Release of "tall profile" treatment postponed

[Brian Ohrbeck Hansen]

In early 2012, the WAsP Team announced that a new version of WAsP would be released this year. The new version would improve the accuracy of AEP predictions for tall wind turbines by changing the way in which tall wind profiles are handled in the model. However, we have now decided to postpone the release.

The WAsP Team has successfully developed new ways of treating wind profiles, and have been working on validating the resulting predictions. The new model is performing well, but we are so far unable to conclude that it’s providing a significant and consistent improvement over the standard WAsP profile model (WAsP version 10.2). Therefore, we are not yet sure that releasing the new model to WAsP users would improve the accuracy of AEP predictions which the software is delivering.

Our uncertainty is mostly due to a simple lack of reliable high-level wind observations. Work is continuing to develop the new model, but we’re particularly focusing our effort on adding to our bank of test cases. This is an ongoing research effort, and we would of course welcome any contributions of useful data from our friends in the industry.

Many of our users have shown great interest in getting the new model, and some have already been awaiting the release for quite a while. So if the new model had clearly out-performed the standard WAsP profile model, we would be releasing it immediately. However, our tests show that standard WAsP (WAsP version 10.2) provides good results – even for tall wind profiles! So by using standard WAsP, you’re getting the most accurate AEP predictions for tall wind turbines currently available from any wind modelling software.

[sityiatage]

The new model is performing well, but we are so far unable to conclude that it’s providing a significant and consistent improvement over the standard WAsP profile model (WAsP version 10.2)