FullView Initial Project Assessment

Designed for: Developer & Financier

For pricing and purchase details:

Low Cost, High Resolution Wind Assessment Data

Primary Uses

Vetting turbine layouts
Determining project scale
Prioritizing turbine locations
Estimating power production

At a price within reach for any mid-sized wind project budget, 3TIER can provide 200 m resolution data on the power potential for every turbine in your project layout—even before on-site observations have been collected. The FullView Initial Project Assessment helps you target specific turbine locations and determine if the overall site is viable for the project size proposed in your initial design.

Available for any location worldwide and delivered within a matter of days, this assessment offers information on both long-term wind resource potential and power output using proven, state-of-the-art techniques. The data files that accompany the report provide all of the information in a format that uploads easily to numerous wind software packages. By tailoring a decade long mesoscale numerical weather prediction model to the specifics of your project (including turbine height, layout, and power curve), this product balances economics with a high level of customization.

Technical Highlights

Figure 1. 12 x 24 Wind Speed Table

Product Features

GIS formatted maps of wind speed and capacity factor
12 x 24 table and data file of wind speed and capacity factor
Table and data file of the location, elevation, wind speed, gross capacity, air density, and shear for each turbine in the provided layout
Annual and monthly mean wind speed and power roses for up to 10 reference locations

Product Highlights

Based on 10 years of climatology at 200 m (or finer) resolution
Available for any project layout and at any custom height between 10 – 200 m
Select a power curve from any industry standard turbine
Available globally
Delivered within 1 week or less
Data files available in numerous formats, including TAB and WRG

Delivery Method

The analysis is delivered as a Portable Document File (PDF) report with data files available in multiple formats.

Methodology

3TIER's Initial Project Assessment involves creating a 2 km resolution dataset for a period of 10 years using the WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) model and then downscaling the data to a 200 m resolution. The WRF model is a proven technology, widely supported and continually enhanced by the global atmospheric science and research community.

Due to the complexity of the WRF model, running its intensive computer simulations at resolutions of 200 m or finer can be prohibitively expensive. To solve this problem, 3TIER has developed the Time-Varying Microscale (TVM) model to downscale WRF derived data. This proprietary model can compute extremely high-resolution datasets and calculates the effects of microscale terrain features, near-surface roughness features, and other effects typically left unresolved by coarser mesoscale numerical weather prediction models. Using the TVM model, data are not downscaled from average quantities, but from each time step of the simulation (typically hour-by-hour) and wind speed, elevation, wind direction, and thermodynamic properties are all taken into account.

If you are unfamiliar with the technical terminology on this page, please visit our Glossary for more information.