WAsP is the industry-standard software for wind resource assessment, siting and energy yield calculations for wind turbines and wind farms. WAsP is used for sites located in all kinds of terrain all over the world and includes models and tools for every step in the process from wind data analysis to calculation of the energy yield for a wind farm. More than 7000 WAsP licenses have been sold in about 125 countries.
Typical WAsP applications:
- Calculation of energy yield for wind turbines and wind farms
- Calculation of wind farm wake losses and wind farm efficiency
- Wind resource and turbulence mapping
- Siting of wind turbines and wind farms
- Calculation of wind conditions for IEC site assessment, e.g. mean wind speed, wind flow inclination wind shear and ambient turbulence (complete assessment also requires WAsP Engineering)
WAsP contains several models to describe the wind climate and wind flow over all kinds of terrain:
- WAsP includes two high-resolution microscale wind flow models for vertical and horizontal extrapolation of the wind climate:
1. The built-in linear IBZ wind flow model, which is most suitable for flat to moderately complex terrain
2. Easy access to the state-of-the-art WAsP CFD wind flow model, which is recommended for complex terrain with steep slopes (in ensemble with the IBZ wind flow model)
- WAsP contains a stability model, which uses stability inputs derived from ERA5 reanalysis data to account for local atmospheric stability conditions
- WAsP contains a geostrophic wind shear model, which uses sector-wise geostrophic shear inputs derived from ERA5
- WAsP includes a forest model, which uses displacement height inputs (specified by the user) to account for forest effects
- WAsP contains the PARK2 and PARK1 wake models for calculation of wind farm wake effects
- WAsP contains an obstacle model to describe the wind climate and wind flow close to sheltering obstacles
The data used by WAsP for wind resource and energy yield calculations come from different sources. The wind-climatological input may come from wind measurements at a nearby meteorological mast or may be derived from mesoscale modelling results. The elevation description can be derived directly from space shuttle elevation data or other data sets, while the land cover classification and nearby sheltering obstacles can be extracted from topographical maps, databases, or satellite imagery (Google Earth).
For preliminary analyses, WAsP also includes automatic import of wind climates and vector maps from the Global Wind Atlas.
WAsP comes complete with freeware WAsP Data Tools for wind data analysis, digital map construction and editing, power and thrust curve editing, as well as for IEC 61400-1 site assessment and for IEC 61400-12-1 power performance measurements.
