When it comes to forecasting wind patterns in order to better serve the explosive growth in wind power generation, who better to turn to than the experts in The Weather Channel family? GE announced today at the giant American Wind Energy Association conference — appropriately held in the “windy city” of Chicago — that it’s partnering with Weather Services International to launch more accurate forecasting tools for wind farm operators and power distributors.
Breezy rider: Since entering the wind business in 2002, GE Energy has invested more than $850 million to improve wind turbine technology. Today, more than 12,000 GE-technology wind turbines are installed worldwide.
WSI, which is part of The Weather Channel Companies, provides business-to-business weather services, particularly for the media, aviation, marine and energy sectors. As part of the alliance, WSI and GE Energy will develop technology to collect real-time turbine and wind data. They will then incorporate it into forecast models and offer customized forecast and operational guidance services. “The integration of timely, accurate weather forecasts with turbine operations can provide tools to help operators improve the efficiency of their wind farms,” explained Victor Abate, vice president, renewables for GE Energy.
* Read “GE plans weather forecasting for wind farms” via AP
* Learn more about the partnership
Also at the conference, GE Energy announced that it’s bringing its bigger 2.5-megawatt wind turbine to the U.S. next year following its successful debut in Europe and Asia. The larger model is designed to yield the highest annual energy production in its class and builds upon the success of GE’s 1.5-MW wind turbine, the world’s most widely deployed unit. The units for North America will be assembled in Pensacola, Fla.
* Learn more about GE’s plans for the U.S. debut
* See the technical specs of the 2.5MW turbine
Meanwhile, our friends at geadventure.com noticed that NPR has an interesting interactive map on its website that shows how big the wind power grid is expected to get by 2030 — and how much it’s expected to expand after 2030. You can also use the map to visualize the entire electric grid in the U.S., or segment off a portion of it according to solar and wind sources.
Click the map below to view
Future Grid: NPR’s interactive map of the U.S. electric grid.
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Great visualization! Thanks to GE Adventure for finding this.
One question, though..how come the map doesn’t show the vast energy storage facilities which will be required when a high % of the electricity comes from intermittent sources like solar & wind?
Come to think about it, *what* will these storage facilities consist of? Pumped storage? Giant batteries?
Or is the idea simply to install enough peaking turbines to handle the times when the load is high and the sun & wind aren’t available?
Use wind and solar excess electricity to produce hydrogen from water, which can be burned into electricty producing turbines at night and no-wind times.