AVANGRID, a member of the Iberdrola Group, is using 24/7 weather intelligence provider StormGeo’s advanced weather forecasting services for onshore wind farms across the United States.
“Safety is our most important goal. As such, we must have accurate and timely alerts when lightning or high wind speeds might pose a risk to crews working around high-voltage equipment, performing up-tower maintenance, or crane operations,” states Ty Kristensen, director of AVANGRID’s National Control Center for its renewables business.
“Additionally, having 48-hour and seven-day forecasts allows us to drill down to quickly identify the likelihood that weather conditions will disrupt maintenance activities. Overall, we were impressed with the high-quality visualizations in the portal and StormGeo’s reputation for rarely having system outages.”
AVANGRID will utilize StormGeo’s technology to monitor severe weather, including lightning, high winds and tropical storms for 63 onshore wind farms comprising approximately 4,000 total wind turbines.
“StormGeo provides services to over 100 energy producers and utility companies across North America,” says Ken Carrier, StormGeo’s vice president of onshore. “Our experience working in this industry makes us uniquely qualified to provide top-notch, customized weather, and operational decision guidance to Avangrid Renewables. We see this as an exciting opportunity to support a world-class company and to continue expanding our services to the U.S. onshore and offshore wind industry.”
Forecasting for AVANGRID is delivered by StormGeo’s 24/7 operations center in Houston, Texas.