At the 2016 IEA Wind Task 32 General Meeting in Glasgow, participants identified the practical aspects of lidar campaigns in complex terrain as a major barrier to the further deployment of wind lidar. Three general barriers to the use of lidar in complex terrain were identified:

1. Operations. Sites may be remote, which makes setting up and operating the lidar challenging.
2. Data. Data may be incomplete because of power or other issues, and may be difficult to interpret because of inhomogeneous flow conditions.
3. Guidelines. Existing recommended practices and standards do not explain what should be done to achieve satisfactory measurements in complex terrain.

The background to many of the challenges is described in a previous IEA Wind Task 32 report[1].

However, because of the lack of common experience, there is little agreement on what the most important barriers are, where there is most work required, or in what order the barriers should be addressed.

This workshop will:

1. Provide practitioners with an overview of the state-of-the-industry and state-of-the-art in wind measurements in complex terrain.
2. Develop a set of worked examples for planning measurement campaigns in complex terrain
3. Identify critical barriers and develop a roadmap for mitigating them.

The scope of the workshop includes designing measurement campaigns, conducting field operations, and analyzing data. The workshop will identify best practices and barriers to the wider use of lidar in complex terrain.

[1] See A. Clifton, M. Boquet, E. B. D. Roziers, A. Westerhellweg, M. Hofsäß, T. Klaas, K. Vogstad, P. Clive, M. Harris, S. Wylie, E. Osler, B. Banta, A. Choukulkar, J. Lundquist, and M. Aitken, “Remote sensing of complex flows by doppler wind lidar: issues and preliminary recommendations,” NREL, NREL/TP-5000-64634, 2015.