Wind industry puts forward £1.6m towards resolving radar issues
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
As a solution likely to release 6 Gigawatts of projects, enough to power 3.4 million homes the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has welcomed the signing of the contract between DECC, The Crown Estate, NATS En Route and the wind industry’s Aviation Investment Fund Company to progress the development of the Raytheon solution.
The Raytheon solution is a hardware and software fix to the detection of wind turbines on radar systems, which will eliminate wind turbine interference of en route radar displays. It is estimated that currently there are 6 gigawatts of wind energy capacity held back due to objections from civil and MoD aviation authorities. This is enough capacity to power 3.4 million homes.
Simon Christian, Project Director at ScottishPower Renewables and Chair of the Aviation Investment Fund Company said: “The industry is delighted to have set up the AIFCL and that this major contract has been made between all the parties. This is one of the most exciting developments for the potential removal of aviation objections, and we are very pleased to have instigated it.”
BWEA has also welcomed the role of The Crown Estate as a major sponsor to accelerate and de-risk Round 3 wind farm developments.
Colin Ormston, Development Director at Vatenfall said, “Vattenfall are very pleased to celebrate this significant achievement. The signing of this document demonstrates the commitment of the Government, the aviation industry and the wind industry to investigate how new technologies may be used to enable the wind industry to work more closely with the aviation community in addressing climate change.”
While the Raytheon solution has the potential to fix the en route radar problem, issues still remain with MoD radar, and the Aviation Investment Fund Company has also recently committed to fund a MoD and IBM study for expanding the UK Air Defence and Ground Environment Command and Control System (UCCS) to accept air traffic control radar feeds as wind farm mitigation.
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