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Accurate weather forecasting for an affordable energy transition

Weather forecasts can bring down the cost and financial risks associated with new renewable energy infrastructure projects

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get,” as Mark Twain, US author, so succinctly put it. Accurate weather data detailing when the sun will shine and how hard the wind will blow is crucial to controlling the cost of the energy transition. The more accurate the data, the cheaper it becomes to rely on renewable energy and manage increasingly extreme weather events

Goal:
Collection of enough data of sufficient quality to produce models that accurately predict weather extremes to reduce the risk of machine failure and increase the value of renewable energy

Challenge:
Climate change is playing havoc with known weather patterns and meteorologists need latest input from renewable energy plant operators

Key quote:
You can always get the power you need…but having the power you need at the lowest possible cost, that is where the weather forecasts are valuable

Weather data plays an important role in making the transition to a clean energy economy affordable. It helps developers find locations with the best wind conditions, operators better manage the impact of turbulence on wind turbines and gives traders selling energy across borders greater clarity. With increasing proportions of renewable energy on the electricity grid, weather forecasts help lower the cost of integrating variable generation into the power system and ensure high system reliability, says John Zack from US-based UL Renewables. The idea is to turn off higher cost generation in favour of lower cost generation, but to do this you need to know when you will have access to wind, for example, which is very low cost,” says Zack, speaking after an event hosted by the World Energy and Meteorology Council in Copenhagen in June 2019. It is costly to start up reserve capacity and the more precise the weather forecasting, the lower the costs, he adds. Gerald Geernaert, director of the climate and environmental sciences division at the US Department of Energy, says good weather forecasts are essential to design the next generation of energy systems. He underlines the importance of long-term planning and visibility for grid system operators. The real challenge is expanding beyond days and looking at seasons. This is probably the most difficult challenge for meteorologists right now,” says Geernaert. He highlights the growing uncertainty around weather patterns as climate change plays havoc with the seasons and calls on the energy sector to provide guidance” to meteorologists so they can focus their research where it is most needed. Extreme weather is what causes stress to the grid so if you fail to forecast extreme weather conditions, then that is bad,” says Zack. Ninety-five per cent of the time or even more, there may be average weather conditions, but being able to predict the remaining few percentages of extreme weather can make the difference between failure and success, he adds. Zack says power system operators currently often evaluate a weather forecasting system in accordance with its ability to predict average weather conditions. As a result, they often end up with a system that is inadequate and costs more than it should. There is a lot to gain in terms of costs,” says Zack. You can always get the power you need…but having the power you need at the lowest possible cost, that is where the weather forecasts are valuable.” Weather forecasts can also bring down the cost and financial risks associated with new infrastructure projects by showing how a changing climate will influence the weather and the impact this should have on project design, says Geernaert. Energy analysts in the finance sector need to better understand what the future might be,” he states.

New ways to describe wind

Not just the climate is changing. Wind turbines are getting significantly bigger. Onshore they are also being built in more extreme locations with higher turbulence. Offshore they need to withstand strong winds for more of their lifetimes. Taller turbines, which can be well over 100 metres, are a challenge for project developers because the turbulence models deployed today often use data based on towers that are just ten to 30 metres high. The turbulence models no longer correspond to reality,” says Henrik Stiesdal from Steisdal Offshore Technologies, a Danish company. Offshore turbines with capacity ratings of 7 megawatts and more have very large rotor swept areas with the blades reaching heights where the wind rarely behaves the way forecasting models predict. We need a paradigm shift in describing wind,” says Stiesdal, suggesting engineering alone is not enough. Meteorologists need to be part of the equation too.” He says that aside from the engineering challenge, there is also an economic incentive for the wind industry to take more notice of weather patterns. Prices for wind turbines are coming down drastically, but they can be even cheaper if we incorporate meteorology,” says Stiesdal. The more we understand wind, the better we can regulate the turbine and the cheaper we can build it.” He points to US research, the Atmosphere to Electrons (A2E) project, as a promising model. The initiative targets significant reductions in energy costs by improving understanding of the complex physics governing electricity generation from wind turbines. The goal is to ensure that future wind farms are located, built and operated in a way that produces the most cost-effective, usable electricity. The wind industry and its large research and development units fully understand how a turbine works, but what we need is an understanding of how the wind behaves when it approaches a wind farm, when it goes round a wind farm and when it produces power in the turbine,” says Stiesdal. He adds that it is also important to examine specific issues such as the impact on offshore turbines of large scale shifting wind patterns caused by uneven temperatures in the seawater and how wind moves differently at different heights. Data from the project are being collected on super computers and will be used to optimise the design and performance of wind farms. To make the most of the findings, it is vital they are turned into usable software tools for the wind industry says Stiesdal. It is not enough to understand the wind…We need a model that can be applied to an ordinary computer.”

Writer: Karin Jensen