The service offers wind farm power output forecasting, and leverages the local weather forecasts of meteoblue, an independent meteorological forecaster, who operate its own high resolution models, which have shown to consistently deliver top quality wind forecasts for any location across five continents.

ForeSite gives operators hourly forecasts of wind potential and energy generation up to 6 days ahead, Natural Power says. Operators can access and process the forecasts on a daily or hourly basis – hourly forecasts give the expected instantaneous production of the wind farm from 6 hours up to 6 days ahead as required, whilst daily forecasts give the total expected energy production of the wind farm for the complete day following the forecast date, up to 7 days ahead. Further optional features are the inclusion of planned wind turbine threshold or downtimes.

ForeSite combines highly accurate local wind forecasts with downscaling and inclusion of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) on top of the model described above. Natural Power deploys VENTOS® – a leading CFD model – on ForeSite projects to provide improved downscaling based on topography and roughness to reduce learning time and further refine accuracy, Natural Power says.

Oisin Brady, Managing Director at Natural Power France, says: “With utility companies and independent power producers demanding accurate wind power forecasts Natural Power are pleased to announce the release of ForeSite to meet our client’s needs. We believe our product to be one step ahead of the rest, utilising our VENTOS and Melogale services to improve accuracy and reduce learning time on projects.

"We have firm plans to further develop the renewable energy applications of ForeSite and are developing innovative and interactive delivery methods. We are already working with clients on their forecasting projects and can help wind farm owners immediately.”