One of the big issues with wind power is how to make it reliable. We can put farms in areas notorious for windiness, but even if we do this, how do we know how much electricity we’ll be able to get from it each day? How on earth can we plan ahead to use something that is iconic for being unreliable and shifting?

Researchers in Germany are developing a new software that can predict the electrical output from wind farms. The software, called Previento, can potentially give German grids a way to plan out how much non-wind-based electricity will be needed to cover times when wind is really more of a breeze, which will help keep users happy and costs down. With 7.2% of the country’s electricity coming from wind, the predictability factor of peaks and troughs in wind power is a big deal.

The software pulls together information from a variety of weater models from different sources, combines them with topographical information about local terrains that affect a farm’s output and a wind farm’s particulars (which, I assume, takes into account the types of turbines being used along with other factors) and makes a final calculation that can be relied upon up to four days in advance, and with a time resolution of up to 15 minutes for any German – or European, for that matter – location.

One thing that sets this software apart from some others is that it also provides the margin of error, which is an important little figure to throw in to planning. The system can predict as far as 10 days in advance, but with much less reliability than the 4 day calculations.

Should the software prove as awesome as it seems to be, it could be a big boon for Germany and anyone working on wind power improvements.

Via RenewableEnergyWorld, photo via benleto

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