The research activities of the Meteorology Section are focused on the siting of wind turbines considering the wind resources, turbulence, extreme loads, wind farm wakes, and potential power production – all depending on the local wind climate.

The research areas are: 

• Boundary layer meteorology
• Mesoscale and microscale modelling
• Assessment of wind resources for power production
• External design conditions for wind loads on turbines and various other structures

The scientific work includes the development of models of the mean flow, turbulence, extreme loads and background climate, wind resource assessment, combining mesoscale and microscale modelling, wake modelling, ranging from single turbine wakes to large wind farm cluster wakes, and weather forecasts on several time scales from short-term to inter-annual.

The modelling activities are closely connected to in-depth analysis of field measurements to further improve our understanding of the physical processes. The field investigations include observations over land and at sea, and encompass data on turbulence, wind profiles, and many other parameters including remote sensing data from ground-based instruments and satellites.

We also study environmental problems related to the transport of airborne pollutants and the turbulent exchange of matter during the interaction between the atmosphere and terrestrial or marine surfaces.

We offer both in-house and externally commissioned assessment studies. We maintain and offer training courses in the software programmes WAsP and WAsP Engineering, that are based on our wind atlas methodology and used all over the world to estimate external design conditions, predict wind climates, wind resources and power productions from wind turbines and farms. We offer courses in remote sensing for wind energy at PhD level.