You might think a steady supply of wind is all you would ever need to spin some turbines and start producing renewable energy, but the reality is more complex.
Developers must navigate a host of complex criteria ranging from cows to computer software. So how does a wind farm developer know where to build its new wind farm?
Renewable Energy developer Epuron has 17 wind and solar sites operating across Australia.
It received developer approval for the 170-megawatt White Rock Wind Farm in northern New South Wales in 2012.
It also has a 300-megawatt farm close to the nearby town of Armidale in the planning stage.
Key points:
Wind farm developers must consider available land size, access to roads, endangered species and proximity to power infrastructure
Farmland is often selected due to the large land size and there being fewer stakeholders to coordinate with
One academic recommends wind farm operators should release their data to improve energy optimisation research
Executive director and co-founder Andrew Durran said when the company started in 2003 it was still using paper maps to help identify sites.
Now, geographic information system (GIS) technology is the backbone of its site selection process.
“It’s fundamental to us, to be honest. I can’t imagine how we could do it without it,” he said.
In the planning stage, developers must consider proximity to endangered species and heritage sites, access to suitable roads to transport turbines and capacity to tap into existing transmission infrastructure, to name a few.
GIS software takes these factors and layers them atop a detailed 3D map, including all known data on the site’s wind resources.
Without the technology, Mr Durran said it was “like playing pin the tail on the donkey; we’d be pinning blind”.
The GIS technology sector is worth $2.1 billion and is used by almost 10,000 organisations in Australia alone, according to leading GIS firm Esri.
Mr Durran said ensuring the community living on or near the proposed wind farm was well-informed was an essential next step in the planning process.
“It starts from a position of respect — a lot of what we do is about understanding that we are having an impact on a community,” he said.
Wind farms in Australia:
Australia has 97 operational wind farms, producing 7.95 gigawatt-hours of energy
There are 20 wind farms in the construction and commissioning phase totalling a further 3.96 gigawatts
Wind farms currently account for 13 per cent of Australia’s energy generation
Source: Rystad Energy
Once a suitable site has been identified and the community is onboard, a developer might spend upwards of three years measuring its wind speeds to ensure the highest possible power generation.
Transmission, cows and turbines
Any given wind farm could take developers up to seven years from concept to completion.
And along the way, they are likely to make use of a number of specialist consultants to reach their goal.
Specialist renewable energy engineer Chris Blanksby said, of all the factors essential to landing the perfect wind farm site, proximity to existing transmission infrastructure was chief among them.
Without high-voltage transmission, generated power would not efficiently reach the market for consumption.
Mr Blanksby said the Armidale region’s well-established transmission lines and high wind speeds on the Great Dividing Range had made the area a battle ground for prospective energy farms.
Mr Blanksby said keeping grazing cattle fenced off from turbines and unobstructed by new roads built on site also required consideration.
“A lot of planning goes into those details, just to make it a smooth outcome for everyone,” he said.
Mr Blanksby said locations that ticked every box except high wind speeds could even become viable as new technology developed.
Why are wind farms often on farmland?
Rural areas are where the most available land is, and wind farms need to be a certain size to be viable
The alternative is national or state parks, which are far more complex to build on given their heritage, cultural and environmental value
On farmland, there are fewer stakeholders for developers to work with and the main obstacle is getting a farmer to say “Yes, go ahead”
Additionally, favourable topography on farms — such as big hills that produce high wind speed — are a secondary bonus
He said larger turbines that stood taller with longer blades could operate “quite effectively and efficiently in lower wind speeds than they used to”.
“Sites that might have previously been discounted because the wind speed was too low might now have a wind speed that’s considered viable,” Mr Blanksby said.
“So 10 years later the site might become useful.”
Optimisation research the final frontier
Beyond current innovation in geographic software and turbine engineering, academics are working to solve some of the most complex issues surrounding wind farm sites.
Markus Wagner is a senior lecturer in computer science at the University of Adelaide. For more than a decade he and a team of academics have been developing complex machine learning algorithms that optimise the placement of turbines in wind farms.
When a turbine harnesses wind into energy, it leaves a wake, reducing wind speed behind it.
In their first research paper, Mr Wagner’s team developed an algorithm to determine how to efficiently place 1,000 turbines in a wind farm while maintaining the highest possible energy output.
Mr Wagner said the algorithm was able to lower the number of interactions in the simulation from 1 million to 2,000 while running on an everyday laptop.
To accelerate research in turbine optimisation, Mr Wagner said large wind farm developers should release the long-term data from their operational wind farms.
“I think it’s incredibly important; it will directly help to validate results afterwards,” he said.
“Once the wind turbines for example have been put in place, and they operate for a year or 10 years, we then actually get to collect the real data, not just simulation-based data.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
