Update on IEA wind's recommended practices for renewable power forecast solution selection: recommendations for wind facility meteorological measurements for forecasting applications

A 3-part document series entitled “Recommended Practices for Selecting Renewable Power Forecasting Solutions” (RP-FSS) was compiled through a collaboration of an international group of experts under Task 36 of the IEA Wind Technology Collaboration Programme (IEA Wind TCP). The ultimate objective of the RP is to assist the forecast users in the selection of an optimal forecast solution for their specific set of applications. The need for the RP was based on considerable evidence that even though renewable energy forecasts are now widely employed for operational decisionmaking the full potential value of the forecasts is frequently not realized for many applications. The group initially identified three key contributing factors: (1) the specification of the wrong forecast performance objectives in the forecast solution selection process, (2) the use of poorly designed benchmarks or trials to select a forecast solution for the user's application and (3) the use of non-optimal evaluation metrics to assess the performance of candidates or existing forecast solutions.