Feasibility study: Remote sensing of wind speed for control and production assessment of wind turbines

In principle, a laser is mounted on the wind turbine nacelle with the beam directed upstream, 'shooting' through the wind turbine rotor. The instrument works by detecting the Doppler-shift of the transmitted and back-scattered light: the higher Doppler-shift the higher is the wind speed along the axis of the beam. The study revealed a significant potential for the instrument, depending of the cost of manufacturing. If costs are low (less than a few 1000 USD) the instrument could be installed as standard instrument on larger wind turbine, being used both for control and for performance assessment. If costs are high, the instrument may be used for experimental purposes