Improved wind forecasts for wind power generation using the Eta model and MOS (Model Output Statistics) method

Abstract

The goal of this article is to apply the regional atmospheric numerical weather prediction – the Eta model, improved by the new proposed MOS (Model Output Statistics) method and to describe its performance in validation of the wind forecasts for wind power plants. The Eta model has been compared against the wind from tower observations at a number of levels (10, 38, 54, 75, 96 and 145 m), with a total number of 15984 pairs of forecast and observed winds.The new MOS method is applied in two different ways: 1) with one predictor – wind from the Eta model forecast; 2) with two predictors – wind from the Eta model forecast and wind from the recent observations, originally proposed in this study. The average overall results are: Mean Error of 0.27 m/s; Mean Absolute Error of 0.93 m/s; Root Mean Square Error of 1.19 m/s and Coefficient of Determination of 0.79. The results indicate that the Eta model with the proposed MOS method is quite usable as a meteorological driver for wind energy modelling and prediction across any geographical region.