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

Journal Article · · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
 [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)
+ Show Author Affiliations

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.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
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
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1512668
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5000-72581
Journal Information:
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 100, Issue 9; ISSN 0003-0007
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 34 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (46)

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
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
Sensitivity of Turbine-Height Wind Speeds to Parameters in the Planetary Boundary-Layer Parametrization Used in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model: Extension to Wintertime Conditions journal November 2018
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 journal March 2001
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 journal June 1989
Effects of stability on the profiles of vertical velocity and its variance in katabatic flow journal October 1996
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
Mesoscale modeling of offshore wind turbine wakes at the wind farm resolving scale: a composite-based analysis with the Weather Research and Forecasting model over Horns Rev: Mesoscale modeling at the wind farm resolving scale journal February 2014
Evaluation of the wind farm parameterization in the Weather Research and Forecasting model (version 3.8.1) with meteorological and turbine power data journal January 2017
Current Challenges in Understanding and Predicting Transport and Exchange in the Atmosphere over Mountainous Terrain journal July 2018
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
Assessment of Vertical Mesh Refinement in Concurrently Nested Large-Eddy Simulations Using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model journal August 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
Evaluation of a Wind Farm Parametrization for Mesoscale Atmospheric Flow Models with Aircraft Measurements [Evaluation of a Wind Farm Parametrization for Mesoscale Atmospheric Flow Models with Aircraft Measurements] journal December 2018
In situ observations of the influence of a large onshore wind farm on near-surface temperature, turbulence intensity and wind speed profiles journal July 2013
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
Sensitivity of Turbine-Height Wind Speeds to Parameters in Planetary Boundary-Layer and Surface-Layer Schemes in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model journal July 2016
Impacts of wind farms on land surface temperature journal April 2012

Cited By (3)

The Hydrometeorology Testbed–West Legacy Observing Network: Supporting Research to Applications for Atmospheric Rivers and Beyond journal September 2019
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

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Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
wind energy
WFIP2
complex terrain
overview
mesoscale
microscale
modeling