Wind  consultants Continental Wind Partners (CWP) will be using advanced remote sensing technology to speed up the process of developing wind farms in Australia.

CWP has already helped developed Dandaragan Wind Farm near Perth and the Boco Rock Wind Farm in New South Wales.

CWP will use Second Wind's Triton Sonic Wind Profiler – an advanced remote sensing system that uses sound detection and ranging technology – to measure wind speeds at heights of 200 metres and beyond. 

By measuring wind speeds at this level, CWP can more accurately estimate the annual energy production of a wind turbine.

Konrad Gorzkowski, a wind and site engineer at CWP, said the technology is becoming a key part of the firm’s toolbox.

"Although met tower data remains a key part of wind project financing, remote sensing is becoming more and more necessary to reduce uncertainty by measuring hub height wind conditions," he said.

CWP has already used the system on other projects, which accumulated nearly 100,000 hours of Triton data in Central and Eastern Europe.

At the earliest phase of the development cycle, Tritons are deployed for wind prospecting – taking an initial measurement of a site's resources to determine whether the site qualifies for a lengthier study with meteorological towers.

Then they are used together with meteorological towers to predict a farm’s output as the business case is being assembled.