A new national wind monitoring program which will see a community wind farm proponent, New England Wind (NEW), collect wind speed data for several possible windfarm sites throughout the high country was launched this week.
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The year-long project had received $43,000 funding from NSW Government as part of the Office of Environment & Heritage’s Growing Community Energy Program.
Member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall said that this is an exciting project for New England Wind and the region.
“They will be using, for the first time, a state-of-the-art SODAR (Sonic Detection and Ranging) wind monitoring unit – a trailer mounted device that uses sound, reflected off the atmosphere, to measure wind speed and direction at varying heights up to around 200 metres,” Mr Marshall said.
“It’s an affordable and reliable method of wind monitoring which provides sufficiently accurate data for pre-feasibility site assessments.
Technical Director for NEW, Dr Chris Blanksby said they were very pleased to be the first project in Australia to hire and use a SODAR unit.
“NEW is very grateful to have been awarded a grant by the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage to hire the SODAR – we can now gain on-site wind data at an affordable cost and assess the viability of possible sites for our community wind farm,” Dr Blanksby said.
“Our vision is that a small windfarm of some 3-6 turbines could produce the equivalent of around half the residential electricity use of the region and provide lasting environmental, social and financial benefits.”
