Advanced forecasting technology is turning fickle wind energy into an increasingly reliable energy source, allowing wind farms to generate power more efficiently and grid operators to better match supply and demand, avoiding price spikes in wholesale markets that can send residential electric bills climbing.

Exelon Corp., one of the nation's largest utility companies, is among the latest generators to invest in powerful computer models that track weather patterns and analyze historical data to predict the timing, direction and force of winds. Exelon, which operates 47 wind farms in 10 states, including eight wind farms in Texas, recently signed a six-year contract with GE Power to manage its forecasting system.

"That's the thing that's most important to Exelon - to know how much wind energy they can generate in one day," said David McCulloch, head of communications for GE Power Digital, which designed the software with Exelon. "If you have the data that shows you how much electricity you are generating, you can react in real time."

Adding predictability is important to power generators who need to start up and shut down gas- and coal-fired plants to balance electricity supply with demand, according to how and when the wind blows.

U.S. energy companies have used wind forecasting systems for more than five years, but the technology is gaining wider acceptance as experience and an ever-growing amount of data make the forecasts more accurate and useful to companies like Exelon, said Michael Goggin, senior director of research at the American Wind Energy Association, a national trade group.

Texas could particularly benefit from improved wind forecasting. Texas leads the nation in wind power, with three times the installed wind energy capacity of any other state - enough to power 4.1 million homes. The industry has spent $33 billion building wind farms here, mostly clustered in West Texas and the Panhandle.

With improved forecasting, the massive amounts of power generated when winds blow could be better integrated into the state's electric grid. A year ago, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages electricity sources for 90 percent of the state, launched a seven-day wind forecasting plan, which included using historical data to help predict wind events.

Ideally for customers, better forecasting allows the grid manager to plan for and rely on low-cost wind energy more often. Combined with cheaper natural gas used to generate power, the abundance of wind energy earlier this year helped keep average electricity prices in Texas at their lowest since 2002, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

In addition, more accurate predictions of the ebb and flow of wind energy can help the grid operator avoid sudden shortfalls that lead to price spikes. Those sharp increases ultimately get passed to retail customers.

A decade ago, wind farm operators knew very little about forecasting the changes in wind direction and speeds that occur high above the ground.

Now there's a better understanding of wind patterns and how they interact with turbines, allowing companies to adjust blades to get the most energy out of wind.

As a result, the forecasting technology can significantly raise the efficiency of the turbines, increasing production, lowering costs and ultimately saving customers money.

A handful of providers deal exclusively with wind and solar forecasting, with which power generators contract. They include Vaisala, a Finnish company, AWS Truepower, of Albany, N.Y., and Wind Logics, a unit of the Florida power company NextEra Energy.