As the government implements more wind energy into the nation's power grids, accurate wind forecasts become essential for maintaining the integrity of the utility's operations. Unfortunately, current efforts to provide highly accurate forecasts are hampered by significant errors stemming from multiple sources. This presentation will highlight a few of the problems with wind generation forecasting and some of the issues that arise while using a variable power source in a generation profile.

Providing forecasts for a utility requires forecasts that are accurate from 0 hours to over 96 hours in time. A significant source of error responsible for reducing the quality of the forecast can derive from errors in modeling, wind variability, generation variability, and others.

As wind generation approaches the 20% penetration goal of many utilities, highly accurate wind forecasts will be required. The significant errors currently imbedded in wind forecasting must be reduced to make this goal feasible.