Impact of weather regimes on the wind power ramp forecast

• Author(s): Couto, A. ; Costa, P. ; Rodrigues, L. ; Lopes, Vitor V. ; Estanqueiro, Ana
• Date: 2013
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.9/2464
• Origin: Repositório do LNEG
• Subject(s): Wind power forecast ; Ramps events ; Synoptic classification; Power smoothing
• Document Type: Conference Object
• Language: English

Description

The stochastic nature of wind and the continuous need to balance electric generation with demand poses serious challenges to the power system operators. The impact of large wind integration into the power system is mitigated by decreasing the uncertainty associated with wind forecasts. In particular, the forecast of severe wind power ramps is important due to its impact on the energy market and grid operation and planning. This study proposes to classify the weather regimes over continental Portugal associated with the severe wind power production ramps. Thus, an automated classification system is developed by combining principal components analysis and kmeans clustering to find the most representative atmospheric flow patterns near the surface. This system can tackle with the synoptic spatial variability allowing the decrease of phase and timing mismatches present in single time forecasts. Then, the patterns are linked to the wind power production. Results show that it is possible to associate weather regimes with different levels of wind power production and identify certain atmospheric circulations with a higher chance to trigger severe wind power ramps.