SiteWind™
SiteWind™ provides the finest in micrositing services. In demanding situations where developers require more accurate wind resource and plant output estimates, SiteWind provides the best solution. An enhanced version of Meteosim Truewind's MesoMap technology, SiteWind outperforms conventional micrositing models such as WASP, and even relatively sophisticated CFD models, in complex wind climates. Case studies have demonstrated improvements of up to 40-70% in accuracy compared to WASP. SiteWind is compatible with leading wind plant design programs such as WindFarmer and WindPro and is accepted for project financing.
Mean annual wind speed map in Cap de Creus (NE Spain) using SiteWind™.
ADVANTAGES:
With data from one mast, SiteWind produces a more accurate estimate of wind plant output than other models do. This can lead directly to lower risks and increased returns for investors.
Conversely, SiteWind requires fewer masts to achieve the same level of accuracy as other models. This can result in substantial savings for each unneeded mast.
SiteWind can be used as an effective site-selection tool. Often developers have data for one site but want to know if other sites in the region have a better resource.
For regions as large as 2500 to 5000 km2, SiteWind can provide a rapid, affordable, and reliable answer to this question. (For larger regions, try MesoMap®.)
SiteWind is backed by AWS Truewind's extensive experience in all aspects of wind project development. Furthermore, SiteWind has been field-tested in numerous areas, from Altamont Pass to the Gaspe Peninsula, and has been accepted for project financing.
Value
All developers face the same challenge: how to obtain an accurate estimate of the potential energy production of their project quickly and at the lowest cost.
The traditional approach has been to take measurements and then feed the results into a simplified micrositing model such as WASP or, more recently, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model such as WindSim. Such models, whatever their type, extrapolate the wind resource from a single point, and thus their accuracy can decline dramatically with distance away from the mast, especially in complex wind climates. In response to this problem, some dvelopers have taken to erecting numerous masts, often as many as one every kilometer or two, to constrain the models. But this solution, though effective, is time-consuming and expensive.
SiteWind improves on other models because it first develops a comprehensive picture of the wind climate in the surrounding region using a sophisticated mesoscale atmospheric model before zooming into the project area. Technical details aside, the result is a dramatic reduction in error compared to conventional models driven from a single reference mast.
Standard deliverables include:
- Electronic and hard-copy maps of the predicted mean annual wind speed or power for several heights above ground. The maps include thematic overlays such as roads, transmission lines, parks, and towns and cities.
- A CD-ROM with ESRI ArcReader software allowing the user to view the maps, zoom to any area, copy or print maps at any scale, and extract wind rose charts and Weibull parameters.
- WASP-compatible resource grid files for use in wind plant design and optimization software.
- A report describing the method and results, including validation.
Optional deliverables consist of:
- Seasonal and monthly maps and data, including wind roses Weibull factors and diurnal patterns.
- A representative year of hourly wind, temperature, and air density data for any point (a "virtual met mast").
- A 30-year record of reanalysis data to be used in place of questionable or poorly correlated surface data for performing climatological corrections of short-term measurements.
- Other related project services such as plant layout and energy estimation using WindFarmer and WindPro, feasibility studies, photo simulations, environmental impact assessments, and due diligence.
Accuracy
The accuracy of SiteWind has been verified against data and other models in several regions, including California, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Scotland and New York. Two published case studies conducted by AWS Truewind illustrate the SiteWind advantage.
We compared SiteWind against WASP and measured wind speeds for 7 masts in the Cypress Hills area of Saskatchewan. In this study, the standard error in mean speed for SiteWind was 3%, whereas for WASP it was 12%. The masts with the smallest WASP errors were all located along the same bluff as the reference mast; the wind resource at stations away from this bluff was consistently overestimated.
A comparison between the forecast mean wind and the measured/extrapolated wind in Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan.
Comparing SiteWind with standard models for energy output estimation. 
