ArcVera Renewables has developed and published a benchmark report that aimed to deliver a analysis of the performance of its wind energy resource assessment (WERA) practice across a broad range of operating wind projects.
Based on a dataset composed of 31 projects it worked on in the USA, combining 3.5GW of installed capacity and 212 years of operation, the report provides a detailed comparison between the pre-construction assessments using ArcVera’s WERA practices and the actual post-construction energy production data. The results of the study show that ArcVera’s wind assessment techniques are accurate to within about 1% on average of reported project P50 energy production, which becomes near zero mean bias after accounting for grid curtailment. In addition, the benchmark study indicated that ArcVera’s wind assessments have lower individual project performance variation than in the past. With an average project performance bias close to zero, ArcVera’s methodology yields an average project performance of 98.8% for the 31 projects.