• Miguel Carlos de Castro Miguel and José Carlos Fernández Balseiro. Chemical Engineering Department. Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.
  
• Vicente Pérez Muñuzuri, Mª Jesús Souto Alvedro, Physics of the Condensed Matter Department, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.

The necessity to improve the "Sistema de Predicción Meteorolóxica de Inmisión" at the As Pontes Power Plant, became apparent as we gained experience in its use. Main goals in this project were:

1. To analyze different mesoscale meteorological forecasts, that could be valid to obtain the meteorological boundary conditions around As Pontes environment, so the local meteorological prediction model can take advantage of the mesoscale forecast. In this study, different vendors were evaluated, considering both meteorological results validity and cost.

2. To study the solutions applied in other meteorological prediction models, specifically focused in the nocturnal boundary layer, sea influence and turbulence. In this case, the colaboration with other groups at Aveiro (Portugal) and the Centre for Advance Prediction of Storms (University of Oklahoma) was very useful.

3. To continue the calibration of the atmospheric diffusion model, with the participation in the "5th Conference on Harmonization within Atmospheric Dispersion Modeling for Regulatory Purposes", focused in the evaluation of atmospheric dispersion models for regulatory uses.

4. To keep the System running at As Pontes Power Plant.

As the main results of the project, the System were running along the project, and the atmospheric diffusion model were calibrated both in plume rise and plume growth parameterizations. In the comparison of the atmospheric difussion model with other European models, only some particle models obtained better results, with a high computational effort.

About the meteorological predictions, some commercial forecast were achieved, but they need Internet conection; in addition, testing of other meteorological models indicated that only non-hydrostatic models (as ARPS or MEMO) can obtain results similar to those of the hydrostatic local meteorological prediction models. But, in order to improve its results, some specific solutions for sea influence and corrections in the initialization method were included in the System.

Publications:

«Air pollution control at As Pontes Power Plant». J.J. Casares, J.A. Souto, T. Lucas, J.L. Bermúdez. Workshop on Continous Emissions Monitoring, IEA Coal Research, London,
24-25 May 1997.

«Sistema en tiempo real para el control del impacto atmosférico de CC.TT.» L. Cremades, J.M. Baldasano, J.A. Souto, J.J. Casares, J. Rovira, J. Abadía. Energía, No. 1, January/February 1998.

«Forecasting and diagnostic analysis of plume transport around a Power Plant» J.A. Souto, V. Pérez-Muñuzuri, M.C. de Castro, M.J. Souto, J.J. Casares. Journal of Applied Meteorology, 37, 1068-1083, 1998.