ArcVera Renewables, a provider of consulting and technical services for wind and solar, has developed and published a benchmark report that aimed to deliver a thorough analysis of the performance of its wind energy resource assessment (WERA) practice across a broad range of operating wind projects.
ArcVera uses high-resolution mesoscale wind-flow modeling in its Wind Energy Resource Assessment (WERA) methodology. Pictured is a hub-height wind speed map created using a full physics, 200-m resolution mesoscale model run, down-scaled to 30-m resolution terrain. The range of wind speeds shown in the image is 4-8 m/s.
Based on a dataset composed of 31 projects it worked on in the United States, combining 3.5 GW of installed capacity and 212 years of operation, the report provides a detailed comparison between the pre-construction assessments using ArcVera’s advanced WERA practices and the actual post-construction energy production data.
The results of the study show that ArcVera’s wind assessment techniques are accurate to within about 1% on average of reported project P50 energy production, which becomes near zero mean bias after accounting for grid curtailment.
“We have consistently delivered accurate and bankable insights backed by advanced technical expertise and decades of global experience,” said John Bosche, President and Principal Engineer at ArcVera Renewables. “That kind of highly specialized services is what you need to make sure that confident project development decisions are taken, maximum technically-driven advantage is secured, and performance risk is minimized,”
In addition, the benchmark study indicated that ArcVera’s wind assessments have lower individual project performance variation than in the past. With an average project performance bias close to zero, ArcVera’s advanced methodology yields an average project performance of 98.8% for the 31 projects. Given that estimates of grid curtailment losses, typically at 1 to 1.5%, are not corrected for in most benchmark assessments, ArcVera’s overall project performance is effectively 100% in terms of accuracy.
Even more impressively, the results show that the risk of building a wind farm that significantly over- or under-performs is limited by applying ArcVera’s techniques, with an industry-leading 4.7% standard deviation of project performance. No firm is currently assessing wind farms with the accuracy achieved by ArcVera.
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