The projection of canadian wind energy potential in future scenarios using a convection-permitting regional climate model

Abstract

The distribution of wind resources in the future will be altered by climate change. The high-resolution regional climate model is a powerful tool for predicting wind power changes. We use a pair of 4-km convection-permitting Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) simulations over southern Canada to study wind energy. The high-resolution model better represents orography and the underlying surface that strongly affect near-surface winds. The simulations include a historical simulation (CTRL) of 13 years (2001–2013) and a future projection for the end of the 21st century (RCP 8.5 scenario), using the Pseudo Global Warming (PGW) approach. The wind power density (WPD) and extractable wind power (EWP) obtained from the winds from the two simulations are analyzed and compared. In the future, the wind energy potential over most areas of Canada will decrease, while the changes over current wind farms, located in optimal locations, would be less significant in terms of EWP. In fact, there will be a slight increase of EWP distributed along the coastal area of Eastern Quebec and the Great Lakes regions in southern Ontario. The changes also show seasonal and diurnal variations: In winter when wind energy growth is more significant, a larger magnitude of changes occurs at noon