Efficiency and effectiveness of global onshore wind energy utilization

Abstract

The progress of onshore wind expansion varies globally, as often expressed by a country’s installed capacity and capacity factor. However, installed capacity and capacity factor do not allow conclusions about how effectively and efficiently countries use their spatially diverse wind potential. It is unknown how far wind energy expansion is and whether the countries use the available potential in the best possible way. Thus, this study aims to quantify and compare the wind potential use effectiveness and efficiency for the 40 countries with the highest installed capacity in 2021. A global wind turbine site dataset and the wind farm potential index were used for estimating the suitability of current wind turbine sites. The wind potential use efficiency was calculated by comparing the (1) distributions of the wind farm potential index at wind turbine sites with (2) distributions of the wind farm potential index of the countries as a whole by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test statistic. The capacity-to-suitable-area ratio defined the wind potential use effectiveness. The results reveal that 81.9% of the global onshore wind turbine fleet operates at suitable sites. Simultaneous occurrences of high effectiveness and efficiency are not given in any country: China, Brazil, and Italy use their wind potential more efficiently than many other countries. The USA and India adequately consider the wind resource efficiency for wind turbine siting. Germany has the highest effectiveness despite low efficiency. The results reveal how critical it is to quantify the progress of wind energy expansion based on the effectiveness and efficiency, not only the installed capacity and capacity factor.