Increased offshore wind potential in a warmer world
Climate change is not only raising the temperature of the earth, it’s also changing how the winds will blow, with significant implications for wind power. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg estimate that the wind power potential is expected to increase in offshore regions, in contrast to the projected decrease over land.
Wind power potential on Earth is changing in line with climate change. Previous studies have focused on how wind speed is affected over land, but what happens in the coastal oceans have remained less explored.
Now, researchers at the University of Gothenburg, together with international collaborators, have presented projections of global wind power potential in the offshore regions under global warming. The results are published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Models too conservative
“We compared the climate models with observational data for the period 1940–2014 and found that the models tend to underestimate the observed long-term trend in wind. Our findings suggest there would be more wind over coastal seas than current models projected in a warmer world, says Cheng Shen, a doctoral student in meteorology at the University of Gothenburg.
The researchers employed four future climate scenarios outlined by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the 21st century. In the warmest scenario, where the global average temperature rises by 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, global wind energy potential over the coastal oceans would increase by an average of 9 percent, and by up to 26 percent in Europe, compared to a scenario where warming is limited to 1.5 degrees C. A more likely scenario, according to the IPCC, is 2 degrees C temperature increase. In this case, global wind power potential would increase by approximately 5 percent.
Wind energy shifts
“Our study is interesting because several other studies show that wind speeds over land are decreasing in the IPCC's future scenarios. This points to a shift where some of the wind energy is moving out over the oceans.” says Cheng Shen.
In the study, the researchers calculated the wind power density in areas extending up to 370 kilometers from land, corresponding to countries' exclusive economic zones where offshore wind farms are most feasible to be deployed . Offshore wind turbines can produce about 50 percent more electricity than land-based turbines due to stronger, more consistent winds and the absence of obstacles such as buildings and trees.
“Offshore wind has the greatest growth potential among all renewable energy sources. Its development has been recognized by many countries as critical for limiting global warming,” adds Cheng Shen.
Scientific article in Geophysical Research Letters: Increases of Offshore Wind Potential in a Warming World
Contact: Cheng Shen, PhD student at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, phone: 072-446 75 34, e-mail: cheng.shen@gu.se
Research suggests that additional offshore wind power plants capable of generating 2,000 GW are needed, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, to meet the 1.5degrees Celsius target by 2050. According to the Global Wind Report, existing offshore wind power had a capacity of 743 GW per year at the end of 2020.