Developing Advanced Weather Technologies for the Power Industry

The National Severe Storms Laboratory, the Salt River Project (SRP), and the Electric Power Research Institute have been involved in a multiyear tailored collaboration (TC) research project. The project was jointly supported by all three agencies and had the goal of exploring potential benefits that the power industry could realize by incorporating new weather information, resulting from the National Weather Service’s modernization program, into their operational decision-making process. The SRP, which is one of the nation’s largest public utilities and located in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, served as a test bed for a variety of experimental techniques that could easily be emulated in the future. Activities during this TC were focused upon weather-related problems experienced during the summer monsoon months when thunderstorms can threaten or impact SRP’s operations on a daily basis. Weather information and special forecasts were introduced to and shared with several of SRP’s operational divisions through the course of this TC; their degree of utilization and subsequent improvements to SRP’s operational efficiency are summarized in this paper.