Determination of wind energy from SAR images for siting windmill locations

The Earth’s population is facing an increasing demand for electrical power. After the recent Kyoto meeting, which gave clear signals of reductions in the CO2 emission to the atmosphere, it is clear that new alternative sources of power must be considered to meet these needs. In this context, the possibilities for increasing the utilisation of converting wind energy into electrical power by use of windmills have been investigated. With the technical improvement of wind power turbines in recent years, operating wind power plants have become more economically efficient, and is today a worthy source for complementing other types of energy. For example, 7% of Danish power consumption, supplying about 200.000 households, are wind generated [www.windpower.dk]. In planning for windmill park installations it is of fundamental importance to have sufficient information about the wind characteristics for different seasons. Standard wind measurements are available from ground mounted instruments, such as cupor sonic anemometers, which usually provide a time series at an average of 1or 10-minute intervals. Such measurements are localised and will not properly resolve the spatial variations in the wind field, and it is generally difficult to estimate wind conditions at a nearby site. From atmospheric boundary layer meteorology, we know that the surface wind field will have large spatial variations and the mapping of the wind field with high spatial resolution will be of great importance for the siting of windmill locations.