The impact of climate change on wind power abundance and variability in China

Abstract

The abundance of wind resources and its variability are the essential character for its exploitability. A multi-ensemble of regional climate model projections was used to explore the change of wind resources and its variability of mainland China on multiple time-scales. We found the wind resources from an ensemble of regional climate models are highly consistent with previous studies based on station observations, reanalysis data and model simulations. The most abundant wind resources are located in Tibet Plateau, Hexi Corridor, Inner Mongolia and part of the three provinces of north-east. In these regions, wind resources show slightly decrease (3–4%) under Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, but this decrease is negligible with respect to the abundance of wind resources. While wind power in Tibet Plateau is rich, a high variability of wind power on monthly time-scale was identified. Hence, a caution should be taken while exploiting wind power in this region as larger variability on monthly time-scale require higher backup energy to secure electrical safety. The present study is not conclusive about causes of such wind shift to south of power and its increasing variability, for further studies should be carried out to explore the mechanisms of wind power change.