Wind power prediction

GE Energy and WSI Corporation are joining forces to develop more accurate forecasting tools for wind farm owners and operators, and transmission and distribution providers.

As part of the deal, the two companies will develop systems to collect real-time turbine and wind data, incorporate the data into proprietary forecast models, and provide customised forecast and operational guidance services.

The engineers at GE and WSI aren't the only ones working on the problem. Last month, The Engineer Online reported that a group of researchers from the University of Alcala (UAH) in Spain had devised a model that allows them to predict the wind speed at each turbine in a wind farm.

To do so, they built a neural network system that correlated data collected from turbines with data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the US National Center of Atmospheric Research.

One month earlier, Siemens Energy and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) disclosed that they had teamed up in yet another effort to help operators and owners manage wind farms more efficiently.