Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Enhancing short term wind energy forecasting for improved utility operations: The Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP)

Irina V. Djalalova (1), Laura Bianco (1), and James. M. Wilczak (2)

(1) CIRES University of Colorado and NOAA/ERSL/PSD (2) NOAA/ERSL/PSD

It is widely recognized within the wind energy and electric utility operations communities that current skill levels of wind energy forecasting are adding increased costs to the integration of wind energy onto the U.S. electrical grid. To address this, the U.S. Department of Energy has implemented a joint research program with NOAA and private industry to improve wind energy forecasts. The key elements of this program are a one-year deployment of extensive meteorological observing systems in two regions with significant wind energy production; assimilation of these observations into hourly-updated NOAA High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) Model, run nationwide at 3 km resolution; and evaluation of the benefits of these improved wind forecasts on electrical utility operations. We will describe early results from the one-year field program, which began in July 2011. In particular we will describe the regions selected; the instrumentation deployed; the data quality control procedures; and a preliminary analysis of ESRL model forecast skill versus the NWS operational Rapid Refresh/RUC models.