On the spatiotemporal complementarity of the European onshore wind resource

Abstract

Among the renewable energy sources, the highest share of European net electricity generation comes from wind power. However, the European onshore wind resource’s volatile nature is a significant challenge in ensuring a constant national electricity supply. Therefore, this study examined the potential of complementary use of national wind resources available in 33 European countries. The complementarity of the national wind resources was assessed for 1971–2010 by identifying the time scales explaining the largest part of the variance in the time series of daily wind energy yield. The results of a novel combination of wavelet analysis, graph models, and dynamic time warping indicate that the wind energy yield shows the most substantial variations at the annual, seasonal, and multi-day scales. Geographical proximity is a critical factor in the complementarity of national wind energy yields. At all evaluated time scales, the wind energy yield in most central and western European countries is strongly correlated, forming a large supranational network with low potential for complementary use of national wind resources. Although the seasonal component of daily wind energy yield is shifted between the European countries by up to several weeks, which would create potential for complementary use, domestic electricity consumption often exceeds the usable wind resources. Domestic electricity consumption was found to be a major barrier to the transboundary exchange of wind energy. Based on the results obtained for the European onshore wind resource’s spatiotemporal dynamics, it must be assumed that the potential for regular complementary transboundary use of wind resources is limited.