A Plan of Satellite Data Assimilation in Supports of Renewable Energy Forecasts

In supports of the Nation's real-time renewable energy forecast services, NESDIS/STAR is developing new and improved satellite products, expanding forecast model capabilities and fast radiative transfer schemes for advanced data assimilation. Our focused areas will be developments of advanced systems for assimilating satellite observations of clouds, aerosols, solar insolation, lidar and other satellite-derived wind products. Radiative transfer scheme will be optimized for uses of high temporal or spatial resolution data from current and future observing systems (e.g. GOES-R and NPOESS series) in renewable energy forecast systems. Satellite measurements of direct downward and diffuse solar radiation with a spatial resolution of 4 km or even higher and a refresh rate of 30 minutes (current GOES) and 5 minutes (GOES-R) will be assimilated through 4dvar or rapid update cycle (RUC) systems. Various quality-control and bias correction algorithms (e.g. clouds, aerosols, solar flux and winds) are developed and tailored for specific user requirements.