3rd Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP3)
The 3rd Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP3) is a multi-seasonal offshore field measurement research campaign off the coast of southern New England. This campaign aims to boost off-shore wind generation through better forecasting for existing and future wind farms.
WFIP3 builds on the 1st Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP1) in the upper and lower Great Plains, and the 2nd Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2) in the Pacific Northwest.
Collaborators
The U.S. Department of Energy and NOAA are conducting this field campaign in collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Woods Hole) and other public and private partners.
NOAA laboratories (Global Monitoring Laboratory, Global Systems Laboratory, and Physical Sciences Laboratory) are funded by and collaborating through the NOAA Atmospheric Sciences for Renewable Energy program and through the Department of Energy Wind Energy Technology Office .
Approach
WFIP3 involves deploying and operating a 3-D multiscale sensor array to characterize the vertical and horizontal structure of the marine boundary layer, providing key observations to help better understand the mesoscale atmospheric and oceanographic processes that directly affect wind resource characterization in the U.S. East Coast offshore environment.
WFIP3 atmospheric observing systems
A number of onshore and offshore instruments either have been or will soon be deployed by the Department of Energy, NOAA, Woods Hole, or other partners as part of the overall WFIP3 observational effort.
Onshore instruments
In November 2023, the Physical Sciences Laboratory, along with the Global Monitoring Laboratory, several Department of Energy labs, universities, and Woods Hole, installed different meteorological instruments on Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Instruments were also deployed in Rhode Island in Narragansett and on Block Island.
| PROFILING instrument | Purpose | PSL/GML deployed? |
|---|---|---|
| LiDAR | Wind and turbulence profiles | No |
| Radar wind profiler | Wind profile | Yes |
| Infrared spectrometer | Temperature and humidity profiles; cloud characteristics | Yes |
| Microwave radiometer | Temperature and humidity profiles; cloud characteristics | Yes |
| Ceilometer | Cloud base height | Yes |
| W-band radar | Cloud characteristics | Yes |
| Sodar | Wind profile | No |
| Radiosondes | Wind, temperature, and humidity profiles | Yes |
| IN SITU instrument | Purpose | PSL/GML deployed? |
|---|---|---|
| Meteorological sensors | Temperature, humidity, wind, pressure, precipitation | Yes |
| Raditation sensors | Surface radiation budget | Yes |
| Microbarograph array | Pressure fluctuations | Yes |
Offshore instruments
A barge was deployed by the Department of Energy in June 2024. It is planned to be operated continuously for up to 90 days between June and September 2024 (See barge status and photos ). It has a variety of vertical profiling and in situ instrumentation for measuring atmosphere and ocean conditions, as well as bat and avian monitors.
A NOAA research ship is planned for a 3-week winter deployment, outfitted with the same instruments used for the summer barge deployment and additional NOAA-operated instruments. The ship will be equipped with a GPS and heading system, as well as a motion pack to account for the moving effects of the ship.
| PROFILING instrument | Purpose | Platform | PSL/GML deployed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiDAR | Wind and turbulence profiles | Barge, ship, lidar buoy | No |
| Infrared spectrometer | Temperature and humidity profiles; cloud characteristics | Barge, ship | No |
| Microwave radiometer | Temperature and humidity profiles; cloud characteristics | Barge, ship | No |
| Ceilometer | Cloud base height | Barge, ship | No |
| W-band radar | Cloud characteristics | Barge, ship | No |
| IN SITU instrument | Purpose | Platform | PSL/GML deployed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonic anemometers | Wind fluxes | Ship | Yes |
| CO2/water vapor gas analyzer | Carbon dioxide and water vapor fluxes | Ship | Yes |
| Optical rain gauge | Rainfall | Ship | Yes |
| Temperature/relative humidity sensor | Temperature, humidity | Ship | Yes |
| Surface pressure sensor | Air pressure | Ship | Yes |
| NOAA “sea snake” sensor | Sea surface temperature | Ship | Yes |
| Laser wave meter | Wave height | Ship | Yes |
| Micro-barometers | Wave-induced air pressure fluxes | Ship | Yes |
| Long and short-wave radiometers | Surface radiation budget | Ship | Yes |
| Meteorological sensors | Temperature, humidity, wind, pressure | Air-Sea Interaction Tower (ASIT ), Sentinel buoy | No |
Instrument location map
The WFIP3 study area and the location of onshore and offshore weather instruments in southern New England.
NOAA’s Physical Sciences and Global Monitoring Laboratories deployed instruments at the Nantucket (NANT) and Block Island (BLOC) land sites in November 2023.
Project goal
The new understanding developed from these observations will be incorporated into foundational numerical weather forecasting models and other physics-based atmospheric and oceanographic models to improve wind energy forecasts.
WFIP3 Data
WFIP3 data collection is underway.
PSL has developed a tool to be used continually by project scientists to compare WFIP3 observations with different weather forecast models. This comparison helps scientists evaluate how well the models simulate important physical processes that are relevant for wind energy forecasting and to identify periods of forecast busts.The Global Systems Laboratory has developed experimental weather forecast model being run at 1-km resolution in which new physics parameterizations can be tested and evaluated for this specific offshore environment.
The Global Monitoring Laboratory has established a quicklook WFIP3 page with several data visualizations as well as recent image/video from the Nantucket and Block Island sites.