Tall Tower Wind Energy Monitoring and Numerical Model Validation in Northern Nevada

This document is a final report for the DOE-funded project 'Tall Tower Wind Energy Monitoring and Numerical Model Validation in Northern Nevada' under contract NAX-9-66014-02 (DE-AC36-08G028308). During the study, three NREL program managers were involved in discussions and reporting, namely Marc Schwartz, Dennis Elliot, and Caroline Draxl. The project consisted of a 17-month field program campaign in complex terrain and a modeling and forecasting component. The field program included two 60-m towers equipped with standard and sonic anemometers as well as operation of an acoustic sounder. For the modeling component, the WRF and OMEGA regional/mesoscale models were used and evaluated. The report is organized as follows. The first part describes performance of each task; the second part presents an additional study focused on dynamical downscaling using the MM5 and WRF models, and an analysis of wind shear. The Appendix lists all measured and processed parameters using tower measurements that are publicly available on DRI's website.