Modelling and forecasting wind speed intensity for weather risk management

The modelling of wind speed is a traditional topic in meteorological research, where the main interest is on the short-term forecast of wind speed intensity and direction. More recently, this theme has received some interest in the quantitative finance literature for its relationship with electricity production by wind farms. In fact, electricity producers are interested in long-range forecasts and simulation of wind speed for two main reasons: to evaluate the profitability of building a wind farm in a given location and to offset the risks associated with the variability of wind speed for an already operating wind farm. In this paper, we contribute to the increasing literature regarding environmental finance by comparing three approaches that are capable of forecasting and simulating the long run evolution of wind speed intensity (direction is not a concern, given that the recent turbines can rotate to follow wind direction): the Auto Regressive Gamma process, the Gamma Auto Regressive process, and the ARFIMA-FIGARCH model. We provide both in-sample and out-of-sample comparisons of the models, as well as some examples for the pricing of wind speed derivatives using a model-based Monte Carlo simulation approach.