Fort Meade VAMC Wind Study

ANTARES Group Inc. (ANTARES) was contracted by the National Energy Business Center to conduct a wind monitoring campaign at the Black Hills Healthcare System VA Medical Center in Ft. Meade, South Dakota. The VAMC had previously conducted a low-level feasibility study and sought to verify the viability of the wind resource and assess the potential performance of a large wind turbine.
ANTARES oversaw the installation of a 50-meter tilt-up meteorological tower, which was equipped at several monitoring heights with anemometers and vanes. The wind resource was monitored at the site for one year.
The collected data was then analyzed. Estimated annual electricity production, including loss and uncertainty, was calculated for several commercially available wind turbines sized at 660 and 850 kW rated output. The collected time series wind data was then used to generate a representative year of hourly data.