What performance can be expected by short-term wind power prediction models depending on site characteristics?

Abstract : The scope of the European R&D project ANEMOS (ENK5-CT-2002-00665) is to improve the accuracy of short-term wind power forecasting technology. In the frame of this project, a number of case-studies were setup covering onshore wind farms at flat, semi-complex and complex terrain as well as offshore ones. For these cases, several years of measurements and numerical weather predictions from various Numerical Weather Prediction systems were collected. A number of eleven state-of-the-art models were run for the test cases. These are operational models used today in Spain, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Greece etc. An appropriate protocol was established to enable meaningful and systematic comparisons. The paper presents in detail results from this evaluation as well as guidelines on assessing the performance of a model as a function of the site characteristics.