Mesoscale wind speed simulation using CALMET model and reanalysis information: An application to wind potential

This work presents a simple methodology to simulate the mesoscale wind field using dynamic modeling and complementary meteorological data. Meteorological information obtained from the project developed by the National Center of Environmental Research (NCEP) and the National Center of Atmospheric Research (NCAR), meteorological stations, a digital elevation model and a land use data were used in this study. All these data were input for the simulation of wind fields at three different heights (20,30 and 40 m) through the CALMET model. Simulations were made for an area corresponding to the south central region of Chile, known as the Maule Region. The results show that the simulated spatial resolution (1 x 1 km) in the CALMET model yields good results, yielding an RMSE value near 1 m s(-1) for all the heights simulated, with a greater RMSE at 40 m (1.15 m s(-1)) and a lesser RMSE at 20 m (1.10 m s(-1)). The direction of the simulated wind fields was also evaluated, yielding an RMSE near 31 degrees at 40 m. The determination of the wind potential is presented as a direct application of the method shown in this work. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.