Central Wind Power Forecasting Programs in North America by Regional Transmission Organizations and Electric Utilities

The following table addresses the implementation of central wind power forecasting by electric utilities and regional transmission organizations in North America. The first part of the table focuses on electric utilities and regional transmission organizations that have central wind power forecasting in place; the second part focuses on electric utilities and regional transmission organizations that plan to adopt central wind power forecasting in 2010. Table entries are organized as follows:

• What the record peak demand is for the electric utility or regional transmission organization.
• What total generating capacity is available.
• What amount of wind capacity has been installed.
• What area is served by the electric utility or regional transmission organization
• When the wind power forecast was put into operation, or will be in operation.
• What wind power forecast vendor and model is used.
• What wind power forecast tools and techniques are used.
• What applications the wind power forecasts are used for.
• How wind power forecasts are paid for.
• What data is required, by wind turbine and wind project.
• How the wind power forecast is conducted.
• Whether a ramp forecast is prepared.
• How the wind power forecast performed.

Caution should be used in the interpretation of the performance data. The data encompasses different time periods, and can vary significantly based on location, season, weather regime, geographic distribution of the wind projects, potential wind curtailment, wind turbine availability, and other factors...(read more...)