GMV supporting services for the wind power industry

The technology multinational group GMV is leading the consortium to which the European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded the ISSWIND project, a proof of concept for providing support services to the wind power industry.

Under this project ESA aims to study all possible ways in which products and services based on or deriving from space innovations might help to cut the cost per megawatt (MW) of the energy produced. The idea is to phase in these product and service innovations throughout the whole wind farm life cycle to bring about this desired reduction in cost per MW.

This project also tackles a crucial Europe-wide strategic target: producing 20% of EU’s energy from renewable sources by 2020.

The project’s mission is to analyze the potential of integrated solutions (space and ground segments) and associated services to support the wind power sector in its tasks of planning, constructing, operating and maintaining land and sea wind farms.

The integrated solutions identified within ISSWIND will meet the needs of all stakeholders, ranging from wind farm designers right through to transmission and distribution managers, offering viable and sustainable operational services from a commercial point of view.

This integrated solution merges telecommunication technology, earth observation from space, satellite navigation and traditional technology. In the navigation field, in particular, meteorological GNSS applications are now coming into their own as an additional observation source of the state of the atmosphere. Exact determination of the contribution of tropospheric refractivity to GNSS signal delay, i.e., tropospheric GNSS delay, will help to create more accurate and useful atmospheric models for managing wind farms.

The services defined within ISSWIND will provide, for example, more accurate power generation forecasts, enhanced meteorological and oceanographic information for streamlining logistical operations during wind-farm operation and maintenance, plus other added-value information to support decision-making processes for the various sector participants such as manufacturers, transport system operators, distribution system operators, market operators, regulatory bodies and investment organizations.

This project represents another firm step in GMV’s strong effort in building competences and creating innovative services for the Renewable Energy markets, in partnership with high profile stakeholders and by integrating state of the art space base assets. GMV solutions for wind energy sector extends the current Solar Power business cases already supported by GMV.

The project is being financed as a feasibility study within ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems, ARTES. The consortium, led by GMV, is also made up by BMT-ARGOSS, Rede Eléctrica Nacional (REN) of Portugal, CENER, Acciona Energía and Carbon Trust. The most important end users initially associated with the project include Iberdrola, OMIP (derivatives exchange of the Iberian Electricity Market, MIBEL) Empresa de Electricidade da Madeira and Windunie. This initial user base will then be extended throughout the project to glean as much information as possible on the wind power industry.