Evaluation of the mesoscale–microscale (WRF–WAsP) coupling methodology for wind resource parameters in Fiji

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of the proposed Weather Research and Forecasting–Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program (WRF–WAsP) models coupling methodology and evaluates the improvement in the accuracy of the wind predictions for the small island developing state (SIDS) of Fiji in the tropical Southwest Pacific region. The results revealed that the proposed WRF–WAsP coupling methodology can be used as a wind resource assessment methodology provided very-high resolution dynamically downscaled wind resource data is available in the order of 10 years for utility-scale wind power applications. The analysis also revealed that the 1 km × 1 km WRF model data from the finest (high-resolution) domain (d03) is best for coupling WRF–WAsP for wind resource parameters evaluation. The coupling methodology of WRF–WAsP improved the accuracy of the wind prediction by 0.2–6% for the wind resource parameters evaluated for Fiji.