Wind resource assessment with a mesoscale non-hydrostatic model

Abstract : A new methodology based on high-resolution atmospheric simulations and on the use of the k-means is developed for assessing the wind resource and its uncertainty. The work focuses on an existing wind farm in southern France in the framework of the French EVIDENCE project. The paper presents the benefits of the use of the k-means approach as a weather situation classification for identifying real and representative meteorological events to simulate by the non-hydrostatic Regional Atmospheric Modelling System (RAMS) model at 200 m horizontal resolution. The method is validated through comparisons with on-site meteorological mast measurements. The wind speed and turbulence fields are discussed. It is shown that the k-means give both warm (cold) season events for the lower (upper) bound of the wind resource The results show that the turbulent kinetic energy is thermally driven over the targeted area justifying the solving of the full Navier-Stockes equations.