Title: Advanced Atmospheric/Oceanic Analyses and Predictions to Effectively Support Offshore Wind Energy Development, Environmental Evaluations, and Utility Applications defined in the Renewable Energy Rules and the NJ Energy Master Plan
Funding Agency: SNJ Board of Public Utilities
Project Lead: Scott Glenn
Partners: Aquawind
Period of Performance: November 1, 2017 – March 31, 2021
Total Budget: $1,389,843.00
Project Summary:
The RU-WRF model will be run and evaluated to ensure adequate model performance while maintaining the resultant time series of data files that will include both historical and current results. Running the model includes continued support and maintenance of meteorological assets and satellite sea surface temperature products. The proposed work will include detailed validations against a network of atmospheric datasets, including publicly available coastal met towers, buoys, and our own met tower/SoDAR/ WindTracer LIDAR systems that will be used for the validation program. The in situ and remote sensing monitoring systems used for model input and validation will be maintained, analyzed, and updated on a continuous basis to avoid any significant data losses. Therefore, costly lag-times associated with model support will be avoided. In addition to internal validation this year will include external evaluation and validation by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
The resultant data associated with the proposed modeling studies will prove to be essential inputs for stakeholders regarding optimization protocols for both hypothetical and proposed offshore wind farm array configurations and representative wind power production estimations. Once the funding procedure (e.g., ORECs) has been completed, the wind developer applications should be submitted to NJBPU. Our datasets and visualizations are and will continue to be publicly available for use by stakeholders and NJBPU. This information could then be used by the NJBPU Evaluator to inform BPU and the wind developer decision makers regarding the Evaluator’s conclusions with the intent for resolving potential technical/scientific issues associated with the modeling/monitoring information presented in the submitted BPU OSW Applications. Modeling results can also be provided to additional partners for input to energy/economic models, which will assist in determining the expected economic viability of NJ’s Offshore Wind Energy development initiatives.