Onshore Wind Resource


Session C5 | Day 2, Wed 26 Oct, 10.15-11.30 | Charter 2, Ground Floor

 

This session will explore the ever advancing field of wind resource – covering assessment techniques, latest research, new technologies and recent learning from application.

 

• Chair: Anabel Gammidge, Npower
• Malcolm Lee, Met Office
• Bob Hodgetts, GL Garrad Hassan
• Neil Douglas, Natural Power
• Holly Hughes, DNV

Chair:
Anabel Gammidge, Regional Analytical and Monitoring Strategy Manager, RWE npower Renewables

Anabel works for RWE Npower Renewables as a Senior Analyst and managing the Onshore Wind Monitoring team. She has worked in the wind/renewable energy business for approx 30 years and has extensive experience in wind data collection and analysis. She is currently responsible for overseeing RWE’s UK Onshore wind data collection, ensuring high data quality and availability. She also carries out data analysis for wind resource and energy predictions. She was on the UK Met Office User Committee for 6 years, followed by 5 years on the Met Office board as a Non-Executive Director. She chairs the RenewableUK Wind Resources work group.
Speaker:
Malcolm Lee, Weather Consultancy Manager, Met Office

Improved Confidence in wind Resource Assessments using Numerical Weather Prediction Data
The techniques used to produce wind speed and direction time series, frequency analyses, Weibull distributions and turbulence indices from archives of numerical weather prediction data will be presented. The base information is 4km grid wind fields back to 2001 and coarser grid data back to 1989. After interpolating to the location and height of interest, model topography and roughness are replaced by local values. Verification shows that this approach regularly gives 90% confidence in monthly mean wind speeds to within 0.3 m/s of monitored values. This confidence is improved further by calibrating with short periods of on-site monitoring.

Malcolm Lee is an applied climatologist with thirty years experience in solving the real world weather problems of government and industry at the Met Office. Agricultural and hydrometeorology are particular areas of experience. He currently co-manages a team of fourteen consultants offering a broad range of data and advice to weather susceptible industries. For eighteen months he has been leading the development, delivery and verification of the Virtual Met Mast service.
Speaker:
Bob Hodgetts, UK and Ireland Energy Manager, GL Garrad Hassan

 A Statistical Review of Recent Wind Speed Trends in the UK
It is widely known that the UK has experienced low wind speeds throughout 2010 and the first quarter of 2011. In order to address growing concern within the industry GL Garrad Hassan has used their experience and understanding of the UK wind regime to complete a number of statistical investigations into the windiness of the recent periods compared to long-term periods. The objective of these investigations is to establish if it is appropriate to exclude anomalous periods from a historical dataset to represent a realistic future long-term period.

Bob joined GL Garrad Hassan over 12 years ago as an Energy Analyst and has specialised throughout that time in pre-construction wind resource and energy assessments of wind farms. Bob is presently the lead engineer for the UK and Ireland team of the Energy and Development Services Group. His team has analysed the energy production of over 70% of the present installed capacity of wind farms in the UK and many more yet to be built. He also has extensive experience in other global markets with varied wind climates and market conditions.
Speaker:
Neil Douglas, Director for Technical, Natural Power

 A Detailed Comparison of Wind Farm Production Data Against Annual Budget
Natural Power has conducted an in-depth review of pre and post-construction energy yield results on a selection of wind farms where it has performed a pre-construction energy yield report for financing. Eight wind farm years have been studied on sites across the UK and France. Raw observed energy production was compared to budget, and reasons for deviation explored. It was shown that on the whole, loss factors were correctly anticipated, with electrical losses and availability largely in line with expectations. The single largest source of deviation us due to the inter-annual variation in wind speed which in most cases accounted for the full variance against production.

Neil Douglas B.Sc. M.Sc. has been employed in the wind energy industry for 17 years, and has worked for Natural Power since its inception in 1996. He directs Natural Power’s Global Technical Group, which provides consultancy services including bankable resource assessment and energy yield analysis, due diligence, technical support and project design to a global client base for wind, wave and tidal energy projects. Neil’s specialist knowledge covers wind farm design and resource assessment, due diligence for project financing and acquisition, complex flow risk analysis for wind farms, offshore wind and marine energy resource modelling.
Speaker:
Holly Hughes, Senior Engineer, DNV

 A Common Approach to Loss and Uncertainty Categories in Energy Assessment
Consensus among the consultants regarding categorization of loss and uncertainty values in energy assessments will enable the industry to identify the sources of differences between wind resource and energy assessments for onshore projects. DNV will facilitate buy-in from leading industry consultants in the UK to establish a common approach to both loss categories and uncertainty categories. This will benefit the wind industry in the UK by enabling stakeholders to compare project results generated by different parties. This will move the industry forward in our understanding of the various uncertainties in wind resource assessment, and reduce likelihood of reliance on misinformation.

Ms. Hughes has ten years of engineering experience, primarily in wind energy technical consulting. She has conducted feasibility studies and economic analyses for numerous energy projects and technologies. Since joining DNV in 2005, she has conducted project development work and lead investor due diligence studies for wind projects. Now based in London, Ms. Hughes previously managed the wind resource and energy assessment team in Seattle providing wind resource and energy assessments for a variety of clients. Ms. Hughes holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering and Energy Analysis and Policy Certificate from University of Wisconsin-Madison.