Impact on energy efficiency assessment: WEEK 3

During the development of a wind farm project, an energy yield assessment may be requested at different phases of the project. For example, in the pre-construction phase to build the business model, in the operation phase to renegotiate debt, etc.

On the basis of the MERRA-2 dataset, Greensolver has recalculated the long-term correction factor for various energy efficiency studies carried out using the original MERRA dataset. In some cases, these revised correction factors could differ by 2% to 2.5%. If we take the example of market-leading turbine models (with a rotor diameter of ~100m), and assuming average wind regimes (~6m/s @100m), such wind variations could lead to efficiency variations of up to 5%.

For this reason, and because best practice is continually evolving to provide more reliable results, revision of old energy yield assessments is strongly recommended at crucial stages.

By Perrine Bugeat – Asset Manager