Wind power forecasting - Wind Power Integration: Connection and System Operational Aspects - page 231

Meteoro-
logical
service

Wind
farms

NWP
forecasts

Power and meteorological
measurements

Wind
farms
and
terrain

Wind power
forecasting
model

Detailed descriptions

Power
forecasts

Wind
farm
owners

Energy
traders

TSO

Figure 6.10 Flows of information in a wind power forecasting system

Clearly, the horizontal resolution of the NWP model cannot hope to capture the
effect of processes due to the local terrain and local thermal effects on the flow.
One downscaling method involves a mathematical spatial interpolation
between the four closest NWP grid points. Another more complex approach, whose
use might be justified in the case of very complex terrain, would be to determine
the flows over the local terrain using a much higher resolution meso- or micro-scale
physical model. The NWP model results are used to initialise and set the boundary
conditions for this meso- or micro-scale model. The meso- or micro-scale model is
in effect nested within the NWP model. This clearly involves additional modelling
complications and meteorological expertise in setting up, operating and interpreting
the results. A tradeoff needs to be made between the additional cost of the added
complexity and the gains in accuracy which might be achieved.
The second input to the wind power forecasting model is a detailed description
of the wind farm and its surrounding terrain. This information is static in nature and
typically includes the number and location of the wind turbines, the wind turbine