In our article LeWL Wind Logger we looked at a product from Logic Energy designed to Survey Wind Speed at Turbine Site – a necessary process before a wind turbine generator is installed. While LeWL is primarily for proposed large scale wind turbines installations, a new product from Logic Energy is designed for small scale wind turbines – WindTracker.

WindTracker

WindTracker is a wind speed (and direction in the case of WindTracker Pro) logger designed to build up an accurate wind profile for a proposed small scale wind turbine installation. Average wind speed is a very important measure for deciding whether a wind turbine should be installed at a given site, but a detailed wind profile is essential for selecting the wind turbine best suited to the site – the turbine which will be able to extract the most energy overall from the available wind resource.

What differentiates WindTracker from other wind speed dataloggers on the market is its incredible ease of installation and use. The device requires no configuration or set up at all; just fit it at the proposed site and it will start collecting data.
Instead of generating a huge file of raw data which requires complex pre-processing and manipulation using Excel or professional wind analysis software before useful information can be obtained, WindTracker simply measures the average wind speed over 10 minute intervals and keeps track of the total number of intervals that the wind speed averaged 2 m/s, 3 m/s, 4 m/s… and so on to build the wind profile.

Viewing the Collected Data

When you are ready to collect the data from WindTracker, insert the supplied SD memory card into the holder on the WindTracker and the data will automatically be written to it. This small file can then be uploaded to the Small Wind Turbine Energy Analyser for WindTracker where the results are visualised as shown below.

The collected data can then be used to decide first of all if the site is suitable for a wind turbine generator, and if so, to decide while turbine to install. A very useful article on using the generated wind profile to select a wind turbine are given here Wind Turbine & Wind Speed on the Logic Energy website.

If you have used the WindTracker Pro (which also keeps track of the direction of the wind as well as its speed using a more advanced anemometer), then a wind direction chart will display the wind speeds from all directions as shown below:

WindTracker Features

The standard (wind speed only) WindTracker is supplied with a sturdy Vortex 3-cup wind speed sensor (anemometer) fitted with 7.5 metres of exterior grade cable for connection to WindTracker. The wind speed sensor is fitted to an aluminium mounting bracket with two holes ready for fixing. This device is pictured below.

The WindTracker Pro (wind speed and direction) is supplied with a Pro-D wind speed and direction sensor with 12 metres of cable attached. This device is pictured below.

The wind data remains stored in WindTracker even after it is written to the SD card, therefore it is possible to use WindTracker for a few days, download the data just to check everything is working as it should without ever having to stop or reset WindTracker.

If you move WindTracker and do not want to mix data from the different sites, then it is of course possible to reset all data to zero.

WindTracker is powered by two standard C-sized alkaline batteries (supplied). If the memory card is left in WindTracker then the batteries will last up to one year. If the memory card is only inserted when the data is to be downloaded, then it will last much longer. WindTracker is supplied with an industrial grade 128 MB SD card. Much larger capacity SD cards are available, but the wind speed data file created by WindTracker is very small, and the larger the SD card, the more power hungry it is.

WindTracker is fitted in an IP65 rated (dust and heavy rain proof) enclosure.

Windtracker is manufactured in the UK under ISO 9001 and is EMC certified.

More Information and Buy WindTracker

WindTracker, Wind Tracker Pro, and a range of related accessories are available direct from the manufacturers Logic Energy in Glasgow, Scotland.