(ENVIRO) Israeli “Wind Prediction” Company Pentalum Raises $9 Million

2:02 PM by 
"One of the main problems both in planning and running a wind farm is knowing where the wind will come from and how strong it will be. Pentalum thinks they have the solution.

Pentalum Technologies Ltd have raised an additional $9 million from three venture capital fund, the Israeli business daily Globes is reporting.

The company has developed what they call a SpiDARTM: 'a revolutionary, cost effective, patent pending, Lidar system, for remote sensing of wind.'

'The system targets all three main wind farm applications: wind resource assessment, wind farm operation optimization and wind forecasting.'

LIDAR stands for light detection and ranging and the technology is used for establishing the range as well as other information of a target by using laser pulses.

When used in the wind power industry to measure the oncoming horizontal winds the system proactively adjust the blades to both increase power and to protect the rotor from damaged caused by excessive winds.

'The SpiDARTM unique architecture allows simultaneous measurements of wind speed in a multitude of selected sites, with a cost per site significantly lower than existing technologies,' the website advertises.

A pilot study of the SpiDAR is planed for early 2011.

Pentalum Technologies is run by Sagie Tsadka, Co-Founder and CEO and Former General Manager of Finisar Israel (Nasdaq FNSR) and Nathan Sela, Co-Founder and COO is a serial entrepreneur and executive in several innovative, cutting edge medical equipment companies.

While the Israeli wind turbine market is relatively small, especially for a country which is at forefront of the technical development a problem often attributed to an extensive and complicated bureaucracy, with 6 MW of production capabilities installed, there is great potential elsewhere.

At moment Egypt is at the top of the 'wind' class in the Middle East and North Africa with 450 MW already installed and another 200 MW in the planning stages; the total capability for the region is estimated to be 835 MW.

However the advancements in the Middle East and North Africa are tiny when compared to the global leaders such as Germany with 25,000 MW and Spain with 18,000." (source)