Development and Validation of an Ice Prediction Model for Wind Farms
Wind Power
Partners:
Natural Resources Canada
Period of realization:
January 2016 to March 31, 2016
This project focused on the development and validation of the GPEO (formerly known as GLJM) icing and operational energy loss model. This model, which uses operational meteorological forecasts from Environment and Climate Change Canada, is used to model icing caused by freezing rain, in-cloud icing and sticky snow.
Wind farm observation data collected over the course of two winters were used to identify and characterize icing events. These events were then modelled with GPEO and the corresponding operational losses were calculated. Lastly, these same events were modelled by WRF, a widely used model in the industry, and the performance of the WRF and GPEO models was compared.
Hightlights
- After comparing the ice modelling results of GPEO and WRF, it was concluded that both models performed similarly.
- Having been validated and improved, GPEO can now be used operationally and at no cost to forecast icing events at wind farms.
