Light:Guard reduces flashing by 97% in the largest wind farm in the Netherlands

Light:Guard GmbH has developed the wind plan Groen in the Netherlands with demand-controlled night marking (BNK) equipped. In the first month of operation, the built-in light:guard system lights-out times of over 97%.

Windplan Groen in Flevoland is a cluster of eleven wind farms with 90 turbines from various Manufacturer. With a total capacity of 500 MW, the 1800 GWh of electricity. This makes Windplan Groen the largest wind farm on Dutch soil.

Residents, however, had complains: the constant flashing of the turbines at night disturbs the natural landscape and contribute to light pollution.

 "We have heard from residents of Windplan Groen hears that they are annoyed by the flashing of our systems. Therefore, We are so happy about the light:guard system, which ensures that the lights are so hardly ever blink," says Allard van der Steege, Chairman of Windplan Groen. "We want a good neighbor for our surroundings be. Light:Guard, together with the Dutch company Topwind, has contributed. We like that very much."

Topwind BV has been distributing the light:guard system for demand-controlled night marking in the Netherlands, which was also used here. Seven transponder receivers and eleven light control units were installed as an ADL infrastructure. That BNK system uses the transponder signals of flying objects to determine their position. determine. Only when a flying object is nearby, the Obstacle lighting of the wind turbines activated.

The technology of the Multilateration. To do this, the system uses the data from several receivers in order to determine the location and trajectory of the flying object. calculate. In this way, more accurate results can be achieved than if everyone wind farm can only access a single transponder receiver.

How exactly the results of multilateration and thus the reduction of flashing The example of Windplan Groen shows very clearly. Despite several airports and correspondingly high flight activity, the Flashing at all eleven wind farms reduced by an average of over 97%. At the Olsterwind wind farm a lights-off time of almost 99% was even achieved with an average of over 75 Detections per night measured throughout August.

In Olsterwind wind farm, the lighting was increased by over 99% over the entire month of August. – with over 2000 detections. Image: Light:Guard GmbH

"I am very proud of the Topwind and Light:Guard teams," says Felix Weiss, Head of Business Development at Light:Guard: "I can't stress enough that these great results and the high switch-off times are only possible because all have cooperated well with us: the manufacturers, ILT and especially Windplan Groen. The project is a real benchmark for us and shows what is possible with multilateration."

The exact data of all wind farms can be found at https://light-guard.com/aktuell/fallstudie-bnk-im-windplan-groen.