Our technology
At the core of Whiffle’s innovation lies our breakthrough weather modelling technology. With a passion for precision and a commitment to pushing boundaries, we’ve developed a weather model that solves the complexities of the weather and harnesses weather intelligence to your advantage.
Atmospheric Large-Eddy Simulation
Large-Eddy simulation (LES) is a computational technique that divides the atmosphere into a grid of boxes of around 100 meter big, and then solves the equations of atmospheric physics on this grid. In this way, LES mimics physical reality, and produces a simulation of the weather in all its complexity. Whiffle’s LES technology has the potential to deliver benefits in many economic sectors, but our primary focus has been on renewable energy.
How it works
Originally developed to study stylized weather scenarios in detail, LES has evolved significantly. By coupling our LES with large-scale weather models, we can simulate any type of weather in any location, earning it the name Atmospheric LES. This high-resolution approach allows small-scale phenomena like turbulence and small clouds to naturally emerge and interact realistically with local details, such as topography. Traditional weather models, with their larger grid boxes (around 10 km), cannot achieve this level of detail.
Full-physics simulation
Captures real-world atmospheric dynamics with modules for radiation, precipitation, and dispersion, going beyond just airflow modeling.
High resolution (~ 100m)
Uses fine-scale land surface data (land use, topography) to accurately resolve complex wind patterns.
Supercomputing platforms used
Leverages GPUs for fast, cost-efficient simulations over areas as large as small countries and timescales of up to a year.
Large-scale weather models
Integrated with ECMWF’s world-leading weather model for enhanced accuracy.
Includes turbines in simulations
Directly models turbine-atmosphere interactions without empirical wake parameterizations.
The high resolution and accurate representation of turbulence make LES the perfect tool for simulating wind farms. By incorporating wind turbines as actuator disk into the LES, we can calculate power production and the interactions (wakes, blockage) between turbines and the atmosphere, as well as between turbines themselves. By coupling the LES to large-scale weather models, it enables us to produce turbine level predictions for yield modelling (using ERA5) and power forecasting (using ECMWF IFS).
Whiffle's LES model
Real-weather LES isn’t limited to wind. Whiffle’s LES model produces detailed simulations for any weather variable. Therefore, Whiffle’s LES is also used for applications such as solar irradiance and dispersion modeling.
Visualization of clouds (left) and wind speed at 100m height (right) of a Large-Eddy Simulation by Whiffle’s LES model, run over the North Sea with100GW wind installed. The run was done for the WINS50 project, see wins50.nl for more information
Features
Fast and economical
Running on GPUs, our LES can simulate large areas (the size of small countries) and long periods (up to a year) efficiently.
Advanced coupling
Integrated with ECMWF’s IFS or ERA5, and high-resolution land surface datasets.
Comprehensive physical processes
Beyond the Navier-Stokes equations for airflow, our LES includes modules for radiation, microphysics (rain/snow), and dispersion.
Atmospheric LES
For wind farms, LES removes the need for assumptions—blockage, wakes, and other effects naturally emerge from the laws of physics in our simulations.
Solutions
Whiffle forecast
Harness the value of precise wind and solar power production forecasts, empowering energy traders, operators, and utilities to lower imbalance costs and optimise profits.
Whiffle Wind
Run your own LES simulations with just a few simple clicks via Whiffle Wind’s extremely user-friendly web interface. Leverage highly accurate wind insights that capture complex wind flow dynamics such as wakes, turbulence, and blockage and optimise your wind resource assessments and energy yield calculations.
Validation and research
Explore
Want to learn more about our technology? We are glad to share our knowledge and experience with you. Take a deep dive into our technical articles and papers written by our scientists.
