Wind Atlas for South Africa (WASA) Observational wind atlas for 10 met. stations in Northern, Western and Eastern Cape provinces

摘要

As part of the “Wind Atlas for South Africa” project, microscale modelling has been carried out for 10 meteorological stations in Northern, Western andEastern Cape provinces.Wind speed and direction data from the ten 60-m masts have been analysedusing the Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program (WAsP 11). The windclimatological inputs are the observed wind climates derived from the WAsP Climate Analyst. Topographical inputs are elevation maps constructed from SRTM 3 data and rough-ness length maps constructed from SWBD data andGoogle Earth satellite imagery. Summaries are given of the data measured at the 10 masts, mainly for a 3-year reference period from October 2010 toSeptember 2013.The main result of the microscale modelling is observational wind atlas data sets, which can be used for verification of the mesoscale modelling. Inaddition, the microscale modelling itself has been verified by comparingobserved and modelled vertical wind profiles at the 10 sites. WAsP generally works well, but modelling of the wind profiles can be improved by usingproject-specific wind atlas heights and by changing the heat flux parameters of WAsP.