Nadara has selected ZX Lidars’ ZX 300e wind lidar fleet to support its wind repowering programme in the UK.
ZX Lidars said the agreement, announced at the Wind Lidar Masterclass in Berlin, covers the purchase of a fleet of wind lidars delivered under a fully turnkey offering including field services and operational support from ZX Measurement Services, alongside dedicated ZX Power systems to enable long-term standalone operation.
According to ZX Lidars, the lidars will be used to provide direct, bankable wind measurements at future hub heights, supporting repowering decisions without reliance on legacy met mast infrastructure or SCADA-only reconstructions.
The UK onshore wind sector is entering a pivotal repowering phase, with a proportion of operational projects approaching or exceeding their original design life.
At the same time, planning, grid and land-use constraints increasingly favour repowering existing sites where possible.
Modern repowering schemes typically involve significantly higher hub heights and larger rotors than those originally installed, while in many cases historic wind measurements do not extend into the vertical range required for today’s turbines, making uncertainty around wind shear, veer and vertical wind profiles a key focus in technical and financial assessments.
Standalone wind lidar is therefore increasingly being adopted in the UK to address this gap, enabling direct measurement across the full rotor-swept area at proposed repowering heights, according to ZX.
For repowering projects, where uncertainty at new hub heights can materially influence P50, P90 and lender confidence, this level of wind measurement certainty provides greater certainty for owners, advisors and investors, the company said.
Finley Becks-Phelps (pictured, right), UK head of development at Nadara, said: “Repowering is central to Nadara’s long-term strategy for maximising value from our onshore wind portfolio. As turbines reach the limits of their original design life, we see a significant opportunity to increase generation from existing sites, but only if the underlying wind data supports confident decisions.”
Becks-Phelps added: “Direct measurements at future hub heights allow us to move beyond assumptions and legacy constraints. Using ZX 300e, the best IEC-classified standalone lidar available, allows us to reduce uncertainty and approach repowering with greater confidence and a robust, investment-ready approach to repowering.”