Norman, Okla.-based companies Weather Decision Technologies Inc. (WDT), a provider of science weather applications, and NanoWeather, a microscale forecasting company, are part of a consortium of academic, public and private enterprises that has been awarded a two-year grant by the policy board of the state of Oklahoma's Economic Development Generating Excellence initiative.
The consortium is led by the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative (OWPI), sponsored by the University of Oklahoma. The grant was made to WDT and NanoWeather to conduct research and development into a wind power assessment and forecast system (WPAFS) in support of the state's growing wind energy industry.
The newly funded WDT-NanoWeather project is led by the OWPI at the University of Oklahoma, which has chosen the two companies to provide the WPAFS. WDT will lead the development of this advanced tool for prospecting, site assessment, and high spatial and temporal forecasts for wind energy operations.
WPAFS will run a pair of physical models in concert: the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model, the National Weather Service's premier mesoscale model and the uncoupled surface layer model (USL).
‘The powerful combination of the WRF-USL model provides a unique high-precision system for wind prospecting, site analysis and micrositing,’ says Scott Greene. ‘For operating wind turbines, this solution provides real-time wind power forecasting to provide forecasts of unsurpassed precision and accuracy at the scale of individual wind turbines.’
SOURCE: Weather Decision Technologies