Looking to the future of energy meteorology

Many countries are rapidly shifting their energy generation from fossil fuels to renewable sources like wind and solar. While these have many advantages, they are also dependent on weather for their output. To reduce uncertainty and improve energy production, the field of energy meteorology has been developed to analyze and forecast weather patterns and their effects on renewable energy systems.

Schroedter-Homscheidt et al. discussed the trajectory of this field, summarizing its current capabilities and highlighting future challenges and directions for growth. They want to facilitate collaboration in energy meteorology in response to its expected increase in importance.

Currently, energy meteorology is used to forecast weather at different sites around the globe and convert predicted solar irradiance or wind speed into projected power production, either to identify favorable locations for potential energy facilities or to provide short-term expectations for existing facilities. Increasingly, the field has incorporated data from satellites and ground-based observatories along with more powerful forecasting algorithms to improve renewable energy yields.

Looking forward, the authors hope the field of energy meteorology can link traditional meteorology with the energy community. They emphasized the importance of communication between these disciplines to further innovation.

“We need expertise at this bridge: people who understand how meteorological forecasts are made, how climate models are made, and who also have the same level of expertise in the energy field,” said author Marion Schroedter-Homscheidt. “Only if we couple these two pieces of knowledge will we succeed.”

With this level of collaboration, the authors expect to see further advances in data digitization and analysis with machine learning tools, and wider implementation of these tools in energy systems.

Source: “Weather as a driver of the energy transition – present and emerging perspectives of energy meteorology,” by Marion Schroedter-Homscheidt, Jan Dobschinski, Stefan Emeis, Detlev Heinemann, and Stefanie Meilinger, Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (2024). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0231754 .