skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: The Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP). A Public-Private Partnership Addressing Wind Energy Forecast Needs

Journal Article · · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [5];  [5];  [2];  [2];  [6];  [6];  [7];  [1];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [6];  [1]
  1. NOAA, Boulder, CO (United States)
  2. WindLogics, Inc., St. Paul, MN (United States)
  3. AWS Truepower, Albany, NY (United States)
  4. USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Washington, DC (United States)
  5. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  6. Meso, Inc., Troy, NY (United States)
  7. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), College Park, MD (United States)
  8. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States)
  9. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  10. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  11. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

The Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP) is a public-private research program, the goals of which are to improve the accuracy of short-term (0-6 hr) wind power forecasts for the wind energy industry and then to quantify the economic savings that accrue from more efficient integration of wind energy into the electrical grid. WFIP was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), with partners that include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), private forecasting companies (WindLogics and AWS Truepower), DOE national laboratories, grid operators, and universities. WFIP employed two avenues for improving wind power forecasts: first, through the collection of special observations to be assimilated into forecast models to improve model initial conditions; and second, by upgrading NWP forecast models and ensembles. The new observations were collected during concurrent year-long field campaigns in two high wind energy resource areas of the U.S. (the upper Great Plains, and Texas), and included 12 wind profiling radars, 12 sodars, 184 instrumented tall towers and over 400 nacelle anemometers (provided by private industry), lidar, and several surface flux stations. Results demonstrate that a substantial improvement of up to 14% relative reduction in power root mean square error (RMSE) was achieved from the combination of improved NOAA numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and assimilation of the new observations. Data denial experiments run over select periods of time demonstrate that up to a 6% relative improvement came from the new observations. The use of ensemble forecasts produced even larger forecast improvements. Based on the success of WFIP, DOE is planning follow-on field programs.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1225154
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-101933; EB2502010
Journal Information:
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 96, Issue 10; ISSN 0003-0007
Publisher:
American Meteorological Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (23)

Nocturnal Low-Level Jet Characteristics Over Kansas During Cases-99 journal November 2002
Doppler lidar measurements of the great plains low-level jet: applications to wind energy journal May 2008
The Value of Wind Profiler Data in U.S. Weather Forecasting journal December 2004
Relative Short-Range Forecast Impact from Aircraft, Profiler, Radiosonde, VAD, GPS-PW, METAR, and Mesonet Observations via the RUC Hourly Assimilation Cycle journal April 2010
Implementation of a Gabor Transform Data Quality-Control Algorithm for UHF Wind Profiling Radars journal December 2013
LIBSVM: A library for support vector machines journal April 2011
Support-vector networks journal September 1995
A WRF Ensemble for Improved Wind Speed Forecasts at Turbine Height journal February 2013
The Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP). A Public/Private Partnership for Improving Short Term Wind Energy Forecasts and Quantifying the Benefits of Utility Operations -- the Northern Study Area report April 2014
The Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP): A Public/Private Partnership for Improving Short Term Wind Energy Forecasts and Quantifying the Benefits of Utility Operations. The Southern Study Area, Final Report report April 2014
Lamar Low-Level Jet Program Interim Report report January 2004
A Wind Power Forecasting System to Optimize Grid Integration journal October 2012
Wind Energy Management System Integration Project Incorporating Wind Generation and Load Forecast Uncertainties into Power Grid Operations report January 2010
Forecasting the Wind to Reach Significant Penetration Levels of Wind Energy journal September 2011
Wind power forecasting : state-of-the-art 2009. report November 2009
Nocturnal boundary-layer wind maxima and the problem of wind power assessment. journal February 1978
The WRF Model Forecast-Derived Low-Level Wind Shear Climatology over the United States Great Plains journal February 2010
Evaluation of the Weather Research and Forecasting model on forecasting low-level jets: implications for wind energy journal January 2009
Summarizing multiple aspects of model performance in a single diagram journal April 2001
Report from a working group meeting on wind forecasts for WECS operation report March 1978
The Simulation of the Southern Great Plains Nocturnal Boundary Layer and the Low-Level Jet with a High-Resolution Mesoscale Atmospheric Model journal July 2011
The Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS) - A multi-scale nonhydrostatic atmospheric simulation and prediction model. Part I: Model dynamics and verification journal December 2000
The Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS) - A multi-scale nonhydrostatic atmospheric simulation and prediction tool. Part II: Model physics and applications journal February 2001

Cited By (15)

Interannual variability of wind climates and wind turbine annual energy production journal January 2018
Observing and Simulating Wind-Turbine Wakes During the Evening Transition journal May 2017
Minute-Scale Forecasting of Wind Power—Results from the Collaborative Workshop of IEA Wind Task 32 and 36 journal February 2019
The future of forecasting for renewable energy journal September 2019
Impacts of the Low-Level Jet’s Negative Wind Shear on the Wind Turbine journal June 2017
Data assimilation impact of in situ and remote sensing meteorological observations on wind power forecasts during the first W ind F orecast I mprovement P roject (WFIP) journal March 2019
The Hydrometeorology Testbed–West Legacy Observing Network: Supporting Research to Applications for Atmospheric Rivers and Beyond journal September 2019
Simulating impacts of real-world wind farms on land surface temperature using the WRF model: physical mechanisms journal March 2019
Forecast of daily output energy of wind turbine using sARIMA and nonlinear autoregressive models journal February 2019
Impact of model improvements on 80 m wind speeds during the second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2) journal January 2019
Influence of the Heights of Low-Level Jets on Power and Aerodynamic Loads of a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Rotor journal March 2019
Application of mesoscale ensemble forecast method for prediction of wind speed ramps journal January 2019
Measuring the impact of additional instrumentation on the skill of numerical weather prediction models at forecasting wind ramp events during the first Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP) journal May 2019
Powering the 21st century by wind energy—Options, facts, figures journal September 2019
Impacts of the low-level jet's negative wind shear on the wind turbine journal January 2017

Similar Records

The Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP): A Public–Private Partnership Addressing Wind Energy Forecast Needs
Journal Article · Fri Oct 30 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · OSTI ID:1225154
+16 more
Data assimilation impact of in situ and remote sensing meteorological observations on wind power forecasts during the first W ind F orecast I mprovement P roject (WFIP)
Journal Article · Tue Mar 26 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Wind Energy · OSTI ID:1225154
+8 more
The Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP): A Public/Private Partnership for Improving Short Term Wind Energy Forecasts and Quantifying the Benefits of Utility Operations. The Southern Study Area, Final Report
Technical Report · Wed Apr 30 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · OSTI ID:1225154
+6 more

Related Subjects

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION