Energy Meteorology, Spreker: Stephan de Roode, Technical University Delft

The finite amount of fossil fuels urges a gradual shift from conventional power plants to using wind and solar radiation as sustainable sources of energy. As the energy production from the latter sources is highly variable in time and space, there is increasing need for even more accurate weather forecasts to optimize the balance between the production and consumption of electricity.

Despite the strong increase in computational power traditional weather forecast models operate at a grid resolution that still is too coarse to resolve turbulent transport. Because turbulence acts to transport heat, moisture and momentum, it plays a key role in the development of the wind and low clouds like stratocumulus. During the last decade turbulence resolving large-eddy simulation (LES) models have matured from being capable to faithfully represent the clear convective boundary layer towards models that can simulate (deep convective) clouds including their effects on radiation and precipitation. In addition we have recently included wind turbines in the Dutch LES (DALES) model.

If an LES model is nested in a weather forecast model, LES can be applied as a high-resolution forecasting tool for solar radiation. The incorporation of wind turbines also allows to assess the effect of atmospheric stability on the energy harvest from wind farms. Examples of using DALES for wind and solar energy applications will be presented. Last, the need for observations that may help to improve weather predictions with LES will be discussed.