The impact of climate change on the U.S. wind energy resource
The growing need for low-carbon emitting electricity sources has resulted in rapid growth in the wind power industry. The size and steadiness of the offshore wind resource has attracted growing investment in the planning of offshore wind turbine installations. Decisions about the location and character of wind farms should be made with an eye not only to present but also future wind resource, which may change as increasing carbon dioxide forces reductions in the poleward temperature gradient, and thus potentially in the mean tropospheric westerly winds. I propose to use the new North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program climate projections to estimate the change of the wind power resource under various carbon dioxide loading scenarios and for a range of climate models. We will compare our assessment with both our assessment based on the IPCC AR4 model runs, to explore the extent to which improved model resolution changes the prediction for the wind power resource, and with present day estimates from reanalysis and scatterometer winds.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-08ER64650
- OSTI ID:
- 1069099
- Report Number(s):
- DOEER64650
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Comparison of Mesoscale Model Setups for Offshore Wind Resource Assessment: A New Jersey Case Study
Executive summary for assessing the near-term risk of climate uncertainty : interdependencies among the U.S. states.