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Title: The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2): General Overview

Abstract

WFIP2, a multi-institutional, multiscale modeling and observational study in complex terrain, advances understanding of boundary-layer physics and improves forecasts for wind energy applications. In 2015 the U.S. Department of Energy initiated a four-year study, the second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2), to improve the representation of boundary-layer physics and related processes in mesoscale models for better treatment of scales applicable to wind and wind power forecasts. This goal challenges numerical weather prediction (NWP) models in complex terrain in large part due to inherent assumptions underlying their boundary-layer parameterizations. The WFIP2 effort involved the wind industry, universities, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) national laboratories in an integrated observational and modeling study. Observations spanned 18 months to assure a full annual cycle of continuously recorded observations from remote-sensing and in situ measurement systems. The study area comprised the Columbia Basin of eastern Washington and Oregon, containing more than 6 GW of installed wind capacity. Nests of observational systems captured important atmospheric scales from mesoscale to NWP subgrid scale. Model improvements targeted NOAA's High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model to facilitate transfer of improvements to National Weather Service (NWS) operational forecast models, and these modificationsmore » have already yielded quantitative improvements for the short-term operational forecasts. This paper describes the general WFIP2 scope and objectives, the particular scientific challenges of improving wind forecasts in complex terrain, early successes of the project, and an integrated approach to archiving observations and model output. It provides an introduction for a set of more detailed BAMS papers addressing WFIP2 observational science, modeling challenges and solutions, incorporation of forecasting uncertainty into decision support tools for the wind industry, and advances in coupling improved mesoscale models to microscale models that can represent interactions between wind plants and the atmosphere.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [5];  [4];  [1];  [8];  [7]
  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  2. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Washington, DC (United States)
  3. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  4. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States)
  5. Vaisala, Inc., Seattle, WA (United States)
  6. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  7. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States)
  8. Sharply Focused, LLC, Portland, OR (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Wind Energy Technologies Office; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Water Power Technologies Office
OSTI Identifier:
1512668
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5000-72581
Journal ID: ISSN 0003-0007
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC36-08GO28308
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 100; Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 0003-0007
Publisher:
American Meteorological Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
17 WIND ENERGY; wind energy; WFIP2; complex terrain; overview; mesoscale; microscale; modeling

Citation Formats

Shaw, William J., Berg, Larry K., Cline, Joel, Draxl, Caroline, Djalalova, Irina, Grimit, Eric P., Lundquist, Julie K., Marquis, Melinda, McCaa, Jim, Olson, Joseph B., Sivaraman, Chitra, Sharp, Justin, and Wilczak, James M. The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2): General Overview. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0036.1.
Shaw, William J., Berg, Larry K., Cline, Joel, Draxl, Caroline, Djalalova, Irina, Grimit, Eric P., Lundquist, Julie K., Marquis, Melinda, McCaa, Jim, Olson, Joseph B., Sivaraman, Chitra, Sharp, Justin, & Wilczak, James M. The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2): General Overview. United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0036.1
Shaw, William J., Berg, Larry K., Cline, Joel, Draxl, Caroline, Djalalova, Irina, Grimit, Eric P., Lundquist, Julie K., Marquis, Melinda, McCaa, Jim, Olson, Joseph B., Sivaraman, Chitra, Sharp, Justin, and Wilczak, James M. 2019. "The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2): General Overview". United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0036.1. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1512668.
@article{osti_1512668,
title = {The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2): General Overview},
author = {Shaw, William J. and Berg, Larry K. and Cline, Joel and Draxl, Caroline and Djalalova, Irina and Grimit, Eric P. and Lundquist, Julie K. and Marquis, Melinda and McCaa, Jim and Olson, Joseph B. and Sivaraman, Chitra and Sharp, Justin and Wilczak, James M.},
abstractNote = {WFIP2, a multi-institutional, multiscale modeling and observational study in complex terrain, advances understanding of boundary-layer physics and improves forecasts for wind energy applications. In 2015 the U.S. Department of Energy initiated a four-year study, the second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2), to improve the representation of boundary-layer physics and related processes in mesoscale models for better treatment of scales applicable to wind and wind power forecasts. This goal challenges numerical weather prediction (NWP) models in complex terrain in large part due to inherent assumptions underlying their boundary-layer parameterizations. The WFIP2 effort involved the wind industry, universities, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) national laboratories in an integrated observational and modeling study. Observations spanned 18 months to assure a full annual cycle of continuously recorded observations from remote-sensing and in situ measurement systems. The study area comprised the Columbia Basin of eastern Washington and Oregon, containing more than 6 GW of installed wind capacity. Nests of observational systems captured important atmospheric scales from mesoscale to NWP subgrid scale. Model improvements targeted NOAA's High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model to facilitate transfer of improvements to National Weather Service (NWS) operational forecast models, and these modifications have already yielded quantitative improvements for the short-term operational forecasts. This paper describes the general WFIP2 scope and objectives, the particular scientific challenges of improving wind forecasts in complex terrain, early successes of the project, and an integrated approach to archiving observations and model output. It provides an introduction for a set of more detailed BAMS papers addressing WFIP2 observational science, modeling challenges and solutions, incorporation of forecasting uncertainty into decision support tools for the wind industry, and advances in coupling improved mesoscale models to microscale models that can represent interactions between wind plants and the atmosphere.},
doi = {10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0036.1},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1512668}, journal = {Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society},
issn = {0003-0007},
number = 9,
volume = 100,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Sep 27 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Fri Sep 27 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}

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Cited by: 34 works
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Works referenced in this record:

Ground-level climate at a peatland wind farm in Scotland is affected by wind turbine operation
journal, April 2016


Topographic Effects on Radiation in the WRF Model with the Immersed Boundary Method: Implementation, Validation, and Application to Complex Terrain
journal, October 2018


Impacts of wind farms on surface air temperatures
journal, October 2010


A Wind Energy Ramp Tool and Metric for Measuring the Skill of Numerical Weather Prediction Models
journal, August 2016


Assessing the accuracy of microwave radiometers and radio acoustic sounding systems for wind energy applications
journal, January 2017


Estimation of turbulence dissipation rate and its variability from sonic anemometer and wind Doppler lidar during the XPIA field campaign
journal, January 2018


The MAP Special Observing Period
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Evaluation of single and multiple Doppler lidar techniques to measure complex flow during the XPIA field campaign
journal, January 2017


Experimental Design of the 1984 ASCOT Field Study
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Effects of stability on the profiles of vertical velocity and its variance in katabatic flow
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Assessment of virtual towers performed with scanning wind lidars and Ka-band radars during the XPIA experiment
journal, January 2017


Boundary-Layer Atmospheric Processes in Mountainous Terrain: Results from MATERHORN-X
journal, February 2016


The vtmx 2000 Campaign
journal, April 2002


The MATERHORN: Unraveling the Intricacies of Mountain Weather
journal, November 2015


Local and Mesoscale Impacts of Wind Farms as Parameterized in a Mesoscale NWP Model
journal, September 2012


Mesoscale Influences of Wind Farms throughout a Diurnal Cycle
journal, July 2013


On Bridging A Modeling Scale Gap: Mesoscale to Microscale Coupling for Wind Energy
journal, December 2019


Assessing State-of-the-Art Capabilities for Probing the Atmospheric Boundary Layer: The XPIA Field Campaign
journal, February 2017


Costs and consequences of wind turbine wake effects arising from uncoordinated wind energy development
journal, November 2018


Forecasting the Wind to Reach Significant Penetration Levels of Wind Energy
journal, September 2011


Identification of tower-wake distortions using sonic anemometer and lidar measurements
journal, January 2017


Turbulence Dissipation Rate in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer: Observations and WRF Mesoscale Modeling during the XPIA Field Campaign
journal, January 2018


Validating precision estimates in horizontal wind measurements from a Doppler lidar
journal, January 2017


Wakes in very large wind farms and the effect of neighbouring wind farms
journal, June 2014


Improving Wind Energy Forecasting through Numerical Weather Prediction Model Development
journal, November 2019


An Overview of the ASCOT Multi-Laboratory Field Experiments in Relation to Drainage Winds and Ambient Flow
journal, October 1985


Spatiotemporal Variability of Turbulence Kinetic Energy Budgets in the Convective Boundary Layer over Both Simple and Complex Terrain
journal, December 2017


Crop Wind Energy Experiment (CWEX): Observations of Surface-Layer, Boundary Layer, and Mesoscale Interactions with a Wind Farm
journal, May 2013


Changes in fluxes of heat, H2O, and CO2 caused by a large wind farm
journal, August 2014


Exchange Processes in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer Over Mountainous Terrain
journal, March 2018


Research Needs For Wind Resource Characterization
journal, April 2009


The Explicit Wake Parametrisation V1.0: a wind farm parametrisation in the mesoscale model WRF
journal, January 2015


The Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP): A Public–Private Partnership Addressing Wind Energy Forecast Needs
journal, October 2015


The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2): Observational Field Campaign
journal, September 2019


Wind turbine wake measurements with automatically adjusting scanning trajectories in a multi-Doppler lidar setup
journal, January 2018


Toward Numerical Modeling in the “Terra Incognita”
journal, July 2004


Impacts of wind farms on land surface temperature
journal, April 2012


Works referencing / citing this record:

Impact of model improvements on 80 m wind speeds during the second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2)
journal, January 2019


Spatial and temporal variability of turbulence dissipation rate in complex terrain
journal, January 2019