Enhanced Nationwide Wind-Electric Power Monitoring and Forecast System

This paper describes an enhanced monitoring and forecast system for the electrical power generated from wind in Turkey. Wind power plant (WPP) owners, transmission system operator, distribution system operators, and renewable energy experts are the shareholders of this system. The developed monitoring and forecast system is composed of wind electricity analyzers and reference wind masts, one for each WPP, a Wind-Electric Power Monitoring and Forecast Center (WPMFC) equipped with database, data processing, and application servers, and the associated monitoring and forecast software. All shareholders can communicate with the developed WPMFC in order to retrieve preprocessed wind-electric power forecast data and power quality data, through the IP network according to their authorization level. The electrical and meteorological raw data can also be retrieved for postprocessing. The developed system is based on global positioning system (GPS) synchronized, real-time field measurements taken from each WPP, in addition to the use of mesoscale numerical weather prediction models. Instantaneous electrical and meteorological quantities of each WPP can be monitored continuously through the WPMFC. The forecast system employs physical, statistical, and hybrid models combining both approaches. Some sample monitoring and forecast results are given in the paper to illustrate the benefits and abilities of the developed system.