Welcome to the SafeWind Project
"Multi-scale data assimilation, advanced wind modelling and forecasting with emphasis to extreme weather situations for a safe large-scale wind power integration"
Highlights:
The European project SafeWind was completed on the 31st of August 2012 with a succesful public workshop in Paris, where the project results were presented to a broad public from academia and industry.
The project developed leading-edge research in short-term forecasting of wind power by:
· Delivering state-of-the-art solutions to facilitate large-scale integration of wind energy into electricity networks.
· Bringing its solutions close to the business processes of the European power systems industry.
· Developing academic excellence and European leadership in the field with more than 140 scientific publications (36+ journal papers).
· Creating worldwide business opportunities for high-end European technology. SMEs in the project already use the new knowledge acquired to provide forecasting services.
Abstract:
Integrating wind generation into power systems brings challenges because it depends on weather conditions. Forecasting the power output of wind farms, and the related uncertainties, is a means to facilitate large-scale integration of wind generation, in line with the EU goals for 20% of renewables by 2020.
Prior to SafeWind, the focus was on forecasting "usual" operating conditions. However, challenging or extreme situations can result in severe forecasting errors that can be costly for both infrastructures (i.e. damage of wind turbines) and the electricity grid (i.e. black-out). SafeWind emerged to satisfy end-users’ need for specific approaches that substantially improve wind power predictability by reducing large errors, or by predicting extremes at local scale through to European scale. In addition, wind predictability was considered as a system design parameter linked to the investment phase, where the aim is to take optimal decisions when installing new wind farms.
Project period: 1.9.2008-31.8.2012
