Incorporating Weather Analysis in Performance Assessment
With over 90 GW of worldwide wind capacity up and running, detailed performance data for these wind farms are now rolling in. As owners and financial partners review these results, they are often confronted with actual generation that differs significantly from project pro formas. Several factors affect these variances, with wind variability playing a large part in the equation.
Project stakeholders may be tempted to draw quick conclusions by comparing the observed production with that projected during project planning. However, a detailed understanding of the weather patterns encountered during the performance period is frequently missing from the analysis, which limits the usefulness of the assessment. This approach would be similar to evaluating the performance of a mutual fund without taking into account market fluctuations.
Careful meteorological analysis coupled with comprehensive long-term site or portfolio analysis is essential for setting realistic expectations when assessing production performance. This process yields perspective for evaluating the relative wind resource for a given period and makes it possible to assess other operational factors more accurately. This multi-faceted, operational reassessment approach specifically identifies meteorological patterns and pattern anomalies influencing the wind resource, utilizes meteorological downscaling for generating long time series of wind farm data from quality-controlled actual wind farm data (production or meteorological tower), and incorporates other locally available wind data where possible.
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Incorporating Weather Analysis in Performance Assessment