The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded US$5m to NOAA to support the conversion of the Mauna Loa atmospheric baseline observatory in Hawaii to a net zero carbon facility.

The funding will help NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory purchase solar panels and battery storage systems that will enable the observatory to operate on renewable energy.

The US$5m is part of US$250m in funding announced by DOE’s Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies (AFFECT) program to support energy and water efficiency projects and processes at US federal government-owned facilities.

The Mauna Loa Observatory is considered the benchmark site for monitoring the global increase in greenhouse gases that are driving climate change.

Continue reading Mauna Loa observatory receives funding for net zero target at Meteorological Technology International.

The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) has launched a new solar and wind power production service that converts sunshine and wind forecasts into kilowatt-hours.

The forecasts are free to access on the FMI website and provide a helpful tool for Finnish households and communities that use solar and wind power.

Anders Lindfors, a research professor at the FMI, said, “The information enables users to anticipate when plenty of solar power will be available so that they can time their consumption accordingly. On the other hand, consumption can be reduced if cloudy and windless weather has been forecast because it means that wind power will be scarce.”

The solar power production forecast shows sunshine as the power produced by a solar power plant at different locations over the following few days.

Continue reading FMI launches solar and wind power production forecasts at Meteorological Technology International.

The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) has launched a new project examining the technical and economic uses of sea heat pumps in different regions of the Baltic Sea.

Sea heat pumps are one possible method of producing large amounts of heat without fossil fuels and FMI is studying how marine heat could be utilized on the Baltic coast.

The ‘Sea as an Energy Source for District Heating’ (SeaHeat) project will produce comprehensive temperature data on the Baltic Sea, based on temperature and salinity observations and model calculations made by supercomputers.

Data describing the characteristics of seawater will be combined with depth and geographical data on the use of water areas, such as protected areas and buffer zones.

Continue reading FMI to study potential of marine heat pumps along Baltic coast at Meteorological Technology International.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have signed an agreement to work together to support the transition to renewable energy through tailored weather, water and climate services.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh by Francesco La Camera, IRENA’s director-general, and Prof Petteri Taalas, WMO’s secretary-general. Both sides agreed to promote energy access and climate sustainability by harnessing climate and meteorological data, products and services.

La Camera said, “The resilience of energy systems is bound to become even more important with climate-related shocks. Now is the time to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy future.

Continue reading IRENA and WMO join forces to support transition to renewable energy at Meteorological Technology International.

Edinburgh Airport in Scotland has partnered with green energy company Katrick Technologies to place several wind mapping sensors across the estate, including on the terminal roof and around the runway, to examine areas of unexploited low-level wind power.

The data collected by the sensors will help determine the optimal areas to capture and convert energy using Katrick’s innovative wind panels. This will help the airport to generate additional green energy and become more energy efficient.

Danny Quinn, technical asset director at Edinburgh Airport, said, “As an airport we are always looking to embrace fresh ideas, particularly when it comes to the generation of green energy, and this technology has the potential to provide new opportunities around this.

Continue reading Edinburgh Airport to investigate untapped wind energy potential at Meteorological Technology International.

Weather and environmental measurement specialist Vaisala has been ranked in the top five places of the Financial Times’s European Climate Leaders 2022 listing.

The list includes European companies that achieved the greatest reduction in their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between 2015 and 2020. Vaisala has increased its ranking to fifth, up from 14th the previous year.

Kai Öistämö, president and CEO, Vaisala, said, “Sustainability really is at the core of Vaisala, and it is a great honor to be included on the top of Financial Times’s Climate Leaders list once again. Our ranking last year was 14th, which is excellent, but it is a true honor to take place five this year.

Continue reading Vaisala achieves fifth place in Financial Times’s Climate Leaders 2022 list at Meteorological Technology International.

Meteorological equipment specialist Biral has been contracted to supply its BTD-200 Lightning Warning System to the largest solar farm in Poland. Biral will partner with Polish meteorological firm Comet to install the sensors at the 100ha site in Brudzew, central Poland.

The site has been built by solar specialist ESOLEO and consists of 155,554 photovoltaic modules – each with a capacity of 450Wp. Every year, the solar farm will produce 68,188MWh and reduce CO2  emissions by more than 56,000 tons.

As well as the photovoltaic modules, 306 inverters and more than 900km of cables and optical fibers were used in its construction.

Continue reading Biral to supply lightning detection system for largest solar farm in Poland at Meteorological Technology International.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has extended its strategic agreement with utilities provider Hydro Tasmania for a further four years, supplying expert meteorological and climatological services to country’s largest generator of renewable energy.

Leveraging BoM’s expertise, Hydro Tasmania is able to make more efficient operational and strategic decisions when it comes to operating its wind- and hydro-power resources.

Dr Andrew Johnson, CEO of BoM, said, “The services provided by the Bureau enable Hydro Tasmania to better supply energy to Tasmanian households and businesses as well as into the national energy grid. Through the agreement, first signed in 2018, Hydro Tasmania will continue to receive expert weather updates, and insight and analysis of historical conditions and long-term climate outlooks, to inform decision making and planning for its operations.”

Ian Brooksbank, acting chief executive of Hydro Tasmania, said the company relies on tailored information, such as seasonal rainfall outlooks and high-impact severe weather forecasts to make informed decisions: “Weather is the fuel of the future, and as Australia transitions to renewable energy it will be more important than ever to have accurate forecasts of rainfall, wind and cloud cover.

Continue reading BoM extends strategic agreement with Hydro Tasmania at Meteorological Technology International.

Atmospheric lidar developer Leosphere, a subsidiary of Vaisala, has announced that its newly enhanced WindCube Nacelle lidar for the wind energy sector has received full classification under a new International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard.

The classification paves the way for increased adoption and acceptance of the nacelle lidar for power performance testing (PPT), which is used to determine the economic value of a wind project and to ensure that projects are performing to expectations.

New enhancements provide more robust data while making the system easier to use, further enabling customers to verify onshore and offshore wind farm turbine performance as well as optimize power output and project profitability.

Continue reading Enhanced WindCube Nacelle receives full IEC standard classification at Meteorological Technology International.

The US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is integrating IT specialist Intertrust’s Planet OS weather data API with its OpenOA software, enabling wind energy planners to estimate energy production more accurately from wind farms.

The joint solution will enable wind energy experts to understand weather variability, which is critical to planning renewable energy systems.

The NREL OpenOA (Operational Assessment) framework is developed to provide references of common wind energy operational analytics methods to address the lack of standardization of these methods in the wind industry. The core feature of OpenOA is a state-of-the-art method for estimating the long-term annual energy production (AEP) of a wind plant based on a few years of operational data.

Continue reading Renewable energy innovator adopts Intertrust software to improve wind farm estimates at Meteorological Technology International.