Understanding Biases in Pre-Construction Estimates
The pre-construction energy generation of a wind farm (P50) is difficult to estimate and evaluate. This paper presents a methodology to measure the accuracy of the p50 prediction, which we call the Historical Validation Survey (HVS), for several wind farms in the continental United States. Our results indicate that there is a bias between predicted and measured energy, even when controlling for factors like grid curtailment and resource variability. We also find that our results depend on the assumptions we make during analysis, which we quantify with a sensitivity analysis. This method allows the estimation of uncertainty we have in our findings. When we account for reasonable ranges of model assumptions, we find that, in the most optimistic case, there is still a bulk -5.5% bias when estimating pre-construction energy generation. When controlling for grid curtailment this number reduces to a range of -3.5 to -4.5%.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC36-08GO28308
- OSTI ID:
- 1479632
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/JA-2C00-71398
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Physics. Conference Series, Journal Name: Journal of Physics. Conference Series Vol. 1037; ISSN 1742-6588
- Publisher:
- IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system
|
journal | April 2011 |
MERRA: NASA’s Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications
|
journal | July 2011 |
| Wind Plant Preconstruction Energy Estimates. Current Practice and Opportunities | report | April 2016 |
Assessing variability of wind speed: comparison and validation of 27 methodologies
|
journal | January 2018 |
Similar Records
An independent analysis of bias sources and variability in wind plant pre‐construction energy yield estimation methods
Biases in preconstruction estimates of wind plant annual energy production