How does Synoptic Data bring weather and environmental data into one platform?
This is the core of our company. We’re building the largest real-time weather and environmental data platform in the world. If you’ve heard of the National Mesonet Program, we are providing data from non-federal networks through this program for the National Weather Service. That’s been a central part of our business, and we’ve been expanding our platform to serve other industries with comprehensive real-time data, such as utilities and other weather companies — anywhere forecasters or meteorologists or operations teams need to access real-time data in one place. Many utilities have their own weather networks, and there are state mesonets, and even private networks, and if you have to go and look at all that data in different places, that can be cumbersome.
We’ve brought a variety of networks together into one platform where now you can pull that information either from our weather API or through our visualization tools. It’s time-saving, definitely, without having to search around and have different windows up with different information. While we have a lot of data now, we’re continuing to add networks every month. We’re still building the largest platform because we know there are a lot more networks out there and data that our users are asking us to bring on — whether that’s hydro or wind or other environmental data that they need for operations.
What does wind data consist of, and why is it important?
Our platform provides data from wind sensors used by the network providers. Basic wind data consists of wind direction and wind speed. We also have wind gust data. One of the things Synoptic does is quality-control wind data in real time, so our customers are getting high-quality information and data with any potential anomalies flagged in real-time. Most of our data is from ground-based stations, which is critical for operations and situational awareness. The platform also contains aircraft-based observations as well as upper air data from weather balloons, often used in weather models.
What has made the gathering of wind data more difficult? Where are those complications coming from?
Something that we recently developed is a better quality control method for wind gust data. Using our Statistics and Percentiles service, utilities can compare real-time data to historical percentiles, and we were noticing a greater need for better quality control for wind gusts. Our team developed higher-level algorithms and a better system to remove erroneous outliers. I can’t speak to a Lidar system, but if you are analyzing other ground-based station data, quality control is critically important because erroneous data can adversely affect decisions or statistical analyses.
How can wind-farm operators use this reliable wind data that is already available?
We’ve heard from utilities that real-time information is critical for operations. That might just be watching trends and asking questions such as: Do we need to shut down? Do we need to make decisions for safety reasons in our operations?
Other ways that they’re using it are, instead of having to go out and install additional weather stations, our platform offers a way to view the data that’s already in the field. An example is deciding to install eight stations instead of 12 because there’s already data available in some areas of interest. That’s more on the hardware side of things, but that could be an option where we’ve heard from other utilities who say, for example: “We are looking at what data is already out there so that we can include it without having to expand our network or spend money on hardware.” That can be a significant cost savings.
How does Synoptic Data’s higher-resolution wind observations and advanced analytics help operators move from that reactive to the intelligence-driven decision-making?
It’s the real-time information, the situational awareness, the monitoring. You can watch trends that are upstream where weather is coming from. Many operations teams are already using forecasts, and that’s giving them advanced planning information, but when things are starting to happen in real-time — and it could vary from the various sites that you have, depending on how far apart they are — the real-time data is critical for that situational awareness. Also, if you need to make quick decisions about safety or shutting off turbines, then real-time data would be a critical piece of information for that quick decision-making.
When you talk about quick decision making, does that also factor into the long-term planning?
For long-term planning, our historical data resources are informing assessments or analyses that utilities might be doing. Operations functions in more of a real-time environment where you’re making decisions faster, but data analysts or data scientists are looking at the longer term planning and development, so they might rely more on historical information.
Can that play into planning maintenance schedules and things of that nature?
Absolutely. If the utility has their own weather station network on the Synoptic platform, they always have access to the data from their stations. They can monitor details such as data latency or stations that are not reporting, which can inform the maintenance team that a station(s) needs to be checked. Our data providers are finding ways to utilize our visualization tools to give them details about station health, and they can address any station that warrants sending a tech out to look at it.
How will your platform allow wind-farm operators to basically save money?
If they’re looking at implementing hardware in the field to monitor local weather conditions, they can consider whether there is data already out there that could be utilized. Once they evaluate field hardware, they may still decide to add weather stations, but they could definitely saves costs by installing fewer stations and utilizing data from our platform. Additionally, accessing real-time information in one place saves costs because it reduces the amount of time in-house staff would be required to ingest the data and create ways to view it. It can take a lot of time to develop and maintain an internal platform where data’s being aggregated. We’re already providing that service, and you can pull all of that information from one place instead of hiring internal resources or trying to do that on your own and taking a lot of time.
We work closely with our customers and have developed solutions to solve problems. As an example, we’ve heard: “It’d be really great to have data visualization tools that save us time.” That also saves cost rather than hiring and developing all of those tools in-house.
What is Synoptic’s geographical area? Is it mainly U.S., or is it North America, or is it beyond that?
We’re a global company. We have over 90,000 stations in the U.S. and over 170,000 globally. While many of our utility customers are located in the U.S., we have data globally to meet their needs and are growing in global markets. We are continuing to add new networks, both domestically and internationally, and are receiving interest from utilities both inside and outside of the U.S. as well.
Is there anything that you’d like to mention that we didn’t talk about?
I’ll emphasize the real-time data; it is something we’ve heard from our utility customers that’s important for them. And then there’s the real-time quality control. We don’t remove data from the platform, but we flag data in cases where, “This doesn’t look correct” and we indicate that for our users right away. A utility may want to do their own verification over time, but this provides a quick way for decision-makers to maximize the information they’re getting from the platform. Next, I’ll say that our focus is providing the service of getting weather and environmental information into one place. Our data providers trust us to handle their data with integrity and that’s important. In turn, we are able to provide comprehensive and localized information for users to save costs and time.
Last, we’re also constantly working closely with utility customers to make sure we’re understanding their needs, as well as ways we can provide value with the data.
More info synopticdata.com
