Gov’t Agencies, Companies Partner on Better Wind Forecasts

(National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Two U.S. companies are working with the Department of Energy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to improve wind forecasting that can help wind power providers better plan and deliver electric power. AWS Truepower in Albany, New York and WindLogics Inc. in Saint Paul, Minnesota won grants last fall to deploy atmospheric measurement systems that provide data  for better wind and weather prediction models.

Researchers in DoE’s and NOAA’s Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP) will gather these atmospheric data over the next 12 months from instruments, such as wind profiling radars, that capture detailed images of wind speed and direction in the atmosphere. The team is aiming for the capture of wind speeds and directions up to 400 feet above the ground.

Each company will concentrate on collecting data in a specific geographic region. WindLogics will cover the northern Great Plains including parts of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Iowa. AWS Truepower, will cover an area of the southern Great Plains centered on west Texas, but extending into Oklahoma and New Mexico as well.

The data will be used to build a high-resolution research weather model at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) in Boulder, Colorado that is expected to improve the accuracy of regional weather forecasts. WFIP researchers will evaluate various types of weather data for improving the accuracy of weather forecasts, as well as the economic value of improved forecasts to the wind companies.

“Our starting point is to improve the basic wind forecast for all users,” says ESRL director Alexander MacDonald, “including wind power and conventional energy companies, the aviation industry and the general public.” MacDonald adds, “The end goal is to lower the cost of electric power for the consumer.”

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