Reading the wind with the aid of AI. Lorenzo Claveri
A new digital solution, Moata Met Wise can deliver the robust meteorological data the wind energy industry needs. With demand for renewable energy surging, many wind projects are being delayed or stalled by inadequate meteorological (met) data. Without knowing how hard and consistently the wind blows throughout the year and, on land, how it is affected by topography, accurately predicting energy yield is impossible – hobbling wind project developers’ business cases and making investors unwilling to risk capital.
Human error, lack of knowhow and lack of capacity are the most common reasons for incomplete or erroneous met data. A new digital solution, Moata Met Wise, addresses this problem. Met Wise is hosted on Mott MacDonald’s digital platform, Moata, which provides the muscle to draw in, cleanse, order and interrogate data. It is supported by a team of wind energy experts who know how to read and act on the information it produces.
Tackling a continuity challenge
Met data includes national and regional meteorological records, giving a long-term overview of weather patterns in the area where a proposed windfarm would be located. But decisions to invest also require location-specific data, gathered over a continuous 12 months or more, recording wind speed, direction, shear and turbulence, and air pressure. These readings are gathered on site using temporary towers fitted with instruments (met masts) or, increasingly, light detection and ranging equipment (LiDAR: laser beams are projected into the air; light reflected back from windborne dust particles enables meteorological information to be deduced). Data collection problems typically stem from mechanical faults, power and communication outages, and damage to equipment from extreme weather. People monitoring the data flows may not notice gaps or anomalies. Moata Met Wise will.
Real time response and machine learning
When humans alone are reading incoming data streams, they do so intermittently, so it may take days or even weeks for a broken data feed to be picked up. Users also need to know what they’re looking at – and what they are looking for: when people lack experience in wind data analysis they may not realise when readings are incongruous, and therefore fail to investigate.
In contrast, Moata Met Wise monitors feeds continuously and will signal as soon as a feed is disrupted, enabling the fault to be diagnosed and the correct maintenance or repair to be carried out. And Moata Met Wise is programmed by experts to ‘know’ when data looks right or wrong. When it picks up anomalies, it triggers investigation by our wind energy team, working with our clients’ personnel in the field where necessary. If anomalies have technical causes, they get fixed; if they have meteorological causes, the new met data is fed into Moata Met Wise. Thanks to the artificial intelligence and machine learning at the heart of the Moata digital platform, Met Wise assimilates the new data to improve its analytical capability.
Clear information for confident decision-making
Met data and analysis can be provided in a variety of formats to meet different client needs, with dashboard presentation making it easy for users to understand and act. For developers, the result is an improved understanding of wind conditions across a development site, enabling the arrangement of turbines to be optimised. Investors and lenders gain improved certainty of energy yield and payback. For all, Moata Met Wise provides the data robustness required to achieve financial close.
Find more on Moata Met Wise.
Lorenzo Claveri is technical principal, wind energy, at Mott MacDonald