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.
Highlights
Global warming—as a result of the increasing greenhouse gas emissions—is considered to be a worldwide concern and requires serious action to be taken and remedies to be found to control and adapt to its impacts on weather patterns, health, and the environment
The computed wind power over the study area using near surface wind speed from coordinated regional downscaling experiment (CORDEX) outputs of three different models were analyzed to derive climate change impacts
Wind power constitutes a major part of renewable energy due to its worldwide distribution and availability
Summary
Global warming—as a result of the increasing greenhouse gas emissions—is considered to be a worldwide concern and requires serious action to be taken and remedies to be found to control and adapt to its impacts on weather patterns, health, and the environment In this regard, renewable energies as an appropriate alternative for fossil fuels (as the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities) have attracted a great deal of attention to meet the demand for energy supplies. Global circulation models (GCMs) run by different institutes provide simulations of atmospheric and oceanic parameters for present and future scenarios with different spatial and temporal resolutions. These models have been developed by employing different numerical schemes and different assumptions. The evaluation of the future wind climate based on regional models can be considered to be a suitable option to find further details of the potential of wind power and its sustainability over the study area
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