Increases in China’s wind energy production from the recovery of wind speed since 2012

Abstract

China has realized a 56-fold increase in installed wind capacity, from 5.9 GW in 2007 to 328 GW in 2021. In addition to increasing installed capacity, plans to substantially increase wind energy production for climate change mitigation also depend on future wind speeds, which strongly influences the efficiencies of installed turbines within individual wind farms. A reversal in globally decreasing wind speeds over several decades has been reported previously. However, subsequent studies using other data sources reported only a slight increase or no reversal in China. These uncertainties regarding China’s wind energy production hamper estimates of wind energy production potential. Here, our analysis of quality-controlled wind speed measurements from in-situ stations shows that the wind speed decline in China reversed significantly since 2012 (P < 0.001), but with substantial spatio-temporal variability. We further estimated the capacity factor growth and the wind power gain solely associated with the changes in wind speed ranges from 31.6 to 56.5 TWh yr-1 based on the 2019 installed capacity. This estimate explains 22.0 to 39.3% of the rapid increase in wind generation capacity factor in China during 2012–2019. The result implies that the site selection of wind farms should consider both current wind situation and future wind speed trends. Further studies are needed to understand the driving factor of wind speed recovery in support of the wind energy industry.

Impacts of anemometer changes, site relocations and processing methods on wind speed trends in China

“…In the station average time series, the breakpoint was detected in 2012 (P < 0.001) with a trend of -0.012 m s -1 year -1 (R 2 = 0.90, P <0.001) before and +0.013 m s -1 year -1 (R 2 = 0.70, P <0.01) after (Figure 5b). The increasing trend decreased by 41% after deleting those relocation-affected stations, compared with the +0.022 m s -1 year -1 in Figure 2b (also reported by Liu et al, 2022a). But the trend is larger than the +0.011 m s −1 yr −1 , reported by Yang et al (2021), with all the recorded location changed stations deleted without checking whether the station is affected by the relocation.…”

Evaluation and Projection of Gale Events in North China

“…For daily variation, the maximum gale events in North China occurred between 9:00 and 16:00 local time from the 1980s to the 2010s (Figure 3b). However, we find Observations revealed that the wind speed in North China suffered a decadal change in the past three decades, with a decline from 1990 and a recovery from 2008 [44]. Here, we further investigate the decadal change in temporal variation of gale events between 1980 and 2021 (Figure 3).…”

“…Generally, after the ground is heated in the afternoon, the enhanced vertical exchange of air results in gales being transmitted from high levels to the ground. Observations revealed that the wind speed in North China suffered a decadal change in the past three decades, with a decline from 1990 and a recovery from 2008 [44]. Here, we further investigate the decadal change in temporal variation of gale events between 1980 and 2021 (Figure 3).…”

A Spectral Analysis of Near‐Surface Mean Wind Speed and Gusts Over the Iberian Peninsula

“…However, to the authors' knowledge, there is only one study in the scientific literature that analyses surface wind speed in the frequency domain (Naizghi & Ouarda, 2017) despite all the insights that can be gained from a spectral analysis approach (Grinsted et al., 2004). The study of surface winds is of great socioeconomic and environmental importance for a large number of areas, with special emphasis on the production of electrical power (Liu et al., 2022). In 2019, the installed electricity capacity of wind power corresponded to approximately 25% of the total for the IP (European Commission and Directorate‐General for Energy, 2021).…”