Vestas and its wholly-owned energy analytics solution provider Utopus Insights are to pilot a short-term wind power forecasting tool in Australia.
The duo have received funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to develop the system, which will use Utopus Insights’ proprietary weather forecasting.
The solution will apply data science, deep learning to high-resolution wind turbine SCADA data, granular short-term hyper-local weather forecasts and meteorological data to deliver more accurate energy forecasts from wind turbines.
It is being piloted at Infigen Energy’s Lake Bonney 2 and 3 wind farms.
Modelling aims to provide one kilometre square precision on forecasting and improve on Australian Wind Energy Forecasting System’s five-minute forecast, Vestas said.
As a result, ARENA will be able more accurately forecast energy generation from wind power, reduce generators’ dispatch uncertainty and improve system stability by better anticipating supply from renewable sources, it added.
Vestas will share the findings of the pilot with industry after a 12-month development and trial phase.
Vestas Australia and New Zealand head Peter Cowling said: “An important challenge in wind and solar power is predicting fluctuations in generation to ensure system stability by balancing the energy supply and demand in the market.
“We hope to offer a much more advanced forecasting solution that can reduce generator dispatch uncertainty, lower the operational cost of balancing energy supply and demand, and limit energy price volatility and regulatory complexity.
“Our solution will help deliver sufficient and reliable energy to the market.”
Utopus Insights chief executive Chandu Visweswariah said: “While it’s true that renewable energy is intermittent, with the right digital intelligence, it is no longer unpredictable.
“Our solution unlocks the value of renewable energy as a predictable and reliable source of power.
“Between our deep experience in energy analytics, proprietary hyper-local weather modelling, and Vestas’ massive amount of turbine data, we are using the power of partnership to usher in a new era of energy digitalisation.”