Turn off the lights

Obstruction Light Control 

Turn obstruction lights on – but only when needed. The increasing size of wind turbines is creating safety and societal challenges for the wind industry, the authorities, and the surrounding municipalities when it comes to complying with air traffic regulations.

As wind turbines grow taller and enter the lower airspace, high intensity obstruction lights are needed. The high-intensity lights required for higher wind turbines can appear very intrusive to wind farm neighbors and to an otherwise pristine night sky. The high intensity lights cause a growing number of delays and cancelations of wind farms due to complaints from neighbors and municipalities near planned wind farms. These problems can be overcome by turning the obstruction lights on only when necessary, i.e. when there is an aircraft in the vicinity of the wind farm. Our Obstruction Light Control (OLC) vastly reduces light pollution caused by wind farms and improves the success rate of wind farm deployments.

Approvals

At Terma, we have an extensive track record with approval authorities providing documentation, standard safety cases, and support. Our know-how and domain leadership can be of great benefit in the approval process for planning and operational permits. Working with us is a long-term partnership from the approval process through to deployment or retrofit of the wind farm.

Our OLC solution is the most widely approved solution, and certified for deployment in the following countries;

• United States, certified by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration)
• Germany, certified by DFS (Deutsche Flug Sicherung)
• Denmark, certified by TBST (Danish Transport, Construction and Housing Authority)

Proven and reliable technology

We have been a world leader within radar detection technologies for more than 60 years. Our +3,000 Terma radar systems are protecting borders, harbors, airports, coast lines and wind farms worldwide.

More than 85% of all major airports around the world and 65% of all coastal shores rely on our radar technology.

Our OLC solution is based on our proven and reliable technology, ensuring continuous operation and low maintenance costs. Combined with our global service and maintenance capability, you obtain a proven high-performance system with very low risk.

Our proven radar capabilities within radar surveillance provide a confident solution for small target detection in all weather conditions. This means that small aircraft, helicopters, gliders, ultralights, and other small non-cooperative targets will be warned by the obstruction lights.

Our built in target classifier is on the forefront of adaptive machine learning, to discriminate small non-cooperative targets from larger flocks of birds. This means that larger flocks of birds will not activate the obstruction lights. Birds’ not activating the obstruction lights on near- and off-shore windfarms is of great importance, not only to the neighbouring municipalities, and environmental bodies, but the birds too. Large flocks of birds are drawn to activated obstruction lights, greatly putting the life of the flock at risk.

Key benefits

• Vendor-neutral. Our OLC solution integrates with existing infrastructure and lighting from leading Wind Turbine Generator vendors.
• Scalability / Deployment flexibility. Terma radar capabilities and deployment offerings enable flexible solutions, for on-shore, near-shore, and off-shore wind farms, bringing down the total cost of ownership.
• Our SCANTER 5202 is a commercial of the shelf product with more than 300 installations in service.