The January issue of the popular science magazine Bild der Wissenschaft published an article entitled "Wenn das Wetter das Netz beutelt" (When the weather affects the grid) focussing on energy meteorology. The results and findings from the Oldenburg joint project WindRamp, which was initiated and led by scientists from ForWind at the Institute of Physics, were presented and placed in the wider context of climate change and the energy transition. The other Oldenburg WindRamp project partners also had their say in the article. The rest of the text provides a nice overview of Oldenburg's energy meteorology research activities as a whole.

The project investigated wind ramps, i.e. rapid changes in the incoming wind speed, for example during frontal passages. These cause strong gradients in the feed-in power of offshore wind farms. The prediction of such wind ramps is subject to great uncertainty. This makes operational grid management more difficult, causes or prolongs the curtailment of wind energy, necessitates the rescheduling of conventional power plants and makes wind energy traded on the exchange more expensive. The Lidar remote sensing method makes it possible to measure wind speeds several kilometres upstream. This allows wind ramps to be detected before they hit the wind farm.

The aims of the WindRamp project were to improve grid operation management and optimise electricity trading processes. More: forwind.de/project/windramp/