I-Corps: Short-term Wind Forecasting Engine

Boise State University, Boise ID

Investigators

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a short-term wind forecasting engine. Installed wind power capacity across the nation has increased dramatically over the last decade. However, utility companies, grid operators and wind farm owners are facing major difficulties because of intermittent winds. The variability of wind is further exacerbated for wind farms that are located on complex terrain regions. Substantial technology gaps exist in short-term wind power forecasting and grid integration. Current practice relies on weather forecasting and historical wind analysis, but power forecasting using these approaches is prone to large errors. The forecasting engine developed by the research team is designed for fast execution on parallel computing clusters accelerated by modern graphics processing units in a multi-scale fashion, where micro-scale computations will be concurrently driven by meso-scale weather prediction models. The numerical methods and the turbulence model adopted inside the forecasting engine offer great flexibility for complex terrain and enable significantly improved predictions at the turbine hub height. The availability of an accurate wind forecasting engine for utility companies, grid operators and wind farm owners has a broad impact on the efficient production and the economics of energy. A reliable wind forecasting engine will help increase the amount of wind power in the overall energy portfolio. Accurate forecasting is also expected to help lower the grid integration cost of wind energy and make this form of renewable energy competitive in a deregulated electricity market that is expected to be driven by smart-grid technologies. A forecasting engine has the potential to enhance the reliability of the electricity grid, because the grid is vulnerable to overload when winds suddenly ramp up without any advance information on the wind. In addition to forecasting power from existing wind farms, the proposed technology can be used to increase existing transmission line capacity and optimize wind farm layouts for maximum power generation.