To develop a WRF based realtime four-dimensional data assimilation (FDDA) and forecasting system to support wind power forecasting in South Korea, capable of resolving flow from synoptic scale to LES scale.
RTFDDA five-nested grid setup for the offshore wind farm (Δx = 24.3, 8.1, 2.7, 0.9, 0.3 km for domain 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively) in South Korea.
The influence of significant weather events on the energy industry has increased with diminishing reserve margins to meet peak loads. Accurate weather prediction and
precise spatial analyses of mesoscale weather events are crucial to both short- and long term energy managements. Weather data and information are of great importance
for infrastructure planning and management, prediction of energy demand, management of energy supply, energy pricing and markets, energy system operations and regulatory compliance, and economic risk minimization. The Energy industry has expressed increasing demand for improving weather forecast accuracy. To this end, in collaboration with the Applied Meteorological Research Division, the National Institute of Meteorological Research (NIMR) of Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA) and NCAR developed a WRF based real time four-dimensional data assimilation (FDDA) and forecasting system to support wind power forecasting in South Korea. This system, to our knowledge, is the first real time numerical weather prediction (NWP) system in the world with advanced data assimilation capabilities and multiscale (from synoptic scale to a LES-scale) model domain with the finest nest at 300m horizontal grid spacing. The model outputs hub-height wind speed every 15 minutes to support wind power forecast.
To properly specify the underlying feature, 90m topographic and land use data were used over the East Asia. The terrain, coastline, and land cover features created from 90m data were much better defined than those from the standard 1km dataset. These refined underlying forcing descriptions provide better representation of the local dynamical and thermodynamic forcing affecting local weather and flows.
