Climate change impacts the future offshore wind energy resources in India: Evidence drawn from CORDEX-SA Regional Climate Models

Abstract

Harnessing offshore wind energy is a potential solution to meet rising energy demand. Concurrently, exploitable wind energy is susceptible to climate change. In this study, an ensemble of six RCMs derived from Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment — South Asia (CORDEX-SA) regional climate models is created to study future variation of wind speed and wind power density. The variation with respective to the historic time periods is examined for near-future (2020–2046), mid-future (2047–73), and far-future time periods (2074–2099). Two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios, such as RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, are considered for the analysis. The credibility of RCM data is assessed by comparing it with European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reanalysis v5 (ERA5) reanalysis dataset which is validated against buoy datasets. Findings reveal that annual mean wind speed in the considered period ranges between 2% and −8% in the case of RCP4.5 while it is 7% and −16% in the RCP8.5 scenario. Seasonal percentage variation in WPD is between 80% and −56% in the RCP4.5 scenario, and it is relatively higher (105% and −75%) in the RCP8.5 scenario. By 2099, it is expected that WPD may increase by 10% and 30% in the southern coast, whereas 20% and 40% decrement is expected near the coast of Gujarat for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively. The findings of this study enable stakeholders to harness wind energy in the Indian offshore region.