Short-term prediction of the power production from wind farms

This paper describes a model for prediction of the power produced by wind farms connected to the electrical grid. The time frame is from 0 to 36 h ahead. The goal is to develop a model that can be integrated in the dispatching system at a utility. The physical basis of the model is the predictions generated from forecasts from the high-resolution limited area model(HIRLAM) of the Danish Meteorological Institute. These predictions are then made specific for individual sites (wind farms) by applying a matrix generated by the submodels of WASP (Wind Atlas Application and Analysis Program). To verify the model one year's worth of data from 17 wind farms have been used. The farms are located in Denmark on the Zealand (14) and Bornholm (3) islands and are all controlled by the Danish utility ELKRAFT/SK Power. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.