Mapping future offshore wind resources in the South China Sea under climate change by regional climate modeling

Abstract

Cost-effective deployment of wind energy systems benefits from a thorough understanding of wind resources. Therefore, it is imperative to figure out how the spatiotemporal patterns of wind resources will evolve in a warmer future world. Based on a regional climate model system named RegCM4.7, this study investigates the future offshore wind resources under climate change in a tropical ocean, namely the South China Sea (SCS). First, 25-km-resolution wind field information over the SCS is retrieved from a regional climate model driven by 22 global climate models. Then, the simulated wind fields are validated against the reanalysis dataset ERA5 and the Cross-Calibrated Multi-Platform satellite dataset. Subsequently, the spatial distribution and temporal variation of wind resources under climate change are comprehensively assessed, and the inter-annual and intra-annual wind resource variability is quantified by the robust coefficient of determination. Last, the significance, robustness, and uncertainty of climate change signals are evaluated. It is projected that the wind power density will increase by 10–20 % in the northern SCS but decrease by 10–30 % in the southern SCS in 2081–2100 (compared to 1985–2004) under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5.