Booking FormGarrad Hassan America receives R&D grant from BPA for advanced short-term wind forecasting project. - 13th Jan 2009Garrad Hassan America, part of the Garrad Hassan Group, has been awarded a 1-year grant by U.S. Department of Energy federal agency, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).The grant is to part-fund a research and development project that will focus on improving techniques for short-term wind power prediction across the U.S. Pacific Northwest with a view to optimizing and balancing the output of both individual and multiple wind farms with other energy sources. The focus of efforts will be on improving detection of impending large fluctuations in wind energy generation over short time periods, or ramp events. Engineers and meteorologists from Garrad Hassan’s specialist forecasting team will undertake the short-term forecasting for multiple projects in the Pacific Northwest, utilizing historic data supplied by wind farm owners, in order to achieve the most accurate results. Craig Collier, Senior Meteorologist at Garrad Hassan America said “Ramp events are common at individual wind farms around the world and particularly problematic for regional transmission operators, such as BPA, that use short-term forecasts to schedule and balance power from wind projects with that from hydro and other conventional sources.” Garrad Hassan breaks the 3GW mark with GH Forecaster - 18th Feb 2008Garrad Hassan (GH) announces reaching its target for 2007, providing reliable forecasts for 3GW of wind energy worldwide.
GH Forecaster is a state of the art short term forecasting service used and trusted by grid operators, wind farm owners and energy traders. GH provides online forecast services for clients in 9 countries across 4 continents.
Comment from Andrew Tindal, GH Director: “As the world wind energy industry booms, with 20GW of new installations in 2007 (Global Wind Energy Council, January 2008) the issue of integrating power from wind farms into the electrical grid and trading wind on energy exchanges are becoming some of the most important issues facing the wind industry. State of the art forecasting such as the service we offer is a key part of the solution to these issues. GH has a global reputation for expertise in predicting the energy production of wind farms over the long term, and I am pleased that we are developing an equally strong reputation in the rapidly growing international market for short term forecasting, as evidenced by GH now forecasting for 3GW of wind in 9 countries.”GH Forecaster adopts a combined physical/statistical approach. The method utilises weather model inputs from a number of approved suppliers and enhances this data to the site-specific conditions. The refinement of the weather model input and conversion to wind farm power is achieved through the application of high resolution models accounting for the topography and turbine wake effects, and through statistical routines that “learn” using feedback from the site. The combination of data from weather model suppliers provides additional service reliability due to redundancy of input data, and improves forecast accuracy by enabling the application of ensemble forecasting techniques. Garrad Hassan now Forecast for 30% of all Texan Wind Farms - 5th Jun 2007Garrad Hassan currently forecast for approximately 30% of wind energy in Texas, USA. Texas is currently the highest ranking state in the United States for wind energy production, with a total installed capacity of 2,749 MW (AWEA, March 2007).One of the main contributors to the installed capacity in Texas is Babcock & Brown with their four Sweetwater Farms totalling 550 MW. Garrad Hassan are now contracted to supply their forecasting service to all four of Babcock & Brown’s Sweetwater wind farms. Garrad Hassan have been providing forecasts for the Sweetwater wind farms since 2005, where the GH Forecasts are used by the Sweetwater utlity off-takers to efficiently schedule the energy they deliver to the grid. For the recent addition of the Sweetwater IV wind farm, GH will be able to integrate the forecasting system with the GH SCADA system installed at the site, enhancing the forecast capabilities and providing ease of operation to the end user. David Barnes, Asset Manager – Wind at Babcock & Brown comments: “Providing accurate forecasts to our utility off-takers is critically important to our ongoing relationships with them and their ability to schedule energy into the ERCOT system. We have had positive results using the GH Forecaster product and look forward to even better results once connected to our new GH SCADA system currently being deployed throughout the four project phases. The accuracy of the system and the support we receive from GH have been the key factors in our decision to use the product.” GH Forecaster currently supplies short term forecasting to seven (7) countries worldwide. This service attracts clients such as Airtricity, Babcock & Brown, Centrica plc., Falck Renewables and many more. Recent GH Forecaster projects include the contract to supply all of Greece with its forecasting service, for the next three years. Benjamin Bell, President & CEO of Garrad Hassan America Inc., comments on the Sweetwater IV contract and Garrad Hassan’s strength in the industry: “This is a landmark achievement for the GH Forecasting team. We now forecast for over 2 GW of wind power worldwide and this figure is increasing rapidly. Garrad Hassan combines its extensive international experience and proven modelling methods to provide US clients with high quality forecasts. Short term forecasting makes wind energy more dispatchable; increasing the value and making it look more like conventional power generation. GH is leading the way with short term forecasting.“ GH Forecaster to supply Greece with all its wind energy forecasting needs - 8th May 2007Garrad Hassan has been awarded a contract to supply its GH Forecaster service to the Hellenic Transmission System Operator (HTSO / Desmie, the Greek TSO) with the objective of forecasting short term wind energy production throughout Greece for the next three years.The project, System for the Prognosis of Wind Electricity Generation, is run by Desmie and is jointly funded by the Greek government and the EU Regional Development Fund. GH Forecaster will be used to provide short term forecasts of wind farm power from 1 hour to 48 hours for the current 750MW of installed wind capacity in Greece as well as additional wind power projects constructed within the next 3 years. Industry commentators expect the Greek capacity to be 3000MW by 2013. GH Forecaster already supplies short term forecasting in 7 countries worldwide. The clients include Airtricity, Babcock & Brown, Centrica Plc, Falck Renewables and many more. When asked about their success with this significant contract in Greece, Dr Andrew Garrad, Director of Garrad Hassan and Partners Ltd., replied: “This is a fantastic achievement for the GH Forecasting team. We now forecast for over 2GW of wind power worldwide and this figure is increasing rapidly. Garrad Hassan will combine its extensive international experience and proven modelling methods with the detailed local knowledge of our project collaborator, Facets, to provide Desmie with high quality forecasts. Short term forecasting makes wind farms look like conventional power stations and is a fascinating example of the way in which good science can substantially increase the value of wind energy and explode the myth of unreliability.” |
|