Variability of the wind resource in Wyoming

The rapid development and expansion of wind energy in the last decade justifies its candidacy to wean the United States off traditional sources of electrical power. Wyoming, in particular southeastern Wyoming, is one of the windiest places in the country. This area's potential for electricity generation has allowed it to stay in the spotlight for most of the industry's expansion. Simply knowing that this area is windy, however, is insufficient. Model and observational data from 2008-2010 was analyzed in efforts to understand the modes of variability within the resource. North American Model (NAM) 12-kilometer (km) and 4-km output were averaged at annual, seasonal and diurnal intervals. Subsequent analysis revealed the wintertime to be the season which provides the greatest amount of wind resource. During the day, the afternoon affords the maximum amount of wind power. Compared to the observational dataset, however, the model consistently under-predicted the magnitude of the wind resource. Custom Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) runs were simulated with varying boundary and surface layer parameterizations in hopes of improving model performance. Unfortunately the WRF simulations provided little improvement to the NAM simulations. The inherent variability within the resource, coupled with the complex terrain in the region, poses quite a challenge when trying to forecast the surface winds. Improving terrain representation within the models or even developing custom models designed specifically to predict the wind may provide the most accurate wind forecasts.