Improving Wind Forecasts to Increase Wind Farm Electrical Output

To help the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area (Tehachapi WRA) better understand the wind patterns and meteorological conditions that impact the wind farm’s energy production, Sonoma Technology provided continuous upper-air measurements and analyzed the data to improve short-term wind forecasts.
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The Tehachapi WRA is the largest wind farm in California and produces as much as 4,500 megawatts of power in a day. Improving the short-term wind forecasts allows operators to better estimate the electricity output for a given day. Sonoma Technology recorded one year of upper-air measurements from a monitoring network stationed along the pass, and worked with UC Davis to evaluate the data and improve the models used in the short-term forecasts.
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The project was launched through funding by the California Energy Commission, with continued funding from the Electric Power Research Institute.