Wind power forecasts have been used operatively for over 20 years. Despite this fact, there are still several possibilities to improve the forecasts, both from the weather prediction side and from the usage of the forecasts. The new International Energy Agency (IEA) Task on Forecasting for Wind Energy tries to organize international collaboration, among national weather centers with an interest and/or large projects on wind forecast improvements (NOAA, DWD, …), operational forecasters, and forecast users.

The Task is divided into three work packages: Firstly, a collaboration on the improvement of the scientific basis for the wind predictions themselves. This includes numerical weather prediction model physics, but also widely distributed information on accessible datasets. Secondly, we will be aiming at an international pre-standard (an IEA Recommended Practice) on benchmarking and comparing wind power forecasts, including probabilistic forecasts. This WP will also organize benchmarks, in cooperation with the IEA Task WakeBench. Thirdly, we will be engaging end users aiming at the dissemination of the best practice in the usage of wind power predictions.