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UK's first independent wind farm Operational Control Centre goes live
August 2008
Leading international renewable energy consultancy Natural Power switched on the UK's first independent Operational Control Center (OCC) today, helping to keep wind farms safe and controlled for all staff on site.
Graham West, Operational Controller, is part of the OCC team who ensure operational control of wind farms from 6am to 10pm 365 days a year providing site access control, work control, weather watch, outage notifications and emergency co‐ ordination. Natural Power, who already operate 10% of the UK's installed capacity will initially provide this service to three clients assisting them in implementing the BWEA Wind Turbine Safety Rules (WTSR) and other Health and Safety requirements on their sites.
Commenting on the launch, Scott MacKenzie, Head of Asset Management at Natural Power said "As a leading provider of wind farm asset management services we are constantly looking to enhance the range of services and products we can offer. We have spent a significant amount of time developing the OCC in response to our existing Clients health, safety and work control needs. We are particularly pleased with the rounded site management service which the OCC facilitates. It also enhances our existing site management services and our performance analysis / executive reporting tool Melogale™, to the benefit of existing and new clients. Through the OCC we can now provide independent wind farm owners with the kind of full site management service previously enjoyed only by utilities, without the additional cost risk and inconvenience of attempting to manage site operations under the WTSR as an internally managed function."
One site owner, Fred. Olsen Renwables Ltd (FORL) has employed Natural Power as Site Managers for a number of years and now plan to use the OCC across all their UK sites. Anders Falkfjell, Head of Operations and Maintenance at FORL noted that "Safety of staff and contractors working on FORL sites is our highest priority so naturally the full implementation of BWEAs Wind Turbine Safety Rules across our portfolio is essential. We considered many options both internally and externally before determining that the OCC provided by Natural Power is the most efficient and cost effective way for FORL to ensure that our work practises follow the safety standards set out in the WTSR. The OCC does not only help us to enhance our health and safety management, we also expect to see increased turbine availability as a result of a more structured and disciplined approach across our portfolio of sites."
New office marks the start of new era for Natural Power in Wales
July 2008
Aberystwyth, Wales – Natural Power Consultants Ltd were delighted to announce a move to their new Welsh office in Technium Aberystwyth which forms part of the Technium Wales network, a series of technology‐led business incubation environments.
Natural Power have been operating in Wales since 2005, when it opened an office in Aberystwyth, and with increasing demand for full lifecycle wind consultancy services, the company has grown significantly in Wales, across the UK & Europe in general and across North America.
Commenting on the office opening John Woodruff, Senior Development Manager at Natural Power's Welsh office noted that "we needed larger premises because we have grown quickly and successfully by gaining significant new contracts for development work in Wales and recruiting locally – in fact our two latest additions to the family both graduated from the University at Aberystwyth and are from west Wales families. It is great that we can employ local talent to work on local projects."
For the last three years Natural Power have been working on a number of wind energy development projects in Wales including the 40MW wind farm at Brenig, recently passed for approval by Denbighshire Council, and other major projects coming forward across Wales.
"Our construction department is also now established in Wales too" added John, "They are working on Carno 2 and Moel Moelogan wind farms and about to start other projects further south. In fact we are looking for an additional construction project manager right now".
Natural Power and SeaRoc announce working agreement for delivering renewable services
July 2008
Leading international renewable energy consultancy, Natural Power, and marine, engineering and offshore specialists, SeaRoc, announced today the signing of a framework agreement for closer cooperation to offer their combined expertise to the renewable energy sector.
Both companies see real synergies between their ranges of specialist products and services. The agreement will now allow the renewable energy sector to benefit from full lifecycle consulting services both on and offshore – from technical through to development and construction with a fully integrated strategy ongoing through operation and maintenance and decommissioning. This partnership enables the companies to respond to the huge demands of delivering Round 3 by offering a complete service to both existing as well as new projects and clients
SeaRoc is heavily involved in a large number of offshore projects in the UK and further afield as well as being actively involved with developing guidelines and standards for the industry engaging with both government and industry bodies. Their growing team of mariners and engineers has extensive experience of the complete marine project lifecycle allowing them to offer clients a wide range of services focussed on delivering offshore renewable projects safely and efficiently. Natural Power's experience ranges from 12,000MW (including over 1,200MW of offshore consents) of site identification and portfolio appraisals through to operating more than 10% of the UK's installed capacity for utilities and independent power producers.
One initial area of collaboration is likely to be the continuing transition of Natural Power's ground based ZephIR® laser anemometer to an offshore solution where SeaRoc's offshore experience and services will be a considerable asset.
Jeremy Sainsbury, Director of Natural Power added: "We are thrilled to start a working relationship with SeaRoc. They have an enviable track record in the offshore market and we hope to add insight from our experience in offshore consenting and onshore construction, operation and due diligence. Our products and services are very compatible, as is the culture within each organisation ‐ this can only be of benefit to our joint client base."
Peter Hodgetts, Chief Executive of SeaRoc, welcomed the agreement commenting: "This is an excellent opportunity to combine specialised products and services in the rapidly expanding market of offshore wind and the wave and tidal sector. Innovation has been one of the key successes in both companies to date and learning from each other will allow future collaborations to continually deliver real benefit with robust solutions to projects both current and future, on and offshore."
Natural Power and Latwind announce partnership
April 2008
Natural Power announce partnership with LatWind to offer new services in Chile
Natural Power Consultants, a leading international renewable energy consultancy, announced today that it has signed an agreement with Latwind to offer new combined services to the wind industry in Chile. This announcement follows a period of strong growth within Natural Power, movements in to new markets and the acquisition of new products and services such as the exclusive licences to the ZephIR® laser anemometer technology and VENTOS™ advanced CFD wind flow modelling code.
This partnership will allow clients in Chile and Latin America as a whole to benefit from Natural Power's wealth of experience and expertise gained across Europe and North America, whilst maintaining and growing LatWind's local office staffed with skilled wind engineers.
Commenting on the partnership, Stuart Hall, Director of Natural Power said: "South America has fantastic wind energy potential. We believe that together with LatWind we have the tools, experience and local presence to help realise this potential at the lowest project risk for our clients".
LatWind, who were established in 2006, work with clients including local and foreign companies, as well as governmental institutions who want to develop renewable sources of energy in Chile.
Alexander von Pescatore, Director of LatWind welcomed the partnership and added: "This is an excellent opportunity to combine specialised local forces with the great know-how being transferred by Natural Power. Counting on such a sophisticated backup will strengthen greatly our presence in Latin America".
ZephIR - RERL approved for measurements in the wind industry
April 2008
ZephIR® laser anemometer - 'RERL approved' for wind resource assessment
The Renewable Energy Research Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst (UMass) has successfully prepared and released an Assessment Report on Natural Power's ZephIR® laser anemometer which is based on LiDAR technology. UMass has undertaken a data validation experiment which finds that the system achieves correlation of 0.98 up to the tested height of 118m in comparison to traditional cup anemometers.
In addition, ZephIR® was shown to perform strongly in a comprehensive uncertainty analysis with approximately 50% less overall wind speed measurement error to that of the in-situ cup anemometer. Based on a total of six months wind resource assessment, UMass reported that the system is acceptable for use in wind resource assessment applications.
Highlighted in the report, UMass believes that:
"the resource assessment portion of any wind energy project development process could be improved and streamlined by the substitution of LiDAR-based measurement in place of cup anemometers.
The most important benefit associated with lidar wind resource assessment is that the LiDAR is capable of measuring wind speeds at the hub height of a modern wind turbine. When hub height data are available for analysis, access to financial capital for wind project development becomes less restrictive because wind shear extrapolation is one of the most detrimental sources of measurement uncertainty in a given wind resource assessment campaign".
It is for this reason that ZephIR® has now been approved to be added to the Renewable Energy Research Laboratory (RERL) suite of wind speed measurement devices.
On the release of this report Ian Locker of Natural Power commented "we are pleased to see the positive experience UMass has had with ZephIR® which is widely reflected by the other 50+ systems currently deployed with Customers globally. These systems are being used for a variety of applications from initial site assessment through to permanent wind farm anemometry, across a number of countries worldwide including Canada, the US, Greece, Spain, France, New Zealand, Croatia, Bosnia and the UK".
Click here to download the full report.