Siemens Energy and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have entered a cooperative research and development agreements (CRADA) which will be about research into atmospheric modeling. This research is expected to help operators and wind farm owners get more efficiency from their wind power operations. The agreement will be over a period of two years, with Livermore providing high-res numerical weather prediction models for forecasting wind generated power. Siemens on the other hand, will translate Livermore's forecasts into wind speed and wind direction data for each turbine into collected power.
Wind parks in the US are known to generate up to 20% less power than predicted, due to uncertainty in forecasts. According to their press release, more accurate wind predictions will help farm operators to know the wind conditions hours and days ahead of time.
More accurate wind predictions will enable wind farm operators and owners to know hours or days ahead of time how wind conditions will affect power generation.
Just to illustrate the potential savings, a recent study analyzing the effect of improved forecasting showed that the 3.3 GW power output from wind energy in New York state would gain about US$125 million a year for that region alone. It is estimated that wind power producers may be able to increase revenue by as much as 10%, thus helping to reduce the cost of energy.
