418 Problems in wind measurements in cold climates

Wind measurement plays an important role for wind power production in various aspects such as selections of location of a wind power plant including evaluation of possibility from the economical power generation point of view, and effective operation of wind turbines after erection. In Japan, many of promising locations for wind turbine are in areas prone to snowing or icing in winter. Snowing or icing may exert a negative influence on wind measurement by accumulation on anemometers and wind vanes and/or sticking some devices due to ice formation. In this paper, the effect of snow and ice on wind speed measurement was studied quantitatively by carrying out an icing wind tunnel test and analysis of data from AMeDAS. Moreover, for easy survey of snow-endangered areas in Japan, the Japanese Icing Map was created based on the data analysis.