WRF wind simulation and wind energy production estimates forced by different reanalyses: Comparison with observed data for Portugal

The performance of the WRF mesoscale model in the wind simulation and wind energy estimates was assessed and evaluated under different initial and boundary forcing conditions. Due to the continuous evolution and progress in the development of reanalyses datasets, this work aims to compare an older, yet widely used, reanalysis (the NCEP-R2) with three recently released reanalyses datasets that represent the new generation of this type of data (ERA-Interim, NASA-MERRA and NCEP-CFSR). Due to its intensive use in wind energy assessment studies, the NCEP-GFS and NCEP-FNL analysis were also used to drive WRF and its results compared to those of the simulations driven by reanalyses.