GH Forecaster to Supply Greece with All Its Wind Energy Forecasting Needs

Garrad Hassan has been awarded a contract to supply its GH Forecaster service to the Hellenic Transmission System Operator (HTSO / Desmie, the Greek TSO) with the objective of forecasting short term wind energy production throughout Greece for the next three years.

The project, System for the Prognosis of Wind Electricity Generation, is run by Desmie and is jointly funded by the Greek government and the EU Regional Development Fund.

GH Forecaster will be used to provide short term forecasts of wind farm power from 1 hour to 48 hours for the current 750MW of installed wind capacity in Greece as well as additional wind power projects constructed within the next 3 years. Industry commentators expect the Greek capacity to be 3000MW by 2013.

GH Forecaster already supplies short term forecasting in 7 countries worldwide. The clients include Airtricity, Babcock & Brown, Centrica Plc, Falck Renewables and many more.

When asked about their success with this significant contract in Greece, Dr Andrew Garrad, Director of Garrad Hassan and Partners Ltd., replied: “This is a fantastic achievement for the GH Forecasting team. We now forecast for over 2GW of wind power worldwide and this figure is increasing rapidly. Garrad Hassan will combine its extensive international experience and proven modelling methods with the detailed local knowledge of our project collaborator, Facets, to provide Desmie with high quality forecasts. Short term forecasting makes wind farms look like conventional power stations and is a fascinating example of the way in which good science can substantially increase the value of wind energy and explode the myth of unreliability.”