Validation of wind resource and energy production simulations for small wind turbines in the United States

Sheridan, Lindsay M.; Phillips, Caleb; Orrell, Alice C.; Berg, Larry K.; Tinnesand, Heidi; Rai, Raj K.; Zisman, Sagi; Duplyakin, Dmitry; Flaherty, Julia E.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-659-2022

Articles | Volume 7, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-659-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-659-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 7, issue 2

Research article

|

24 Mar 2022

Research article |

| 24 Mar 2022

Validation of wind resource and energy production simulations for small wind turbines in the United States

Lindsay M. Sheridan, Caleb Phillips, Alice C. Orrell, Larry K. Berg, Heidi Tinnesand, Raj K. Rai, Sagi Zisman, Dmitry Duplyakin, and Julia E. Flaherty

Data sets

Wind Forecast Improvement Project 1 I. Djalalova https://a2e.energy.gov/projects/wfip1

Integrated Surface Dataset NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/search/data-search/global-hourly

National Data Buoy Center NOAA National Data Buoy Center https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

Argonne 60 m Meteorological Tower Argonne National Laboratory https://www.atmos.anl.gov/ANLMET/

Current Observations Brookhaven National Laboratory https://wx1.bnl.gov/

Flatirons Campus Data NREL https://www.nrel.gov/wind/nwtc/data.html

AmeriFlux Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory https://ameriflux.lbl.gov/sites/site-search/#filter-type=all&has-data=All&site_id=

The Tall Tower Dataset B2SHARE https://b2share.eudat.eu/records/159158152f4d4be79559e2f3f6b1a410

BPA Meteorological Information Bonneville Power Administration https://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/MetData/default.aspx

Resource Data University of Massachusetts Wind Energy Center https://www.umass.edu/windenergy/resourcedata

Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit NREL https://www.nrel.gov/grid/wind-toolkit.html

ERA5 ECMWF https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5

Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office https://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/reanalysis/MERRA-2/data_access/

System Advisor Model (SAM) NREL https://sam.nrel.gov/

Wind Report Bergey WindPower Co. http://www.newrootsenergy.com/page/wind_report

MyWindTurbine.com DTU Wind Energy and EMD International A/S https://www.mywindturbine.com/

Global Wind Atlas DTU Wind Energy and World Bank Group https://globalwindatlas.info/

Short summary

The small wind community relies on simplified wind models and energy production simulation tools to obtain energy generation expectations. We gathered actual wind speed and turbine production data across the US to test the accuracy of models and tools for small wind turbines. This study provides small wind installers and owners with the error metrics and sources of error associated with using models and tools to make performance estimates, empowering them to adjust expectations accordingly.