Wind Energy Forecaster A Webbased Wind Energy Prediction

Wind Energy Forecaster A Web-based Wind Energy Prediction Tool Aditya Trivedi ’ 16 Advisor: Dr. Eric Larson

Motivation and Background Wind is fast growing source of energy Potential to grow even more Poorly understood by the public Growth of wind will impact the grid Thus, a need to inform the public and accurately predict wind energy generation

Application Summary Web application to predict electricity generation from wind energy Two main functions Electricity generation at existing farms User inputs LOCATION and DISTANCE Potential for generation at arbitrary locations User inputs LOCATION and program uses pre-determined input

Model – Existing Farms Determine a list of active wind farms Determine turbine models installed Turbine characteristics differ model to model and impact generation Aggregate farms by models installed When user makes a query, find all farms within area, get wind forecasts

Model – Potential Installations Determine land characteristics necessary for wind turbine installations Decide type of turbines to use Simulate “farm” by determining spacing of turbines and assuming an area

Data Sources USGS Wind Turbine database (farms, turbine models) Wind Turbine manufacturers Over 100 different models installed in US Each is unique! USGS National Land Cover Database (for potential calculations) National Weather Service (wind speeds)

Further Work Validation! Compare wind farm output against what the model would have predicted Determine if sources of error are forecast or model related

Demonstration