The company initiated a program in 2011 to develop the capability to run in-house forecasts of weather and wind power production.

Jens Madsenat of Vattenfall said: "We use numerical weather models that represent the complex physics of the atmosphere.

The company currently runs internal forecasts twice daily for all of its wind farms in Northern Europe.

Madsen said: "When we run our weather models today, we normally use a three kilometre resolution. That is sufficiently accurate for offshore predictions, but in due course we will be using resolutions of one kilometre or less to capture more of the weather effects that occur onshore due to local terrain variations.

"The forecast outputs are currently being evaluated by different parts of Vattenfall, and we are confident it will be replacing or complementing some of the externally bought weather services that Vattenfall is using in the near future."

Vattenfall said predictions from the weather models are also being used to replace physical met masts with virtual ones.

Madsen concluded: "That is an advantage because physical masts are expensive and it saves lots of time that you would otherwise spend waiting years for measurements campaigns to be completed."