An Ensemble Framework to Investigate Wind Energy Sustainability Considering Climate Change Impacts

Abstract

Wind power is a key element for future renewable energy resources and plays a vital role in sustainable development. Global warming and future climate conditions are going to impact many atmospheric, oceanic, and earth systems. In this study, impacts of climate change on wind power resources under future climatic conditions are evaluated for the Persian Gulf to explore the sustainability of this kind of energy for present and future developments. To that end, three regional climate models obtained from coordinated regional downscaling experiment (CRODEX), including daily simulations of near-surface wind speeds for a 20-year period in the present and future, were considered. Prior to computing the wind power at turbine hub-height, historical simulations of CORDEX were evaluated versus ERA-Interim wind outputs to determine the accuracy of the regional climate models. An attempt was made to build an ensemble model from available models by assigning weights to the models based on their merits. Subsequently, the wind power at the turbine hub-height was computed for historical and future periods to detect the impacts of climate change. Some points with a relatively high energy potential were selected as energy hotspots for further investigations. The results revealed that the mean annual wind power over the study area changed remarkably, which is of great importance for sustainable developments. Moreover, the results of the directional investigations showed roughly the same directional distribution for the future period as the past.

The Impact of Low-Resource Periods on the Reliability of Wind Power Systems for Rural Electrification in Africa

“…Climate change could provide favorable conditions for some regions in terms of the possibility of exploiting wind power, while the opposite may occur in other places [53]. The future potential of wind energy over Africa under a warming climate is actually uncertain [54], and different models can typically project changes of different signs in specific regions (as shown by [55] for Europe; see also [56]). The last multi model ensemble of projections from the high-resolution CORDEX-Africa climate experiments would be worth investigation in this respect as in [57,58] for the possible evolutions of the solar resource potential over the continent.…”

Evaluating the potential of offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Oman using the MENA-CORDEX wind speed data simulations

“…Figure 3 shows the mean near-surface wind speed data from the MENA-CORDEX regional climate model and ERA5 reanalysis product during the historical period (1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000) over the Gulf of Oman. It is worth noting that the mean wind speed has been widely used to assess the wind power in different regions (Célestin et al, 2019;Koletsis et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2020).…”

“…Finally, the hourly roughness length estimates are averaged from 1981 to 2000 (Figure 4). Many studies used the roughness length of 0.2 mm for calm sea conditions (Amirinia, Kamranzad, et al, 2017;Davy et al, 2018;Morgan et al, 2009;Stull, 1998;Wang et al, 2020). Following the literature and given the fact that the mean roughness length over 1981-2000 is less than 0.2 mm, z 0 is set to 0.2 mm in this study.…”

“…The turbine hub-height typically ranges from 90 to 120 m (Wang et al, 2020). Herein, the turbine hub-height (z) is set to 120 m. It should be noted that the turbine hubheight has been used widely to calculate the turbine wind power because it represents the average height of blades (Davy et al, 2018;Jung & Schindler, 2020;Pryor & Barthelmie, 2010;Wang et al, 2020).…”

“…The sea surface roughness length over the Gulf of Oman is calculated from the ERA5 wave height and period data. Thereafter, it is used to convert the MENA-CORDEX wind speed data at the height of 10 m to the turbine hub-height in order to estimate wind power (Wang et al, 2020). Finally, the directional and seasonal variability of wind power is assessed at five point-scale sites in the Gulf of Oman.…”