The exact prediction of wind power several days in advance is a main contributor towards the reliable integration of larger amounts of wind energy into the existing power supply. In particular, prediction tools improve the position of wind energy compared with the easier scheduled generation of other energy sources.
The EU-sponsored research project Anemos (Development of a Next Generation Wind Resource Forecasting System for the Large-Scale Integration of Onshore and Offshore Wind Farms), was aimed at developing prediction models whose prediction accuracy significantly exceeded existing approaches. Special focal points were forecasts for complex terrain, extreme weather conditions and offshore. The wind power prediction system, also named Anemos, was created as a commercial spin-off of this work.
The successful work of the first Anemos research project is continued today in the new EU projects Anemos.plus and SafeWind.
Anemos.plus (Advanced tools for the management of electricity grids with large-scale wind generation) is dedicated to utilizing the increased interconnections between modern wind power predictions and business processes in the energy sector: congestion optimization, energy trading, storage management and reserve planning.
The project SafeWind (Multi-scale data assimilation, advanced wind modelling and forecasting with emphasis on extreme weather situations for safe, large-scale wind power integration) is focused on the prediction of extreme events such as ramps.
In addition, Anemos partners are active in numerous national and international research projects on topics of predictions, SmartGrids and wind energy storage.
The know-how and optimized predictions resulting from these research projects flow back to the commercial wind power prediction system, Anemos.
Detailed information:
Windpowerpredictions.com
Advanced Maintenance and Repair Strategies for Offshore Wind Energy Converters (OffshoreM&R) is a European research and development project bringing together WEA- and controlling manufacturers, CMS providers, remote mainenance software developers and wind farm operators to provide servicing and surveillance solutions of offshore wind farms (ISET, DMT, Overspeed, Plambeck Neue Energien, Bruel&Kjaer, Gram&Juhl, Mita, Nordic Windpower, Risø).
When it comes to wind turbines located at sea, early fault detection is even more crucial than onshore, as repairs can be delayed by weeks due to weather conditions. Furthermore, controlling mechanisms are essential for any previously damaged equipment in order to slow or, ideally, to stop damage progressing further.
In moving towards this goal, protocols and general standards for exchanging data must be prepared not only between individual components of a wind turbine, but also among turbines inside a wind farm and between a wind farm and the control center. Building upon the unified communication among diverse components, test installations are conducted followed by a field test which checks the interaction between system control, the surveillance system and wind park remote surveillance software.
