Monday, October 17, 2011

Met Towers

Those of you who live in windy areas may have seen some of these meterology towers. They are used by wind energy companies to prospect for areas suitable for wind farms and once a location is planned for a project, it aids in deciding turbine layout.

As you can see in this enlargement (click to embiggen) the tower has multiple anemometers at various heights as well as other sensors that measure and record wind-speed, humidity, wind direction etc. continuously for periods of months. Occasionally you may see small metal boxes (sorry, no picture) maybe a foot square and 3-4 inches high attached to one of these towers. Those are bat detectors. They receive the bats' echo-location sonar to record numbers, and in some cases, species of bats.

This tower that we saw near our Huerfano County project also had a data recording trailer nearby, complete with solar panels for power.

No comments: