Open AccessError features and their possible causes in simulated low‐level winds by WRF at a wind farm
Author(s) -
Wang Chenghai,
Jin Shuanglong
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
wind energy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1099-1824
pISSN - 1095-4244
DOI - 10.1002/we.1635
Subject(s) - weather research and forecasting model , wind speed , maximum sustained wind , meteorology , environmental science , terrain , wind profile power law , wind direction , atmospheric sciences , wind gradient , morning , wind shear , wind power , prevailing winds , roughness length , climatology , geography , geology , engineering , physics , cartography , electrical engineering , astronomy
The WRF model is applied to simulate the low‐level wind field for a wind farm located in a typical arid region in northwest China for February 2008. The selected region has complex terrain with sparse vegetation. Overall, the WRF model reproduced the variation features of wind speeds and wind directions. However, the model overestimated the observed low‐level wind speeds, and there were large discrepancies for the low wind velocity (i.e. the errors of simulated winds increase with height and will be larger when the observed wind speeds are lower than 2.5 m/s). The features of the simulated errors and the possible causes in the model were analysed. The simulated low‐level wind in the afternoon is more accurate than that in early morning, which is usually unstable. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.