Wind resource assessment of Cuba in future climate scenarios

Abstract

The future climatic behavior of the wind resource in Cuba has not been studied in the past. This study presents a preliminary analysis of the behavior of wind speed using the regional climate model PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies) in highresolution scenarios of climate change SRES A1B (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios), driven with boundary conditions from the General Circulation Model ECHAM5 (European Centre/HAMburg climate model) and 6 of the 16 members of the set of perturbed physics HadCM3 (Hadley Center Coupled Model, version 3) global climate model. Changes in the distribution of wind speed for three periods of 30 years in the future

Wind energy resources assessment of Cuba using the regional climate model PRECIS in high resolution scenarios of climate change RCPs

“…In places where the changes in wind speed were statistically significant, these changes were added (as the others RCPs) to the wind speed outputs of the new Cuban Wind Atlas (obtained by Alonso et al, 2019) to estimate the speed values of the wind in the three future periods. To do this, the mean wind speed map at 10 m of this new atlas was taken and the increase in wind speed was added for each of the periods previously analyzed in this work (Figure 16).…”

“…Average wind generated by Alonso et al (2019) plus the increase in wind speed generated by PRECIS in RCP8.5 at 10 m high for the periods 2011–2040, 2041–2070, and 2071–2098. The values of the average wind speed are given in ms − 1 .…”

“…The most important thing about this increase is that it allows us to consolidate the current projection of the Cuban wind program for 2030, in which the construction of 13 wind farms is proposed, precisely where the wind potential of Cuba will be increased from the second half of the century, due to the fact that an intensification and a displacement toward the west of the anticyclone North Atlantic could occur (Alonso et al, 2019; Hidalgo and Alfaro, 2014; Sierra et al, 2015; Taylor et al, 2018).…”

“…In this work all the verifications were carried out at 10 m height above ground level where experimental and observational data were available. A detailed description of the PRECIS validation for Cuba can be found in Alonso et al (2019).…”

“…Another research was done by Alonso et al (2019) they analyzed the behavior of the wind speed for three periods of 30 years in the future, using the regional climate model PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies) in high resolution scenarios of climate change SRES A1B, driven with boundary conditions from the General Circulation Model ECHAM5 (European Centre/HAMburg climate model) and six of the 16 members of the set of perturbed physics HadCM3 (Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3) GCM (Global Climate Model). They found that changes in wind speed will be larger in the eastern and northern coast, becoming statistically significant for the second half of this century.…”