The generation of a wind atlas for South Africa is a joint undertaking between the CSIR, SAWS, CSAG and international collaborators at Risoe, part of the Danish Technical University. The project has been made possible by the Royal Danish Embassy, the United Nations Development Programme, the South African Wind Energy Programme and the South African National Energy Research Institute.
The projects is divided into a number of work packages which include an observations campaign, high resolution as well as microscale modeling, extreme wind climate assessment, wind climate assessment techniques as well as data dissemination. The cumulative objective of these efforts is to generate a very high resolution wind atlas for South Africa to provide stakeholders with knowledge allowing them to make informed decisions. CSAG is involved in the mesoscale modelling component where the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model has been used to produce the first ever verified numerical wind atlas in the world. WASA phase 1 has produced the atlas for the western and southern parts of South Africa, and WASA Phase 2 will do the same for the eastern and central parts of the country.
In addition, the project issues a weather forecast for rain, wind, temperature at a 3 km horizontal resolution over the western and south eastern parts of South Africa and at a 9 km horizontal resolution over the rest of teh country. There are also time series forecasts for WASA mast sites as well as selected points. The forecast can be found here:
http://veaonline.risoe.dk/wasa
Time frames: 2014 to 2018
Funder: Danish Embassy and Global Environment Facility (GEF)
Partners: South African National Energy Development Institute, South African Weather Service (SAWS), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Danish Technological University
For further details: See the WASA website http://www.wasaproject.info or contact Dr Chris Lennard