Since then, Windar Photonics has grown to be a leading supplier of cost efficient Lidars, boasting over 250 units on order this year. For more information about the company, visit their website.
The students were given an overview of the company’s Nacelle-mounted Lidar products – the 2 beam ‘Wind Eye’ and the 4 beam ‘Wind Vision’. The students got an insight into how these products were tested at DTU Wind Energy’s Risø site and how the Lidars performed in different environments of different air quality and weather conditions. There, also, ensued a very interesting discussion on the use of nacelle-mounted Lidars for various purposes such as wake detection, measurement of rotor effective wind speed, gusts, turbulence, yaw errors, vertical shear and also power curve verification. True to Windar’s collaboration with DTU, interesting thesis topics on Wake steering, Lidar-assisted pitch control and wind field reconstruction were shared with the students. Many other ideas were discussed in a stimulating Q&A session which followed the presentation.
Nikolaos Kouris especially encouraged current Wind Energy Master students emphasizing how the DTU Wind Energy Master programme is rigorous and more than sufficient to prepare graduates for a high level of competency in the workplace.
A very big thank you to Windar Photonics for visiting us at DTU and to our students for joining the event.
WESA