U.K. wind firms push investment in masts and monitoring

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Dulas, a leading renewable energy consultancy, recently announced its wind monitoring division saw an uptick in work from new and existing clients in 2018, as the business supported more than 30 wind companies in managing their meteorological mast and remote sensing services across their wind portfolios.

The bulk of the firm’s work came from meteorological mast installation, refurbishment, and decommissioning, as clients either replace or upgrade their monitoring, or site new masts for future wind project development.

As highlighted in the recent Dulas report, Enhanced Data and Enhanced Returns: Getting the Best From Wind Monitoring Technology, wind speeds are directly proportional to project returns, a crucial factor continuing to drive investors planning post-subsidy wind projects.

The bulk of the Dulas’ work in 2018 came from meteorological mast installation, refurbishment, and decommissioning. (Courtesy: Dulas)

Alongside onsite work undertaken by Dulas, asset owners increasingly turned to data services in 2018, allowing them to streamline resource reporting as well as anticipate and pre-empt operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. Dulas performed data services for nearly 30 percent of its wind-monitoring client-base.

“While recent U.K. government decisions on support for renewable energy — notably onshore wind — have significantly and negatively affected the pipeline for future development, it is encouraging that there are developers in the industry looking carefully at how to make future project economics stack up,” said Rachel Munday, commercial lead for Wind Monitoring at Dulas. “Key to this, of course, is the quality of data provided in early stage resource assessment by meteorological masts and remote sensing from Sodar and Lidar.”

“Furthermore, the increase in volume of work we’ve seen at Dulas is likely testament to existing asset owners investing in securing their future returns, optimizing their projects using meteorological mast data,” she said.

2018 additionally saw the expansion of Dulas’ services into Europe, with the business undertaking remote sensing work for U.K.-based clients in Scandinavia.

More info www.dulas.org.uk