Evaluating the accuracy of CFSR reanalysis hourly wind speed forecasts for the UK, using in situ measurements and geographical information

Ed Sharp, Paul Dodds, Mark Barrett and Catalina Spataru

Renewable Energy, 2015, vol. 77, issue C, 527-538

Abstract: Climate data can be used in simulations to estimate the output of wind turbines in locations where meteorological observations are not available. We perform the most comprehensive evaluation of the NCEP CFSR reanalysis model hourly wind speed hindcasts to date, and the first for the UK, by correlating the data against 264 onshore and 12 offshore synoptic weather stations, over a period of 30 years. The correlation of CFSR data to in situ measurements is similar to alternative approaches used in other studies both onshore and offshore. We investigate the impact of the topography, land use and mean wind speed on the onshore locations for the first time. The analysis of these spatial factors shows that CFSR represents the variety of terrain over UK well, and that the worst correlated sites are those at the highest elevations.

Keywords: Wind – simulation; Reanalysis; NCEP – CFSR; Spatial; Offshore; Wind (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148114008520
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:77:y:2015:i:c:p:527-538

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2014.12.025

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().