Early Morning Operations, TWICS 2011, 15 April 2011 IOP

Hello everyone,

Padriac and I just returned to our office at Siemens after being at the site and thought we would offer an update.

0000 - 0300 MDT (0600 - 0900 UTC): Phenomenal winds and wake effects. See Julie's post earlier.

~0310 - 0320 MDT (0910 - 0920 UTC): Fault in the Siemens turbine, caused a shutdown, no wake from the Siemens turbine until later in the morning.

~0320 MDT (0920 UTC) (unfortunately...) a near density current?? (I, Paul Quelet, saw in the met tower overnight observations. Clear loss of windspeed and temperature.)

~0800 MDT (1400 UTC) Winds died down significantly at the site. Yelena and Scott mentioned flow reversal coming up from the canyon behind the turbines. (Root cause still unknown.)

~0930 MDT (1530 UTC) Siemens Turbine operational again. Possible troubleshooting needed, supposed to remain on all day for operations.

~1005 MDT (1605 UTC) Significant wind shift from 320 to 352 degrees. Also accompanied by winds gusts and windspeed increase. The Siemens turbine yawed about 10 minutes afterwards.


Since I was on-site and the HRDL trailer does not have internet access, I wanted to post recent developments before I forgot what happened. Hopefully, these are beneficial.

Padriac and I hope to have our NAM initialized WRF run posted in a few hours. Many thanks to all for welcoming us, the learning, and the participation.


--Paul Quelet