The Story of The Broome to Cooktown Challenge

[fc: 30th May 2011] This was part of pulling together a selection of wind data sites, leading to simulated wind farms from Broome to Cooktown. The group project and paper 'proposal', while certainly supported by a few individuals, did not obtain sufficient momentum and I prosecuted the work myself (with some particular contributions from Ben McMillan), and the workflow has veered off into a more encompassing analysis of wind and solar combined (see The Third Story). A paper could yet be activated here if someone suitable wanted to take a lead role in pulling it together (I'd happily advise / supervise the process).

Here is an Open Science, group project proposal; now well under way [Nov 2010].

In short we construct a hypothetical network of wind farms from Broome to Cooktown (or thereabouts), and examine how the system as a whole behaves in relation to synoptic scale weather patterns. This is spatial smoothing on a big scale. We expect also to focus on subregions of interest. This project is loosely envisaged as an Australian version of this recent US work:

Willett Kemptona, Felipe M. Pimenta, Dana E. Veron, and Brian A. Colle
Electric power from offshore wind via synoptic-scale interconnection
PNAS, April 20, 2010, 107(16), pp 7240-7245
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/16/7240

This is the first defined group project, and is expected to lead to a publication authored by all serious contributors. Who wants to be an Open Science pioneer?

We are happy to have many authors, and all positions are open depending on who steps up into what roles. But, please, leave authorship discussions until we have broken the back of the problem, by which point the relevant parties to that discussion will be apparent.

Please note that while the overall concept of building Wind Farms and a Transmission Network from Broome to Cooktown is not a serious engineering proposal as such, the exercise serves many serious aims and goals.

What follows is, first, the current envisaging of how this project proceeds; second, a sketch of progress to date, and then general discussion (i.e. comments and questions - yours and ours). Once the data analysis work matures we can open a Discussion Page to focus specifically on manuscript building. This is the Story Page, for more general mussings and planning.

The General Plan

The goal is here twofold; (i) to usefully quantify the spatial smoothing dynamics of the Australian Wind Resource, in particular by estimating hour-by-hour traces of power output for given wind farm scenarios, and (ii) to leave a clear trail of how this work was done, both as a necessary task to underpin manuscript development, and as template for future work of this sort (by OzEA or others).

As per the OzEA method we will build an analysis pipeline, performing several iterations before finalising data selection and generating results for publication. The work flow and associated pipeline is envisaged as follows:

Obtain wind speed data: make selection of BoM Stations, obtain data from the BoM;
Parse, clean, and characterise wind data: Process data into OzEA format and perform basic checks;
Transform wind speed data into hypothetical wind farm electricity output;
Characterise (3): arrive at useful and understandable quantifications;
Consideration of generation extremes, transmission, storage, grid integration, and other associated issues.
[Iterate until tight and tidy]

Concurrent with the data and analysis work, it is necessary to develop awareness of both relevant literature (from a paper writing perspective) and relevant policy and plans in relation to what might really happen in Australia in the coming years.

Work to Date

[last edited 14th November 2010]

Here is timeline including work done and other relevant happenings:

[9th June 2010] BtCC conceived
[June] Round 1 BoM station selection
[July] Wind speed data acquisition
[July] Green Grid Report released
[July] Wind Speed data parsed and processed into OzEA format
[Aug] Initial wind data characterisation
[Sept-Oct] Some replacement sites decided and data obtained - still to be posted

Until recently we were happy to let this work simmer, and give others a chance to forge on. Now this work is being prosecuted in ernest. We are in the final stages of establishing the methodology for transforming BoM wind speed data into estimated power output for a modelled wind farm. With this in hand we will test run it on some Eyre Peninsula wind data, before running against the full (revised) set of BtCC wind speed data.

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DISCUSSION: (on The Broome to Cooktown Challenge)

OzEA_SBCC0004

Barry Brook
Subject: Green Grid
Date: 2010-07-22 (at 12:56:09)

This work is obviously useful for understanding the implications of the 'Green Grid' expansion. In particular, I think there needs to be a focused analysis on some key resource areas that are likely to see more wind farms sooner, rather than later. I'm thinking specifically about regions such as the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula and the southern Yorke, and perhaps even stretching out a way along the GAB coastline.

How many relevant BoM stations do we have covering that key region?

OzEA_SBCC0005

Francis
Subject: Response to #4
Date: 2010-07-23 (at 00:22:19)

Barry, we have 3 BoM stations from this area in the current (round-1) wind data; however, there are several others, and I agree we should obtain the data for these sooner rather than later. Will follow up with Alex next week. More generally, the data selection in the end was strongly influenced by the locations of current and proposed Wind Farms, and we will soon see how the data from these looks.

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fc - 13 Nov 2010

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What is the longhand for 'Oz'? :*