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The renewable power generation industry, dominated by wind power in the UK, is growing significantly to meet the country's commitments to a lower carbon economy.

With 50 years worth of experience in numerical weather prediction, and an equally long capability for merging observations data from many different sources, the Met Office can make a difference to the success of wind farms from site search and selection, development through to operations.

Malcolm Lee, Weather Consultancy Manager at the Met Office, said: "Accurately modelling the wind in three dimensions is vital in producing the best forecasts. Many years of research and development have resulted in high quality archives of winds, on which unique high resolution downscaling techniques can replicate the environment at any site and so lead to more accurate energy output forecasts for energy providers."

Andy Saulter, Ocean Forecasting expert at the Met Office, said: "Realising the potential of offshore renewable energy resources presents major logistical challenges. The Met Office is working with the industry to ensure design and operation sensitivities to atmospheric and ocean 'weather' are understood and that metocean data can be used to best effect for project feasibility analysis and operational decision making."

The Met Office suite of innovative solutions aimed directly at the renewable energy sector includes:

• Virtual Met Mast - our site-specific wind analysis model-based tool to provide fast and accurate wind farm site screening.
• VisualEyes - an intuitive, web-based weather alert system designed in conjunction with the industry to help manage wind farm assets.
• Wind Production Forecast - a new site specific forecasting service for wind farms and wind energy production, designed to help generators make accurate short-term assessments of power production.